Profits
It is pretty clear that the club only makes a profit in exceptional circumstances. So in 2004 the sales of Cole, Defoe and Johnson for roughly £20m still only meant a profit of £11m at the end of the season. In 2006 the club put the profit down to their excellent wage control, and were particularly pleased with the way they had structured the wages to be performance related. This is an excellent way to run the business. That the strategy was clearly jettisoned the next year was unfortunate.
The total losses over the eight years covered come to £62m. It is doubtful that 2009 would have been much different from 2008, although the sales of McCartney and Ferdinand may have brought some one-off amounts of money in.
