ENGLAND/ LIVERPOOL, Report loss of £40.5m

Liverpool have reported a £21.8m increase in their debt - now £87.2m overall - and a loss of £40.5m in their annual accounts. A restructuring of their accounting period to align it with the football season means that the figures apply to the 10 months between 1 August 2011 to 31 May 2012.

They show that although commercial revenue increased, so did the club's overall liabilities. However, the club's managing director Ian Ayre played down the significance of a rise in debt levels.

"It's definitely not something I believe anyone should be worried or concerned about. It is seasonal - our debt goes up and down," he told the Liverpool Echo. "We have money to pay out and money coming in, just like any business.

The difference in football is some of the swings are significant, so if you look at player trading, we may need to make investments as we do in the summer before our key revenues come in: big sponsorships cheques, big ticket revenues, all the media revenues etcetera."

"You come to Christmas when you maybe have less revenue coming in but you have got money that needs to go out, both on playing deals that you are doing at the time but also on historic player deals. Debt has increased but I think it's a factor of doing business in the time and place we are. We need to continue to improve our squad and what a lot of people won't relate to perhaps is that when you are improving your squad and making that investment, you have knock-on costs that will create debt in the short term. But hopefully in the long term we'll improve our position and we are very aware of that. We will continue to invest in the squad - I think that is what our fans would expect. But the most important thing is that we do it prudently and in a sustainable way that is affordable."