Sunderland losses grow after relegation for year 2017-18

Sunderland posted £19.9m pre-tax losses for their season in the Championship last term

Sunderland's back-to-back relegations came at a cost of £19.91m in pre-tax losses for the 2017-18 campaign, up from a figure of £10.3m.

The Wearsiders, following the drop from the Premier League in 2016-17, slipped into League One last term.

Turnover dropped from to £63.69m from £123.5m last season.

Their drop into the second tier reduced Sunderland's media income by 49% from £95,626m to £48,849m, while sponsorship also tumbled from under £10m to £1.9m.

This decrease was offset a drop in salaries from £73.570m to £41.443m.

Figures are for the year of trading up to 31 July 2018.

Also revealed by the figures are the £1.88m which was received by the club's highest paid director, believed to be ex-chief executive Martin Bain, which includes the £1.06m compensation following their redundancy at the end of the campaign.

The club was taken over by Stewart Donald from former owner Ellis Short in May 2018, paying £40m in return for the business.

Fourth-placed Sunderland are currently six points off the automatic promotion places in League One with two games to go.

Analysis

Nick Barnes - Sunderland commentator, BBC Newcastle

"To a certain extent they put some sort of meat on the bones about the figures Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven gave when they took over.

"Such as owing money on certain players who were bought the year before, in some sense, there is good news in that the money paid out in 2016-17 was £111m, and that came down this year in account leading up to Donald's takeover, that had dropped to £3.6m.

"Turnover inevitably dropped on relegation to the Championship. Total wages came down - ostensibly that's progress, but as we know they carried a number of players on high wages, despite taking pay-cuts, with relegation the wages to turnover went up to 73.5% from 66.8%.

"The figures are stark here - they will be starker next year with the considerable drop in income in League One. You can see from these figures why Donald and Methven had to work so hard to rein in the costs this year."