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Life in the League Two basement

With just two sets of accounts to come in, Kieran Maguire of the Price of Football has taken a look at overall League Two results. Clubs made a collective loss of £15 million, signed players for £980,000 and had loans of £63.8 million with Luton Town and Colchester United taking up £48 million of those loans.

The average income of League Two clubs is £4.5m with Portsmouth by far the highest at £7.5m. Luton are second and Carlisle third.

Average wages are £1,610 this week, but this figure is somewhat misleading as it includes Portsmouth.

Maguire also takes a close look at the accounts of Morecambe FC: Bring me sunshine

With the second lowest attendances in the division, the club only generated about £848,000 from gate receipts for the season, much lower than that of the large clubs in the division such as Portsmouth (£3.86 million) who have the benefit of larger crowds.

It’s always tricky to determine player wages but using his standard formula Maguire estimates the average weekly wage was about £928.

In the League Two basement clubs cannot afford to sign players for fees, instead relying on Bosman deals, existing squad members renewing contracts and loans.

For a club such as Morecambe it is a case of trying to keep losses to a minimum and hope for either selling a player or two at a profit or the benevolence of directors to balance the books. The club has made an average loss of £11,000 a week over the last five years. In the last four years owners/directors have put £1.7m into the club.

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