Financial News
- 5 March 2013, 13:48
Liverpool FC Loses £40.5m In Less Than A Year
Liverpool Football Club has reported a £21.8m increase in its debt, along with a loss of £40.5m.
The overall debt of the club now stands at £87.2m.
A restructuring of its accounting period to align it with the football season means the figures apply to the 10 months between August 1, 2011 to May 31, 2012.
The loss of £40.5m for the 10 months period was, however, less than £49.3m the previous year.
The accounts show that although commercial revenue increased, so did the club's overall liabilities.
However, managing director Ian Ayre played down the significance of a rise in debt levels.
"It's definitely not something I believe anyone should be worried or concerned about. It is seasonal - our debt goes up and down," he told the Liverpool Echo.
"We have money to pay out and money coming in, just like any business.
"The difference in football is some of the swings are significant, so if you look at player trading, we may need to make investments as we do in the summer before our key revenues come in: big sponsorships cheques, big ticket revenues, all the media revenues etc.
"You come to Christmas when you maybe have less revenue coming in, but you have got money that needs to go out, both on playing deals that you are doing at the time but also on historic player deals."
Mr Ayre added: "We need to continue to improve our squad and what a lot of people won't relate to perhaps is that when you are improving your squad and making that investment, you have knock-on costs that will create debt in the short term.
"We will continue to invest in the squad - I think that is what our fans would expect.
"But the most important thing is that we do it prudently and in a sustainable way that is affordable."
Contributing factors to the increase in debt were player instalment payments plus exceptional payments of just over £9.5m - relating to matters such as the stadium project, general restructuring and pay-offs to senior employees who left the club.
The 2013 Deloitte Football Money League, which is ranked on position and revenue in 2011-2012, listed Liverpool in ninth position.
what do you think?
lance
any club in debt should automatically be relegated . no exceptions.this will make them get there books in order and stop paying stupid wages to these over paid bigheads.
Diane Rogers
If they did that how many clubs would be left in premiere league
shirley sutton
Chelsea and city the rest are all in debt
Steve Marshall
Jesus lance the prem would be rather boring, it would be arsenal vs arsenal reserves every week.
Steve Marshall
Chelski are up to their neck in debt, the only thing that saves them is abramovich getting his cheque book out at the end of each season so that they can start the new season on £0 and city are the same, both sides don't have a big enough fan base to support players wages.
shirley sutton
Lots of supporters stopped going since rogers took over and stopped by the kits
happymike CHESTER
The Premier League imploding greed taken over ,it was never any good for English football Liverpool won more cups including European in the old league.
hollywoodbowden
Not everyone had a chance in europe though as they did get all english teams banned
bobh_385
Still not as good as Nick Leeson
hollywoodbowden
Hahaha good
ali baba
if the owner uses his own cash i see no problem the problem is when the debtors are third parties
michael
they don't half get paid alot for kicking a bag of wind about.
davenlesley
2:49pm on 4/3/2013
The levels of debt within football are madness. Only one team can win the league & one the cup. All the rest are spending crazy amounts of money on failure. I consider qualifying for Europe failure in all but monetary terms. But then thats all that matters in football today -- Money.