Stefan Borson: Man United are in £1bn of debt – ‘We are in crazy days’
Manchester United are in £1billion worth of debt after publishing their latest accounts at Old Trafford.
Man United have smashed their club-record revenue after their 2024-25 accounts revealed their turnover increased from £661.8million to £666.5m.
That figure was boosted by Man United’s significant uplift in commercial revenue, which improved from £302.9m in 2023-24 to £333.3m last season.
The 20-time English champions’ broadcast revenue fell from £221.8m to £172.9m due to their lack of Champions League football, while matchday income at Old Trafford increased from £137.1m to £160.3m.
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Man United are in £1bn of debt, including the money they owe on transfers.
Man United face financial blow after new reveal
Benjamin Sesko was Man United’s most expensive signing of the summer transfer window, having joined from RB Leipzig for around £74m.
Ruben Amorim’s side spent more than £200m in total, with Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha, Senne Lammens and Diego Leon also making the move to Old Trafford.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “If you were to add the financial debt and the transfer debts, i.e. payments that they owe to other clubs for players, even on a net basis, so non-football debt and net football debt, so net as in including the receivables that they’re going to get from other clubs, they were owed at the end of June £100m by other clubs for players historically sold.
“We know they sold Garnacho and Antony, so I would think they probably got about a quarter of the monies on those.
“So, maybe they got £15m, which means that the net transfer debt at the end of the window would have had receivables included in it of let’s say £135m, maybe something like that.
“But together the net financial debt, so that’s the facilities that they have, the revolving, which has got a lot of publicity.
“We are in crazy days when we’re talking about Manchester United’s revolver, which is just a bank account. I mean, it is pretty dry stuff.
“But if you add together the senior debt that they’ve got, which is the long-term debt, plus the debt that they have on the short-term facilities, together you’re talking about as of today, probably something like £650m plus the net transfer debt, you’re probably looking at £1bn of total net debt.
“So, football net debt, i.e. net financial debt plus net transfer debt of £1bn.
“And by the way, at the end of the financial year for 2019, that was only £370m, which had been the sort of levels that it had been historically for five years before, so the trends are really not good.”
Man United managed to get several top earners off the books in the summer window, with 13 players leaving either permanently or on loan deals.
Man United paid out £36m in compensation after exits
In terms of other key financials within Man United’s latest accounts, their losses fell dramatically across the campaign from £113.2m in 2023-24 to £33m last season.
Their wage bill also dropped from £364.7m to £313.2m as part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s cost-cutting measures.
However, Man United paid out £36m in compensation following the exits of Erik ten Hag and Dan Ashworth as well as the hundreds of staff redundancies at Old Trafford.
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