Stoke City reveal cost of Alex Neil and Ricky Martin transfer blitz in new accounts
Stoke City recorded a £30.3 million loss in their latest accounts after the big rebuild under Alex Neil and Ricky Martin.
Stoke brought in 24 senior players in 2023/24 after emerging from the most challenging years of a financial fair play cycle, boosted by the £15m sale of Harry Souttar to Leicester in January 2023 plus Jacob Brown for up to £4m to Luton Town that August.
That money was reinvested in the squad with £18.2m spent on player registrations, including seven-figure deals for Wouter Burger, Ryan Mmaee, Bae Junho, Million Manhoef, Junior Tchamadeu, Mehdi Leris, Nikola Jojic and Lynden Gooch. The scale of the rebuild is put in context by the fact Stoke had only spent £3.1m in 2022/23.
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The project did not go as planned, however, and Neil was sacked as manager in December 2023 when Stoke were struggling at the wrong end of the Championship. Technical director Martin followed him out of the club in February. Thirteen of the signings are no longer at Stoke, although Mmaee and Jojic are currently only out on loan.
In all, Stoke had a turnover of £23.78m and expenses of £54.67m, including the transfer spend and £6.1m on amortisation of player registrations, which is writing down the amount each player is worth on the balance sheet with every passing year of their contract. The income from Souttar was recorded in the previous year's accounts.
Stoke have also committed to spending £30m on infrastructure projects, including the renovation of Ricardo's bar at the stadium and building a new fan zone. Work has just started on a new first team training facility at Clayton Wood. Spending on infrastructure does not count towards losses in terms of the EFL's Financial Fair Play rules.
These are the last full accounts from bet365 for when Stoke City was owned by the group. The club was taken over in the summer of 2024 by chairman John Coates, who now owns the controlling stake outright. All debts were cleared as part of the transaction and training ground and bet365 Stadium are now owned directly by the club.
Figures were not revealed at the time but there is a post-balance sheet event note that details the move, stating that bet365 Group Limited had subscribed to 132.9 million shares in Stoke City Holdings Limited for £46m in cash and £86.9m in assets before the companies were demerged on July 8, 2024.
bet365 - which is owned by the Coates family and had been the parent company of Stoke City since 2006 - has written off £118m as part of the deal, wiping all the club's debts.
It is stated: “As a result, the controlling stake of Stoke City Holdings Limited and its subsidiaries are now owned by John Coates. All intra-group loans were cleared as part of the demerger and the stadium and training ground were transfer from bet365 Group Limited to Stoke City Holdings Limited.”
Coates explained at the time: “I’m hugely proud of my association with Stoke City, it means a great deal to me and my family. We’ve made these changes because it was the right thing to do from a licensing perspective so that bet365 can continue with its global expansion and it also allows us to continue to support the club in the various ways we do. Things go on as normal.”
