BfB

The Yorkshire Post has this morning revealed Bradford City made a £501,000 for the 2009/10 season – largely thanks to the sell-on clause in the deal which saw Bradford-born Fabian Delph transfer from Leeds to Aston Villa for £8 million in August 2009.

The Bantams received an initial £800,000 windfall for the part they played in developing the young midfielder. The Yorkshire Post also claims that total has risen to just short of a £1 million due to further clauses being triggered – chiefly Villa qualifying for Europe and awarding Delph a new four-year contract.

Were it not for the Delph money, City would have made a loss of around £299,000. For the 2008/09 season, where the Bantams had spent big on wages – a £1.9 million playing budget – but missed out on the play offs, the club recorded a loss of £765,000. One can take an educated guess that City will make a similarly high loss for this season, having again pushed out the boat.

All of which is troubling. Without the unexpected windfall from Delph, City would have lost over £1 million over the previous two campaigns and something similar this year – whether these totals includes loans provided by Lawn and Rhodes is unclear. The decreasing success of the subsidised season ticket scheme will add further pressure, and Julian Rhodes, Mark Lawn and the Board are left in a position where unless they keep investing more of their own money the club is left in an incredibly weak position.

The Valley Parade rent and running costs amount to £1.3 million each year. If the ownership situation could be altered this situation would ease, but it would be wrong to assume that it would lead to City making a profit each year as many of the running costs would still need to be met no matter who owns the deeds to the stadium. And that’s before we consider the costs involved if the club were able to buy back Valley Parade. People often say that you should never rent a home as it’s “a mug’s game” and City are in a similarly position of being trapped and effectively throwing money down a blackhole.

Clearly next season is going to be a tough one financially. The club has spent big on wages again this year and there were other sizeable costs last summer, such as relaying the pitch. With season ticket sales unlikely to match or better this season’s, the resultant playing budget for whoever takes over as manager will be significantly reduced and with it expectations must surely recede.  A huge consideration, when selecting the manager, must be their ability to deliver over-performance on a shoestring budget.

What of the longer-term future? Unless City can get back to the Championship, it’s unlikely revenue streams will significantly increase anytime soon – unless they abandon the season ticket initiative. The Valley Parade situation looks unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, if ever. Outside investment remains a faint possibility, but City are far from an attractive proposition. The possibility of further windfalls from other former City youngsters – most notably Tom Cleverly and Andrew Wisdom – remains, but is hardly something to build a five-year business plan upon.

Rumours have recently floated around that another administration is a possibility, but hopefully this can be filed under malicious nonsense. Nevertheless, these are somewhat worrying times for Bradford City and, as gratefully received as the Delph money clearly was, it cannot prop up the club forever.