Promotion more difficult for 'Boro

The Swiss Ramble blogger reviews the 2019/20 accounts of Middlesbrough.

Boro’s loss of £36m is the worst reported to date in the 2019/20 Championship, though this result may well look better when other clubs publish their COVID-impacted accounts. In fact, even before the pandemic, many clubs had losses above £20m.

Excluding property sales, just three Championship clubs were profitable with only Hull City managing to make money so far in 2019/20. The sad reality is that almost all clubs in this division lose money, as they strive to remain competitive in pursuit of promotion to the top flight.

One reason for Boro’s worse financial result is they only made £3m profit from player sales, whereas the prior year’s figures were boosted by £33m, They have increased profit on player sales to an annual average of £16m over the past four years.

Revenue has fallen by £102m (84%) from £121m to £19m since relegation from the Premier League 3 years ago, very largely due to £93m decrease in broadcasting after parachute payments ended after 2 years, though also reductions in commercial £5m and gate receipts £4m.

The wage bill was cut by 23 per cent by significantly reducing the size and cost of the playing squad/ Wages down 52 per cent from the £65m peak three years ago in the Premiership.  Following the decrease, the  £31m wage bill is now in the bottom half of the Championship, making promotion even more difficult.

The wages to turnover ratio shot up from 72% to 160%, the second highest to date in the Championship in 2019/20, only behind Preston 163%. This is obviously not great, but is pretty much par for the course in the Championship, where 17 of the 24 clubs are above 100