Skip to main content

Brentford spending money smartly

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire reviews Brentford's 2020/21 accounts published as club promoted to Premier League.  Key numbers:  Income £15m (up 10%) Wages £41m (up 60% & incliding £12m promotion bonus).  Wages £270 for every £100 of income loss pre player sales of £53m Player sale profits £44m. Pre tax loss £8m, easily within FFP limits.

Matchday income down 95% to £0.2m due to Covid, otherwise would have been a record sum due to new splendid stadium.

Broadcast income up 47% to £10.7m due to iFollow passes. Expect to add another zero to the total for 2021/22.  Commercial income was up 26% to £4.5m but again expect a big rise in first PL season 2021/22.

Brentford wage bill hits £41m, of which £12m was promotion to PL bonuses. Wages were £270 for every £100 of income, which is an EFL record, but ignores Brentford's amazing player development model.  Brentford continue to buy, develop and sell.

As a result losses before player sales over £1m a week, and have totalled £197m since 2013. However Brentford's data driven recruitment model has generated £141m of player profits during the same nine seasons so well within FFP.

Since Brentford were promoted to the Championship in 2014 they have spent £95m on players and generated sales of £151m, shows that spending it smartly makes more sense than just spending it.

Maguire notes: 'Despite Covid meaning no gate receipts and also not having benefit of parachute payments, Brentford had the lowest losses of any club promoted in the last five seasons.'


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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...
1 comment
Read more