Finance expert reveals whether recent losses will impact Spurs’ Financial Fair Play

Finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley has claimed that Tottenham Hotspur are still well within the Financial Fair Play regulations despite posting a substantial loss over the last two financial years. 

Last week, Tottenham released their financial results for the 12 months ending June 2021 and the numbers showed that their revenue was down by £40.5m from June 2020.

This was mainly due to matchday revenue falling from £94.5m in the previous year to £1.9m as a result of the pandemic.

Tottenham made an £80.2m pre-tax loss for the year ending June 2021, a bigger shortfall than the £63.9m they lost in 2019-20.

UEFA’s FFP regulations state that clubs are allowed to lose £25.5m over three years but those rules have been relaxed recently due to the financial impact of the pandemic.

Plumley has now explained that Tottenham’s FFP position is not a matter of concern since the club generated a substantial profit the two years preceding the pandemic.

He told Football Insider: “This is rare for Spurs, a couple of losses over the past two years.

“It was to be expected because of the pandemic. FFP-wise, they are okay. We have had two years worth of losses but they’ll get averaged out for the purposes of FFP.

“If you look prior to that, you’ve got profits of £113m and £69m.

“Even when you add in the losses with Covid, you’ve still got an FFP position that is just above £100m positive in terms of the rolling three-year block.

“Even against Uefa’s regulations, there’s still plenty of room to invest. The next big question for them is, how much do they want to spend?”

Spurs Web Opinion

Spurs have never really been at the risk of not complying with FFP given the club’s modest wage to turnover ratio. The bigger concern is the fact that the club debts increased from a figure of £605m to £706m at the end of this financial year. 

However, even that is manageable considering that it only has to be repaid over the long term. That should not really stop the club from being able to spend big on transfers over the next few windows.