Why Sheffield Wednesday will be allowed to present their 2018/19 season accounts three months later than first planned
Sheffield Wednesday could choose to publish their accounts for the 2018/19 season as late as July after the Government presented an extension to a deadline that would have seen them punished for any delay beyond the end of this month.
The publishing of the accounts of Wednesday’s Yorkshire rivals Leeds United on Wednesday caused some surprise with an operating loss of £36m and an annual loss of £21m, a ‘dice roll’ they say they had anticipated with the appointment of manager Marcelo Bielsa in 2018.
Wednesday are among four Championship clubs – along with Derby County, Brentford and then-Championship outfit Bolton Wanderers – not to have yet published their accounts for last season.
Ordinary circumstances would have had to have seen them made public by the end of April until the extension granted to all companies in the light of the coronavirus crisis.
According to calculations made by football finance guru Kieran Maguire, co-host of the Price of Football podcast, Wednesday’s last available accounts suggest an average weekly player wage of £19,709, the seventh-highest figure in the division and higher than the average of £16,553.
In total, Championship clubs paid out just under £400,000 in wages every week.
The figures show the club spent some 168 per cent of their annual income on player wages in 2018/19, with only Reading (226 per cent) and Aston Villa (175 per cent) having spent more.
Wages at Wednesday are understood to have been slashed with the departure of a number of high-earning names last summer.
Across the whole league, Maguire says, the level of club overspend on wages is not unusual.
“In 2018 it was 107 per cent and 2019 looks like it will come out at something similar,” he said. “In previous years it was between 100 and 110 per cent.
“Since 2013 we’ve effectively seen clubs spend pretty much every penny they earned on wages and that takes into consideration the payment of parachute payments as well.
“Everybody is trying to use the loan market. That’s where the value is. But the Premier League clubs have sussed that out as well, or are beginning to, and they’re starting to demand a lot more for loan deals.”