Town made a loss of £15.96 million in the year to June 2012, the club’s annual report and accounts have revealed, with the Blues’ overall debt rising to £79.62 million.

The club’s turnover during the year to June 2012 was £15.04 million, down on the previous year’s figure of £17.25 million.

Gate receipts were down from £6.64 million in the year to June 2011 to £5.36 million, while commercial income dropped from £5.11 million to £4.69 million and television and media revenue fell from £5.5 million to £4.99 million.

Despite the likes of Jimmy Bullard and Lee Bowyer being recruited during 2011/12, wages for all staff employed by the club footballing or otherwise remained much the same at £15.96 million compared with £15.67 million the previous year. The accounts show that former chief executive Simon Clegg was paid an annual wage of £193,000.

Town made a profit on player trading of £248,000, down somewhat on the previous year’s total of £10.84 million which included the fees for Connor Wickham and Jon Walters, which led to the club making a smaller loss in 2010/11 of £3.18 million.

In the year to June 2012 £3.49 million in interest was added to the balance sheet, compared with £3.35 million the previous year.

The club’s overall debt — which is owed almost wholly to companies owned by Marcus Evans - rose to £79.62 million from £72.83 million at the end of the previous financial year.

The accounts also show that the club's training ground was sold to Marcus Evans (Guernsey) for £1.32 million with Town now paying an annual rent of £40,000.

Photo: Action Images

backinbeige added 10:45 - Apr 5 Is Marcus soaking these debts up or are they going to remain with the club? Not that I'm demanding he does - he's done a lot for the club already - just interested to know.
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Guthrum added 10:55 - Apr 5 They are the club's debts (almost entirely) to Evans. Over half of which are him bankrolling our annual losses.
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TractorCam added 10:59 - Apr 5 "Television and media revenue fell from £5.5 million to £4.9 million" Perhaps if Sky televised teams other than the likes of Blackburn, Birmingham and Leeds......
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Marcus added 11:01 - Apr 5 Evans is using the clubs like a venture capitalist. He's here to make things profitable and when that happens and it gets to a point where he can't get any more from the club he'll sell to the best offer. His plan messed up by signing a couple of managers who were better with words than with getting results but I don't think his long term plan has changed.
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jas0999 added 11:05 - Apr 5 No surprise. After several poor seasons, gate receipts were always going to drop, which has a knock on effect on other revenues. We also don't have too many saleable assests from the playing side. The clubs 'loan' policy is one of the reasons why. The loss is bigger primarily because we didn't have a Wickham to sell.
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lojd added 11:11 - Apr 5 If we didn't have MM in charge of the football team I would be extremely worried about the club, just think what next year's trading figures would look like if we were in the League 1!
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Nthsuffolkblue added 11:17 - Apr 5 Tractorcam - that's the nature of us not being one of the top sides in the division. Our own gates have dropped and Sky don't see us as an attractive option for TV viewers. Get in and around the top four regularly and Sky will start showing us again. If Blackburn, Leeds and Birmingham spend 4 or 5 seasons nowhere near the top 6 then Sky will show them less and less. Football is one of the most results-driven businesses around.

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FenboyBlue added 11:32 - Apr 5 You make a loss in Britain to avoid tax and declare your profit elsewhere, don't you ? That's the trick.
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itfcbarmyarmy added 11:38 - Apr 5 If Marcus Evans sold the club would he take these debts with him or leave them with the club always something that has worried me a bit although we are far from the worse off in the economic world of football.
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MickMillsTash added 12:05 - Apr 5 Should we be worried that the club has sold the training ground? I've never been up there but suspect that you could build a lot of houses on it - £1.32 million seems to be a low price - am i right? Quite staggering wages vs performance figures, Evans must hate footballers
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WeirdFishes added 12:08 - Apr 5 I for one am dissapointed we've sold the training ground, it seems like we're just trying to get what ever money we can from anything
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Mark added 12:15 - Apr 5 The failure to trade effectively in the transfer market is a large part to blame. When was the last time we bought a player and sold him for a profit? Jon Walters wasn't it? A Magilton signing. Going back to the Burley years, we used to sell a key player every season to balance the books but we kept bringing in new recruits and developing youth players whose value appreciated. Hopefully McCarthy will use his transfer budget more wisely and move away from the short-term loan policy. I also question whether the club does enough to attract NEW supporters. Match day ticket prices are so high. Promotions are just twice a year, and then limited to four tickets per season ticket holder - I could have sold several times my allocation to potential fans of the future. We need to do more to fill the seats and get new people interested.

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Nthsuffolkblue added 12:15 - Apr 5 I see what you are saying, MickMillsTash, but I suspect it was the market value as it is another way for Evans to get some value out of his debt and remove taxable profit from some of his business assets. For as long as Evans owns the club and the training ground I suspect this is no problem. However, if he sells one without the other then there could be a problem unless there are easily available suitable training facilities elsewhere. I think our training facilities are supposed to be very good which would suggest alternatives wouldn't be as good.

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Nthsuffolkblue added 12:19 - Apr 5 Spot on, Mark. One thing Norwich got right when they went down was to market the club well - their attendances rose. Of course, they also got things right on the pitch and developed cheap players as you suggest. Mind you, if they had not appointed Lambert but continued with Gunn or similar this would have failed epically.
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brittaniaman added 12:27 - Apr 5 Marcus Evans spent a fortune refurbishing the offices and training facilities,,, to suit our Dark Lord as he was not satisfied wiyh the set up ???????
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arablue added 12:42 - Apr 5 Gotta thank ME for continue to fund ITFC. So he' funding the club at about a million a month after taking out the interests charged. The club owes ME 79m - this is quite common practise for funding loss making entities, which most football clubs are. Assuming he will sell the club, he will be able toget the new buyer to pay him back what the club owes him, or part of it. As other posters said, this could turn out to be big business for him, especially if we do get to the prem league...

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Surco72 added 12:56 - Apr 5 Why has no one mentioned the fact we are in a global recession and the spending power isnt there ? Hull have been near the top all season and their attendances have dropped by double that of ours . All teams Brighton aside are struggling with attendances and have been dropping regardless of success. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21142999 And to be fair to Sky we have been bottom all season and are the lowest scorers ,not a mouth watering prospect for the neutral fan for TV ?

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wkj added 13:12 - Apr 5 it's okay; once Chopra pays back his loans we'd actually have made a profit
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IamSpartacus added 13:43 - Apr 5 Can't be all about matchday tickets- even if 5000 more paid an average £25 per match over a season, that is just a £2.8mil increase to reduce the debt. That said, the matchday prices are ridiculous and do nothing to protect the future of the club.. We have always relied on nurturing youth talent and the last 2 managers didn't know the first thing about this aspect of the game- they were all about spend spend and old old. This was a massive screw up by Evans and Clegg, but MM, to me, is the right person at the right time (almost a McGarry before the Robson). The real elephant in the room throughout the game is players wages. Way too high at the top and way too high for average players at lower levels (ie: ours). Until that is sorted, how will clubs ever sort debts as opposed to go out of business?

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brendenward35 added 13:43 - Apr 5 I think the club must start to live in the real world, for most incomes have either dropped, frozen or very little increase over the past few years. They are never going to fill a stadium with current ticket prices and the high cost of food & drink. I'm chairman of a u16's football team and I've just received through the door offer from Sunderland AFC for 2 adult tickets for £10 each to see a premiership game for everyone in the club. This type of offer is not uncommon and shows the club wanting to put bums on seats something ITFC very rarely do. For the cost of 1 adult ticket you can take 2 adults to a warm cinema and watch a movie and even then we moan at the high cost of watching a movie so really puts things into perspective.

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bluemikey100 added 13:50 - Apr 5 premiership football next season under mick debt gone everything lookin rosey again
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woodster added 14:01 - Apr 5 If we ever get promoted to the £100m a year PL bonanza, Marcus could decide to pay back the ever increasing £80m he's "owed" from the ever increasing debt to himelf - not a bad return considering he was rumoured to have only paid £8m or so for bought the original £35m Norwich Union/Barclays debt - still, beggars can't be choosers
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muhrensleftfoot added 14:07 - Apr 5 This gets boring. My figures may be a few million out, but it goes something like this. ME Group bought the club and its £36m debt for around £8m from Barclays, effectively transferring the total £36m debt to ME Group. The idea was, ME would invest around £10-£15m for new players etc, get promotion within 1 or 2 seasons, earn mega millions from the Premier League Sky Money, so that ITFC could then pay back its total debt to the ME Group in full, thus showing massive profit for ME Group of approx £28m. Unfortunately it didn't work out like that, & the club owes ME Group so much now, they can't even offload the club and cut their losses, so they're stuck with it.

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algarvefan added 14:51 - Apr 5 murhensleftfoot that is pretty much how I see it too. Not only that he is earning off the debt and now the training ground. This is a far cry from the Cobbold days I'm sad to say :-(
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suffolkpunchdrunk added 14:55 - Apr 5 The accounts show that former chief executive Simon Clegg was paid an annual wage of £193,000....................................well that was money well spent!
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