An interesting read on the Pompey Supporters Trust site, an analysis of the latest accounts released for Portsmouth FC https://www.pompeytrust.com/news/review-of-pfc-financial-statements-2022-23
In summary.. We've been losing around £3-4m a year with the owners cash injections keeping us afloat. Most clubs in the Championship routine post losses of around £16m a year, which with the help of our owners is what we plan to do. If we get relegated within a couple of years or so, of going up, we're fecked.....again. Have I got that right?
Again every single time. We are allowing this to happen because we won’t get player wages to an acceptable level. Not sure why any business football or otherwise think it’s ok to post heavy losses year after year and not to start to think perhaps we need to do something different.
£35m put in, £23.5m spent on infrastructure, losses net of infrastructure spend of £2m pa. By the madness of the football world not that bad.
It gave me the same impression, plus owners with deep pockets. They've been in the wilderness for years & seem to be well managed to me.
The whole attitude around ownership and debt needs to change, and I include the supporters in that. We now have the hindsight of watching the rise and fall of several third tier clubs that money took somewhere they could never hope to reach under their own steam, yet the media now pats Wrexham on the back and portrays them as a fairytale. Where is the caution? Why isn’t this being talked about more widely? Why is it accepted as ‘ambition’?
Because Sky Sports and their ilk couldn't give a monkeys whether teams in the third tier fold. They care about the Premier League, we get the crumbs left by the dog, after being knocked off the table. Sky LOVE transfer deadline day, they can announce BREAKING NEWS of X transfer for a record fee and Y transfer which breaks whichever Clubs' transfer record. If all the clubs decided to suddenly cut their cloth accordingly, overnight the sport of football, whilst cleansing itself for the good of the sport in the long-run, would reduce interest in the top league and the teams that inhabit it. Teams chased the vast sums offered by Sky, signed deals with the Devil and here we are.
Transfer fees are the life blood for many of the smaller teams. A premier league team splashing a big fee on lower league talent helps the money trickle down. The biggest issue is the salaries which clubs simply can’t afford to pay based on revenue.
Perhaps. But also on the other hand teams should stop loaning kids from premier league teams. That might actually might stop them from harvesting multitudes of players who likely have no chance of turning out for them whatsoever, but because EFL clubs take them on loan it’s become another money making vehicle for them.
That ambition has been part of football since day one, it started when the Lancashire team brought Scottish players down and has continued since, it’s was acceptable when a local businessman was putting his own money in pre TV money. The only difference is it attracts the wrong sort for the wrong reasons now.