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Articles on football club company financial results – interim or full-year.
Ipswich Town have announced pre-tax profis of £136,000 for the 12 months to June. This looks impressive after a loss of £14m for the previous year and £10m in 2009, but is largely down to player sales. Jon Walters went to Stoke for £2.75m and Connor Wickham to Sunderland for £8.1m.
Manchester City are expected to report the biggest ever losses in English football history when they release their accounts in the next fortnight. This raises once again the issue of whether they will fall foul of Uefa’s financial fair play rules.
Birmingham International Holdings, the parent club of Birmingham City, have warned the Hong Kong Stock Exchange where they are listed that they will report ‘substantial losses’ for the financial year ending June 2011. No investment has been received by the club from the parent company since relegation. The assets of leading shareholder Carson Yeung are currently frozen following allegations of money laundering.
The Glazer family, the owners of Manchester United, were paid £6m in ‘management fees’ last season. The payments were revealed as part of Red Football’s commitment to full disclosure under the terms of the financial bond they issued last year.
Arsenal reported a decline in full-year operating profit as increased wage costs offset a rise in commercial revenue. Underlying operating profit fell to £45.8m in the year to end May from £56.8m the year before.
‘Red Football Limited, Manchester United’s holding company, has seen a big fall in net debt but a rise in the cost of servicing that debt. There was a 15.7 per cent rise in full year turnover to £331.4m in full-year results to 30 June boosted by new sponsorship money, and higher match day and media revenues.
Even at the third tier of the non-league, football clubs cost quite a lot of money to run. The annual accounts of the club in which I am involved were recently published for the year to 30 June 2010. One fact that immediately stands out is that even at this level player renumeration accounted for 65 per cent of turnover.
The accounts of Coventry City Football Club (Holdings) Limited have been qualified by the auditors. They note that ‘the existence of a material uncertainity which may vast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.’ This is a relatively unusual event for a football club.
Liverpool made a pre-tax loss of £20m in the year from August 2009 to July 2010. This was the last full year of the Hicks and Gillett regime. The wage bill was in excess of £100m which is too high for a club that will probably be deprived of Champions League football once again.
Southampton look increasingly likely to win automatic promotion to the Championship, but they have announced a pre-tax loss of £7.76m for the year ending 30 June 2010. Turnover increased from £8.85m to £14.28m in the year after the late Marcus Liebherr rescued the club from administration.
However, they spent over £12.2m on wages, with broadcast revenues falling by £500,000 following relegation. They also made a net outlay of £1.08m in the transfer market.