The latest accounts filed by the Valiants show mammoth £6.1m losses during the club’s 2024-25 season, which culminated in promotion to League One.
The losses – which equate to losses of over £100,000 a week come on top of losses of £3.8m for 2023-24 and £3.4m for 2022-23. It means the club are in debt to a total of more than £17m
On the pitch, manager Darren Moore brought in twelve permanent and four loan players in the summer. Two more permanent signings followed in January. Off the pitch, £250,000 was spent on a new PA system and £60,000 for a new Railway stand toilet block.
Many Port Vale fans will be concerned about the mounting losses for a club which was debt-free when the Shanahans took over seven years ago in 2019.
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What are your views on the Vale finances? Post a comment below.
First class Rob keep the brilliant work up
HOW, HOW, HOW ? These losses are not only staggering but also ridiculous. Instead of attempting to reduce these annual losses with cost cutting measures, the owners and Hancock have somehow managed to double them. What is so alarming about these losses is, No One at the club is seemingly attempting to do anything about reduce them, or even speaking out about them. The club is being run by clowns who seem happy to run the club like a continuous car crash! Not a lot leaves me speechless but these idiots have done it.
So let me get this straight…Smurfwaite ran the club without debt for more seasons in league 1 than Carol has with all this debt? Most people would say a successful business person is only as good as their outcomes and given that Smurfwaite left 6 million up on where he started, it’s hard to make a case for Carol being amazing business mind.
Worrying situation, seemingly escalating out of control and guaranteed to get worse with imminent relegation. Only the owners know how this has evolved, but clearly prudent financial management is missing. Supporters will be hoping the owners write off part or the whole debt like near neighbor John Coates has done at Stoke. Wishful thinking perhaps.
It is difficult to assess without sight of the Proft and Loss or Cashflow Statement.
Many clubs will be dependent on owners to subsidise the operation, particularly if they are the type of owner who wants to see progress.
The owners have chosen to put their ‘investment’ in the form of loans vs equity (the latter is harder to withdraw from the club) which again is a common practice.
The loans are interest free and they defer them if they are due. Majority of this debt is not really with a third party given it’s the owners. The main risks are if they suddenly turn against the club and community which is unlikely providing they are respected (fair critiscm is fine) or sadly death/mental capacity issue. Clubs can suddenly be in trouble in Vales position if the owner passes and the successor wishes out.
It would be useful to see the wage to total income ratio. UEFA says 70% or below is healthy but many clubs have gone over that. Championship is crazy in this regard. There’s evidence of correlation between higher wages and more points (perhaps vale are an anomoly against the fold this year sadly).
They can choose to write off the loans and no doubt in the parent entity they have provisioned for that. But having the loan value their shows us how much they have invested. Equally, in a bumper year then they might get some of that investment back. But not likely in the current state of affairs in the league.
I guess I’m trying to offer some reassurance, however, owner dependency, poor current ratio (vale 0.27) and perhaps a dependency in normal years on gate receipts (i.e. One income stream) are all risk factors.
If you want some bedtime reading, there is a 2022 report on assessing the financial sustainability of football which is an interesting read.
“Many Port Vale fans will be concerned about the mounting losses for a club which was debt-free when the Shanahans took over seven years ago in 2019.”
With a great deal of respect for Rob’s sterling efforts in investigating the club’s finances and addressing the fans concerns about them, the above-quoted statement isn’t true.
In 2019, Smurthwaite was threatening the club with another administration (and hence probable expulsion from the Football League) unless a sale was agreed.
The Shanahans then agreed to “pay the ransom” to purchase Port Vale FC and Vale Park (note Smurthwaite’s separation of the two parts of the club) from Norman Smurthwaite.
The terms of the sale –
“The agreement was for an initial payment to be made by cash and the remainder in instalments over the next three years. This was guaranteed by a charge on Vale Park plus a debenture on the club.”
So the club wasn’t “debt-free when the Shanahans took over seven years ago in 2019”, there was a large debenture which they were obliged to pay off in annual tranches over each of the following three years.
Source –
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/port-vale-norman-smurthwaite-shanahans-7012286