Southampton Football Club Annual Accounts 2015/16

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-03-15/st-marys-football-group-limited-201516-financial-results

 

Allowing for the magical powers of accountants, it seems that our income from player sales does not result in the massive pot of gold that many fans seem to think is available. Presumably a lot is swallowed up by the need for us to pay the wages commensurate with a club of our stature.

If these were my accounts, I wouldn't sleep at night, but I presume all is under control as manageable debts are not a problem within a company. *

*Waits for financial 'experts' to tell me these are terrible/good figures (delete as applicable).

 

And to think, we are the most financially viable club outside the top six, and we are posting profits/loss like this. That is crazy, just imagine how some of the other clubs look.

 

I'd like to hear from those who are convinced that player sales don't get re-invested and go into Les & Katharina's back pocket ...

 

Worth reading the comment piece from Ugly Inside. I also think that some fans are very simplistic with their view on running a club. Look at tha panic from some because it looked like we would be treading water this season. Some cannot accept that every team has to stand still sometime.....we have had rapid improvement that couldn't go unless we won the title this year and the World Cup in two years time. The important thing is to have a well run club that isn't going to be gung ho and drive us into administration. Stick to our principles and be more accepting of the fact that we are not Chelsea or United.

http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/southampton/news/45295/

 

We have spent a lot in the last ten months, there's no doubting that.

 

In fairness, despite spending more on player sales than we have received, there are other sources of income that finance that l such as the billions of TV revenue.

In previous years when we have posted profits of £20m+, where do you think that has gone? However, a profit of £4m is a reflection that in recent years all the revenue has actually been invested into the club rather than going to shareholders. These figures make for good reading.

 

Last year, Rodgers was hopeful of reducing the debt over the next few years.....reading between the lines, I would guess there has been no dramatic movement on that front. You can see that a stupid offer for a player may make sense if it resulted in money into the coffers, but may not be so attractive if selling a player familiar with our style results in the need to purchase a replacement with hidden costs....not just a case of X-Y = +Z.

 

Osvaldo fee and paying him off was probably £20m.

 

He had to go, but surely violence against another employee is a sackable offence. I suppose taking it to court just wasn't worth the aggro.

 

I agree Fran, just had to bite the bullet on that one, an expensive one at that.
Gaston was another player that we lost money on.

 

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/15155581.Saints_invest___94m_in_squad/

A bit more detail in the Echo.

 

The worrying bit is the last paragraph from the Echo article.

“We can’t continue with the level of debt the club has compared to its turnover. It’s not healthy, it’s not right for the club to continue to operate with a £62m debt level.
“Next year we will end up with turnover much higher than at the moment because of the new broadcasting contracts, but it’s too high and not healthy for the club to continue with that going forward.

“However we reduce the debt, and whoever that debt is reduced against, we can’t continue that moving forward.”

He sounded slightly more confident last year....which does suggest that outside investment or a takeover is needed. Katherina is owed quite a bit of money and we should be grateful that she hasn't tried to realise it at the cost of the club. She seems to be looking carefully at possible buyers.

 

It was a sackable offence, for Cortese.

 

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/15155620.Staplewood_to_stick_at___40m/?ref=rss

The cost of Staplewood falls within budget....well most of us keep within budget if we keep increasing the budget. Has cost considerably more than first planned, but there have been improvements added. Just the home for the Academy to be built now....wonder when that is scheduled to be completed. Staplewood of course is an asset in the books...and will help bring in income from youth players being brought through. We are certainly one of the big players on the Academy stage.

 

I'm confused on the context of those paragraphs, as the paragraphs before them suggest this conversation happened in the past. Is what he said there something that has happened, is happening or will happen?

 

Is quite similar to what I remember from the last accounts, but then nothing much has changed with the debt, has it?

 

The way I understand it is that the club seem to have a similiar strategy to the current goverment in that in order to 'balance the books' they first need to increase debt before it peaks and then gets reduced.
I just don't understand where we are on that timeline. Is debt still going up, is it at its peak or is it now being reduced?

edit: IIRC from last year it should have peaked but i couldn't tell if that is what has happened from what he said or if he thinks we are on track.

 

Who actually makes any money out of the Premier League? Owners? Shareholders? Players? Agents? Media? Sponsors? There is no doubt that there is a lot of money involved and there is plenty of Commercial involvement that benefits at many levels, but I suspect running a Premier League Club financially successfully, is a very fine balancing act, which wouldn't take much to tip the balance either way.

 

94 million over for years is less than a 25 million a year, for transfer fees and wages. Club is investing, but is this really some extraordinary amount for a epl club? Most clubs spend more than 25 million a year on transfers alone. This data still shows that we're the most frugal club in the league.