Skip to main content

Ipswich are low spenders

Ipswich Town have now filed their full accounts with Companies House. Ipswich had losses before player sales (£3.83m profit) of £160,000 a week in 2017/18, compared to the average in the division of £390,000 as owners chase the Premier League TV gold at the end of the rainbow.

Turnover decreased by £116k to £17.1m, mainly due to lower gate receipts which were offset by an increase in media revenue. Commercial revenue remained at the same level as in 2016/17 (£4.35m). Average home league gates decreased from 16,980 to 16,272. The operating loss was £8.4m, up from £7.8m.

Distributions from the Premier League and EFL, along with televised matches, accounted for 50 per cent of revenue. These revenues would be substantially reduced in League One.

In four years out of the last five Ipswich have spent less than £1m on new players in a division where the median spend is £7.1 million by clubs in the Championship. Ipswich spent the lowest of any club in the Championship (who have reported to date) on new players in 2017/18, the legacy of that strategy perhaps being felt this season?

In 2017/18 the two clubs with the lowest wage bills were relegated (Sunderland haven't published yet but their demise was due to other reasons). Ipswich consistently in the bottom six wage payers, so would expect to be in a relegation fight each season.

Marcus Evans lent Ipswich £6.2 million last season. The total due to him is tricky to calculate as funnelled through many companies, some in offshore tax havens .

Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball commented: 'The problem for Evans (and other club owners) is that wages usually exceed income, even for clubs deemed unambitious by fans, so it's a case of setting a ceiling on the amount of weekly losses which are deemed to be acceptable to the owner.'

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000.  The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts.  Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day income is

Spurs to sell minority stake

Tottenham Hotspur is in talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that could value it at up to £3.75 billion and pave the way for Joe Lewis and his family to sever ties with the Premier League football club. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is seeking an investment that values the club at between £3.5 billion and £3.75 billion, including debt. While the terms of any deal have not been finalised, City sources expect Spurs to sell about 10 per cent. The club is being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale. Tottenham wants to raise fresh capital for new player signings and to help fund the development of an academy for its women’s team, as well as a 30-storey hotel next to its north London stadium. The financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take over Newcastle United, is understood to be among the parties to have expressed an interest in Tottenham. Staveley’s fund, PCP Capital Partners, has raised about £500 million to depl