{"id":56271,"date":"2022-03-04T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/?p=56271"},"modified":"2022-03-04T08:26:17","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T08:26:17","slug":"financial-lessons-to-learn-from-cardiff-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/2022\/03\/04\/financial-lessons-to-learn-from-cardiff-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial lessons to learn from Cardiff City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You can throw many criticisms at Swansea City owners &#8211; both past and present &#8211; but the one thing that has been consistent over the past twenty years has been the desire for the club not to spiral into debt.<\/p>\n<p>The club has largely lived within its means for many years now and even on the face of relegation from the Premier League in 2018 we have strived to maintain that even keel with sales, cutbacks and just a general prudence with our finances that stands us in good stead.<\/p>\n<p>As a fan that can be frustrating to watch especially as other clubs go about spending money like it is seemingly going out of fashion but the long term financial sustainability for the club should always come above a fruitless spend to achieve a goal that has not guarantees of succeeding.<\/p>\n<p>Back in December we learned that <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/2021\/12\/29\/bristol-city-loss-is-a-reality-check-for-clubs-everywhere\/\">Bristol City posted a \u00a338m loss<\/a><\/strong> in their financial accounts and yesterday there was reports much closer to home &#8211; from our friends up the M4 &#8211; of a debt of \u00a3109m and an operating loss of more than \u00a312m during the year<\/p>\n<p>It is a stark reality though of life in the Championship and a result of any club continually needing prop ups from an owner to survive.\u00a0 \u00a0Cardiff&#8217;s two singular seasons in the Premier League have left the legacy of that debt which, whilst not immediately payable,\u00a0 remains a burden over any club let alone a club at this level of football.<\/p>\n<p>The accounts showed some key points to note<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Average weekly wage of \u00a315,500<\/li>\n<li>Highest paid director at \u00a3413k<\/li>\n<li>A small profit on player transfers (\u00a32.2m)<\/li>\n<li>Broadcast revenue was up year on year leading towards an increase of turnover of \u00a39m<\/li>\n<li>Owed to the club was more than \u00a36.5m in transfer installments with commitments to other clubs on the same of up to \u00a35.9m<\/li>\n<li>Loans from directors\/shareholders were up more than \u00a330m to over \u00a381m with total new loans for the year in excess of \u00a340m<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The accounts also made reference to the Emilio Sala case that is currently at the Court of Arbitration for Sport where they reference &#8220;a good chance of success&#8221; but have included adequate provision in the accounts if it should prove to be unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>The final key point though is that since the year end the club have borrowed a further \u00a322.1m at rates of up to 9% with loans of \u00a33.1m being repaid thus increasing the overall debt of the football club.<\/p>\n<p>These figures are at a time where parachute payments have been received by the club and with this being their third season outside of the top flight we know the impact of that fourth season and the reduction of these, something that the financial team at Cardiff City will have been working on for several seasons now.<\/p>\n<p>These figures should serve as a stark reality to the financial balance that all football clubs to balance at all levels.\u00a0 There is a real fine line that clubs have to tread between success and failure and whilst some succeed in the top echelons of the Premier League it can go so dramatically wrong with just one poor season that can see that financial blanket given to you by your broadcast income in the Premier League cut to a shoestring on which it is impossible to manage.<\/p>\n<p>Credit there from our perspective should go to the likes of Trevor Birch and Julian Winter who were handed that task in the immediate years following our relegation and whilst it has not been pleasant to watch the likes of James, Rodon, McBurnie and Roberts moving on elsewhere it has been a necessary pain to pay to avoid figures such as those posted out of Leckwith.<\/p>\n<p>There is a danger out of accounts such as these &#8211; and Cardiff are certainly not the exception fully at Championship level &#8211; that fans see this as the norm within clubs and become incredible blas\u00e9 about the figures posted but this is a position that can rarely end well at any club and there are many examples that can be pointed at where it has indeed not ended well.<\/p>\n<p>For our sake as Swans fans we have to take the lessons that can be gleaned from football accounts and remember that ours may lead to accusations of &#8220;penny pinching&#8221; or &#8220;no ambition&#8221; but the long term sustainability of Swansea City means much more than spending money that we do not have.<\/p>\n<p>Anything else can be the price of modern day football and the consequences are not something I would necessarily want to think about.<\/p>\n<p>For a more in depth view of football finances you can follow the excellent &#8220;Price of Football&#8221; on Twitter <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KieranMaguire\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You can throw many criticisms at Swansea City owners &#8211; both past and present &#8211; but the one thing that has been consistent over the past twenty years has been the desire for the club not to spiral into debt. The club has largely lived within its means for many years now and even on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[293,49,203],"tags":[546,577,608],"class_list":["post-56271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-team","category-news","category-opinion","tag-cardiff-city","tag-julian-winter","tag-the-2021-22-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackarmy.net\/wp67\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}