Ebbsfleet United’s latest set of accounts show the club lost £1.9million when they won the National League South title in 2022/23.

The Fleet’s recently released financial figures, for the year ending May 30, 2023, show a loss of £1,930,281, compared to £1,790,700 in the previous 12 months.

However, this year the directors of the company have elected not to include a copy of the profit and loss account with their financial statements.

The losses prompted football financial expert Kieran Maguire to post on X: “Ebbsfleet United belatedly publish 22/23 accounts. Club lost £37,000 a week taking total losses over the years to almost £20m. Club is propped up by shareholder investment and nearly £4m of related party loans.”

While not publishing the profit and loss account means details are limited compared to previous years, Ebbsfleet chief executive Damian Irvine has explained to FleetTV what the figures mean.

He’s also disclosed some of the figures not published in the accounts at Companies House.

“The accounts since the day I walked into the building have always been of interest to supporters,” he stated.

“They’re not dissimilar to most of our other yearly accounts. I’ve always been trying to get the losses down year-on-year since I’ve been here, even through Covid we were quite successful.

“The revenue increased from the 2022 year, which was still Covid-affected by the way, it almost doubled so it went up about £450,000. That’s down to our supporters, if I’m honest, people coming to games, the increase in gates, the turnover which is wonderful and that’s what we need to see, that’s the club going in the right direction.

“Costs rose as well about £247,000, there were some increases there in food costs and that type of thing coming out of Covid that added up but also travel costs went up by £71,000, things of that nature.

“Wages increased that year by about £251,000, it’s not playing-budget wages, that’s across the whole organisation so during that time we took on new financial resource in the club, we’ve also taken on other resources to try and lift up the off-field section. Don’t misread that into thinking our playing budget increased by that much.

“We’re progressing the right way in terms of turnover and sales, it’s still ugly in terms of debt and has been for a number of years at the club but it’s to related parties which is effectively into the ownership and their funding of the club year on year. The concern for football clubs is when those debts are to non-related football parties. That’s not the case here and the ownership has proved over 10 years now that they’re not about to call in those loans at any stage in the near future.”

Since the period for the accounts ended in May 2023, outline planning permission for the Northfleet Harbourside project has been granted. Those plans include a new 8,000 capacity multi-purpose stadium on the site of the club’s current Stonebridge Road ground.

“The overall trade debt including what the ownership and everyone has put in has gone up about £3million but over half of that is to related parties,” added Irvine.

“The other side of it is that about £1.1million of that debt increase is stadium-related which was to progress the stadium planning application which has gone in. Whilst that is included in the overall £3million increase in that debt, £1.1million of that cash debt was to get that planning application through. That’s also reflected in these accounts as the asset has gone up by that amount as well so while you’ve spent it, you’ve got your assets that have increased.

“This was over 12 months ago, we’ve since had planning approval on that so while that money has been spent and invested by the club and we’ve gone into further debt by our related parties who have funded that, our asset now is substantially different on paper for the next set of accounts because we’ve now got a new football stadium with planning application worth over £40million (coming) so it’s been worth that investment.

“The trading loss which is always the big one people look at, we were losing the previous accounts £1.7, £1.8million a year, we lost about another £131,000 more in this promotion year, that was £1.9million but the year (before) the losses amount was boosted a lot by Covid loans which was during that year. If you take those out of the accounts, and forget the Covid losses and the loans we took on as a result of that, actually our paper loss this year has reduced by £131,000.

“The key for me is those increases in revenue that came in the promotion year, thanks to our supporters. We’re already doing preliminary work on next year’s accounts and it will be even stronger still (with) our year in the National League.

“Accounts are funny, as soon a football club lodges their accounts, everyone jumps on it and wants to pick out the big headline numbers. The only way to understand them is to commentate and comment on them and give the reasons on what they are. We’re part of a big lot of related companies but we’ve got great support from the ownership.”