As I predicted here earlier in the week, Sevco has produced its six month accounts prior to the SFA’s deadline for financial fair play declarations to UEFA.
But I had anticipated they would show a small profit, as opposed to last year’s minimal loss for the same period.
Actually, although the papers have proclaimed them as “a return to profit” (when did Sevco ever post a profit?) that’s not true at all.
In fact, these accounts show that the club made a £200,000 loss for the period …
The papers have trumpeted the fake version of the news, and put the spin King evidently wanted put on. What a shabby, easily knocked down, con-job assertion that is. These figures take into account a period where it’s all financial upside, including that staggering run of home cup draws. It does not take into account the back half of the campaign where income grinds to a halt and everything is measured in the negative column.
According to the King spin, and the media, the club posted a £300,000 profit for the six months.
(Which of course, as I said, is a lie.)
Remind me again, wasn’t our own somewhere in the vicinity of £21 million?
That’s not what stands out here; what stands out – apart from the transparent falsehood – is that amidst the praise lavished on these figures the one horrendous one has gone unremarked upon; their outgoings went up by over £4 million. In the first half of the year.
Should that number have a corresponding one in the latter half this certainly won’t be remembered as the year the club went into profit … they will post a loss that is even greater than they made in the last 12 months.
This club is nowhere near break-even yet, whatever King or his cronies might say to the contrary.
They can keep blaming Ashley all they want; that fact doesn’t change.
In addition to this, Joe over at VideoCelts has published an article which reveals the depth of the Financial Fair Play hole; they are three times over the £5 million limit for the three year FFP timeframe. UEFA has to take that seriously, and there have to be sanctions. The club will definitely post losses for the season which exceed last year … they are not moving in the right direction, no matter what their criminal chairman, and congenital liar, might say.
The SFA has to tell UEFA they don’t qualify, based on the numbers.
That will result in the Financial Control Board making a determination; the likelihood is that Sevco will be given leave to play in Europe next year, but under a very strict regimen of showing they can break even. If they fail they are looking at fines and a ban. Either result is catastrophic for them; UEFA will force them to get spending under control even if their ability to “compete” with Celtic and others is even more heavily compromised than at the present time.
The SFA has to act on this long-term though. This is a problem that I regard as being largely of their making, and they have singularly failed when it comes to changing the pattern of overspending at that club and a small number of others.
When the English Premier League, the most cash-rich and frankly barmy, football division in the world voluntarily signs up to comply with Financial Fair Play regulations – as dozens of leagues across Europe have since it was introduced – why the Hell don’t we?
If clubs want to vote it down, then let them do it. Let them be named though, so that when they are pipped to prizes or prize money by those unscrupulous few who exist on cheating and financial doping they can stand in front of their own fans and explain to them why it was allowed.
See what the reaction of their supporters is to it.