Michael Keane helps ‘best of the rest’ Burnley to impressive £45m profit

By David Owen

April 4 – Burnley, the team from the Lancashire mill town, have reported an impressive pre-tax profit of £45.1 million for the 2017-18 season when the Clarets qualified for Europe for the first time in more than half a century.

The result compared with a profit of £27.3 million in 2016-17. Turnover for the year to end-June 2018 also climbed, by nearly 15% from £121.2 million to £139 million.

With costs on the increase, the improvement was mainly the consequence of player sales, notably defender Michael Keane’s £25 million move to Everton in July 2017.

These transfers produced a gain of £30.7 million, up from just £1.3 million the year before. This was even though the cash flow statement indicated that the club spent nearly £27 million more on “intangible fixed assets” than it received in 2017-18 – £41.4 million versus £14.6 million.

Operating profit was actually down by nearly half from 2016-17 levels, at £14.4 million against just under £26 million. This was explained chiefly by a £20 million jump in staff costs from £61.2 million to £81.6 million.

“The Premier League ‘wages league’ is one we are certainly not bottom of anymore,” noted Mike Garlick, chairman, saying the year-on-year jump was the result of “our determination to be more competitive in the market, coupled with increased bonuses for both players and coaching staff”.

The club’s seventh-place Premier League finish meant, according to Garlick, that it could “genuinely lay claim to being classed as ‘the best of the rest’”. He added: “In many ways we were the champions of the Premier League second tier.”

The Clarets have endured a more difficult season this time around, however, tumbling out of the Europa League in the play-off round, at the hands of Greece’s Olympiacos, and having still not secured their Premier League future for another year with just six games to play.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1711718230labto1711718230ofdlr1711718230owedi1711718230sni@n1711718230ewo.d1711718230ivad1711718230