They don't pay huge wages, nor abnormal for the prem league, they have wasted quite a bit which would have eaten into their wages and transfer funds for years, Saha was always a truly horrible choice, a small team with few resources really can't cope with a sicknote, and not one from Utd who would have been on very decent wages.
Yakuba was a horrible buy aswell. Overall I'd guess its the stadium and its facilities. Arsenal make the same game day money as Utd with an 20k seating advantage, why, corporate. If you've got none, you're boned, if you've got some, you're good, if you've got loads, you're minted. Arsenal's club level/boxes/executive seats bring in basically as much cash as the other 50k+ seats combined.
I can't say I know if Everton have much in the way of executive/club level going on at Goodison but I'd guess not. Arsenals most expensive season ticket is £1800+, cheapest almost £900, Evertons cheapest is £450ish and most expensive is under £650. Premier league money is very little, tv money is good but league position isn't much at all.
Seems to be that say in 2009 they had a 80mil turnover, spent 50mil of that on wages, were 40mil in debt so paid off 4mil in interest. then they had basically 30mil of other operating expenditure, and a few million in real loses which basically was just not paying off interest on the 40mil debt. So last year the debt was almost 7mil higher, turn over the same but wages went up 5mil.
They really need to bump season ticket price and their commercial income is pathetic.
They took in under 20mil in gate receipts, while Arsenal and Utd bring in 100mil a piece.
It really is as simple as say not buying yakubu for what, 13mil iirc, would have meant the debt would currently be smaller and for years they'd have been paying it off rather than adding to it in interest.
Thing is on a turnover that small(80mil vs Arsenal/utd's 250mil) then one season where one player turns out to be a poor buy can completely turn the club around while Arsenal/Utd have a lot more leeway in terms of mistakes.
They got a bit ahead of themselves with going for guys like Saha and Yakubu and its cost them badly. They need to do what everyone else does, charge the richest 5% of people who go to Everton 500% more, increase gate receipts by 5 mil, had they done that 10 years ago they'd be in profit and out of debt right now. Arsenal charge 10% of people who go to Arsenal, ridiculous fee's, and it subsides the rest(though the cheap tickets at Arsenal are more than the expensive tickets most places in the league). Thing is people expect better service for the increased cost..... maybe get a tealady to hand out the prawn sandwitches and red wine and put a nice cusion on the seats. Works at the Emirates
silly Billy.