Ayre: Progress continues to be made

Ian, the club has today announced its financial results for the period June 1, 2013 to May 31, 2014. Can you give us an overview as to what these results mean?

I think, most importantly, it's a return to profit for the club for the first time in seven years, so a small profit shown in these results, which are obviously from a year ago. If you look at the overall plan and project we've been on with this ownership since they took charge, it's been very much the return of the club to a sustainable position and to continue to build on that. I think the announcement of these results today shows the progress we've made and the progress we continue to make. That's important, particularly in this type of environment that football is in today.

Green shoots with a small profit - the first for seven years. Is that solely down to the TV deal?

No, not at all. Although these set of results reflect the first year of the current TV deal, which had an uplift, we also saw an increase in our commercial profits due to the great work across all of our commercial areas and particularly around partnerships. And also a fantastic improvement in the way we do our pre-season tours and the revenue that we generate from those. It's a great commercial effort and that, and a combination of media and some matchday improvements, have all added to the pot, so to speak.

It has seen Liverpool move up to ninth place in the Deloitte Money League - is that a benchmark of progress when you compare it to other clubs across Europe?

I think it's kind of a double-edged sword. It's great to be back in the top 10 and it shows progress of sorts, but I think the Deloitte league is a result of various assets that various clubs have and that they exploit. If we take something like stadiums, some of our competitors in that top 10 would have a much larger stadium than we have or will ever have. For that reason you can't always compete at the same level in every area, but being back in Europe this year, which we weren't in that year, is a big part for us. It's one of the big keys and improving stadium and matchday revenue is important, and obviously with the recent announcements about our new Main Stand, that will lead us towards that. But we don't really look at the Deloitte league as a benchmark for us; we look at how we are performing as a business in our own environment, particularly in the Premier League.

On the football side of things, it is not just the first team that is important, 13 professional contracts were awarded to Academy players during this period. How important is it to see young players coming through the ranks?

Very much so. It's a big part for all of us involved in the football side of the business. It's a big part of the plan. We know we have a very young side and we have a manager who plays and likes to play young players and develop them, and within those contracts the one example would be Jordan Rossiter, who made his debut this season in the League Cup. Only yesterday against Manchester City you saw Jordan Williams on the bench, so it's great to see those young players getting new contracts but it's also great to see them on the pitch and featuring in the squad. We'll always look at that and we'll always continue to develop and bring new young players to the club. That period was a great example of that.

These financial results are to the end of May 2014. What progress has been made since then?

I'm pleased to say that we are heading in the same direction, so it will certainly show a profit again this year, a greater one than last year, and that's down to the hard work and effort that people have put in across the club. Generating these great results comes from work by everybody throughout the club, and that's great because we've said for the last few years now that this is a one-club mentality and we are all working together on this. Whether it's working well in the transfer market or whether it's working well commercially, or whether it's working well operationally, all of those things add to the costs and revenues of the club and it's pleasing to be able to sit here, as we said, seven years on showing a first profit, but also in our eighth year on being able to show a profit again this year, which is absolutely what we will expect.

Bringing the picture right up to date, UEFA has announced that Liverpool have been cleared of any breach of the Financial Fair Play rules - what does that mean and how significant is it for Liverpool and the fans?

As we said, in this sort of new era of football and Financial Fair Play, it's important that we have a sustainable business. We were one of the clubs called in for investigation, but that was really about looking at our results and how they've been interpreted, and we're pleased to say myself and our chief finance officer and other members of our team went out to Nyon, made our presentation and showed our results. That was a result of explaining where our position was, explaining some of the revenues that were in there and some of the costs that were in there. We met with the criteria ultimately, so that's a good place for us to be. We need to build on that and we need to continue to be sustainable, and the more sustainable we can be the more we can compete and we want to compete within the rules. We've always been a big advocate of Financial Fair Play and it's great that we met the test.