Good day Imps fans – it’s an early start this morning as the club release their accounts for the 2022/23 season.
We recently released a podcast with Keiran Maguire from the Price of Football, who delves into the numbers to explain where we are and what they imply, so make sure you’re up to date on the news. Me? I won’t pretend to be a statistics person, but that doesn’t mean you won’t receive the excellent coverage you’ve come to expect. Links to the podcast are provided at the conclusion of this post.
Three significant pieces of information in the account piqued my interest as a Lincoln City nerd. How often have we lamented the lack of knowledge concerning transfer fees? Unknown costs are bothersome because they never fully provide fans with closure when a player departs. Alright, so a player won’t be under any pressure when he gets there, but we all want to know the club records. As of 6:59 a.m., Tony Battersby and Dean Walling, for whom we paid £75,000 each, shared the club’s official record transfer fee.
Yes, it has now been verified that John Akinde was the recipient of the record transfer fee that we paid. It was established that the six-figure amount we paid for Ethan Erhahon did not surpass the £325,000 we paid for John Akinde, which included a promotion bonus, in a brief section outlining our payment process.
That’s £13,000 every goal (I’m not going to try to figure out what it was from open play), but Big John did contribute significantly on all fronts to our successful promotion. It’s interesting to note, though, how much money was spent on a striker that summer; some fans even thought we hadn’t acquired our top target, Tyler Walker, who was on loan. After a while, Big John departed for Colchester for what was probably
There was also information regarding Harry Toffolo’s move to Huddersfield Town. The accounts state that we collected about £640,000 for Toff after deducting the sell-on charge we received. That’s a sizable sum of money. The fact that this is listed as a club record is interesting. For those of you with long memories, however, this may not have seemed to be the case when we sold Jack Hobbs to Liverpool; at the time, the reported amount was £750,000. That’s what was published, but from what I’ve been told, the actual fee was considerably less because certain conditions, including appearance incentives, were not fulfilled, so we actually ended up with less than what was stated.
Could the fact that clubs believed we had £750,000 to spend have hurt us a season later? Perhaps hidden costs are best? Though it’s conceivable, it’s intriguing to note that our record sales have increased in the last several seasons. Recall, we also received £550,000 for the sale of Tayo Edun.
It makes sense on the surface that Jamie Robson is frequently pointed out as a weakness of the present hiring team. Nobody is going to be perfect, and Robson’s coming and going made sure he won’t be looked at on with much fondness at Sincil Bank. The accounts also reveal something interesting about him: they show a slight deficit, which indicates that we lost a little money through June 2023.
It’s crucial to remember that this is no longer the case. As of this writing, Robson has performed 55 times since relocating to Forest Green, surpassing the requirement for additional compensation. We have now stopped losing money on the former Dundee United left-back thanks to the payment. That intrigued me, considering how so many ITK critics said we must have lost money on him.
As a fan, I thought the statistics around the players were fascinating, but what about the other accounts? I believe it would be preferable to turn you over to Keiran Maguire, an expert. These are the links you need to check out the podcast right now.
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