Financial Reports for Soccer Clubs

[nabeel]

Hey guys,

So for my financial forecasting class, we have to write a final paper worth 60% of our mark that proposes an economic model to forecast pretty much anything of interest. Instead of sticking to interest rates, exchange rates and the stock market, I decided to have a look at the soccer clubs and their financial statement to see if there is any statistical relationship between the operating expenses (a majority of which encompasses wages for the players, the net increase or decrease in the cash flow (which may explain sudden jump in performances) and how successful the team is in the given season.

My hypothesis is simple- the more a firm spends on its players (the higher the operating expenses), the better it should do in the league. And the better it does in the league, the better the cash flow for the next period given improved sponsorship opportunities, media revenue, etc. I am measuring success based on the no. of points a team scores relative to the top scorer in that given season (because you know, every season is different and just relying on positions alone wasn't good enough).

This means I need financial statements for clubs I am looking at.

I already have statements for

Arsenal (2004 to present)

Aston Villa (2004 only)

Birmingham (2004 to 2009)

Everton (2004 to present)

Tottenham Spurs (2004 to present)

Lazio (2004 to present)

I need statements for

Manchester City

Aston Villa (2005 onwards)

Manchester United (2004 to present)

and any other club who has easily accessible financial statements on their website.

If you follow a club and are comfortable navigating around their website and can take out a couple of minutes of your time to post a link to their statements, I would be very thankful. I will probably be looking data up all day today so if I find anything I will update this post right away!

Edited April 4, 2011 by nabeel

[stokeriño]

As far as I can tell Chelsea don't publish such details on their website (this...doesn't surprise me). Occasionally they make statements like this, but not with any real detail.

The following blog entry has what appear to be details of Chelsea's finances for the last few years, but he doesn't mention a source so that won't be helpful for your paper. Maybe you could message the guy and ask where he got the figures?

(And for the rest of you, it's a good read to show you how Chelsea are well-placed to easily cope with the UEFA Financial Fairplay rules... )

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2011/02/chelseas-financial-fair-play-challenge.html?utm_source=BP_recent

[nabeel]

So almost done my paper and one interesting observation that stood out was the more tottenham spent on wages during 2004-2010, the worse they seemed to perform. In fact, their best performance came when they spent the lowest on the players in the 2009/2010 period (accounting for inflation and the interest rate for all wage expenditure in the prior years to make the values comparable).

Edited April 7, 2011 by nabeel

[Lineker]

Interesting, as that season was essentially 'the reboot'.

[Dont Fear The Reaper]

The hypothesis for this seems really interesting, id love to get updates on it with the mentioned clubs

[Rich]

The only ones that have to be published publicly are clubs that are listed publicly on the stock market... otherwise like any privately owned entity they are only published when the club owners want to and even they they haven't necessarily been independently moderated, you chose a tough subject matter here...

[nabeel]

Handed in my paper yesterday, just gotta wait for the mark to see how I did.

I ended up analyzing Arsenal, Everton and Tottenham and here are the two best parts of the paper.

Everton

'This tells us that for an increase in the previous period in the operating expenses for Everton by a unit, the present expenditure of the club falls by approximately 0.6. This holds true with our results for Arsenal. More interestingly, an increase in the operating expenses in the previous period mean the chances for success for Everton are significantly higher- a whooping 0.7! This could be true for a number of reasons- as a relatively smaller club, Everton are less likely to match a wage paid by Arsenal to the same player unless there is real belief by Everton that the player could be vital to their success. This thorough evaluation can result in a strict cross examination of the player and the finances and a deal can only be made if its looks like a positive one to Everton. Who says conservatism loses out?

Tottenham

This is an interesting case. It says that for each unit of increase in the previous period in operating expenses, the operating expenses for the current period fall by 0.45. This fits in with our earlier tests and seems encouraging. However, there seems to be a negative relationship between the amount Tottenham spend on the players and how it affects their success in the next period. This could be due to a number of factors- Tottenham continue to overvalue the players they seek on a consistent basis, they aim for short term success more than the other clubs, there is a management bias in favor of certain players, etc. This anomaly calls for a further detailed test between the discounted cash flow and the success of Tottenham.

[Colly]

Think you were looking for whopping rather than whooping. -5% for spelling and grammar!

Otherwise looks good, admittedly about as dull as when I did my degree many moons ago, but still good.