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Blackburn Rovers managing director Derek Shaw has attempted to reassure fans after recent financial results showed heavy losses at the club. The club was also revealed to have very high levels of payments to agents. He said that he would take time to get the club’s finances in line with those of other Championship clubs.
Uefa have temporarily withheld prize money from six clubs who took part in last season’s competitions while they further investigate their financial affairs. This can be seen as a warning shot across the bows and it has not been taken against a major club in one of the ‘big five’ leagues.
The political reporter of the Coventry Evening Telegraph Les Reid has been following the sad saga of Coventry City and he has provided a very full in depth analysis of what has happened going back to errors made in relation to building the Ricoh Arena and its subsequent ‘rescue’. In many respects it was an overly ambitious ‘grand projet’ but we are where we are.
Manchester United are considering a new share issue after announcing record income and a revenue forecast for this season of between £420m and £430m.
This assumes somewhat modestly that the club will finish 3rd in the Premiership and reach the quarter finals of the Champions League and domestic cup competitions. Exceeding these targets, particularly in the Champions League, could lead to significantly higher revenues.
Blackburn Rovers have reported a £27m pre-tax loss last year. Accounts for the year to March show the business also had net liabilities of £26.3m at the end of the year. Strictly speaking, the accounts relate to parent company Venky’s London Limited, but that is responsible for all the financial activity of the club.
The newly-filed figures reveal revenues at the Championship club were £35.6m, down from £80.4m in an 18-month accounting period to March 2012 when it reported a profit of £35,000.
The administrator of one of the Coventry City companies has said that it would still be possible for a deal to be done between the owners and the Ricoh Arena during the liquidation process which could take up to a year. The club could then return from exile and low attendances in Northampton to the stadium purpose built for them.
It is almost conventional wisdom to say that the Premier League is over rated and hyped up, but this particular piece offers evidence that the spending does not always deliver quality.
Coventry City have missed their own eight week target to conclude a deal on a new stadium site and say that they will need another four weeks to pursue a deal on the Brandon speedway site. However, it is evident that there are multiple difficulties associated with this location.
Cristianio Ronaldo will earn more than £170m over the course of his new five year contract at Real Madrid. It makes him the highest paid forward in the world and is worth the equivalent of £660,000 a week before tax.
It is worth noting that almost half his salary will go straight into the cash starved Spanish treasury. Of his annual gross salary of £34.4m, £16.8m will be deducted in tax.
Ronaldo will get more than double the terms of his previous contract and this is much more than Gareth Bale is receiving, even though Bale cost Real Madrid £5m more than Ronaldo.
In a recent issue, The Economist confidently asserted, ‘the days of clubs living beyond their means are coming to [an] end. From this season, premier league clubs will be found by two sets of “financial fair play” rules’. The Economist never makes any judgment that it is not a confident assertion, but the reality is more complex than this throwaway line would suggest.