Harpers So Solid Crew Each season in the prem we spent more than our income. Both times we were told there was more money if the manager needed it. Then magically we get relegated to find there wasn't really a huge wad after all.
We made a profit both PL years we have accounts for.
We had a black hole to fill after relegation because our PL wage budget was £30m+ whereas a typical top end Chump wage budget at the time was about £14m. The players all had a 40% wage reduction clause, but several like Doyle and Hunt got new deals, probably on closer to PL money to keep them. We had a large squad and kept a lot of the other costs in coaching and background costs for the first year.
At the same time as our wages went down by about £10m, our income went down by significantly more, even taking into account parachute payments. Hence why the accounts showed we would have made a big loss without the serious player sales we made (Kitson, Sonko, Shorey etc).
The story is much the same for the seasons afterwards. Big player sales making up the short fall in income as we gradually reduced the wage budget, albeit it was still top end Championship. I can't recall if we've got the figures for the last promotion season and beyond. Although I think we did see that we had the fourth largest wage budget on promotion. Around £18m maybe?
