Liverpool crunches but doesn’t juggle numbers
And, finally, after a Sunday of did-thatreally-happen rapture and a Wednesday of WTF delight, came the news, unexpected and yet to be expected, that Liverpool Football Club were finally forced to report a loss.
It had to come. The run had to end. The world and life, in its crushing stubbornness and inexorable way, regardless of romance nor the fairy tale, eventually catches up with juggernauts at some point.
“Liverpool report pretax loss and debt increase amid new stand development,” was the headline in the Guardian on Thursday. I read “loss”. It’s the word that stands out in the quick-scanning media world that has been dropped upon us.
“Liverpool made a pretax loss of £9m in 2022-23 when their wage bill increased to £373m and turnover remained static at £594m, the club’s latest accounts reveal,” read the report.
“Media revenue and matchday revenue fell in a season where Jürgen Klopp’s team made early exits from the Champions League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup. Liverpool’s turnover and finances remained stable, however, thanks to commercial revenue rising to a record £272m.
“A £25m increase on 2021-22’s figures means commercial revenue is the biggest revenue source of Liverpool’s three main income streams.”
GOOD READING
But, wait, readers of this fine business publication, for whom I am sure the numbers make good reading, there is more.
“Liverpool’s wage bill accounts for almost 63% of turnover and continues an upward trend that has seen staff costs rise by 79% from £208m to £373m since 2018. Media revenue fell by £19m to £242m and match-day revenue decreased by £7m to £80m as a disappointing season resulted in fewer TV appearances and fewer games at Anfield compared with the quadruplechasing campaign of 2021-22.”
There are upsides to this “loss”. Liverpool’s bank debt “rose by £49m to £123m due to the construction of the new Anfield Road stand. The £80m redevelopment will increase Anfield’s capacity to just over 61,000.”
In time, that debt will not be erased. Debt is a good thing if you are not you or me, a sign of health for an organisation that makes a business that can service and overcome that debt.
Or, in the case of Manchester United, merely service it and add to it to ensure a regular stream of income for your owners who performed the magic trick of borrowing against their purchase of the club to finance said purchase of the club. It is very possible I have got that warped in my understanding, but, I think it holds.
Chelsea owe a lot of money, and have spent a lot more. In 2022 they owed their sanctioned and dodgy Russian owner Roman Abramovich over £1bn. Chelsea, under their new owner, Todd “BuyBuy-Buy-Fire-Fire-Fire-OhWait-Bugger” Boehly, have spent £1bn on transfers and loans since he took over. Most of those have proven to be desperate, seat-of-the-pant purchases (read Andy Carroll for Liverpool fans) or wait-andsee purchases.
Just how you pay £220m for a midfield to wait and see how it does boggles the mind, and so it proved on Sunday in the Carabo Cup, a tournament whose sponsor makes little impact here in SA.
ACADEMY PLAYERS
Liverpool missed out on Moises Caicedo to Chelsea. They offered over £110m for him. He went Blue. He remains blue. Enzo Fernandez agreed terms with Liverpool in 2022, then, well, that went south. He is also blue now. They made up a £220m midfield pairing that was outclassed against Leeds in the FA Cup on Wednesday.
And, then, there is Liverpool. A team that crunch numbers instead of juggling them. James McConnell, a Liverpool academy player, came off the bench in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final to dominate the midfield. The other academy players, and there were, as you will have read, several of them.
“It was really touching the way they played and the way they contributed,” Klopp said of the young players. “The situation before we scored, when we got the corner, I don’t think I will ever forget it.
“Caoimhín (Kelleher) passes the ball out to Wataru, the ball goes left to (Jarell) Quansah, passes it down the line then Dannsy (Jayden Danns) chips the ball, James (McConnell) passes the ball to Bobby Clark, who is waiting between the lines. That is wonderful because these details in football are incredibly important
– the positions you are in – and these boys are doing it. It shows it’s possible. I didn’t know it was possible.
“If you’d asked me before this line-up: ‘Can you win a game in extra time against Chelsea?’ No. Impossible. But seeing it and being part of it is super special. I know we won bigger trophies, it just didn’t feel like that in that moment.”
Numbers count. Particularly when they start with “one” and “nil”.