The author of the Swiss Ramble blog has used his Easter break to good effect to take his usual in depth look at the finances of a club, this time surprise package Leicester City.
Owners can make or break a club. In the latter category just ask the fans of Aston Villa, Charlton Athletic and Leeds United.
The author of the Swiss Ramble blog has used his Easter break to good effect to take his usual in depth look at the finances of a club, this time surprise package Leicester City.
Owners can make or break a club. In the latter category just ask the fans of Aston Villa, Charlton Athletic and Leeds United.
The Thai owners of the Foxes have done an excellent job. They have pumped in the money, which comes from an effective monopoly of duty free in Thai airports, but have not interfered. £100m of debt was converted into equity and they bought back the stadium. They had to absorb average losses of £25m a year to fund promotion.
Record revenues of £104m were recorded for 2014/15 and there was a pre-tax profit of £26m. This was even more impressive because very little was obtained from player sales. The wage bill of £57m was only just above the recommended level of 50 per cent as a share of turnover.
71 per cent of Premier League income was from television. Commercial revenue of £20,1m was small compared with that of the established top clubs, but still ahead of that of Sunderland, Stoke City, Crystal Palace and Southampton.
In 2002 Leicester went into administration with debts of £30m and had to be bailed out by their fans. Now the riches and prestige of the Champions League await.