Yorkshire post record profit but warn of tougher times

The club have achieved a fourth successive annual profit on the back of last summer's Ashes Test at Headingley Carnegie but are predicting challenging times in the next two years.

Yorkshire chief executive Stewart Regan said the ongoing effects of the economic recession, allied to the lack of a Test match at Headingley in 2011, meant the club must batten down the hatches until 2012 and rely on continued support from members and investors.

He admitted Yorkshire would do well to break even in 2010 but insisted their core business remained profitable and that the long-term outlook was encouraging.

In a candid assessment of Yorkshire's off-field state, Regan commented: "I would say that our position at the moment is delicate and fragile.

"It's delicate and fragile in the sense that there's an awful lot of debt which requires an awful lot of interest charges and capital repayments against it, which obviously needs cash coming in to fund it.

"We are very heavily borrowed, we are very heavily geared, and we have got some challenging payments to make – both interest and capital.

"But we are underlying a very profitable organisation and if we can continue to attract the support of our investors during the next two years, I think we've got some really good times to look forward to."

Yorkshire are around 18m in debt – largely incurred through stadium improvements and the purchase of Headingley cricket ground in 2005, which was financed with the help of a 9m loan from Leeds City Council.

The club paid a whopping 800,000 on interest charges alone in 2009 but expect to have paid off nearly all their debt by the end of the decade.

"Most of the debt will be paid by the end of the 2019 season and, after that, we'll be a very profitable organisation," maintained Regan.

"We had to purchase the ground to guarantee international cricket at Headingley Carnegie in the years ahead and we always knew we would have to keep a close watch on our purse strings until the debt was paid off.

"It's going to be hard for a couple of years but, from 2012-2019, it will be back to business as usual with England Tests and one-day internationals taking place at Headingley and it's important to remember that we're no different to a great many sports clubs in the current economic climate.

"If you look across sport in general and cricket in particular, you'll find that financial challenges are not something that are peculiar to Yorkshire because many clubs are incurring sizeable costs. As with other clubs, generating cash is our biggest challenge at this moment in time.

"We have a plan in place to aggressively drive ticket sales and also to develop new memberships for Twenty20 cricket but we need the continued support of members and investors to weather the storm.

"We're looking at a break-even position for 2010 but it's going to be a big challenge just to achieve that.

"We then face a difficult year in 2011 when we've got no Test match but, after that, things will start to pick up."

Regan, who said Yorkshire's 2009 surplus might have exceeded 1m had Headingley's one-day international last summer not fallen foul of the weather, added there were no immediate plans to rebuild the Rugby Stand.

The club outlined their desire to rebuild that stand four years ago but are, instead, focused on the opening of their new 21m Carnegie Pavilion in June.

"We've got no plans to develop the Rugby Stand during the next three years," declared Regan.

"Thereafter, once we've got the pavilion up and running and established what the revenues are coming through it, and once we've considered what the interest rates are at the time for borrowing and what the appetite is of our partners to further develop the ground, we can decide when to develop the Rugby Stand.

"We do want to take the capacity of the ground north of 20,000 but the short-term priorities are about managing cash and keeping the club ticking along in the right direction.

"There are a number of other things we'd like to do going forward – we'd like to install floodlights, we'd like to put a tented roof on the West Stand and so on, but that's for the future."

Regan admitted ticket sales have yet to take off for next summer's Test between Pakistan and Australia at Headingley.

"Ticket sales aren't going as well as we would have liked but we also know there's a tendency among the Pakistani community to turn up on the day and to pay cash through the turnstiles instead of buying tickets in advance," he said.

"We're still confident we'll get plenty of people coming to the match but it's putting cash pressure on the club just at this moment."