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Scottish football finances


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Depends how you define "debt free" I suppose. I would guess the majority of clubs in the bottom division or two will be debt free. Certainly those which remain member's clubs such as Annan and I think Brechin will be. There will be a lot with no bank debt but soft loans from directors / owners too I imagine. That's still debt of course but some clubs make a lot of having no "bank debt".

Queen of the South are debt free and have been since the current and former directors wrote off loans three years ago. There was a lot of publicity about Kilmarnock getting themselves debt free when Billy Bowie took over too. Not sure if that's still the case or if they owe him money. When St Mirren were put up for sale on moving to their new ground they claimed to be debt free. Whether they still are I wouldn't know.

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I don't see how you could look upon it as simply as "have debt" or "do not have debt". You would have to consider the type of debt - loans / mortgages to fund stadium or training centre developments, are a lot different to racking-up soft loans to cover expenditures - as well as whether the debt is going up or down and the level of debt in comparison to income and turnover.

Things have certainly been getting better in recent years.

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I know about queen of the south and the sale of St mirren old ground cleared up their debt. When I refer to debt I mean a club living out of its means like hearts and rangers few years back. I know Aberdeen for few years now have been working to clear remaining debts to shareholders. Dundee, livi have I believe struggled for quite a few years despite some successful campaigns.

So what clubs are unable to pay off debts to banks/shareholders or whoever and realistically are on borrowed time?

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Queen of the South are debt free and have been since the current and former directors wrote off loans three years ago.

We have a "twinning" with a German side, SG Wattenscheid, who were bankrolled via loans from a local businessman for about 25 years around the 1990s allowing them to rise to the giddy heights of the Bundesliga for a few years on an average home fanbase of about 6000. It couldn't be sustained and they tumbled down a couple of divisions, but still stayed at a reasonable level. Eventually the businessman wrote off all the debt.....only for the tax authorities to swoop in and slap the club with a bill for undeclared income, which the debt was now deemed to be. Cue bankruptcy and a tailspin down the German pyramid.

Are you listening HMRC, when Abramovic writes off his "loans" to Chelsea?

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We have a "twinning" with a German side, SG Wattenscheid, who were bankrolled via loans from a local businessman for about 25 years around the 1990s allowing them to rise to the giddy heights of the Bundesliga for a few years on an average home fanbase of about 6000. It couldn't be sustained and they tumbled down a couple of divisions, but still stayed at a reasonable level. Eventually the businessman wrote off all the debt.....only for the tax authorities to swoop in and slap the club with a bill for undeclared income, which the debt was now deemed to be. Cue bankruptcy and a tailspin down the German pyramid.

Are you listening HMRC, when Abramovic writes off his "loans" to Chelsea?

Yikes.

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