Gloucester Rugby have reported a return to profit despite the Covid-19 pandemic having ”negatively impacted” the club’s revenue last season.
In a set of results for the year to June 30, 2021, the English Premiership side saw turnover dip by around 30% to £10.8m - down from £15.6m a year earlier.
The Cherry and Whites scored a pre-tax profit of £1.04m, compared to a loss before tax of just over £980,000 in 2020, with a net profit for the 2021 financial year of £141,500.
Gloucester Rugby’s board of directors said the continued support of the club’s partners, supporters, players and staff had helped it to get through “another difficult year.”
During the first national lockdown in March 2020 chief executive Lance Bradley revealed all staff at the club, including first team players, had taken a 25% pay cut to help with the loss of income generated by matchdays and tickets.
Fans were unable to return to the club’s Kingsholm Stadium for the majority of last season, aside from two matches in December 2020 and in restricted numbers for a game in May 2021.
The team’s last two matches of the Covid-19 impacted season had to be cancelled, leaving them in 11th place in the league’s final standings.
During the year Gloucester Rugby received an £11.2m loan from the Government’s £300m ‘Sports Winter Survival Package’, with its directors saying the funds injection had removed short term risk to the business and allowed for the repayment of liabilities.
Bosses said head coach George Skivington, appointed in July 2020, and senior leaders at the club were building an “exciting squad” featuring an increasing number of young players from its academy.
They added that the organisation had a “healthy” balance sheet with net assets of £8.8m, up from almost £8.7m in 2020.
Following the end of the 2020/21 season, Gloucester Rugby unveiled plans to redevelop a warehouse next door to Kingsholm for a new multi-million pound training facility in the city. An artificial pitch has also been laid at the stadium for this season, which the club said would allow it to host additional matches.
The club had a cash inflow of £5.5m in 2021, compared to an outflow of £2.2m in 2020. It said it was showing a fair value gain of around £3.7m (up from £13.8m to around £17.5m) on its shareholding in Premiership Rugby (PRL) - which is majority owned by the league’s clubs and centrally negotiates certain revenues including broadcasting.
Local shelving and storage company Bigdug is now the club’s main partner and front-of-shirt sponsor after Mitsubishi Motors, which had sponsored the club since 2007, announced it was set to end its involvement.
It followed the car manufacturer’s decision to stop selling new models of its vehicles in the UK as part of a cost-cutting overhaul of its global operations.
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