Watford will have to ‘sell players year on year’

We wont sit here and lie to our readers, most of this financial mumbo jumbo has gone ‘whooooooosh’; straight over our heads, we’ve enough trouble in fact trying to understand why Nathan Ellington is on as much a week as your average person earns in a year. So ‘overheads’, ‘gross profits’ and ‘shortfalls’ mean little to us!

However, we’ve done our best to cut out the filler and give you the cold hard facts from Watford Leisure PLC’s end of year results.

Essentially, the Hornet’s made a loss of nearly £2million, that despite the sales of Smith, Williamson, McAnuff, Priskin, and former manager Rodgers. A stark contrast to this time last year where a profit of nearly 500k was announced!

Watford did however see a £716,000 rise in revenue, largely thanks to a £1.55million rise in loan fees and two cup runs reaching the League Cup Quarters and facing Chelsea in the F.A Cup.

A large cut in sales in administrative expenses showed a drop of £2,152,000m in wages alone and and a total drop of £2,948,000m. Which Salad Boy Russo went on to explain – thankfully:

“Further evidence of cost reduction measures taken will be evident in the financial statements for the current financial year as significant work has been undertaken in this area across both the administrative and playing side of the business.

“The nature of football contracts makes it difficult to transition this cost very quickly as contracts generally cover a two, three or four year period.

“The summer transfer window allowed for some movement and with a number of contracts expiring in June 2010 the real evidence of the ‘new’ player salary model will not be seen until the 2010/2011 financial statements.”

A gross profit rise saw a jump from 455k to £3,287,000million and also the paying off of a £7million bank loan. However, a large amount has been borrowed off the Hornet’s directors to help avoid administration three times.

Once again that £6.5million figure comes up and Jimmy and Vince need to find that sum to cover the shortfall between now and June 2010.

It has also been confirmed that at present, the Hornet’s will have ‘to sell players year on year’ to ease their financial situation.

Footnote Finally, CEO Julian Winter has confirmed planned talks between the owners and majority shareholder Lord Michael Ashcroft have not happened. It was expected that talks would occur between the Russo’s and the Tory with a view to how the club would re-finance going forward. Surprise surprise the politician has done as politicians do and avioided all talk of actually putting a few quid in.