SUNDERLAND’S interim CEO claims the club are in an “excellent” financial position that means they can attack the summer transfer window confident of remaining within the parameters established by the Premier League’s new Squad Cost Ratio (SCR) regulations.
The SCR rules that come into force next season mean clubs can spend up to 85 per cent of their football revenue and net profit or loss from player sales on squad costs, with limited headroom to exceed that threshold for a limited period.
While Sunderland are not looking to repeat last year’s complete overhaul, when 14 new signings arrived at the Stadium of Light, the club’s director of football, Florent Ghisolfi, confirmed yesterday that he was hoping to make a number of “high-quality” additions this summer.
The Black Cats spent more than £150m on new signings 12 months ago, but Tom Burwell claims they remain in an extremely strong financial position that will enable them to be proactive and adventurous in the next couple of months.
“We’re a club built on really strong foundations,” said Burwell. “We had an excellent year financially, which means we don't have to make short-term decisions. That's a great place for us to go into the market from because it means that Flo can make the decisions which are the very best for this football club without any pressure [of having to raise funds].
“I think we benefit hugely from the fundamentals that sit below this club. Without talking specifics, we’re in a really strong position from a revenue point of view and that means we’re not entering into this like a more normal freshly-promoted football club that might be sitting with completely different revenue numbers.
“We’re able to go in confident, knowing that it is a lot of work and we have to be clever and cute, doing the things that are appropriate, but also that we come from a position of strength that means we’re able to act appropriately.”
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Sunderland will head into European competition for only the second time in their history next season, which means they will also have to comply with UEFA’s financial regulations.
UEFA’s SCR rules are stricter than the Premier League’s, requiring clubs to remain within a 70 per cent revenue limit with their spending, but again, Burwell is confident the Black Cats will not run into any problems as they prepare to enter the Europa League at the league phase.
“If I put it in context, as financial regulations have become more and more apparent in this game, if you look at some of the teams that will be in the Europa League – Juventus, AC Milan, Benfica – then they’ll have bigger revenues than us,” he said.
“But I’m not sure anyone else in the competition will. So, whatever rules we’re facing, everybody is facing, which means we can go in confident, be ourselves, operate appropriately and make sure we behave within the rules.”
Sunderland’s supporters are looking forward to a series of European adventures, and from a footballing perspective, the Black Cats will head into the Europa League hoping to extend the fine recent record of English teams in the competition.
With a financial hat on, Burwell also expects competing in Europe to open doors that had previously been closed to the club, creating new revenue streams and increasing Sunderland’s global exposure.
“We’ve spoken at length about the opportunity that sits in front of the club in terms of exporting Sunderland to the world,” he said. “It’s an absolute core principle of how we create commercial uniqueness within the league.
“The Premier League is the tide that rises that ability to speak to the world, and European football is a further ability to do so. Even if you just look at it from a fixture point of view, we’ve got a minimum of eight games where we’re able to communicate to a completely different audience what is so unique about this football club, this city, this community and this team. For me, you can then turn that into real commercial opportunity.
“It’s not something that will happen overnight, but we absolutely see a fundamental movement in our commercials for being in Europe. However, you need to normalise that and not have a situation where it goes up wildly but then you’re wildly flying back down.
“We need to build that appropriately, and you’ll see that come through the season. This isn’t something we had directly planned for in the short term, but it is something that we had planned for in the long term, so taking advantage of it is important.”
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