Chelsea are clearly in a financial league of their own at the moment as I'm sure nobody could argue. A club who can "afford" to lose £88m in a season and just take it in their stride is taking football to a whole new stratosphere. Nobody can compete with that sort of wealth, not even manure. All I'll say is that Chelsea better hope Abramovich doesn't get bored and decides to b#gger off in the near future (although I wish he would).
You then have Arsenal, who are now less than a year away from their new 60,000-seater Ashburton Grove stadium. Costs are rumoured to have soared well beyond the £300 million mark ... but their £100 million Emirates deal has softened that blow considerably. In financial terms, they are unable to compete with the likes of Manure and Chelsea in the transfer market, but the way they have "sold" for substantial profit has always meant that they have been financially stable.
If I'm not mistaken, Manure, who already have the biggest capacity stadium in the land (pre-Wembley) have just had planning permission to extend old trafford by 7,900 seats to 76,000 seats. In financial terms, that equates to an additional £5 million per season in revenue for the mancs, on top of the millions which they already generate from commercialism worldwide.
But back to us. Rick Parry reaffirmed yesterday just how important this new stadium is. However people should still remember that there is no new investment agreed yet (although there are rumours of several proposed takeovers)... there is no new stadium sponsorship deal in place yet, and there is no £20 million North West Development Agency (NWDA) grant agreed yet ...
In fact, it's quite depressing to think that we are having serious problems financing a stadium that is currently a THIRD of the price of arsenal's new stadium
So, looking at a worst-case scenario (financially) ... if our new stadium is aborted and we remain at our current home for the foreseeable future, what does this mean to our future competitiveness...? The following analysis looks solely at gate receipts and ignores other revenue streams. Using united as an example, each new seat amounts to £633 of additional revenue per season…
The capacity at Stamford bridge is 42,500 … 2,000 less than Anfield … but this is irrelevant as Chelsea are prepared to throw money at players and run at an £88 million loss per year if they want to…
The capacity of Ashburton Grove will be 60,000 … that equates to approximately 15,500 seats more than us and therefore £9.8 million more than us per season.
The capacity of old Trafford will be 76,000 … that equates to approximately 31,500 seats more than us and therefore £19.9 million more than us per season.
£10/£20 million extra spending each year gives you a lot of power in the transfer market.
All of the above scenarios are depressing enough should we fail to go ahead with the new stadium … but even if we do, both ourselves and arsenal would still be £10 million per year behind united in gate receipts alone. That’s not allowing for all of the additional revenue streams that chelsea and united enjoy.
Just to put things into perspective, LFC was recently valued at around the £200 million mark … united are valued around the £800 million mark. Think about it, that’s FOUR TIMES the value of our club … and Chelsea are rapidly heading the same way … Then ask yourself who is STILL the most successful team ever in this country by a distance…? Depressing how we are so far behind in the financial stakes, isn’t it?
Chelsea and Manure are positioning themselves to become light years ahead of the rest … but at least Arsenal have been astute enough to be able to compete with them financially in the short to medium term…
Losing out on the new stadium could prove to be financially disastrous for LFC and send the club so far behind the current top 3 that any dreams of number 19 could become of the ‘pipe’ variety
But here's to hoping
