Preston North End publish full financial report for 2021/22 with £16.8m losses

The club, owned by Deepdale PNE Holdings Limited, made a loss of £16.8m after tax for the year, in increase of losses from £15.4m.

The club have cited residual payments to an ex-manager, compensation to Plymouth Argyle for the acquisition of manager Ryan Lowe and also residual payments to players whose contracts were ending for the increase in losses over the past 12 months.

The club’s turnover for the year was up £1.9m, from £11.9m to £13.8m, which was an increase of 16%. That turnover is made up of: £3m (matchday tickets and season ticket sales), £8m (Premier League and EFL distributions) and £2.8m (commercial and stadium income). The club sold 7,557 season tickets and the average attendance for the season was 12,501.

Over the course of the last financial year, the ownership invested £14.9m into North End, to cover the cash shortfall that comes with running the club.

Staffing costs at PNE were £24.5m, an increase from £23.3m a year prior. The wage bill rose from £20.4m to £21.4m and PNE employed 127 staff compared to 115 in 2021. Matchday staff increase to 150 on average from 56, but that large spike was due to fans being able to attend games once again. Preston’s paid £177 on wages for every £100 of income they earned, although that number was at £216 last year.

£2.2m was spent on binging in players, Liam Lindsay and Ali McCann joined for undisclosed fees with Daniel Iversen, Sepp van den Berg, Josh Murphy and Cameron Archer all coming in on loan, with five free signings.

Speaking about the publication of the figures to the PNE website, chairman Craig Hemmings said “The season 2021/22 was a difficult one for a number of reasons. It was the first full season back with crowds into Deepdale following all of the COVID-19 restrictions, and, as was felt across the whole of the football pyramid, we experienced the nervousness of some fans returning to stadiums. In the first half of the season we changed managers, as results on the pitch were just not good enough. And most significantly, it was the season we lost our owner, my father, Trevor Hemmings CVO. We all at the club hope to further his legacy”.

“Football results in the second half of the season were much improved under new manager Ryan Lowe, with us ending the season a commendable 13th in the league. This achievement, though below our initial expectations for the season, is best understood in the context of us having to compete with teams with significantly higher wage bills, a number of whom receive tens of millions in parachute payments from the Premier League”.North End director, Peter Ridsdale also said: “Since the year end, some good progress has been made by the club in reducing the annual cash deficit to the owners. With the aid of incredible fan engagement and support, we had one of the best ever season ticket campaigns, with close to 12,000 season tickets being sold to fans of PNE. The most sold for over 60 years. Also, the summer transfer window facilitated a major playing squad overhaul. 16 players exited the Club, and 6 new players were brought in to fill key positions in the squad”.