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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
There are some common issues that fans should concern themselves with if ever they should choose to review the finances of the club they support. Whilst the majority of club owners and accounts have no issues surrounding them, there are some discrepancies and disclosures that anyone should look out for if they are concerned about their club's financial well-being.
Better late than never
All UK limited companies must submit their accounts to Companies House, the government registrar of companies, within nine months of their financial year end. This is part of the price that limited companies pay for the benefits of being incorporated. The main advantage of being a “limited” business is that should the company enter into a corporate bankruptcy arrangement (which has been a common occurrence for football clubs in the past) then the maximum loss to the owners would be the value of the shares bought in the club. This could be a considerable amount of money, but creditors are unable to pursue the company owners on a personal level for monies owed, which would be the case if the club operated as a sole trader or partnership business. The downside to limited liability status is that companies are subject to greater regulation, such as submitting their accounts to a government agency where they are subject to public scrutiny.
Preparing a set of accounts is not something that can be done overnight for a football club with revenue of anywhere between £2 million and £600 million, but at the same time it should not take more than nine months. If clubs are late in submission it can only be if there is an item in the accounts that is being disputed at board level and the directors cannot agree, or the club doesn't want fans (and other interested parties) to see some of the figures, for whatever reason.
Crystal Palace have a financial year end of 30 June and have operated as CPFC 2010 Limited since their owners had bought the club from the administrators in 2010. At 31 March 2018 they had still not submitted figures for the year to 30 June 2017.
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