[Updated:  This post has been replaced, The Telegraph have butchered the facts]

I didn’t expect to be following up the earlier post on the 2008/09 revenue so quickly, but I just spotted this article at The Telegraph which suggests that our accounts have now been filed, they’ve seen them and the revenue increase of 11% to £84.2 million is confirmed.

However, the not-so-sexy news is that we still made a loss. Not insignificant either.  £43.7 million in the red for the last financial year on top of the 30 odd million we lost the previous year. There’s all kinds of ways you can shift the numbers around to rationalise it, but without having a really strong grasp of corporate level financing, it would be easy to make a fool of oneself. However, if you consider that roughly £46 million was spent on acquiring new players during that period, well there’s your loss right there.

That’s a bit weak, it doesn’t quite work like that, but that’s one overly simplistic way of looking at it. If you further consider that except for a couple of players our squad is more or less there now and shortcomings can be largely financed by moving some of the periphery players on, then there’s not too much to be concerned about going forward. We’re past the point of needing to throw £40m at the transfer market every summer.

Wages

I’ve read reports recently that our wage bill has doubled in the time that Randy has owned the club up to £50m, but The Telegraph article is claiming that the total wage bill is now up to £70m, which they’re claiming goes some way to explaining the losses.

The problem is that they lose credibility with me when they start claiming that the increase in the wage bill is due to “the purchase of Richard Dunne, James Collins, Stewart Downing, Stephen Warnock and Fabian Delph”, but “the club still made a profit on transfer dealings however, thanks largely to the £12.5 million sale of Gareth Barry to Manchester City”.  Er, no, wrong! All those transactions took place during the course of last summer and can’t possibly be included in the 2008/09 accounts. Collins and Dunne were the last to join, coming in on deadline day September 1st. [UPDATE: As I suspected below, The Telegraph have got this completely wrong. NONE of those players are included in the accounts and we certainly did not make a profit on transfer dealings]

A problem that occurs to me there is that if all of the players I’ve just mentioned aren’t included in the wage increase in these accounts then we’ve got to be expecting another massive hike when the next set come out and do include them. The Telegraph also claims that we made a profit on transfer dealings, but however you slice or dice it, Villa haven’t received more than they’ve paid out in transfer fees for a long time!!

So I’m really not sure what to make of the article at that point and it would probably be better to refrain from commenting further on something that I couldn’t hope to understand without seeing the actual accounts personally.  And even then, who knows?

UEFA Regulations

The Telegraph also points out that with the coming financial regulations we’ll not only need to be breaking even, we’ll have to be standing on our own two feet and not relying on Uncle Randy to bail us out so much. This stings me personally as it wasn’t so long ago that I was extolling the virtues of our approach and how it will leave us not only in good standing, but ahead of our rivals when the rules are imposed.

Now the picture looks a little less rosy.  I’ll stand by the spirit of that post, we’re obviously not one of the clubs living outrageously beyond their means that are forcing UEFA to get involved, but we’re clearly now needing to be a little more prudent going forward.  These numbers do put a slightly different spin on things.

The bottom line remains that Randy has been extremely generous with the money he’s injected into Aston Villa, without being extravagant or, worse, reckless.  We’ve got debt, but it remains at reasonably manageable levels. We’re not selling our souls for a half billion in bonds like Utd or mortgaged up the kazoo like Liverpool.  We’re not close to breaking even yet either, but there’s clubs in far, far worse situations that us.

If you read the earlier post today about the Deloitte Football Money League report, some of that sweet, sweet Champions League action is looking mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm, tasty right about now.

[Update: I’m awaiting further information, but it sounds like The Telegraph is way, way off with this article. It’s starting to look like not only are the details they’re claiming here – the players etc – but the numbers they’re quoting are completely wrong. More to follow when I have it]

[Update 2: This post has been replaced]