Finance Guru moots deliberate West Brom plot to delay financial news after document uploaded
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes cynics would say West Brom are deliberately delaying the publication of their financial results for 2020/21.
Yesterday, on 31 March, Albion uploaded a document to Companies House to say that the accounting reference period ending 31 July, 2021 “is shortened so as at to end on 30 June, 2021”.
Maguire, who’s a chartered accountant, says that Albion were supposed to have published their accounts for last season yesterday but the submission of this document means they have a further three months.
“West Brom file an innocent-looking document to Companies House changing their year-end from 31 July 2021 to 30 June 2021,” Maguire wrote via his personal Twitter account on Thursday [31 March] after the document was uploaded onto Companies House.
“Under Companies Act rules companies have nine months following their year-end so in theory, accounts should be out today but under S.442(4) of the rules, the submission date of accounts can be extended by three months from the date the document is filed.
“This means WBA now don’t have to submit accounts until 30 June 2022.
“There’s nothing to stop the club submitting the accounts earlier than 30 June of course, as this date is a deadline. A cynic might say this is a deliberate ploy to avoid showing the financial results as long as possible, but I’m not a cynic.”
What’s to hide?
We’re not sure why West Brom would need to push back the release of their accounts for the 2020/21 season.
Chris Lepkowski has mooted an “accounting error” at The Hawthorns – and that could be the case.
Either way, what the club has essentially done is change the date of their accounts period from last season by a month, just to ensure they didn’t have to publish those accounts yesterday.
Maguire added in another tweet that ex-Newcastle owner Mike Ashley sometimes adjusts his accounting periods by a single day, simply to get an extra three months before publishing them.
Do Albion need more time to present their accounts in a way that doesn’t come across as horribly as they actually are? Is it actually an accounting error? Or is it something as innocent as the fact that someone vital to this process has been off ill or on holiday?
We’ll probably never know but what we do know now is that Albion’s accounts probably won’t be published until June.
And we doubt they’ll make pretty reading given the way COVID has hit football and the fact the club has had to cope with spending three of the last four seasons outside of the Premier League.
In other West Brom news, a staff member has quit the Albion to join Wolves.
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