It’s that time of year again.
No, it’s not the dawn of spring with birds chirping and daylight actually lasting longer than the working day, it’s the end of the financial year and that means Premier League clubs must present their full accounts for the previous financial year — essentially the 2021-22 season.
Some clubs have already filed their accounts, with fans pleasantly surprised/horrified/bewildered by the results, while others have left it until the last possible moment of today (close of play on March 31).
Below, The Athletic has compiled the headline figures from each club’s results, as well as where you can go for a more detailed financial analysis.
Arsenal filed their accounts in December and recorded a £45million ($55.6m) loss for the 2021-22 financial period, their fourth consecutive year without a profit.
The north London club saw their broadcast revenue decrease from £184.4m to £146m. This is in large part due to the fact that in the previous year, every Premier League game was televised in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so there was a larger income from broadcasters.
Arsenal are owed a further £40.4m by other clubs for remaining payments on player sales — but that figure is dwarfed by the £188m they owe to other clubs on previous player purchases.
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Earlier this month, Villa reported a small profit, £400,000, for the last financial year but perhaps the headline figure in their accounts was a £10m payment made to former owner Randy Lerner, which the club said was “following the retaining of Premier League status for the third consecutive season since promotion”.
The club did see their revenue fall slightly from £183.6m to £178.4m, having finished 14th the in Premier League last year after an 11th-placed showing in the previous season.
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The accounts for Brentford’s first season in the Premier League, filed earlier this week, show the club making a record turnover of £140m and a profit of £30m.
In what was their first-ever season in the Premier League, they earned more money than they did in the previous 30 combined.
Brighton’s good form on the pitch has continued off it — the south-coast club turned a £53.4m loss into a £24.1m profit in the latest accounts.
Last week’s results showed an increase in turnover to £174.5m from £145.9m, largely helped by the £66m brought in from the sales of Dan Burn to Newcastle United and Ben White to Arsenal.
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Bournemouth posted a pre-tax loss of £55.5m when they filed their accounts last week, with their revenue down from £71.7m to £53.2m despite their promotion back to the Premier League.
The club attribute their results to “a concerted effort” to earn promotion from the Championship, as well as a reduction in parachute payments.
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Palace have not yet filed their accounts.
Chelsea have not formally filed their accounts but did release a statement about their results on the club’s website earlier this week.
The west London club posted a loss of £121.3m, something they attribute primarily to the sanctions on former owner Roman Abramovich and the subsequent impact on the football team last spring.
Chelsea also point to “one-off expenses of £26.6million” contributing to their overall net loss. That comes from the compensation they had to pay to former head coach Antonio Conte and his staff following their dismissal in 2018 and a subsequent tribunal.
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Everton have not yet filed their accounts.
Fulham have not yet filed their accounts.
Leeds have not yet filed their accounts.
Leicester’s accounts earlier this month showed the club had made a loss of £92.5m.
Their revenue, the seventh-highest in the league behind the Big Six, was £215m but £182m of that was spent on wages alone.
Liverpool posted their accounts in February and they showed the club received record revenues of £594m, which saw them record a modest profit of £7.5m.
However, Liverpool’s wage bill shot up to £366m – an increase of nearly 17 per cent on the previous 12 months. The club were active in the transfer window, bringing in Luis Diaz and Fabio Carvalho, but also extended 22 players’ contracts during this period, a sure factor in the increase in wage expenditure.
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The reigning Premier League champions filed their accounts all the way back in November and reported a revenue of £613m and a profit of £41.7m.
City recorded a profit of £67.7million from transfers alone, a figure they expect to increase for the current season, which takes them to £250million profit over the past five years.
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Manchester United publicised their results for the 2021-22 year in September, which showed their revenue increasing from £583.2m to £494.1m. However, they recorded an net loss of £115.5m — the highest in their history.
United, though, are slightly different from their rivals. As a company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange, they file accounts every quarter (three months). In their latest showing, filed earlier this week, the Old Trafford club posted a £6.3m profit, their first since before the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago.
They also show that United owe £969.9m through a mixture of gross debt, their revolving credit facility and outstanding transfer payments.
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Newcastle have not yet filed their accounts.
Nottingham Forest have not yet filed their accounts.
Southampton filed their accounts earlier today, posting a pre-tax loss of £6m, a slight improvement on their showing from the previous year when they lost £13.7m.
That is despite the fact their player trading increased from a loss of just over £30m to a loss of only £3.5m.
Tottenham posted a £61m pre-tax loss when they revealed their accounts in February but did record their second-highest-ever revenue of £444m (behind only the 2018-19 season, in which they reached the Champions League final).
A large contributor to that was the fact that last year was the first at the club’s new stadium in which fans could attend every match. That saw Spurs’ post £106m in matchday income, accounting for almost a quarter of their total revenue.
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West Ham’s accounts in December showed the club made a £12.3m profit for the previous financial year, which was largely helped by the rise in turnover from £192m to £252.7m.
The club’s net debt also fell by £130million thanks to the £125million invested into the group by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, who acquired 27 per cent of new equity into the club in November 2021.
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Wolves posted a pre-tax loss of £46.1m from their accounts at the beginning of this month.
The club attributed £30m drop in income to the impacts of COVID-19, which saw games from the 2019-20 season pushed into 2020-21 accounting period, meaning there were 47 Premier League games included in those accounts, whereas the number dropped to the standard 38 in 2021-22, skewing both income and expenditure figures.
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(Photo: Getty Images)
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