Skip to main content

Huddersfield post small losses for the Championship

The authoritative Swiss Ramble has reviewed the 2019/20 accounts of Huddersfield Town.

The club swung from £3m profit to £8m loss, as revenue fell £66m (56%) from £119m to £53m following relegation, partly offset by profit on player sales increasing £15m to £18m and player loans rising £3m to £6m, while operating expenses were cut by £37m, though interest was up £2m.

The £66m revenue fall was largely driven by broadcasting’s £59m (57%) decrease from £104m to £45m, due to lower TV money in Championship, though commercial also dropped £6m (59%) from £10m to £4m and match day fell £1m (18%) from £5m to £4m.  The £8m deficit was actually one of the better financial results in the Championship. Many clubs have reported much larger losses in 2019/20, including Stoke City £88m.

The revenue decrease was cushioned by the £42m Premier League parachute payment, though the COVID rebate reduced this by £2.6m. Despite broadcasting falling from £104m to £45m, it still accounts for 85% of total revenue, followed by match day 8% and commercial 7%.  The £53m revenue was still one of the highest in the Championship

If parachute payments were excluded, revenue would fall to £18m (£42m parachute less £2.6m rebate, replaced by £4.5m solidarity payment). This would have placed them in the bottom half of the Championship, around a third of top club Leeds £54m.

Huddersfield usually post small losses (for the Championship), though they made money both seasons in the Premier League (including a hefty £30m in 2018). The only large loss reported was £20m in 2017, which was adversely impacted by estimated £12m promotion bonuses.

The club have made £36m profit from player sales in last 5 years, including £18m in 2020. This year will benefit from sales of Grant, Mounié, Sobhi and Kongolo.

The wage bill was cut £34m (52%) from £64m to £30m, due to contractual reductions, proactive management of first team squad and increased use of Academy players. This is still £8m higher than the £22m wages the last time Town were in the Championship (including promotion bonus).  The  £30m wage bill was in the bottom half of the Championship, much lower than other recently relegated clubs.

The club had by far the lowest wages to turnover ratio in the Championship with 57%, only slightly higher than the club’s 53% in the Premier League. Vast majority of clubs in this division have ratios well over 100%.

 


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