Are Wolverhampton Wanderers Penny Wise And Pound Foolish?

A raft of posts and threads about Wolverhampton Wanderers’ financial plight and the Neto sale has been added to the site so I will add one more.

You are only allowed to lose £105m on a rolling 3 year basis but we lost £107m before player sales in our 2022/23 accounts and £58m the year before – circa £20m increase in both wages and player contract amortization plus £5m higher finance charges and a £3m insurance claim in the prior years accounting for the bulk of the difference.

This became £64 and £43m losses after player sales. Note that for FFP, (or whatever it is now called), there are allowances for various matters, so these won’t be the losses we carry for those purposes but won’t be massively wrong.

Hence last year 2023/24 we had to pretty much break even. Clearly we did so, we were not fined or deducted points etc. However we only made one major Profit and Loss sale in Neves, plus a number of other smaller sales, (from a profit perspective), in Coady, Jimenez, Sanderson, Giles, Collins and Nunes, so made nothing like £107m profit from player sales. Consequently, our pre player sales loss must have been markedly lower than £107m.

Given these summer of 2023 sales, net of our purchases, would have significantly reduced amortisations and wages for 2023/24 and surely revenues would have slowly marched forward it is not unreasonable to assume that our 2023/24 loss pre sales would have been perhaps some £30-£40m lower perhaps circa £70m?
Roughly in line, perhaps with the profits made from player sales.

Now, for 2024/25 we can afford to lose circa £40m as the 2021/22 figure drops out of the calculation. However our underlying loss pre player sales will still be far higher than that although probably sub £70m as hopefully once again revenues will edge upwards and costs should be down again down – no managers paid off this year for the first time in 3 years for example.

So after the Kilman sale we should be well clear and free. If we aren’t and we actually needed to sell Neto this summer, then that means losses must be running some £50m higher than the figures indicate and we are in deep, deep financial and football trouble.

Maybe not this year, as the squad should still be good enough to survive, or financially probably even next year when we can sell RAN and Gomes J but after that – assuming we haven’t already been relegated, when all bets are off, – who can we sell for circa £90m pure profit?

I have been banging this drum for a while now, but…