The Trust has accessed CCFC’s accounts to May 2013 which were today made available at Companies House. Here are the main points:
· Income is down from £20m to £17m. In 2012 we made the Carling Cup final so we had extra income in that year.
· Losses are up from £13m to £30m. This is a real cause for concern.
· The cost of sales (mainly player costs) are up from £21m to £34m. This includes promotion bonuses of £4m.
· Administrative costs more than doubled from £7.5m to £15.9m. There is no explanation in the accounts as to why this has happened (other than £900k promotion bonuses) and we will be taking this up with the club.
· Total debts of the company are up from £84m to £118m, of which £113m is payable by 31st of May 2014. Of that £113m, £66m is due to Vincent Tan (up from £37m in the previous year), £16m is due to Langston, £2.3m to the Player Fund and £1.5m to PMG. Both PMG and the Player Fund have since been paid off.
· Langston were owed £34m. That figure is made up of a £20m debt, £9m naming rights and £5m promotion bonus. This debt has now been settled for a total of £22m (that is £15m for the above plus a balance of £7m over 7 years at £1m a year. So Langston ultimately took a write-off of £12m.)
Despite the reduction in the Langston debt and Vincent Tan writing off £5m of interest he had previously charged the club, the losses have still rocketed up, including the big unexplained increase in administration costs.
So even though we made it to the Premier League we had a balance sheet deficit at 31 May 2013 of £56.3m compared to £28.1m at 31 May 2012. What price success eh? We will of course be asking the club to explain these figures in detail when we meet them.