Stoke City's financial health has made headlines in recent weeks and not for the right reasons, with football finance expert Kieran Maguire telling Football League World exclusively that it comes down to the wages some of the players are on.

The Potters face another season in the Sky Bet Championship and it is clear they are starting to have to reign the spending in with Michael O'Neill looking for bargain players.

When Stoke first came down, they spent big to try and return to the Premier League immediately but that obviously hasn't worked, and now The Telegraph has reported the club might have to sell its stadium to avoid breaching the EFL's financial rules.

It's far from an ideal situation for the club to be in, then, and Kieran Maguire has explained to Football League World exclusively that a lot of it comes down to player contracts:

"It all comes down to players.

"They've got a lot of players who were in the Premier League with them who didn't have huge relegation clauses built into their contracts, and nobody else wants them. The players don't want to give up the wages that they're on and other clubs aren't willing to sign them."

Stoke are going to need to do something to ease the financial bill and we could see some of their better young players attracting interest as well.

Certainly, they'll want to avoid falling into similar situations that the likes of Birmingham City and Sheffield Wednesday have with points deductions as that will only make their bid to return to the Premier League even harder.