Arsenal Financial Results (31st May 2011)

Group turnover was £255.7 million (2010 - £379.9 million). Reduction was due to the expected lower level of property sales activity.

The sale of apartments at Highbury Square is in its final stages, with 69 sale completions in the year (2010 - 362) generating £30.3 million of revenue from property (2010 - £156.9 million).

Operating profit in the property business was £12.6 million (2010 - £15.2 million) including the write back of part of a previous impairment provision in respect of the Queensland Road development site.

Operating profit (before exceptional costs, depreciation and player trading) in the football business was £45.8 million (2010 - £56.8 million) with commercial gains offset by increased wage costs.

Loss from player trading of £14.7 million (2010 - profit of £13.6 million) with no significant disposals of registrations in the year.

Group profit before tax was £14.8 million (2010 - £56.0 million).

The Group's property business continues to be debt free and generating surplus cash for the Group. The overall level of Group net debt had been reduced to £97.8 million (2010 - £135.6 million) at the balance sheet date.

Commenting on the results for the year, Peter Hill-Wood, non-executive Chairman, said:

"The sad passing of our dear colleague Danny Fiszman has heralded a time of change in terms of ownership. We continue to run the Club effectively and in a self-sustaining way which is important for our long-term future. We have had a robust financial performance, reporting another profitable set of full year results."

Ivan Gazidis, Chief Executive, said:

"Our primary objective, as we take the Club forward, will always be success on the field. To give the Club the best opportunity to achieve this, we must drive a virtuous circle of increased revenue, increased investment in the team and a larger engaged fan base and we must do this in a way which is self-sustaining and protects the long-term future of the Club.

Our goals for the organisation are clear and unchanged:

to support and fund on field success; and to enhance the fan experience.

We are making progress on all fronts and the Club starts its 125th year in a strong position."

And the big arse document that goes with it for the people who really love this stuff: http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/documents/sep_11/gun__1317384612_Arsenal_Holdings_Plc_Announcem.pdf

Hmm..

Its pretty certain from where I see this. We need to bulk up our commercial deals and revenues asap. 2014 and expiry of current deals can't come soon enough.

Any one know who is next in line to be our sponsor? I hope we tie up some lucrative deal like liverpool's. Rumour has it that one of the front runner is Carlsberg.. any one else want to confirm this?

We confirmed Carlsberg as our official beer sponsor a couple of months back..

What these results show is that we're still dependant on revunue generated from player and property sales to make a significant profit. It's important to point out that these results do not take the sales of Cesc, Nasri, etc into equation and we still have about £40mil still to make from our property business, apparently.

So it's no wonder why we made a significantly smaller profit than last time. All the same, we still actually made a profit. So that's good.

What's encouraging is that we've decreased the debt more. We're down to 8 figures now, as opposed to 9.

What's a beer sponsor do?

The Carlsberg sponsor is just another sponsor - it's not going to be on the kits or anything.

Basically, all it entails is that we advertise Carlsberg in the stadium - maybe even begin to sell it there if we don't already - while they reap the benefits of the exposure from a top club.

All top cubs have multiple sponsors. United have their training kits sponsored by a different compnay to the one who sponsors their playing kits, for example.

This is where Arsenals falls short. The Fly Emirates shirt and stadium deal pays us a lot less than other deals, as does the Nike shirt sponsor. So any supplamentary sponsor we can get would help.

We're improving, but not by as much as I would like to see us improve, but that's mainly down to the sponsorships as well as the bad marketing. Truth is, we still have a lot of room for increasing our profit, which is definitely a good thing so long as we actually work towards achieving that. To reach our optimum though, we have to win a trophy. That's important, not only from the footballing side of things, but from a financial stand-point as well.