Watford Reveal £5.6m Deficit

Watford Football Club has today (Thursday) announced a loss of £5.6million for the year ended 30 June 2006.

The debts, more than double than those for the previous year, are mainly a result of the bonuses paid to players and staff as reward for their promotion at the end of last season – pre-tax wages and salary costs increased from £6.6million for the year ending June 2005 to £10million for the following twelve month period.

In a statement issued to the London Stock Exchange chairman, Graham Simpson confirmed,

"The principal cause of an increased loss was the increase in employment costs of £3.4million, largely as a result of bonus payments to players (for) promotion to the Premiership and the league performances to get to the play-off final."

"Now that Premiership football has been attained, our goal is to build a club infrastructure that will support the on-pitch success and enable us to continue to drive the business forward on all levels.

"Our work is now focused on ensuring that we are able to compete at the top level of English football and continue to move forward on and off the pitch."

Despite winning promotion back to the Barclays Premiership after an absence of six years Watford only made a profit of 3.2% on their gate receipts for the respective period, whilst the club did not have the benefit of a decent cup run in either of the national cup competitions as had been the case in 2005.

The announcement leaves manager, Aidy Boothroyd with little room for manoeuvre to add to his struggling squad when the transfer window reopens in January.