The accounts were nearly a month late being submitted and relate to the year ending May 2020, which will only include three months of COVID-19 impact. The accounts are unaudited and lack detail as the club take advantage of being a small company, whereas over 70% of clubs in league one last year produced full accounts including a split of income and expenditure.
Highlights of accounts
- Swindon Town lost c£1.3m in the year to May 2020 vs a c£1.7m loss the previous year
- Short term creditors (debt due within one year) has increased by c£0.4m mainly driven by increased taxation & social security debt which I would expect to be due to government covid-19 policies
- Creditors due after 1 year has generally been the debenture debt (relatively stable) and then LP director loans
- Long term creditors (Debt due after one year) – Increased by c£0.8m from 2019 mainly due to Lee Power providing loans of c£0.6m into STFC vs repayment of directors loans worth £0.9m in 2019
Notes to the accounts
- Lee Power paid a company controlled by himself c£0.225m for recruitment fees, a similar figure was in previous years accounts
- Income relating to transfer fees in 2016 of c£1.4m was incorrectly identified as a director loan in previous accounts and has been restated
- Profit of c£0.6m in 2019 was recognised as turnover in 2019, which has been reclassified as an admin expense (due to lack of detail, this is hard to explain at this point, but does appear quite odd)
- The average number of staff decreased from 133 to 99, which will be down to cost cutting of backroom/admin staff and squad size adjustments.
We have to remember that this only covers the financial position of the club up until May 2020 so the financial position at the club is no doubt got worse due to income reduced due to Covid and also due to relegation to league 2.
Thanks to TrustSTFC board member Keith Coatsworth for this analysis.