This has been posted on Red Vee:

Saints have released their accounts for the last season at Knowsley Road (financial year to October, 2010). The key points are:

- Losses are up by £500,000 to £1.38m, and total more than £3m in the last four years

- Turnover basically flat (£4.83m v £4.88m in 2009), which is £1m below its 2006 peak

- Sale price of Knowsley Road to Taylor Wimpey was renegotiated down by £1.625m

- Wage bill was 79% of turnover

- Eamonn McManus criticises the club’s management for its commercial failings, writing “it was particularly disappointing that full advantage was not taken of the commercial opportunities availed to the club from its last year at its historic Knowsley Road home.”

- The board plans another debt-for-equity conversion

It all makes for very sobering reading.

Here's the last dozen years, other people can judge whether this year's loss is worse than previous, and whether the trend in recent years is one we should be concerned about:

1999 -£569,205
2000 -£1,557,767
2001 -£940,745
2002 -£871,672
2003 -£376,699
2004 +£137,627
2005 -£31,161
2006 -£259,238
2007 -£400,348
2008 -£449,288
2009 -£861,810
2010 -£1,384,706

An interesting discussion is now taking place, a worry for the game ?

more of a worry for Saints

surprised at the price they got for the land

how can that be? i thought the salary cap was %50 of ur income or 1.6 mill depending which was the smallest,
unless turnover means somthing completly different i have no idea about finance

The Salary Cap is only for your top 25 earning players, the wage bill is for the whole organisation.

ahhh right,
shutting up now

If those fugures are correct, of which I've no reason to doubt, then it is worrying that one of top clubs has posted losses in eleven of the past twelve years. If 2010 is £1.38m then 2011 figures could be even more worrying.
They need to get into their new place and start making a profit.
Heaven knows what they'll do if Leeds lose the court test case to HMRC.

do we know when this court case is meant to be done with?

the worrying thing about the losses is the fact that they have made 8 grand final appearances winning 4 of them and 6 Challenge cup finals winning 5 of them.......

If they can't make it pay from seasons like that then what hope do clubs have that dont make finals, unless some of their spend is indirectly supporting the playing staff

The 50% limit has been abolished.

The reasons are well documented - the old stadium was a financial nightmare that cost money to maintain every year, and didnt allow for any extra revenue generation through corporate hospitality, events etc...There is nothing to say that once the new stadium is up and running that these problems will be totally solved, but it should be a step in the right direction.

It seems like in 2010, the club management effectively gave up any hope of financial good sense and responsibility, hence the terrible losses. It was obvious that certain things were not being done correctly - especially around the leaving KR festivities, and lots of revenue was lost (in my opinion). Personally, I would have spent a lot more cash on memorabilia and things from the old ground - but they never came available.

1999 -£569,205 - SL Winners
2000 -£1,557,767 - SL Winners
2001 -£940,745 - WCC Winners, CC Winners
2002 -£871,672 - SL Winners
2003 -£376,699 - No Honours
2004 +£137,627 - CC Winners
2005 -£31,161 - LL Shield
2006 -£259,238 - SL Winners, CC Winners, BBC Team of the Year, LL Shield.
2007 -£400,348 - WCC Winners, CC Winners, LL Shield
2008 -£449,288 - CC Winners, LL Shield
2009 -£861,810 - No Honours
2010 -£1,384,706 - No Honours

Never good to see. No doubt in 12 months time it will be even worse (crowds have halved at Widnes). Will probably start to claw some of that back when they are in their new stadium.

I suspect that if someone did the same over the 12 year period it would look a similar tale (no thanks to DW and ML), even with us having larger crowds over Saints. Wasn't last season our first for years where we made some kind of a profit, on course to repeat this season?

company year ending 30.11.09 made a pre-tax profit of -£540k

Last seasons accounts should be published in the next two weeks. I'm sure Lenegan said at the FF that we would show a small profit on that season and a decent one this season if we got to Wembley, which now we have.

He did.

Never good to see a top SL side making a loss, however it can be put down to a few things.

Widnes - crowds are down, I suspect they'd be paying Widnes for usage of thier stadia (can someone confirm/dispell this?)

Stadium - They've invested a lot into the new stadia, which I'll not go into the bleeding obvious why.

Trophyless - Yep, some fans won't of been going to Sts matches due to not having won anything for a few years. I'm 100% positive Sts will win a trophy again in the next year or so, so that should change.

C'mon, someone tell me I'm wrong

Trouble is the results are for the previous year.

It is a bit of a worry but hopefully within three seasons Eamonn reckons we will be back in the black.

Next year obviously we will make a loss because of Saints being at Widnes but with new backers and sponsorship deals because of our new stadium this should be good for the club.

You're wrong.



These accounts are for the last season at KR. This season's accounts will look like a car crash.

How will that happen?
The accumulative losses over the last five years is almost £3.5 million and that's before this years losses.
It was stated on Red Vee a few months ago that it could take around 10 years to make up those losses, and that's if things go well.

Sports teams are generally a very bad investment. People have a go at the management of other clubs (and sometimes their own) but the reality is I doubt that that anyone involved in owning any SL side is in it for money. The question shouldn't actually be about when Sts make a profit - the only real question is whether the losses are sustainable.

I thought the finances had been brought under control by Mcmanus? The club will start to improve the finances when the new ground is pulling in revenue; but it will take some time to cover those debts.

Its worrying when you consider that fans wanted to stay at KR until new ground was ready
these figures show that had they not sold knowsley road then saints would be showing a £3.1 million loss
But very astute buisness men never tell you the true picture i.e the percentage loss to turn over was it a 1% loss or a 50% loss the figures they give are are excuse figures, like we had a big loss last year so we cant spend on players.
you wont be getting a pay rise we have no money, they wont have acounted into these figures the money tesco have paid to build a supermarket on the carpark of the new ground.

From the figures shown, the loss was £1.38m from a turnover of just £4.83m, which is staggering.
I don't think that Tesco paid Saints any money. They just put some money into the whole site development, as did Saints and the Council etc.