Quote: vastman "Frankly I don't know where any of you are getting your figures from.
There is operating profit and loss which I assume is what most of you are on about. However it's a fairly meaningless figure as it encompasses all sort. Transfers and prize money and anything else that happened that financial year. Truth is a good accountant can make those figures look any way you want them to look. So mr Cas fans or Leeds fans who think they know probably don't and would probably be better getting off their high horses.
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Sorry but that's rubbish - you can learn a lot from the financial statements which are all lodged and freely available from Companies House, especially if the company is outside the small company disclosure regime. Accountants can't massage the figures that much - if a club is losing money year after year like Wigan tend to do that can't be massaged into recurring profits without it being obvious (e.g. Lenagan writing off loans). Likewise at Leeds the underlying position is that the company is profitable. You can get odd things going on but it's really pretty easy to spot them if you know how to read a set of accounts, moreso if you look at the same company or the same industry over and over.
The problem at Wigan almost certainly starts with them not owning their own stadium - they don't have the scope to generate all the non-gameday revenue that rival big clubs like Warrington, Saints and Leeds do which subsidise the football operation. Obviously those clubs also have the cost both capital and maintenance of creating the stadia but all things considered owning is much better than renting.