Huddersfield Town confirm Dean Hoyle is owed £35m as accounts revealed

Long-term benefactor Hoyle reached an agreement with lifelong Huddersfield supporter Phil Hodgkinson – founder of legal services firm Pure Business Group – to purchase a 75 per cent stake of the club last May, retaining a minor shareholding in the club.

The club accounts to the financial year up to June 30 2019 have confirmed the debt that must be repaid to Hoyle.

Under the agreement, £15m must be paid within five working days of the end of this summer’s transfer window, with an additional £10m due on August 31 in both 2021 and 2022.

Hoyle is also due an additional £10m, although there is no firm repayment date for this sum and is ‘being subject to future events taking place’.

In addition, a further £31m loan was taken out by the club to be repaid in full “within one and two years”, the figures also revealed.

This is expected to be covered by Huddersfield’s parachute payment for 2020-21.

This season, Town received £42m in payments and will bank around £34m next season.

The set of accounts also showed that the club’s overall figure of debt was down from the £49.4m owed to Hoyle in the previous year’s accounts.

Hodgkinson said: “The financial impact of relegation is cushioned by Premier League parachute payments, expected to total £91m over the next three seasons.

“We will use these funds to assist in our squad transition, settle outstanding transfer fees, invest in our infrastructure as well as servicing and repayment of our debt.”

Overall figures revealed that the club posted a pre-tax profit of around £3.9m for the last financial year.

Town’s wage bill was up slightly to £56m on the previous year’s figure of £54.6m and is expected to be significantly reduced in next year’s figures due to major player sales and wage-cut clauses in contracts in the event of relegation.

Town spent £3.3m on infrastructure improvements in 2018-19, almost exclusively on the club’s PPG Canalside training ground.