Skip to main content

Leicester revenue takes near £50m hit from Covid

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews the latest accounts of Leicester City from his base in Zurich.

The loss before tax widened from £20m to £67m, as the pandemic led to revenue dropping £28m (16%) from £178m to £150m, though profit on player sales rose £5m to £63m. Expenses rose £23m (9%), mainly due to investment in the squad. Loss after tax was £60m.

Revenue was significantly impacted by COVID, the main driver of the club’s revenue decrease was broadcasting income, which dropped £20m (16%) from £128m to £108m, while commercial fell £7m (18%) from £36m to £29m and match day was down £2m (11%) from £15m to £13m.

Of course, all clubs have been adversely impacted by COVID, so Leicester’s £67m loss is far from unusual with no fewer than seven clubs posting losses above £50m.  Without COVID, Foxes revenue would have been £46m higher at £196m (10% more than 2019).

£150m revenue is still £21m (16%) more than 2016, when they were crowned Premier League champions. However, much lower than the extraordinary £233m in 2017, which was boosted by £70m Champions League TV money.

Commercial income fell £7m (18%) from £36m to £29m, mainly due to deferral of £5m sponsorship to 2020/21. Second highest ever for the club, though a long way behind the Big Six, e.g. around £113m less than Arsenal £142m.

The figures significantly benefited from £63m profit on player sales, up from £58m, almost entirely due to Harry Maguire’s big money move to Manchester United. This is second highest in the Premier League to date, only surpassed by Chelsea.   The Foxes made hardly any money from player sales up to 2016, but profits from this activity have surged to an impressive average of £50m in the past four years. Next year‘s accounts will benefit from Ben Chilwell’s £50m sale.

Following promotion to the Premier League, the club had delivered four years of profits, amounting to £137m, before the last two years’ losses worth £87m in total. This was obviously boosted by the amazing £92m surplus in 2017, which is actually the 3rd highest profit in PL history.

The wage bill rose £8m (5%) from £149m to £157m, due to further investment in the playing squad, including contract extensions. Increase would have been even more if some bonuses had not been deferred to 2020/21. Wages virtually doubled in four years.  As a result of the revenue fall, the wages to turnover ratio increased (worsened) from 84% to 105%, the highest in Premier League to date in 2019/20.

The club have plans to expand the King Power stadium, increasing the capacity to around 40,000. The club has acquired land next to the ground and spent a further £1.8m since these accounts closed on detailed design and feasibility work.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more