Accounts

[Graeme S]

Accounts 23/24: The Courier for anyone that doesn't have it

 

St Johnstone are aiming to turn around their fortunes on the pitch.

But the latest annual accounts have revealed they have already turned them around off it.

The Perth club posted a £110,000 PROFIT for the financial year ending May 31, 2024.

That follows an operating LOSS of £2.1 million over the previous 12 months.

Stan Harris was brought back to Saints by then owner, Geoff Brown, to sort the McDiarmid Park finances out.

He stepped away again following the sale to Adam Webb and other American investors, leaving the club in rude financial health.

As well as posting a profit, the accounts reveal that £2.8 million cash reserves have been passed on by Brown.

In his report to the shareholders, Harris said: “Unlike many of our contemporaries, we hand over a club to Adam Webb that carries in excellent health with strong cash reserves and ready to face a 16th consecutive season in the SPFL.

“We all owe Geoff and latterly Steve (Brown) a huge debt of gratitude for showing Scottish football that it can be done.

Geoff Brown and Stan Harris. Image: SNS.

“We are delighted that Adam and his investor group have taken on the task as custodians of this amazing local institution. We wish them every success.

“The last couple of seasons in Perth has shown that without tight control even our club can get caught up in overspend.

“That said, we vigorously implemented the stretching cost controls mentioned in last year’s report and managed to reduce our losses by £2.2m from the underlying £2.1m loss from season 22/23 (which was reduced to £1.5m after a donation from the club lottery).

“Along with some fortuitous tailwinds and the tremendous work behind the scenes, everyone involved in the club should be rightly proud of their input in achieving this result.

“We have posted a profit of £110k for season 23/24.

“A stretching but realistically achievable budget has been set to break even in season 24/25.”

A provision of just over £500,000 has been maintained in the accounts for spending on infrastructure projects at McDiarmid, with cash reserves sitting at £2.8m.

Base revenue at Saints, excluding interest and donations, has risen from £5.11m to £6.06m, while base salary costs have gone down from £4.8m to £4.4m.

Tough circumstances for Steven MacLean

Harris took over just after Steven MacLean had been appointed manager by departing chairman, Steve Brown.

And, turning to the football side of things, he noted the difficult task MacLean and fellow playing legend, Liam Craig, had before both were sacked and replaced by Craig Levein and Andy Kirk.

“Starting the following season was extremely difficult,” said Harris. “Coming in fresh in June as we did.

“Steven MacLean had been appointed to the role of manager in late May and was given a difficult task in that he quickly had to ramp up recruitment.

“This slow start to our recruitment and lack of pre-planning affected us greatly. It also wasn’t helpful in our League Cup challenge.

“Results in the league also eluded us and we found ourselves slightly adrift at the bottom of the league. The difficult decision was taken to change the management team and as such, Steven MacLean and Liam Craig both left the club.

“I’d like to put on record that both Steven and Liam have been the most amazing servants to St Johnstone. Although things didn’t work out managerially, they both deserve our sincere thanks for their time and commitment to our club.

A dejected St Johnstone manager Steven MacLean during his last game in charge. Image: SNS.

“We wish them well in the future and assure them that they will always be welcome at McDiarmid.”

Although Levein, MacLean’s successor, was sacked in the following financial year, Harris noted that he too operated in an “extremely controlled budgetary environment”.

Saints secured their Premiership status on the last day of the season, with Harris observing: “Success was mainly due to everyone, both upstairs and downstairs, getting on board with the task in hand and understanding the immense challenge of reducing spend and increasing revenues in all areas.

“While many of the actions throughout the year weren’t always pretty, or to the liking of many fans, we were very limited with the levers we had to work with.”

[RandomGuy]

Confirmation Ian Flaherty and Callum Davidson spent a fortune on players who never played.

Will Sandford, who most Saints fans have probably never even heard of, cost £240k, and Bobby Dailly cost £180k.

[Graeme S]

Confirmation of what was previously thought. Confirming the mismanagement that was going on at the time. Again, The Courier. 

 

St Johnstone have had to absorb an eye-watering bill of nearly £500,000 for two young players who didn’t make a single first team appearance between them.

Former chairman Stan Harris confirmed in the Perth club’s latest annual accounts, which produced a six-figure profit for the last financial year, that they were required to pay £240,000 to IFK Gothenburg for William Sandford as a result of Fifa’s training compensation rules.

That was a costly error made BEFORE Harris returned to Saints to steady the ship at McDiarmid Park.

Courier Sport understands that it wasn’t the first time they were caught out, with Millwall receiving around £180,000 for Bobby Dailly.

That administrative error, also while Harris wasn’t involved at the club, has been absorbed in previous annual accounts.

Both Sandford and Dailly were brought to Saints in the summer of 2022.

Bobby Dailly was on the books of St Johnstone.

Neither got first team game-time before being released at the end of that season and it turned out that in both cases there wasn’t an agreement secured to waive training compensation.

As Harris confirmed, Saints appealed the Sandford payment – to no avail.

He said: “Profitability would have been even greater had it not been for an inherited and unexpected training compensation liability payable to IFK Gothenburg of £240k relating to a player registration from 2021/22.

“This was heavily challenged with IFK Gothenburg who refused to discuss the matter with us. An appeal to Fifa was rejected and our appeal was dismissed.

[Don McVicar]

1 minute ago, Graeme S said:

Confirmation of what was previously thought. Confirming the mismanagement that was going on at the time. Again, The Courier. 

 

St Johnstone have had to absorb an eye-watering bill of nearly £500,000 for two young players who didn’t make a single first team appearance between them.

Former chairman Stan Harris confirmed in the Perth club’s latest annual accounts, which produced a six-figure profit for the last financial year, that they were required to pay £240,000 to IFK Gothenburg for William Sandford as a result of Fifa’s training compensation rules.

That was a costly error made BEFORE Harris returned to Saints to steady the ship at McDiarmid Park.

Courier Sport understands that it wasn’t the first time they were caught out, with Millwall receiving around £180,000 for Bobby Dailly.

That administrative error, also while Harris wasn’t involved at the club, has been absorbed in previous annual accounts.

Both Sandford and Dailly were brought to Saints in the summer of 2022.

Bobby Dailly was on the books of St Johnstone.

Neither got first team game-time before being released at the end of that season and it turned out that in both cases there wasn’t an agreement secured to waive training compensation.

As Harris confirmed, Saints appealed the Sandford payment – to no avail.

He said: “Profitability would have been even greater had it not been for an inherited and unexpected training compensation liability payable to IFK Gothenburg of £240k relating to a player registration from 2021/22.

“This was heavily challenged with IFK Gothenburg who refused to discuss the matter with us. An appeal to Fifa was rejected and our appeal was dismissed.

**** a duck 🫣

[Don McVicar]

Just in case you’ve never seen £500k before

[rik2304]

Flaherty should get the f*cking jail.

 

Useless c*nt.

[tucker]

Just now, rik2304 said:

Flaherty should get the f*cking jail.

 

Useless c*nt.

He's still in football scouting for Callum at queen's park by the way 

[Don McVicar]

1 minute ago, tucker said:

He's still in football scouting for Callum at queen's park by the way 

 

[rik2304]

9 minutes ago, tucker said:

He's still in football scouting for Callum at queen's park by the way 

Old pals sticking together. It's the Scottish football way.

[Graeme S]

10 minutes ago, rik2304 said:

Flaherty should get the f*cking jail.

 

As it was explained to me, when clubs sign youngsters, they should contact all the clubs that the player has been with to get waivers signed, or at least ensure there is no compensation due. Somebody was blissfully unaware of this requirement and the two lads were signed without this part of the process being undertaken. 🤪

[Tattie-bogle]

That is criminal.

How far 500k could go in transfer fees / wages. Not sure Tommy got that much in his entire time with us.

 

[RandomGuy]

Just now, Tattie-bogle said:

That is criminal.

How far 500k could go in transfer fees / wages. Not sure Tommy got that much in his entire time with us.

 

Asked on P&B and been said on there that Will Sandford is our 3rd highest purchase ever.

[stevensan]

6 minutes ago, RandomGuy said:

Asked on P&B and been said on there that Will Sandford is our 3rd highest purchase ever.

That's going to be some pub quiz question in 20 years time...

[MySpazz]

39 minutes ago, stevensan said:

That's going to be some pub quiz question in 20 years time...

Went straight to the Swedish third tier with Vastra Frolunda....and the other lad is in the lower reaches of scottish football.

what an omni shambles, not once.......but twice! Mental sheeeeeeeet - 

[Graeme S]

Hats off to Stan Harris. 

Looking at the accounts, £2.8m was carried over to the new owners. If we had posted the same losses last year as in the previous, one would assume there'd be very little cash in the bank to hand over at all. 

I had a 30 min chat with Stan in March and he intimated he expected the losses to be similar to the previous year, so to turn a £2m deficit into a £100k profit is a fantastic achievement. 

Completely unconnected, I also believe that Gus was brought in as an "experienced head" to assist CD, but the footballing, double cup winning genius that is CD decided he didn't need/want help and so the club was left in the hands of Flaherty and Davidson to administer - hence us paying half a million quid for two players who never played a first team game. 

[aagb1884]

I gather Stan basically cut a lot in terms of staff in the ground.

Did we not have some other transfer **** up with Wallace Duffy where he was supposed to be loaned and someone ticked the wrong box and we sold him?

[dave mc]

Worse than Accies losing £700,000 to Nigeria! At least some of those guys are believable 🤮

[Graeme S]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy said:

Will Sandford, who most Saints fans have probably never even heard of, cost £240k, and Bobby Dailly cost £180k.

Whilst not a transfer fee, I believe we have a pre Levein player on the books that's played around a handful of games at C £80k pa. 

Edited January 7 by Graeme S

[Tattie-bogle]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy said:

Asked on P&B and been said on there that Will Sandford is our 3rd highest purchase ever.

Christ on a bike

Dodds, McBride and Stanford?....at least McBride played...

This really deserves to be discussed in the wider domain to show just how badly things were being run.. I would go as far as any of them are not fit and proper to be working in football in any capacity. There is mistakes and then there is just negligence.

Unfortunately the only repercussions of this is will be felt by the club and is the support.

****ing raging at how we have squandered such a legacy 

[GMac]

Hopefully there will never be a repeat of such incompetence.   Maybe the club should sue Flaherty and Davidson for being a pair of  complete d+cks and gross negligence

[Gekko]

I'd heard that Dailly cost us a fortune, but I didn't realise Sandford cost us even more.

When you see it as an official announcement like that, it's just so totally unacceptable.

Sandford is our third most costly player ever? For crying out loud.

Even more than Paul Wright, who if memory serves was around 195,000. But at least he had the bonus of playing loads of games and scoring lots of goals.

It's unbelievable how badly we were run for years. I mean really, try losing half a million at your own work and explain that you just didn't realise the rules.

Nick Leeson levels of incompetence.

And SportSound still wonder why we are where we are.

[Linky]

3 hours ago, RandomGuy said:

Confirmation Ian Flaherty and Callum Davidson spent a fortune on players who never played.

Will Sandford, who most Saints fans have probably never even heard of, cost £240k, and Bobby Dailly cost £180k.

Doing this once might be a mistake, but twice….

I think the stuff that went on in this era is really dodgy. Players sold for less than their value, players bought for huge amounts, contracts messed up, players given exorbitant wages, players bought through particular agents, players bought then not played. That’s not all by accident.

[john.w]

3 hours ago, Gekko said:

I'd heard that Dailly cost us a fortune, but I didn't realise Sandford cost us even more.

When you see it as an official announcement like that, it's just so totally unacceptable.

Sandford is our third most costly player ever? For crying out loud.

Even more than Paul Wright, who if memory serves was around 195,000. But at least he had the bonus of playing loads of games and scoring lots of goals.

It's unbelievable how badly we were run for years. I mean really, try losing half a million at your own work and explain that you just didn't realise the rules.

Nick Leeson levels of incompetence.

And SportSound still wonder why we are where we are.

I don’t know if that debacle happened before or after the Kelty game but Davidson should have been gone the minute the final whistle went

[john.w]

7 hours ago, Don McVicar said:

Just in case you’ve never seen £500k before

Bottom guy looks like Forrest Gump

[Cagey]

11 hours ago, Graeme S said:

Hats off to Stan Harris. 

Looking at the accounts, £2.8m was carried over to the new owners. If we had posted the same losses last year as in the previous, one would assume there'd be very little cash in the bank to hand over at all. 

I had a 30 min chat with Stan in March and he intimated he expected the losses to be similar to the previous year, so to turn a £2m deficit into a £100k profit is a fantastic achievement. 

Completely unconnected, I also believe that Gus was brought in as an "experienced head" to assist CD, but the footballing, double cup winning genius that is CD decided he didn't need/want help and so the club was left in the hands of Flaherty and Davidson to administer - hence us paying half a million quid for two players who never played a first team game. 

Have we paid of the COVID loan yet ?.