Arsenal Registers £2.5m Losses
After losing out on the Carling Cup to Birmingham on Sunday, Arsenal Football Club has recorded another loss in its financials – it is £2.5m down in the half-year to December 2010, largely down to the lack of any major player sales within the period.
The figure is a huge contrast to the £29.2m profit the club made during the corresponding period of the previous year, mainly due to player sales including Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor to Manchester City.
Chief executive of the club, Ivan Gazidis insisted: ‘We have a sustainable business model’.
Before depreciation and player trading, the football operating profit stood at £9.3m, compared to £18m for the same period in 2009, while the recent operating profit was £12.6m, compared to £29.3m in 2009.
Arsenal FC also made a large amount of money in the corresponding period of 2009 when they sold 261 flats on the Highbury Square complex, generating revenue of £96.6m.
In the 2010 period only 50 apartments were sold – generating revenue of £22.5m.
Peter Hill-Wood, club non-executive chairman said: ‘This is a robust performance in the current climate and is where we expected to be at this stage of the financial year and at this stage in our longer term development plans for the growth of the club’.
