26 Jun 2020 22:06:47
Hey Eds, a couple of stories going on linking Adama Traoré to Liverpool. Do we have any interest in him?

Also, is there any interest in Origi from the Wolves side? Cheers.

{Ed002's Note - If Salah or Mane were to leave and generate funds then it makes sense. Wolves have not shown interest in Origi.}


1.) 28 Jun 2020
28 Jun 2020 02:43:56
I never cease to be amazed by the average fans poor grasp of the finances of the company that each football club is. I’m no expert, but I know that the finances of every company roll on continuously. If we report say £10 Million profit for the year, it doesn’t mean that everything has been paid and we’ve got £10 million to spend. In most companies the profit at the year end would go to shareholders as a dividend. I’ve no idea whether or not FSG take a dividend
Unless you are a Chelsea Or Man City who seem to have found ways to magically acquire massive funds from owners and represent it as “Income”, any Club needs to balance the books.
The clubs income is from TV Revenue (which could at any time fall), Commercial Sponsorship, Gate receipts, Merchandise, Hospitality and Functions. Prize money will vary from season to season obviously dependant on results
There is a massive cost in just maintaining the infrastructure of Anfield and the Training Grounds, The non-playing staff from Teamakers to Jurgen all require paying, Having successful players means that we have a high wage bill in order to keep them here. Any loans we took out for capital works or transfer fees need repaying with interest.
The days when a team bought an incoming player or sold an outgoing player for cash, if they ever existed are now long gone; Most deals are like massive HP deals.
So whilst we will be receiving various sums from players sold over the last few years, there will also be instalments to pay for players bought in the same sort of timescale.
People see a sum mentioned for winning a cup or title, or from some new sponsorship deal and somehow think that if the sum was £100 million then we have that much to spend – it doesn’t work like that. Any windfall from wherever may a club to spend, but generally speaking signing players for most clubs most of the time requires the clubs to sell to at least part finance the new signing.
People seem to think that all the money made after we splashed out on Virgil and Allison is new money to spend. It isn’t, that money is still in the process of being paid by us. When I was last aware of the position, the money for Coutiniho is paid in instalments some of which hasn’t been paid yet because its not due to be paid yet.
The sums involved in football finances are insanely huge, but its not just the income that’s massive, the costs are too. LFC seem to be financially well managed but taken as a whole football finances at most clubs is quite scary.
Leeds came up with a spending plan to help them compete with the likes of Man U Arsenal and Liverpool – and then collapsed because it was too unrealistic. Its taken them best part of 20yrs to recover. Portsmouth, for a while, competed with the top tier by paying massive wages in the hope that they would stay in and be competitive in the Premier League – they got relegated and virtually had to give all their best players away – they still haven’t recovered financially.
I’ve heard it said that Chelsea couldn’t afford their wages bill if Abramovich wasn’t there putting money in. With the size of transfer fees today, two or three wrong signings could sink many clubs.
If the Broadcasters decided that they were overpaying for Broadcasting rights and came to some sort of unofficial gentleman’s agreement to cap the price per game they were willing to pay, a lot of clubs would be in financial difficulty. The game is too reliant on TV rights income and the TV people have financed and then virtually abandoned different sports in the past.
Clubs in the Premiership get a reward every year – every club from top to bottom. This years prize money for being Champions is about £150 Million and the difference to what we got last year is virtually nil – and we were expecting this income in our financial planning. So there isn’t a magical boost in money to spend at all.


2.) 28 Jun 2020
28 Jun 2020 21:41:23
You seem obsessed with the financial position of Chelsea!

Certainly RA financed the club for a few years but over the last few years the Chelsea business model as far as I can see, has generally generated profits.

The club is generally well run and as far as I know we do our transfer business in the correct way.