Bournemouth have had to pay a fine of £7.6 million for breaching financial fair play rules after piling up huge losses last season as they won promotion to the Barclays Premier League, the club’s accounts have revealed.
The Football League has never confirmed the size of the penalty, but the details that are disclosed in the accounts, which also show that Bournemouth made a £38.3 million loss in the Sky Bet Championship last season.
That loss was mainly due to players’ wages — the salary bill of £30.4 million during the 2014-15 season was more than double the club’s £12.9 million turnover. The wages soared by 76 per cent in one year, including performance bonuses for winning promotion to the Premier League, and the ratio of salaries to turnover was a staggering 237 per cent of turnover, something unprecedented among top-flight clubs.
Under Football League rules, clubs are permitted to lose only £6 million per season or face sanctions. Financial fair play cases against Leicester City and Queens Park Rangers have yet to be finalised.
Bournemouth’s figures suggest that the fairytale view of the club as having achieved a place among the elite of English football on a shoe-string budget, within two seasons of being in League One, may be somewhat misleading. The accounts show that Bournemouth effectively — and successfully — gambled heavily on securing promotion to the Premier League.
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Last season’s wage bill actually topped that of Burnley, who were in the Premier League last season, and was £10 million more than Watford, who also won promotion.
The club’s Russian owner, Maxim Demin, has pumped in millions of pounds and the net debt doubled last season to £40.3 million.
However, the gamble looks to have paid off in that their income from the Premier League’s TV money will be at least £66 million and should cover expenditure even with further increases in wages and transfer spending. Surviving in the top flight is even more important financially, as the new Premier League television deal which starts next season will guarantee a minimum of £100 million per club.
Bournemouth’s chairman, Jeff Mostyn, says in the report that the club is “aware of the risk associated with reliance upon finance from its parent company to fund operations” but that the directors are confident that this risk is “minimal”.
“Football wages, including promotion bonuses and paid player signing-on fees, continue to be the largest expense for the club, with a 76 per cent increase in total staff costs from the previous year,” he said.
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• Walsall kept alive their hopes of automatic promotion to the Sky Bet Championship with a 3-1 win over Fleetwood Town yesterday. Walsall must win their final game of the season away to Port Vale and hope that Burton Albion, who are three points ahead, lose away to Doncaster Rovers — with one result being by two goals. Fleetwood need a point against already relegated Crewe to ensure they stay up.