Liverpool announce £21.8 million debt increase

Ian Ayre notes money dropped on unsuccessful buys

Liverpool have admitted a £21.8 million leap in the club's debts, making a total of over £80 million.

Their annual accounts also reveal a loss of £40.5million. Although commercial revenue increased, so did the club's overall liabilities.

Managing director Ian Ayre seemed to lay some of the blame on bad transfer policy, telling the Liverpool Echo: "We see a big charge within the accounts for amortisation (depleted value) of players that have been disposed of within the period that perhaps came in on a higher cost," added Ayre.

"We've made losses as a result of selling them but at the same time we've improved our longer-term position in terms of our wage bill by reducing the wages for those particular contracts."

Ayre also downplayed the debt rise, saying: "It's definitely not something I believe anyone should be worried or concerned about. It is seasonal - our debt goes up and down.

"We have money to pay out and money coming in, just like any business.

"The difference in football is some of the swings are significant, so if you look at player trading, we may need to make investments as we do in the summer before our key revenues come in: big sponsorships cheques, big ticket revenues, all the media revenues etc.

"You come to Christmas when you maybe have less revenue coming in but you have got money that needs to go out, both on playing deals that you are doing at the time but also on historic player deals.

"We need to continue to improve our squad and what a lot of people won't relate to perhaps is that when you are improving your squad and making that investment, you have knock-on costs that will create debt in the short term."

The club's restructuring of the accounting period to match the football season means the figures apply to the 10 months between August 1, 2011 to May 31, 2012.

Other factors in the increase increase were player instalment payments plus exceptional payments of just over £9.5million including the stadium project, general restructuring and pay-offs to senior employees who left the club.

Since the end of the accounts reporting period, owners Fenway Sports Group have injected £46.8million into the club via a non interest-bearing inter-company loan while credit facilities were also refinanced with three major banks, providing £120million of facilities for three years.

The loss of £40.5million for the 10-month period was, however, less than the previous year's £49.3million.