FFP

[Stu82]

It’s showing real progress, and we will have a hit this year with dropping to the Europa league, but commercial will continue to develop to offset some.

Outside of sky six and Newcastle, we are leaving other teams in our wake.

Yes there are bumps in the road but the figures suggest to me we are on our way to be a 5-600m Euro club able to compete at the top level.

How though Stu?  That figure was the result of us being in the Champions League and having a full house for pretty much every game.  How does the club generate that additional £100m - £150m on top of that?

This isn't a game where "one extra thing" suddenly generates another £100m.  This is a process of incremental gains.  The recent new 'training kit' sponsor being just one example of that.  Each of these smaller extra revenue streams adds up to a bigger number at the end of the year. 

It's no surprise that the clubs with the biggest revenue are the ones that have sponsors coming out of their arses for every conceivable element of the club.  Man Utd have an official wine partner, an official mattress partner, and an official skin care partner, for example - and PLENTY of others.  I'm sure none of these individually is megabucks, but they all add millions to the bottom line every year.  But you don't get businesses like that looking for any possible way to align with you unless you're successful.  And that part is starting now.  Our profile is growing, and sponsors will want to be part of that, some betting on us continuing our journey upwards.

In addition, our EXISTING revenue sources will grow as our profile and success continues to grow.  Sponsors will pay more while we're a team at the top end of the league and in Europe.  Corporates will pay more as a day out at the Villa is seen as more prestigious.  We'll earn more when we're in Europe as our coefficient will be higher.  Again, all these increase revenues, not in huge jumps individually, but in aggregate it can add up to millions.

I'll be honest, if the €450m figure is accurate, then we're already closer than I thought we were.  I genuinely thought it would be another 5 years of regular top 6 finishes and maybe some silverware before we were properly on the tails of the 'big 6', but we're not far away now, and I could see us up at Chelsea's level in another couple of years (assuming current on-pitch trajectories continue).

I was going to give a quick response, however Smithy has nailed it.
The key areas of the business are all growing, and a 52k stadium will grow matchday revenue a lot.

Next year will dip, however probably not as much as feared, as new deals come in.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The gap is commercial deals. Shirt sponsorship, partners etc.

Aren't we having a new sponsor next season? Let's pray Francesco Calvo can do a better job at finding one than he did at Juventus.

[paul_e]

Looking at the deloitte stuff we were listed as 71% earning:wages ratio which is slightly higher than I expected (I predicted it as being just under 70% given what we were paying Rashford, Asensio, etc.). I hope that doesn't mean that we end up still under the same restrictions next season because that would be crippling for us.