We all knew that the global pandemic was causing cash flow problems for football clubs all over the world due to the lockdown rules that meant that most Arsenal games were played behind closed doors, and it has now been disclosed that in the year up to May 31st 2021, the Gunners loss for the year after taxation was £107.3 million, which was more than double the losses from the previous year.
With nearly all clubs cutting costs and trying to alleviate the damage done by the pandemic, it was little surprise to see the transfer market much depleted and therefore the reason why Mikel Arteta had trouble trying to offload his peripheral players during the summer.
The club made it clear that the reasons for the “Pre-tax losses (unaudited) of £85 million (2020 – £35 million (unaudited)) are considered to be attributable to the impacts of COVID-19.”
Here is the full accounts as published on the Arsenal website…..
| 2021 (£m) |
2020 (£m) |
|
| Adjusted operating profit from football | 39.5 | 37.1 |
| Exceptional costs | (39.0) | (10.4) |
| Amortisation and impairment of player registrations | (117.4) | (113.3) |
| Sale of player registrations / Loan of players | 14.8 | 63.6 |
| Property trading profits | – | 0.3 |
| Net interest costs (excluding exceptional items) | (7.6) | (13.6) |
| Other | (17.5) | (17.7) |
| Loss before tax | (127.2) | (54.0) |
With that in the background, it is quite surprising that Arteta and Edu managed to invest 150million for new players in the summer, and it will be very interesting to see the next years accounts, considering that we have posted losses of that amount over the previous two seasons…
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