Following the significant redevelopment under Alex Neil and Ricky Martin, Stoke City’s most recent financial statements showed a loss of £30.3 million.

After overcoming the most difficult years of a financial fair play cycle, Stoke added 24 senior players in 2023–2024. This was made possible by the £15 million sale of Harry Souttar to Leicester in January 2023 and the £4 million transfer of Jacob Brown to Luton Town in August of the same year.

With £18.2 million spent on player registrations, including seven-figure contracts for Wouter Burger, Ryan Mmaee, Bae Junho, Million Manhoef, Junior Tchamadeu, Mehdi Leris, Nikola Jojic, and Lynden Gooch, the money was put back into the team. The fact that Stoke only invested £3.1 million in 2022–2023 puts the rebuild’s scope in perspective.

However, the initiative did not proceed as expected, and in December 2023, when Stoke was battling at the bottom of the Championship, Neil was fired as manager.In February, Martin, the technical director, left the club after him. While Mmaee and Jojic are now only on loan, thirteen of the signings are no longer with Stoke.

Stoke’s total revenue was £23.78 million, while their expenses was £54.67 million, which included the transfer fee and £6.1 million for player registration amortisation, which records each player’s value on the balance sheet as each contract year goes by. The revenue from Souttar was noted in the records from the prior year.

In addition, Stoke has pledged to invest £30 million in infrastructure initiatives, including as constructing a new spectator area and remodelling Ricardo’s bar at the stadium. The construction of a new first team training facility at Clayton Wood has just begun. The EFL’s Financial Fair Play regulations do not regard infrastructure spending as a loss.

These are the final complete accounts that bet365 had for the time that the group owned Stoke City. In the summer of 2024, chairman John Coates acquired the club and currently holds a 100% controlling ownership. The club now directly owns the training facility and bet365 Stadium after all debts were paid off as part of the deal.

Although specific numbers were not disclosed at the time, a post-balance sheet event note that describes the transaction reveals that, prior to the companies’ demise on July 8, 2024, bet365 Group Limited had paid £46 million in cash and £86.9 million in assets to acquire 132.9 million shares in Stoke City Holdings Limited.

As part of the agreement, bet365—owned by the Coates family and Stoke City’s parent company since 2006—wrote off £118 million, wiping out all of the club’s obligations.

According to the statement: “John Coates now owns the majority of Stoke City Holdings Limited and its subsidiaries. The stadium and training ground were transferred from bet365 Group Limited to Stoke City Holdings Limited as part of the demerger, and all intra-group loans were paid off.

“I’m really proud of my affiliation with Stoke City; it means a lot to me and my family,” Coates said at the time. We made these adjustments because, from a licensing standpoint, it was the proper thing to do to enable bet365 to carry on with its international expansion and to enable us to keep supporting the club in the ways that we do. Everything continues as usual.