Explained: What do West Brom's latest accounts mean for the club?

They are the second set of accounts since the club have been without receipt of parachute payments in the Championship.

The figures are also the second under the ownership of Shilen Patel's Bilkul Football Group, who purchased a flailing club from the perilous tenure of Guochuan Lai in February 2024.

What are the headline figures?

Albion posted a £17million loss, down from the eye-watering figure of £31m the previous year, and £7.6m the year before that.

Otherwise, there was an increase in league distribution, including broadcast fees given the spike in coverage by Sky Sports, from £11.4m to £12.8m.

Gate receipts reduced slightly, by £300,000, chiefly due to the sales for January 2024's FA Cup tie against Wolves.

Commercial revenues increased by £1.2m to £8.2m, owing to sponsorship and hospitality among other arms.

Staff costs, including playing squad, reduced by £5.8m down to £37.1m. Experienced earners like Matt Phillips, Nathaniel Chalobah and Erik Pieters exited, with sales included Brandon Thomas-Asante, Okay Yokuslu, Conor Townsend, Alex Palmer and Mo Faal.

The figures showed Patel invested £17.6m, up from £8.7m previously. The ownership group will cover £5.2m interest fees on the £28m loans taken from MSD Holdings prior to the takeover.

What does it mean for PSR?

EFL clubs cannot exceed £39m losses over a three-year cycle under profit and sustainability (PSR) regulations.

At first glance the last three accounting periods show WBA Group losses of £7.6m, £31m and £17m.

But the Baggies remain within the threshold and as such will not be hit with sanctions by the league's governing body.

This is chiefly thanks to add-backs, which are expenditures separate to falling within PSR regulations.

Within those are factors such as Albion's category one academy, which operates across two sites. Other costs not factored into PSR include the women's team, in which boss Siobhan Hodgetts-Still was appointed a first full-time head coach last year. Infrastructure, for example training ground improvements and work at The Hawthorns, such as the safe-standing installation, are not factored in.

The PSR regulations limit what a club can or cannot do in the transfer window when it comes to buying players.

Only the Baggies boardroom will know how close the club are sailing to the threshold, but the club are believed to be satisfied confident with their continued work.

The future of PSR regulations is up in the air due to ongoing talks between EFL and clubs about changing regulations to a squad cost ratio, more akin to Premier League and lower league laws.

What about the future generally?

It had been forecast that Albion's position when it comes to navigating the choppy waters of PSR will continue to ease come the summer and that remains the feeling.

Former club president Andrew Nestor wrote just before Christmas: "As a result of the decisions taken during this period, and the 2023/24 losses rolling off, it is expected that the club will be in a strong position in regard to financial regulations and compliance heading into fiscal year 2026/27, allowing the club to build and invest without compliance as a primary concern."

The next set of accounts, to cover the year to June 2026, will include late-summer deadline sales of Tom Fellows, £10m to Southampton, as well as Darnell Furlong's £4m switch to Ipswich and Caleb Taylor's £2m departure for Millwall.

Both Fellows and Taylor were academy graduate and their sales are booked in full as pure profit and will come as a boost to the next set of figures. Albion will also account for the appointments and dismissals of managers Ryan Mason and Eric Ramsay.

Half-a-dozen members of the senior squad are out of contract this summer and, with costs down and losses reduced, there is optimism Albion will be able to player trade more freely than previously.