In March they reported a pre-tax loss of £90m, having lost £121m the previous year. However, in figures published by Companies House, it is now clear the losses would have been even higher without the sale of hotel buildings to Blueco 22 Properties Ltd, a subsidiary of parent company Blueco 22 Ltd, which led to a profit for the club of £76.5m. So, in their accounts published this week Chelsea miraculously manage to adhere to FFP rules by selling a hotel to one of its own subsidiary companies for the exact amount of money required to keep them within the regulations. How can the big teams in the Premier League continue to get away with bending and breaking the rules whilst the teams down the bottom are having points deducted. The rules are quite simply not fit for purpose.
Complete farce. If they can’t see how their own rules are being pis.sed on they are fools themselves. Inept EPL.
I'll only go for it if you wherever and steelsy come too WILL also need a when qpr come calling clause
2023-24 Season Attendance Statistics Kinda bored, so now that the regular season is over I figured I'd compile some attendance statistics. There's been quite a few doom-and-gloom posts about crowds all season, so do the numbers back those posts up? (spoilers: no, the negativity is largely unwarranted). Firstly, the average attendances (not including Unite Round): Club | 23-24 Av. | 22-23 Av. | Change :-:|:-:|:-:|:-: Sydney FC|**14,476**|17,008|*-15%* Melb. Victory|**12,227**|10,124|**+21%** WS Wanderers|**10,573**|10,769|-2% Adelaide|**10,035**|9,943|+1% Wellington|**8,725**|6,483|**+35%** Melb. City|**8,488**|6,484|**+31%** [League Average]|**8,137**|7,529|**+8%** Central Coast|**7,250**|6,646|**+9%** Brisbane|**6,707**|5,594|**+20%** Perth|**5,964**|4,451|**+34%** Newcastle|**5,704**|6,160|*-7%* Macarthur|**4,216**|3,514|**+20%** Western Utd|**3,274**|3,168|+3% Some notes: - **Attendances are up 8%** league-wide from last year, which in turn was up 39% from the covid affected 21-22 season. If this growth trend continues, attendances should be back to where they were in the last couple of pre-covid seasons. - **7/12 clubs showed statistically significant growth** in crowds, and 3 (WSW, Adelaide, and WU) were more or less on par with last year. - Only 2 clubs experienced a decline in crowd numbers - Newcastle with a small decrease from last year, and Sydney who had the return-to-Moore-Park bump inflating the numbers last year. - Melbourne Victory are pretty much single-handedly the reason that the league-wide average is still behind pre-covid levels. While their crowds are increasing, they're just a shadow of the ~20k average club they were before the pandemic. If Victory were back at that level, the average of the non-expansion clubs would be almost on par with the pre-covid average. And here's some club-specific observations: - Despite the decline, **Sydney's** crowds are level with their last season at the old SFS (14,682), and larger than all of the Kogarah seasons. So Sydney's basically already back to pre-covid numbers. - **City** and **Wellington** are also back to their pre-covid averages, while **WSW** aren't far off. - **Adelaide** averaged over 10k for the first time since 2015-16 (i.e. the season where they won the league). - **Central Coast** had their largest average since 2017-18. - **Macarthur** had their largest average attendance in their history. Low bar, sure, but it's progress. - **Western Utd** had their largest average since their inaugural season. This one's kinda only true on a technicality though, as their averages have been 5.7k, 3.1k, 3.2k, 3.2k, and now 3.3k. - **Perth, Brisbane, Newcastle, and Melbourne Victory** are the clubs that are still lagging significantly behind their pre-covid numbers. New stable ownership should hopefully spark a resurgence for Perth and Newcastle next year. Brisbane and Victory have a tough job ahead of them, though, as they try to grow despite being weighed down by Bakrie and 777 ownership respectively.
