Bristol City have announced a pre-tax loss of £28.5million for the 2021/22 financial year which is £10m better off than last year but still a worryingly high figure.
The losses are for the year ending May 31, 2022 and reflects the return to normality following the coronavirus pandemic. City's turnover was £29.6m in the latest financial year compared to £16.6m in the year prior.
Ticketing revenue, which increased by £4.5m due to the return of supporters inside stadiums, played a significant contribution to the reduced figure while player wages also fell by £5m. City spent £26.9m on salaries during this financial year compared to £31.5m in 2020/21.
The hangover from Covid in the transfer market is still having a major impact on player sales with a profit on 'disposal of players' contracts' standing at £1.2m - down from £6.2m in 2020/21 and £25.6m in the year prior to that.
City's revenue grew by £13m down to the increase in matchday revenue, season ticket revenue and the sale of goods.
It does mean that City were still losing a staggering average of £500,000-a-week.
CEO Richard Gould said: “An improvement of £9.9m on the prior season loss is a step in the right direction. However, although we are pleased with the resilience shown in bouncing back from the Covid-19 pandemic, recording a large loss again this year demonstrates that there is a lot of work left to do.
“We benefitted from our supporters being able to return to Ashton Gate, from both a financial and an atmospheric viewpoint and we are forever grateful for their support, but the transfer market has shown only minimal signs of returning to the level it was prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.”
City have been working tirelessly to reduce the wage bill to fall in line with the EFL's Profit & Sustainability regulations. According to EFL rules, clubs aren't allowed to exceed losses of £39m over a rolling period of three years.
Those rules changed last year to take into consideration the crippling losses of the Covid pandemic. So the two Covid-impact season of 2019/20 and 2020/21 are packaged together and losses taken as an average.
City will also be also to claim for Covid add-backs including the estimated lost revenue for ticket prices and, more importantly, estimated losses due to the collapse of the transfer market.
Last month at a fans forum, Gould eased concerns that City will face a points deduction.
He said: "FFP has been an issue for all the clubs, particularly at the COVID losses. We were well within limits for the end of last season. For this season we’re not forecasting any problems either so positive report on that one.
"It's a very complicated calculation that's beyond me but there were a lot of Covid add-backs that the Football League allowed to be taken into consideration and the most important one being the collapse of the transfer market because you'd be aware transfers and sales have been very important to the club.
"That's an add-back that's been allowed by the EFL and the good news is we aren’t anticipating any problems this season.
"We don’t believe we’ve got a points deduction hanging over us. The uncertainty has been caused by the Football League have rightfully introduced the COVID add-backs. They’ve been trawling through the numbers and waiting for the validation. We are very confident there will not be a points deduction this year."
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