Bristol City chairman Colin Sexstone has warned the wage bill must be reduced after the club announced losses in excess of £11m.
Sexstone warns wage bill must be cut and players may have to be sold
Bristol City chairman Colin Sexstone has warned the wage bill must be reduced after the Championship club announced losses in excess of £11million.
The figures for the financial year ending 31st May 2011 saw the Robins post a loss of £11,454,525, compared to the record deficit of £11,808,085 for the previous financial year.
Turnover increased from £11.1million to £11.9million, but staff costs also rose from £13.8million to £15.9million while the stadium project incurred a loss of £0.6million in 2011 compared with £1.9million the previous year.
Sexstone acknowledged that City's costs are too high and that players may have to be sold in order to help to balance the books.
Not acceptable
"The thing that stands out in this set of accounts is that our costs are far too high for the level of income we are taking. That is not acceptable and, clearly, we have to reduce our wage bill," Sexstone said.
"We are losing too much and we have to get those losses down to a sensible level. We need to have a football club that runs at a more sustainable level.
"We are going to have to be clever with players we bring in and also foster our youth development system.
"We will also have to sell players at certain times. I am not saying we want to become a selling club, but there will be occasions when we will need to be."
