Leicester City: More details from those record-breaking accounts

Like a good book, I’ve found Leicester City’s 2011/12 accounts hard to put down since being handed a copy of them at the weekend.

The 31 pages of documents make fascinating reading, not least because the main plot revolves around a £29.7 million loss, believed to be the highest deficit ever made by a Championship club.

I wrote a story on page two of Monday’s Leicester Mercury based on these accounts. It revealed a further £14.6 million of funding had been pumped into the club by the Thai owners since the start of the season. However, it is not totally clear in the accounts whether this cash is in the form of a loan, like the other £61.6 million provided by the owners between when they took control in 2010 and May 31, 2012.

A close inspection of the accounts will show this extra funding figure could actually be £15.6 million as there seems to be a discrepancy.

The £14.6 million figure is given on page 17 of the accounts. But on page seven and under the heading ‘subsequent events’ on the page 31 of the accounts it talks of £15.6 million of new funding. But what's £1 million between friends?

Page 31 also says the additional funding of £15.6 million was given to the club between May 31, 2012 and November 30, 2012. The accounts were signed off by the club's vice-chairman on December 1.

Other highlights of the 2011/12 accounts which haven’t yet been reported are;

The club made an operating loss of £25.1 million, compared to £14.3 million the previous season. This will be of interest because the Financial Fair Play rules which come into force next season are based on operating losses and not pre-tax losses.

The accounts say £67.5 million is owed to owner King Power, with £63.1 million bearing interest of 8 per cent and £4.4 million at 6 per cent. The £5.9 million difference between this and the £61.6 million put into the club as loans by the owners up until May 31, 2012 could be because the higher figure includes interest payments owed and some kind of fees.

The club had 35 players on its books on May 31, 2012, compared to 24 the year before. These players were valued at £20.7 million on May 31, 2012 compared to the £7.2 million the 24 players were valued at 12 months before.

The total pay of the highest-paid director – either chief executive Susan Whelan or one of the two Thai owners - was £133,000, down from £173,000 the previous year, when Lee Hoos was chief executive.