Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has given an assessment of Town’s accounts for the year to the end of June 2018 which were published this morning.

The club released their regular Financial Highlights statement to shareholders in December ahead of the AGM but the accounts have now been formally lodged with Companies House.

Although largely a familiar story from December's announcement and previous years, one notable figure quoted in the accounts is the £436,000 Town spent on transfer fees during that year, largely the £250,000 paid to Rangers for Martyn Waghorn plus the smaller sums paid for the likes of Barry Cotter and Aaron Drinan. Joe Garner and Emyr Huws joined late on in the previous financial year.

Ipswich Town published a 'greatest hits' of their accounts in a press release on 4 Dec 2018. The full accounts were published at 6am this morning. A look at the club's transfer policy might explain why some figures weren't originally shown @Benjaminbloom– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Ipswich spent just £436,000 on players in 2017/18 and had player sales of £4.1 million. Total spending in last 7 years is £7.3 million and sales are £22.5 million #ITFC pic.twitter.com/LKThJkYmH5– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Ipswich spent the lowest of any club in the Championship (who have reported to date) on new players in 2017/18, legacy of that strategy perhaps being felt this season? Middlesbrough spent £150.29 on players for every £1 spent by #ITFC #Boro pic.twitter.com/BgMVFaYdgo– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Ipswich were slightly below mid table in 2017/18 in the Championship in terms of player sales #ITFC pic.twitter.com/eKHYZTCFNs– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Marcus Evans lent Ipswich £6.2 million last season. The total due to him is tricky to calculate as funnelled through many companies, some in offshore tax havens #ITFV pic.twitter.com/psCrrw6459– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

In 2017/18 the two clubs with the lowest wage bills were relegated (Sunderland haven't published yet but their demise was due to other reasons). Ipswich consistently in the bottom six wage payers, so would expect to be in a relegation fight each season #ITFC pic.twitter.com/YxjhzamH5B– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

The problem for ME (and other club owners) is that wages usually exceed income, even for clubs deemed unambitious by fans, so it's a case of setting a ceiling on the amount of weekly losses which are deemed to be acceptable to the owner. pic.twitter.com/mSz0SY6YFo– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Ipswich had losses pre player sales of £160,000 a week in 2017/18, compared to the average in the division of £390,000 as owners chase the Premier League TV gold at the end of the rainbow #ITFC pic.twitter.com/8tgcVi1nGy– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Net transfer spend in the Championship was a negative £30 million in 2017/18 as many clubs had to sell players to help cover their trading losses and #ITFC were one of them. pic.twitter.com/sVhwPvI3vA– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Ipswich's squad at end of 2017/18 cost a total of £2.8 million, which again is one of the lowest in the division. pic.twitter.com/dlsCM6XrBD– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

One problem is that turnstile income in the Championship contibuted just 20 pence for each £1 paid out in wages, couple this with relatively low TV money and all clubs are making losses.– PriceOfFootball (@KieranMaguire) March 9, 2019

Photo: Action Images

Bluearmy_81 added 16:12 - Mar 9 And that ladies and gents is why we're going down. #thanksevans
-2

Cloddyseedbed added 17:08 - Mar 9 You get what you pay for, unless your a season ticket holder of ITFC and have been since the early 80's.
2

bradforblues added 18:15 - Mar 9 Firstly, I can't see any reason to be a football chairman, according to the above you will lose a tonne o money. We may blame Evans for our demise but how can anyone afford to run a loss making business, invest and incur more losses but if you get promoted you might see that return but oh wait wages go through the roof and player purchase costs triple at least. Only billionaires have money to burn. Secondly, Hull City seem to be a fantastically well run club, how do they do it ?

1

Terry_Nutkins added 19:05 - Mar 9 Bluearmy81 - with your snide thanksevans hashtag you read the above and understand that we are making a loss to the tune of several million each year which he plugs?! Your upset tgat he doesn't throw more of his millions away to keep you happy?! It makes bad reason but doesnt really show him in a bad loght does it! This is more the state of football.
9

ghostofescobar added 19:05 - Mar 9 Is there any way ME could wriggle out of that? Seems starkly obvious why we will be playing third tier footy next season.
1

TonyHumesIpswich added 19:17 - Mar 9 Highlights the huge issue in football these days. Money.
6

blueboy1981 added 19:50 - Mar 9 Anyone with a brain cell - will now aim a bit less criticism in the direction of Evans. I did say 'with a brain cell'.
5

Dog added 01:16 - Mar 10 Come on then Blueboy. I have drank copious amounts of alcohol and only have a quarter of a brain cell. Why should we aim less criticism at this parasite / leech???. I have an accounts o level and i reckon i could get the books to balance before his fiction takes over!!!
-3

pennblue added 07:23 - Mar 10 Whilst it might not be a popular opinion, Evans lack of investment compared to other chairman IS the reason we are going down. Any other club would be having mass protests to get him out. Football clubs are not a great investment, well no sh*t!!! Neither are boats, or flash cars!!! I think next season is will see a change of strategy which might work... to an extent. There is no doubt our long term strategy has to be youth development, we will never compete with Man Utd / City / Chelsea unless we get a home grown owner with a lot of money, so I think this is our only positive. The trouble is of course, just throwing the U23's into the 1st team is likely to backfire unless, we have 4 or 5 players of the ability of Judge to help them through. Well these cost money!!!

1

Bluearmy_81 added 08:11 - Mar 10 Your upset that he doesn't throw more of his millions away to keep you happy?! Terry, yes!! And so should you be, you're a fan of ITFC, I don't get you people! You don't buy a football club and if it doesn't work out just let it rot?! As someone above said other clubs fans would have been demonstrating long ago. Had we done this years ago maybe, just maybe we wouldn't be in the sorry state we are now. If he carries on in the same way and for example invests league two levels in league one we will be a very long time getting out of that league in the right direction. Still some of you will cheer him from the rooftops! Baffling.

0

BlueMachines added 08:45 - Mar 10 Basically players are overpaid. Sky and a TV money has become a poison in football. And money leaving the game through agents must also be resolved.
2

DoseOfReality added 09:51 - Mar 10 Our national game is now a business & hope of success for clubs such as ours is restricted to the wealth & ambition of the owner. Running a club properly & building strong youth promotion is the only chance we have & its been missing since Evans took over. It's a worry that a finance expert can't work out the debt due to tax havens and off shore investment ... tells its own story.

1

Bluearmy_81 added 11:10 - Mar 10 Anyone with a brain cell - will now aim a bit less criticism in the direction of Evans. What absolute rot! These figures show plain as day how Evans chronic underinvestment more than anything else, has led to us playing in the third tier for the first time since the fifties?!! What sort of ITFC fan are you?!!
-2

Cotton_eyed_joe added 12:31 - Mar 10 bluearmy you had better start saving up to buy the club as Evans isn't going anywhere soon. When u have bought the club let everyone see how much money a year you are happy to lose.
1

jas0999 added 12:38 - Mar 10 Evans is fully to blame. For years he has been spouting the £6M a year investment into the club, but a significant amount of that has been subsidised by player sales. We are simply not competitive enough and why we are sadly going down.
1

Bluearmy_81 added 13:10 - Mar 10 Cotton eye job, your line of reasoning is perplexing. I didn't buy the club, nor can I afford to, Evans did. I've read this "if you can't buy the club don't criticise" line before, it's absolute rubbish!! He has effectively let the club rot, why on earth, as a town fan, are you defending him?! Utterly mystifying!
0

senduntd added 14:58 - Mar 10 Dog Try looking up the meaning of parasite and leech. If any one is a parasite its ITFC extracting money from ME just to function. We are very fortunate to have such a generous guy because without him we would have gone bankrupt years ago.
1

Bluearmy_81 added 15:23 - Mar 10 So kind yeah, what a guy. Gets nothing out of its all, all out of the goodness of his heart!! Wake up
-1

VILJOEN67 added 18:59 - Mar 10 This just demonstrates the lunacy of the Football industry. Nice that it should be a sport rather than a business.
0

BlueandTruesince82 added 20:10 - Mar 10 Club loses £160k a week, fans scream at owner why isnt it losing more? Said before Evans bought just before the cost if football went into the stratosphere. Until somone with deeper pockets comes along (they wont) Evans pumps his money into keeping it afloat. Bolton used to PL, the owner couldnt sustain the loses, he sold up, look at them now... that was in the PL. All well ans good calling for more money, bigger wages etc, all you are asking for is that the club be run less sustainability. If many Town fans were as willing to part with their cash as they would like to be the Kevin Beattie would have his statue funded by now.... that must be Alanis Morisette I can hear playing

0

norfolkbluey added 07:25 - Mar 11 Financially speaking this club has not been run particularly efficiently for several years. Finding talent and nurturing young players is the key fact here and we haven't done that well for several years. We have done better with players like Waghorn but we haven't done well at holding on to them. The likes of Bobby Robson and his scouting team are a rare commodity these days. What has happened to the quality of our scouting? It seems to me that this is one of the reasons we are not doing well financially in comparison to the successful clubs. Do we have any foreign players in our team? Not as far as I can see. Remember the dutch players and our little spaniard to name only two countries. Our club needs to wise up and scour the continent as well as this country for talent. Vardy another real diamond found in the lower leagues. It is not all doom and gloom but the management needs to invest in good scouts and not let our talented players go cheaply. It may be the making of our once famous club to go down despite it feeling like a dagger through the heart. Look at Norwich and Leeds now let alone Man City! So chins up everyone there is a future as long as the club management do their jobs efficiently. Lets get behind ME and PL and encourage them to examine how things can be improved and whats gone wrong over the last ten years which started with RK! despite his eye for the excellent players he brought into the club. I will never stop supporting this club of ours and the thoughts of adding yellow into my palette makes me feel ill. LOL

1

Bergholtblue added 08:56 - Mar 11 That is a good point Norfolkbluey. Do we actually have a scouting team? Who are they? Or is it all done by waiting for agents to peddle their players? Clubs issuing lists of players that they are prepared to let go on loan.
0

Blogs 295 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls