Financial Results to 31 May 2022

[Abseits]

I really don't like it. I realise it's sort of "normal" in football to rack up eye-watering debt but I would much prefer it if owners just said: NO - we will now remain firmly within our means and cull the staff and wage bill.

Obviously this would probably see us plummet down the EFL but I'd rather that than continue with this current madness which, let's face it, isn't actually delivering sparkling football and results is it!?

[shaggy24]

I really don't like it. I realise it's sort of "normal" in football to rack up eye-watering debt but I would much prefer it if owners just said: NO - we will now remain firmly within our means and cull the staff and wage bill.

Obviously this would probably see us plummet down the EFL but I'd rather that than continue with this current madness which, let's face it, isn't actually delivering sparkling football and results is it!?

We have to be ruthless if a bid comes in for assett sell them gotta move forwards, Brentford did it and recruited again its sustainable but equally if we spot a talent at 3m make sure they are fit and half decent for a change

[Darkranger]

Is it just me, but things just never seem to improve. No matter how much we cut back on player fees and wages our debts just keep on mounting.
I realise we are totally dependent on player sales, but our business model is surely unsustainable.
We must be dangerously close to our FFP limit again.
Is it realistic to limit our losses to a more manageable amount, without player sales?
First person who mentions the DOF wages wins a coconut.

[topperharley]

Is it just me, but things just never seem to improve. No matter how much we cut back on player fees and wages our debts just keep on mounting.
I realise we are totally dependent on player sales, but our business model is surely unsustainable.
We must be dangerously close to our FFP limit again.
Is it realistic to limit our losses to a more manageable amount, without player sales.
First person who mentions the DOF wages wins a coconut.

We've had a bad run of luck, a good does of naiveity, a spoonful of mis-management and a dash of incompetence.

We have been propped up by enough positives (Warbs start to last season, Beales start to this season) to lead us, the owners (naievety) and probably the CEO and DOF (mis-management) that things are going better than they are. The reality is not so pretty.

Get everyone moving consistently in the right direction (Or any direction as long as it's consisitent), make some brave decisions and we'll improve. That may need to start with a cull, easier said thatn done the way we are at the moment.

[QPROslo]

I really don't like it. I realise it's sort of "normal" in football to rack up eye-watering debt but I would much prefer it if owners just said: NO - we will now remain firmly within our means and cull the staff and wage bill.

Obviously this would probably see us plummet down the EFL but I'd rather that than continue with this current madness which, let's face it, isn't actually delivering sparkling football and results is it!?

If we did so, we could not field a team that would get a single point in the Championships as we could hardly afford anything other than amateurs. It would not be the QPR you know and the cry for "We would like our Rangers back" would be just a joke as we would have no chance to compete.

I am sorry, but you really do not want that, Abseits!

I think owners are doing a conscious decision when they put in the maximum they are allowed to every year - £13m on average. This is their ticket price for the chance to win a promotion to the Premier League, when, if they are lucky, they can cash in on a sale of the club. However, they have certainly realised long time ago that they will never get back the £350m or so they have lost, but maybe a handsome amount that would cut their losses.

[QPROslo]

We had an operational results before disposal of players (Eze) in 2020/21 of ca £21m. With fans reappearing in the stadium and hopefully some ongoing cost cutting, I was expecting a loss nearer to £15m in 2021/22. It is therefor a big disappointment to see the results declining to a loss of £24.7m. I find that irresponsible, because it makes it very hard to comply with FFP and put us at great risk for a points deduction.

The big question is how large the FFP deficit is. We can spend as much as we would like on the academy. It does not count towards FFP (of this reason is it little to gain from cutting down on costs for the academy, as proposed by some). I do not have a clue how much we have spent on the academy, but struggle to think it is more than £3m. We can subtract women football. That's probably not a lot. Wild guess is max £0.5m. We can subtract the costs for FFP fine. it is £0.7m in the P&L in 2021/22 under finance costs. Finally, we can subtract depreciation on the stadium and training facilities. It looks to me to be maximum £1.35m (that is 100% of all depreciation).

If my assumptions would be right, we end up with a loss for FFP calculations of ca £19m.

We were probably around zero in the previous season (official loss of ca £4m, but after FFP corrections a few million pounds better off). This means we can afford a similar loss this season (£20m) as in 2021/22 and sneak in under the £39m threshold by end of May 2023.

However, the big problem is connected to next season, when the 2020/21 figures drop out of the three year equation. If we end with the same loss this season as last season, we need to book similar player sales as in 2020/21 (Eze) to pass the FFP test by end of 2023/24. This means we need to sell for £17m in the coming two transfer windows. That could be all of Chair, Willock, Dykes, Dieng and Field, going by today's form and value. I find it unlikely that bids will come in for all of these. Most will have a year left on their contract, so I fear a fire sale. We can only replace them by free transfers as I see it, as there will hardly be FFP room for transfer fees. If we had limited the loss of 2021/22 to £15m we would have had much more room for manoeuvring. In hindsight, signing Austin and Johansen on permanent deals were irresponsible.

The need to sell for £17m can be mitigated by reducing the loss this and next season. If the loss is reduced by £5m per season, the need of player sales will amount to only £7m.

Some other observations:
* The Eze fee was paid down over two years - Palace owed us nothing by end of May 2022
* This year is the last season we pay down on the FFP fine - it will be totally gone by end of May.
* We probably did not pay much transfers fees in 2021/22 but the player additions cost us £2.9m (sign on fees, agents etc).

[djp]

We had an operational results before disposal of players (Eze) in 2020/21 of ca £21m. With fans reappearing in the stadium and hopefully some ongoing cost cutting, I was expecting a loss nearer to £15m in 2021/22. It is therefor a big disappointment to see the results declining to a loss of £24.7m. I find that irresponsible, because it makes it very hard to comply with FFP and put us at great risk for a points deduction.

The big question is how large the FFP deficit is. We can spend as much as we would like on the academy. It does not count towards FFP (of this reason is it little to gain from cutting down on costs for the academy, as proposed by some). I do not have a clue how much we have spent on the academy, but struggle to think it is more than £3m. We can subtract women football. That's probably not a lot. Wild guess is max £0.5m. We can subtract the costs for FFP fine. it is £0.7m in the P&L in 2021/22 under finance costs. Finally, we can subtract depreciation on the stadium and training facilities. It looks to me to be maximum £1.35m (that is 100% of all depreciation).

If my assumptions would be right, we end up with a loss for FFP calculations of ca £19m.

We were probably around zero in the previous season (official loss of ca £4m, but after FFP corrections a few million pounds better off). This means we can afford a similar loss this season (£20m) as in 2021/22 and sneak in under the £39m threshold by end of May 2023.

However, the big problem is connected to next season, when the 2020/21 figures drop out of the three year equation. If we end with the same loss this season as last season, we need to book similar player sales as in 2020/21 (Eze) to pass the FFP test by end of 2023/24. This means we need to sell for £17m in the coming two transfer windows. That could be all of Chair, Willock, Dykes, Dieng and Field, going by today's form and value. I find it unlikely that bids will come in for all of these. Most will have a year left on their contract, so I fear a fire sale. We can only replace them by free transfers as I see it, as there will hardly be FFP room for transfer fees. If we had limited the loss of 2021/22 to £15m we would have had much more room for manoeuvring. In hindsight, signing Austin and Johansen on permanent deals were irresponsible.

The need to sell for £17m can be mitigated by reducing the loss this and next season. If the loss is reduced by £5m per season, the need of player sales will amount to only £7m.

Some other observations:
* The Eze fee was paid down over two years - Palace owed us nothing by end of May 2022
* This year is the last season we pay down on the FFP fine - it will be totally gone by end of May.
* We probably did not pay much transfers fees in 2021/22 but the player additions cost us £2.9m (sign on fees, agents etc).

Yeah these are the sort of figures for FFP I was fearing. If it is that bad then we must stay up this season as having to cut costs in league one and with a potential FFP points deduction next season we could be battling to avoid drop to league two.

Beale has lied about literally everything, I remember when he left that he stated how well we are being run now. And why are clubs like Millwall so much better run than us where they sell no one of any significant amount and are still able to make million pound bids on players. There is no way that stadium of theirs brings in significantly more non match day revenue that ours. Just don’t understand that.

[Darkranger]

We had an operational results before disposal of players (Eze) in 2020/21 of ca £21m. With fans reappearing in the stadium and hopefully some ongoing cost cutting, I was expecting a loss nearer to £15m in 2021/22. It is therefor a big disappointment to see the results declining to a loss of £24.7m. I find that irresponsible, because it makes it very hard to comply with FFP and put us at great risk for a points deduction.

The big question is how large the FFP deficit is. We can spend as much as we would like on the academy. It does not count towards FFP (of this reason is it little to gain from cutting down on costs for the academy, as proposed by some). I do not have a clue how much we have spent on the academy, but struggle to think it is more than £3m. We can subtract women football. That's probably not a lot. Wild guess is max £0.5m. We can subtract the costs for FFP fine. it is £0.7m in the P&L in 2021/22 under finance costs. Finally, we can subtract depreciation on the stadium and training facilities. It looks to me to be maximum £1.35m (that is 100% of all depreciation).

If my assumptions would be right, we end up with a loss for FFP calculations of ca £19m.

We were probably around zero in the previous season (official loss of ca £4m, but after FFP corrections a few million pounds better off). This means we can afford a similar loss this season (£20m) as in 2021/22 and sneak in under the £39m threshold by end of May 2023.

However, the big problem is connected to next season, when the 2020/21 figures drop out of the three year equation. If we end with the same loss this season as last season, we need to book similar player sales as in 2020/21 (Eze) to pass the FFP test by end of 2023/24. This means we need to sell for £17m in the coming two transfer windows. That could be all of Chair, Willock, Dykes, Dieng and Field, going by today's form and value. I find it unlikely that bids will come in for all of these. Most will have a year left on their contract, so I fear a fire sale. We can only replace them by free transfers as I see it, as there will hardly be FFP room for transfer fees. If we had limited the loss of 2021/22 to £15m we would have had much more room for manoeuvring. In hindsight, signing Austin and Johansen on permanent deals were irresponsible.

The need to sell for £17m can be mitigated by reducing the loss this and next season. If the loss is reduced by £5m per season, the need of player sales will amount to only £7m.

Some other observations:
* The Eze fee was paid down over two years - Palace owed us nothing by end of May 2022
* This year is the last season we pay down on the FFP fine - it will be totally gone by end of May.
* We probably did not pay much transfers fees in 2021/22 but the player additions cost us £2.9m (sign on fees, agents etc).

Great post, and unfortunately this underlines what I was alluding to in my earlier post, in that I just don't see anyway out of this situation.
Our overheads seem disproportionate to our revenue. I thought FFP was set up to align these. In our case it just seems impossible, no matter how we try to adjust and cut expenditure.
Is selling most of our "assets" really the only solution?

[SheepRanger]

Total turnover was £22.1m even though ticket sales were only £5.6m

If we have an average player wage of £10k per week thats £520k a year x 25 man squad is £13m a year.

If we didnt have an academy and cut back on staffing then surely we could run the stadium, training ground and remaining staff for another £7m?

There's no point having an academy if all the youngsters so to the premiership academies. We might as well just run with a B team/U23s from premiership cast offs and cut the U18 and below.

Having a womens team is not a necessity, just woke nonsense. Why should this cost the club money? If anyone wants to set up a Qpr womens team we can sell them a franchise.

[Dono77]

Academies are a waste of money. It doesn't work in 2023 unless you are a cat a academy. We don't need one and we seem to have a lot of underage coaches who don't represent value for money. Why we need Ramsey, Hall, impey, furlong and hyde is a mystery??

What do they do all day?

We still nick/sign/poach/take players from other clubs anyway so its not like we have these players from the age of 10. We nicked Lloyd from Yeovil, Pedlar was brought in from Spurs, Bala came in from Barnet last year and Gubbins came after being released by Southampton.

If our own academy was producing decent players we wouldn't be going out and signing 16 and 17 year olds from other clubs. It is literally telling us that our own lot are crap so let's go and look to sign some other lads.

[Dono77]

I'd sooner pay decent wages to a top scout and bring decent players in rather than throw money at all our academy/youth coaches wages which produce nothing. We let Penrice go and who has replaced him?

[djp]

Great post, and unfortunately this underlines what I was alluding to in my earlier post, in that I just don't see anyway out of this situation.
Our overheads seem disproportionate to our revenue. I thought FFP was set up to align these. In our case it just seems impossible, no matter how we try to adjust and cut expenditure.
Is selling most of our "assets" really the only solution?

And also who is actually going to buy these “assets”, if the whole Championship is fighting over mid to lower table Premier teams to buy their players then there is gonna be more supply than demand because most Prem teams go for foreign players.

[QPROslo]

Great post, and unfortunately this underlines what I was alluding to in my earlier post, in that I just don't see anyway out of this situation.
Our overheads seem disproportionate to our revenue. I thought FFP was set up to align these. In our case it just seems impossible, no matter how we try to adjust and cut expenditure.
Is selling most of our "assets" really the only solution?

Normally, player sales is the only significant revenue item we can influence. TV rights is an important income, but outside of the clubs influence. Gate receipt is another important item, but pretty stable from year to year, and even a sell out all season would only improve revenues with a million or two. Sponsoring, merchandising and commercial deals are small at this level. It can always be improved, but an extra million would not change the bigger picture.

Hence, we are left with player development and player sales as the big item that can determine our future. Brentford generated almost £100m while in the Championship. That was their platform for promotion. Normally, player development is a cycle you need to do again and again to succeed. As we know, one sale like Eze isn't enough to change things fundamentally. You need to do it on a regular basis - every season. Rinse and repeat. If you asked me 14 months ago I would say we had 4 or 5 assets that could command £30-40-50m at the time. Today, most of it has gone down the drain. Players having one year left on their contract are not worth that much (Willock, Dykes, Dieng). Today, Chair and Field represent our key assets, and possibly Paal, but I doubt we get more than £10m for them. If we can't sell them next season and if they don't extend their contracts, their value will also go up in smoke. For me, the biggest disappointment during summer of 2022 was that we did not manage to offload Dieng, Willock and Dykes or to extend their contracts.

There is a loophole. If we identify a new location for a stadium, and build a multipurpose venue, the owners can put in equity to fund it. The depreciation connected to a new stadium will not count towards FFP. Increased revenue, coming from using the stadium day in day out for various events can potentially represent a very strong source of income compared to our present situation. On top of this, if the club sells Loftus Road for development purposes, we can bank a huge profit, that will give us enormous head room for a three years period. I am not a real estate broker and I have little knowledge about development potential in Shepherds Bush, but I would not be surprised if a sale of Loftus Road would generate £40-50m. Hence, the effect of a new stadium is twofold - better income on a regular basis and a one-time gain from selling Loftus Road. Of this reason, a new stadium is a key to the future.

But the best strategy is to recruit smart, develop well, and sell at top dollars. For a club our size it is a must.

[SheepRanger]

Normally, player sales is the only significant revenue item we can influence. TV rights is an important income, but outside of the clubs influence. Gate receipt is another important item, but pretty stable from year to year, and even a sell out all season would only improve revenues with a million or two. Sponsoring, merchandising and commercial deals are small at this level. It can always be improved, but an extra million would not change the bigger picture.

Hence, we are left with player development and player sales as the big item that can determine our future. Brentford generated almost £100m while in the Championship. That was their platform for promotion. Normally, player development is a cycle you need to do again and again to succeed. As we know, one sale like Eze isn't enough to change things fundamentally. You need to do it on a regular basis - every season. Rinse and repeat. If you asked me 14 months ago I would say we had 4 or 5 assets that could command £30-40-50m at the time. Today, most of it has gone down the drain. Players having one year left on their contract are not worth that much (Willock, Dykes, Dieng). Today, Chair and Field represent our key assets, and possibly Paal, but I doubt we get more than £10m for them. If we can't sell them next season and if they don't extend their contracts, their value will also go up in smoke. For me, the biggest disappointment during summer of 2022 was that we did not manage to offload Dieng, Willock and Dykes or to extend their contracts.

There is a loophole. If we identify a new location for a stadium, and build a multipurpose venue, the owners can put in equity to fund it. The depreciation connected to a new stadium will not count towards FFP. Increased revenue, coming from using the stadium day in day out for various events can potentially represent a very strong source of income compared to our present situation. On top of this, if the club sells Loftus Road for development purposes, we can bank a huge profit, that will give us enormous head room for a three years period. I am not a real estate broker and I have little knowledge about development potential in Shepherds Bush, but I would not be surprised if a sale of Loftus Road would generate £40-50m. Hence, the effect of a new stadium is twofold - better income on a regular basis and a one-time gain from selling Loftus Road. Of this reason, a new stadium is a key to the future.

But the best strategy is to recruit smart, develop well, and sell at top dollars. For a club our size it is a must.

HQ is worth #### all.

It has a covenant on it so it can only been used for community use. A Qpr fan and QC called Nick de Marco took up the challenge to get the covenant removed, and failed. Its lack of redevelopment opportunities was one of the reasons we couldnt get lending facilities from traditional banks snd went down the ABC Panama funding when Paladini was CEO. Nick de Marco was on the Board at that time.

[Harrow QPR]

I'd sooner pay decent wages to a top scout and bring decent players in rather than throw money at all our academy/youth coaches wages which produce nothing. We let Penrice go and who has replaced him?

Couldn't agree with you more on this , the academy is a waste of time , if we do get anyone looking decent at a young age , he will be nicked by one of the big clubs , also we could save loads on wages for Ferdinands mates .
We need to invest in a scouting network , looking at non league as well as leagues one and two , We also need scouts looking abroad .
By the way i am absolutely astounded that our outgoings are higher than our income, how much are we paying our players , not one of them should be on more than 5k a week , most of them are'nt even worth that.