Aberdeen have confirmed the impact of Covid-19 has left them with a £5.19million loss.
Dons chief Dave Cormack revealed eye-watering accounts that showed the massive shortfall while turnover was down £3.26 million.
The Aberdeen chairman had warned at the height of lockdown the Scottish game was facing a tsunami and the full extent of that is now being laid bare.
The Aberdeen accounts up to the end of June showed a drop in turnover from £14.33m to £11.07m with an operating loss of £5.19m compared to £2.92m the previous year.
The club also changed their management team with Stephen Glass coming in to replace Derek McInnes. They reduced their wage budget from £9.77m to £9.36m but the reduced incomes meant their wages to turnover ratio increased from 68 per cent to 85 per cent.
Cormack said: “The overarching challenge for the club has been the coronavirus pandemic.
“When we compiled last year’s annual report, we still held out hope that we might see the return of fans to football matches and the restarting of matchday hospitality during the 2020/21 season, but neither of these materialised.
“We had optimistically assumed we might return to some degree of normality from the start of 2021.
“But we had to wait until the start of the current season before fans were allowed back.
“Their exclusion not only impacted on the atmosphere at matches but also decimated the club’s mainstream commercial revenues of match day gate receipts, hospitality, advertising, sponsorship, and retail sales.
“The new management team has been tasked with realising the Club’s vision of playing attacking and entertaining football and giving academy players their chance to develop and play in the first team.” Young players are critical to the club’s success.”
