Football finance expert shares his view on Blackpool's latest accounts as Seasiders post losses of £4.8m

The club’s latest figures were released yesterday for the period up to June 30, 2021, which covers their promotion-winning campaign in League One.

The vast majority of the season was played behind closed doors due to the pandemic, inevitably having a major impact on the club’s ticket sales.

Turnover, however, remained pretty stable at £5.4m, down ever so slightly from £5.5m the previous year. The club’s losses of £4.8m, meanwhile, were up from £2.2m the previous year.

The accounts show gate receipts dropped from £1.1m to just £73,000 from the previous year.

The club still recouped £771,000 from season ticket sales, with a large number of supporters opting not to claim a refund to help assist the club.

Bar and food sales predictably plummeted to just £2,000 from £328,000, but merchandise was up from £383,000 to £561,000.

A big success for the club was the income it brought in from match streaming, as fans were able to watch all of their games via the iFollow platform. This rose from £45,000 to £579,000.

Amounts due to related parties, which is defined as someone with control, joint control or significant influence over the company, increased from £3.5m to £9m.

Analysing Blackpool’s latest accounts, Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool, suggested the overall figures were as good as the club could have hoped for given the trying circumstances.

“The club really pitched for promotion last season,” he told The Gazette.

“The wage bill was up 15 per cent, although that will include bonuses, and by League One standards they invested a lot in players to the tune of £850,000.

“The owners will clearly be very thankful to the fans for leaving their season ticket money in the club. They also did very well from iFollow.

“The fans followed Blackpool as much as they could given the circumstances and that all benefited the club.

“It was a really tough market. But even things like merchandise were up by £180,000 in a season where fans weren’t wearing their shirts to matches, but they were still buying them.

“So there are a lot of positives within some significant losses, that was my main take. Overall, I think the key figures are a bit better than they might have been expecting in a Covid year.”

The annual report also shows that wages and salaries for all club staff, including the players and coaching team, rose from £6m to £6.8m.

“The wages are certainly top half, perhaps top quartile in terms of League One. That will include the promotion bonuses as well,” Maguire, the man behind the ‘Price of Football’ Twitter account, added.

“The nature of football is that if you want to compete, you have to pay the going wages.

“The directors’ pay might cause some eyebrows to be raised, as the highest paid director was on £385,000. For a League One director, that’s certainly at the high end of the scale.

“The club used furlough and rightly so. They only claimed £230,000 though, so it wasn’t a huge amount. It was right and proper for all EFL clubs to claim furlough given they don’t have the riches of the Premier League, so I don’t think anyone can criticise that.

“If you look at how the club is being funded, it’s clear they’ve had to borrow from the owner in a fair amount. That’s the best part of £9.5m.

“In theory that’s repayable in less than a year but in practice I doubt that will be the case as you have to wait for the right time to arise.”

At this moment in time it’s difficult to compare Blackpool’s figures as a lot of clubs in League One are yet to release their accounts.

However, it’s expected Blackpool’s numbers will put them towards the top end of the division, albeit behind some of the big clubs like Sunderland and Portsmouth.

“We’ve not seen too much come out yet from League One,” Maguire said.

“Blackpool aren’t Sunderland, but then nobody is in that division. Sunderland are a whale compared to a dolphin really as League One is concerned.

“The figures will certainly put Blackpool in the top half, top quarter in terms of player spend.

“In terms of wages, they paid £6.8m. Coventry in League One were paying £6.5m the year they went up, Fleetwood paid £7m, MK Dons £4.5m, Lincoln City £5m, Peterborough United was £6m, then you’ve got the likes of Burton Albion, Shrewsbury Town and Rotherham United who were all around the £4m and £5m mark.

“So Blackpool are paying a wee bit more, but not excessively so. It’s less than Portsmouth, Sunderland and those types of clubs. But Sunderland are in a league of their own really.”

In terms of what Blackpool fans can expect from next year’s accounts, another rise in wages should be expected.

“They will get around £6m in TV money now they’re in the Championship, which is the obvious benefit of promotion,” he said.

“Some of that will have gone into the recruitment market and players will have had step-ups in terms of their contracts.

“We’d expect a significant increase in wages, but at the same time you’d hope some or all of that would be absorbed by the additional income and the fact Bloomfield Road is now hosting big clubs.

“When Forest, Derby and so on come to Bloomfield Road, they will sell out the away end and that will boost the matchday income significantly.”

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