Did the club actually lose 115m though
150m loss before tax actually. You get a tax credit when you make a big loss.
Yeah. You don't lose 115m in cash. Most of the finance costs for 2022 aren't cash related, ditto with depreciation, impairments, profits from selling player, etc.
The big killer operationally was poor salary control during Covid (100m increase since 2020), against a backdrop of flat revenues. That hits cash profits directly.
From a cash flow perspective, the club generated about 280m from the business (basically cash profits) over the last 3 years after it paid regular cash expenses like salaries etc. This surplus is used to cover dividends, interest payments, capex, player net spend. Anything left over is added to the bank account.
The club doled out over 560m on those things in the same period (360m on player net spend, 65m on dividends, 60m on interest, 35m on capex, and the rest on smaller stuff).
The shortfall of 280+m was covered by using the company credit card (100m) and blundering the bank account (down from 310m in 2019 to 120m as at 30/06/2022). So, we have essentially cleared out the bank account to make ends meet during the covid period.
Part of it is down to covid, but the main culprits are poor salary control and heavy player expenditure.
Now, we still owe other clubs 130m for players bought prior to the 220m summer spend, so things are going to be pretty tight in the short term. And there is no nest egg to call upon should thing go belly up.
So yeah, cash flow tells you pretty much the same story: we've been spending beyond our means, we need some cost control, and we really, really, really need the TH revolution to get the club back winning and contending.