The following feature, written by the Club`s Managing Director Keith Dickens, appeared in last Saturday`s Matchday programme, and is repeated here in it`s entirety...

BUDGETS, MONEY and "MAKING ENDS MEET

In the recently produced Annual Review of Football Finance by Deloitte, their 'Highlights' included the comment; "below the top two divisions, managing the clubs' financial position remains a challenge from one season to the next".

Here's an overview of how Brentford Football Club are trying to manage this challenge.

First, a few key figures:

• We have borrowings of £6million - not unusual, debt issues remain at a number of Clubs, from top to bottom of the leagues.
• We turnover about £2 million - quite low, compared to the average of £2.5 in our League.
• Our Playing Budget for this year is just over £1million - as the Football League enforces a limit of 60% of turnover for Playing Budget and, our finances are over-reliant upon success on the field of play, it's the critical element to manage with great care.

·Based upon the above, we start the year with a gap - such an 'operating loss' is normal for many Clubs and ours adds up to a loss of over half a million pounds. The challenge now is to work upon closing that gap.

There are a number of ways we can close the gap:

• Matchday attendances could be higher - we have budgeted on a figure of 4250 attending each home league match. Whilst some may say this is not too aggressive a figure (just over average for our League), there is an obvious relationship between winning matches, higher league positions and bigger crowds.
• More non-turnstile income than budgeted - such as sponsorship, advertising and other stadium usage. Here's where we are already doing better than last season, with Chelsea Reserves playing at Griffin Park, supply deals like Puma and advertising space sold. Again, achieving even more than this is easier if you have a winning team.
• Lower costs than Budget - and we've estimated a 22% reduction in costs overall versus last year. To do even better than that is the intent.
• Other 'windfall' income - we already have some to include, such as the extra money from the DJ Campbell sell-on and the previously announced monies from the Football League.

So, all of the above can help close the over half a million pounds gap that we have started with.

However, the overwhelming issue for us is having enough cash on a daily basis to cover our cashflow requirements; to pay our players, staff and bills. This year we need about £600,000 cash. Some of this can be provided for by the (uncertain) income I've outlined above, borrowing facilities (that we have already set-up), or other schemes like offering more shares in our Club in return for more money.

As you may imagine, we're considering each and every alternative.

Best,

Keith