And who said they hadn't taken huge salaries and dividends?
They certainly didn't spend on players!
Why do you think you have all these charlatans owners in the championship trying to get into the prem?
To make big money.
Reality check the other than a few notable exceptions football clubs even in the Premier League at best break even most lose money. Norwich City lost £30m in their promotion season and there wasn't a dividend. I am guessing that while they haven't been busy in the transfer market their existing players were given new contracts or had automatic increases built into their existing ones. Money has been spent and any surplus will be used to patch up the
Football club finance is hand to mouth. Few have any cash reserves. None of them cope too well with ZERO income.
Owners trying to get into the Premier League are desperately trying to get their club into the league so they can sell up to get out of it. For the owners of Derby and Sheffield Wednesday given the extent of their cumulative losses I doubt even if they made it to the promised land they could sell at a profit.
Football is a financial mess. A toxic combination of over paid players (Championship clubs running wage bills in excess of 100% of turnover I rest my case) sugar daddy owners (who do nothing other than inflate every clubs costs) flawed distribution models and incompetent administrations. Not to mention the people who actually in theory care about the institutions as community assets the fans are utterly delusional in their demands for clubs to spend spend spend.
From outside football looks like it is awash with money it isn't or rather for every penny it earns it spends one and a half pennies. This is not sustainable the current crisis just makes it even plainer.