Liverpool lost a lot of money last year, and it’s not even Andy Carroll’s fault

They may be headed to Wembley at the weekend but Liverpool have just announced a serious financial loss.

There may be a Carling Cup nestling in the Anfield trophy cabinet, and the FA Cup could be squeezed in beside it on Saturday night, but off the field, the Reds are, well, in the red.

Liverpool released their financial figures for last year and it reveals a loss of £50 million, or one Fernando Torres in football currency. But the extraordinary thing about this huge loss is that it is unrelated to player sales and purchases. They can’t pin this one on Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson anyway.

The problem for Liverpool’s new owners is they had to clean the mess left by previous owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks. Firstly Fenway Sports Group wiped out the £200m debt that was on the club when they bought it back in 2010, but there was still more to do, as the man says.

The largest problem was the ill-fated attempt by the previous owners to build a new stadium in Stanley Park. The £35m cost of the plans and development of that scheme had to written down in the accounts, making a very big hole. On top of that, new England boss Roy Hodgson got his marching orders in this period, and his pay-off, combined with that for the also departed Christian Purslow, cost the club a further £8.4m.

Liverpool’s managing director Ian Ayre was putting a positive spin on the news, calling the losses “huge” but emphasizing they are now gone and the club can “move on”.

Of course, the next year’s numbers will see the boost of the new kit deal with Warrior Sports, reported to be £25m a year, kick in, as well as the sale of one Fernando Torres.

However, it will also see the expenditure on Carroll, Henderson, Downing and Charlie Adam kick in, as well as the pay-off for former Director of Football Damien Comolli. Next years numbers should make similarly interesting reading.