By David Owen
March 15 – Up-for-sale Southampton have become the latest Premier League club to serve notice that they tumbled into the red in 2018-19.
A statement on the club’s website says that St Mary’s Football Group Limited, incorporating Southampton Football Club Limited reported a loss after interest and tax of £34 million.
It also noted that total turnover for the year to end-June 2019 was down 2%. This would be the second-consecutive annual top-line decline, following a reduction from £178.3 million in 2016-17 to £148.4 million in 2017-18.
Accounts have yet to be made available by Companies House, but it seems likely that a decline in profits on player sales will emerge as the chief reason for the deterioration. While the pre-tax profit in 2017-18 reached £33.4 million, the Saints recorded a £35.2 million loss at the operating level.
The south-coast club has prospered in recent times by selling on a stream of talented players to bigger clubs, notably Liverpool, while retaining a strong enough squad to survive and sometimes thrive in England’s top tier.
While the marquee name among all these transferred players, Virgil van Dijk, looks to have been responsible for the bulk of the £68.9 million profit on player sales racked up in 2017-18, the biggest disposal likely to be included this time around is that of striker Manolo Gabbiadini to Sampdoria.
Though the club is unusual among its Premier League peers in experiencing two straight years of declining turnover, it is equally unusual in the control it has managed to assert over wages. Player remuneration was said to have risen by less than £1 million to £86.1 million, still below the £86.6 million recorded in 2016-17. The wage-to-turnover ratio has nonetheless been on the increase, from 61% in 2016-17 to 77% in the new numbers.
It was reported last week that Chinese property magnate Jisheng Gao had instructed brokers to sell his 80% stake for £250 million. Gao completed his acquisition of the Saints in August 2017 for £210 million.
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