Accounts

[mrbluejay]

https://x.com/kieranmaguire/status/2027223285860024552?s=46

Cardiff City submit 2024/25 accounts, a season where they finished 24th in Championship: 🔑figs
⚽️Revenue £25.8m ⬆️ 11%
⚽️Wages £39m ⬆️39%
⚽️ Wages 151% of revenue (was 120%)
⚽️Average first team weekly wage £17,480
⚽️Underlying loss £34.2m ⬆️20%
⚽️Player sale profits £6.1m
⚽️Pre tax loss £35.1m ⬆️ 193%
⚽️Player purchases £12.5m
⚽️ Player sales £6.1m
⚽️ Borrowings £134.3m ⬆️15%
⚽️ Total losses over the years £284.9m ⚽️

[Kitman]

Re: Accounts

ThatÂ’s a lot of increased wages, cost, borrowing etc for what was a truly terrible season

Bit of a disaster from the board

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Accounts

ThatÂ’s a lot of increased wages, cost, borrowing etc for what was a truly terrible season

Bit of a disaster from the board

Agreed, I’d add the recruitment department to it as well though - I dread to think how much we wasted on someone like El-Ghazi.

[TheBirchgrovePub]

Re: Accounts

Ran like an absolute circus. They’ve got very lucky this season in that it looks like BBM has saved the day with only 3 signings but I doubt they’ll learn their lesson

[Rjk]

Re: Accounts

The largest loss posted by a championship club so far for this financial year.
A few others losing £20m+

Plymouth made a £0.3m profit!

[Michael Morris]

Re: Accounts

Trust chair Keith Morgan provides a breakdown of the latest Cardiff City accounts for the year ended May 31, 2025.

Introduction

As has been the case for a number of years I have had the opportunity to read, review and comment on the audited accounts on the understanding that the commentary is held under strict embargo until the accounts are formally published on the Companies House register.

It should be stressed that, although the commentary has been discussed with the club at a senior level to check for any factual errors that it might otherwise have contained, it is a report which has been created and the opinions expressed on it are both entirely independent of the club.

The audited accounts were signed off by the independent auditors and the club’s board of directors on January 16, 2026.

Key Matters

The reported operating loss of £28.1m compares to that of £27.7m reported in the previous year. However, the net loss after tax rose very significantly to £35.1m from the far lower figure of £12.0m in the previous year.

The main reason for this is that the 2024 figures included a very large exceptional “one-off” figure of £18.4m which included £12.0m from the sale of a part share of any successful recovery from the ongoing legal case against FC Nantes and £5.7m from a settlement of a contractual dispute. Without those exceptional items, the net loss for 2024 would have been £30.4m.

Clearly, the level of net losses being incurred is not sustainable over time going forward and is a matter of urgency to be dealt with by the club owner and directors.

In the current season some evidence of how this has started to be dealt with is referred to in the accounts with a substantial reduction in squad numbers and consequent reduction in player salary costs. The requirement for this became even more necessary following the clubs relegation from the Championship last season as media and other income dropped by around £10m. Savings to recover some of this lost income were made by relegation clauses included in existing player contracts.

Promotion back to the Championship as soon as possible is therefore a key financial priority as well as a footballing one.

Despite the very negative financial figures there are a few other more positive factors :

1. The club has remained compliant with the EFL Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) requirements whilst a Championship club and remains compliant with the Salary Cap Management Protocol (SCMP ) which is the alternative requirement as a League 1 club.

2.It is hugely important the club continues to receive the financial backing of its majority shareholder Tan Sri Vincent Tan. While he has received a lot of criticism from registered fan groups and individual fans (in many cases justifiably) the unavoidable fact is that, without that financial support, there is a strong likelihood that we fans would not have a club to support at this level as it probably would have “gone bust” without such support.

3. The independent auditors have agreed that the club remains a “going concern” with the above financial support, which has been committed to for at least until January 2027.

Balance Sheet Debts

Total net current liabilities as at May 31, 2025 were £161.5m, a worryingly high figure in normal circumstances.
However, £97m of this is due to Tan Sri Vincent Tan and a further £37.3m due to a business in which club Chair Mehmet Dalman has a significant interest. Other liabilities are relatively small in comparison.

Between the balance sheet date of May 31, 2025 and the date the accounts were signed off £19.1m of new cash was put in to the club as a cash injection, such amounts being neither interest bearing or with any requirement to repay.

Prior Year Adjustments

There are several references in the accounts to adjustments made to the previously reported accounts which were approved at the time by the Independent Auditors.

These are primarily changes to the way some transactions were disclosed which have now been amended by the same audit firm that previously certified them as being correct but have now been adjusted by a different audit partner to the previous ones.

I have no access to correspondence on this but I have a strong personal opinion that the late change of audit partner taking a different view to her predecessors and requiring lots of adjustments to the accounts may well have been a significant factor in the club submitting its accounts slightly late after the December 31, deadline.

Conclusions

The club needs to take urgent and significant action to stem the rate of financial losses being incurred.Promotion back to the Championship is vital financially as well as from a football aspect The ongoing financial support from Tan Sri Vincent Tan is crucial.

And Finally..

Please note: The commentary does not comprise a line by line analysis of the accounts but is intendeed to over the key issues.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: Accounts

Ran like an absolute circus. They’ve got very lucky this season in that it looks like BBM has saved the day with only 3 signings but I doubt they’ll learn their lesson

Pretty sure they would have, it took them long enough but they now know what we all knew before they even came. The Manager and recrutment support are the most important aspect of the team, no point in have the best most expensive players if the Manager can't get them to perform.

Plus they don't waste money on buying too many of the wrong players.

They have to keep BBM here no matter what else they do.

[goats]

Re: Accounts

https://x.com/kieranmaguire/status/2...860024552?s=46


Cardiff City submit 2024/25 accounts, a season where they finished 24th in Championship: ��figs
⚽️Revenue £25.8m ⬆️ 11%
⚽️Wages £39m ⬆️39%
⚽️ Wages 151% of revenue (was 120%)
⚽️Average first team weekly wage £17,480
⚽️Underlying loss £34.2m ⬆️20%
⚽️Player sale profits £6.1m
⚽️Pre tax loss £35.1m ⬆️ 193%
⚽️Player purchases £12.5m
⚽️ Player sales £6.1m
⚽️ Borrowings £134.3m ⬆️15%
⚽️ Total losses over the years £284.9m ⚽️

How badly run are we? At least we got a lot of high earners off the books, I imagine wages is far less now

[Trigger]

Re: Accounts

It seems it's just a long term bet by VT that we one day grace the premier league again and the club value increases over the long term. There's certainly no prestige in owning Cardiff cIty for a Malaysian.

The club rarely seem overly concerned by the continual losses (we don't even maximise shirt and stadium sponsorship) probably because the aim has never been short term profits and we have an owner capable of covering shortfalls.

Given that, is there any huge concern? This has gone on for years now and when VT does intend to sell he will seek the best price he can get.

We will have new owners at some point in the near future I'm sure, we can only hope they are capable of placing a similarly long term bet or be more of an entrepreneurial mind and have some out of the box strategies to increase cash flow. It will of course ultimately be out of our hands.

It's good VT has plugged some gaps and he has done some good but has made many mistakes that seem completely unnecessary as such I don't think we need to be on our knees begging him to continue.

[poc]

Re: Accounts

It seems it's just a long term bet by VT that we one day grace the premier league again and the club value increases over the long term. There's certainly no prestige in owning Cardiff cIty for a Malaysian.

The club rarely seem overly concerned by the continual losses (we don't even maximise shirt and stadium sponsorship) probably because the aim has never been short term profits and we have an owner capable of covering shortfalls.

Given that, is there any huge concern? This has gone on for years now and when VT does intend to sell he will seek the best price he can get.

We will have new owners at some point in the near future I'm sure, we can only hope they are capable of placing a similarly long term bet or be more of an entrepreneurial mind and have some out of the box strategies to increase cash flow. It will of course ultimately be out of our hands.

It's good VT has plugged some gaps and he has done some good but has made many mistakes that seem completely unnecessary as such I don't think we need to be on our knees begging him to continue.

maybe hes waiting for the plane to land from south africa

[TheBirchgrovePub]

Re: Accounts

VT getting any credit at all is crazy when it is his years of mismanagement, ego and inability to run a football club that has caused the losses year upon year.

Are the most recent losses being blamed on Mackay and Warnock’s transfer dealings again? Or someone else this time?

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Accounts

Remember when we were just in debt to Vincent Tan and we were told that we weren’t paying interest on what we owed? Well, we’re now in a position where we owe Tan a nine figure sum I believe and Dalman’s company £37 million - according to this we paid £7 million in interest during 24/25.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/crrxezv4wg4o

Even if we end up winning all of the compensation we claim we are due from Nantes over Emiliano Sala and it all goes towards paying off club debts (fat chance of that happening I’d have thought) we’re still going to be left substantially in debt.

[Grangenders]

Re: Accounts

Based on those figures, getting promoted to the championship won’t put us in a significantly better position so I guess we can rule out any major investment in players. It would be more likely we cash in on what little potential we have in the current squad.

[NYCBlue]

Re: Accounts

Based on those figures, getting promoted to the championship won’t put us in a significantly better position so I guess we can rule out any major investment in players. It would be more likely we cash in on what little potential we have in the current squad.

That's what I'm afraid of. If the isn't strengthened or worse, it's going to be a hard season. Our goals conceded is going to go through the roof.

[Rjk]

Re: Accounts

That's what I'm afraid of. If the isn't strengthened or worse, it's going to be a hard season. Our goals conceded is going to go through the roof.

obviously it'll be a lot more difficult in the championship, but there are obviously ways of being more solid defensively without requiring huge new investment.
currently we are very open, we play very high and very wide. We are the best team in the league so we get away with that more often than not. Presumably we would have to be a bit more pragmatic at times in the champinoship