By Paul Nicholson
December 4 – Success on the pitch can sometimes be a fickle financial master in football, but Burnley’s loss of £7.6 million for the year to June 2014 is looking like value-for-money. The Premier League new boys actually announced a £300,000 profit for their promotion season. But when you add in staff bonuses of £7.9 million due on elevation to England’s top flight, the profit becomes a £7.6 million loss.
What Burnley have proved is that it is possible to join the Premier League elite without having to break the bank to get there. Contrast rivals QPR who spent big to return to the top flight (losses, to be reported, are expected to top £50 million) and you have a tale of two cities, or perhaps evidence of England’s north-south financial divide.
Whether Burnley have enough financial legs to stay in the Premier League remains to be seen, but with two wins and two draws in their last four games they might be getting the hang of it.
However, the riches of the Premier League where Burnley can expect upwards of £60 million from TV money alone, will wipe out any lingering debt fears assuming the club continues to manage its finance and business similarly prudently.
Burnley posted a loss of £7.6 million for the year ending June 2013. The 2014 accounts show a turnover of £19.6 million, a £4.3 million increase compared with 2012/13.
The 2014 accounts show loan repayments of £8 million – £4 million in directors’ loans and a further £4 million in other external loans.
On top of this the club has been re-purchasing its Turf Moor Stadium and Gawthorpe training facility and re-paid £4.5 million of the ‘buy-back’ bond.
In their statement to shareholders, joint chairmen Mike Garlick and John Banaszkiewicz said: “When we took on the responsibility of co-chairmanship, we stated that we would manage the club’s finances sensibly while keeping the club as competitive as possible.
“We are happy to report that even though these accounts show a £7.6m loss before tax, the majority of this is due to the additional, exceptional one-off costs that promotion entails.
“Without these one-off costs we are very pleased to report that the club would have been in a break-even position, keeping our promise made during the year.”
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