But we don't factor in moneys owed when planning for the future? That's very short-sighted. We made £86million from TV and league placing last year before match day, sponsorship, or anything else. You'd think that would cover wages and club running costs. If it doesn't, and we can't afford wages without sales, then I would suggest we aren't exactly the beacon of a well-run club we thought!
Perhaps we did spend all we could. I understand it gives people a sense of moral superiority that our club is run within its means, but the fact is that paying back debts is not really empowering for the club.
All figures based on rough guesswork but it's the principle:
There's one player whose salary I'm prepared to guess, Jose at around £4.2m a year. I know he's meant to be top earner but it doesn't take a great many copies of him to spend £86m.
Sponsorship last year was around £1M, so trivial. Seat sales. £1.2M per home match (30,000 @ £40)? £23M (That's turnover, not profit).
Out of that:
I'm sure I read somewhere that Saints have 250 or so employees. At £40K including just some (to avoid double counting) overheads, that's £10m gone.
There's a ground to maintain and a training complex as well. Imagine the cost of a scissor lift to do ANY work on the outside of the ground.
I can say with a degree of certainty that just window cleaning at the ground (not including Staplewood) is about £26,000 a year. Bet that's not an amount anyone ever thinks about. That's just under a quid of your seat price for one home game. On clean windows, for heaven's sake.
And an academy to run (I believe some of the kids are on a few thousand a week), housing to be paid for.
And all that is with ten minute's thought. Bet I've missed a great deal.
It wouldn't surprise me if we don't make a great deal of day-to-day profit.
Vin
