The latest set of accounts have been released by Reading FC, showing an eye-watering loss of £43.5m in the year ending June 2020.

The figures show the club’s finances over the 12 months ending in June of last year, and subsequently only include the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Consequently, the club are likely to feel more of an impact due to the pandemic in the next set of accounts following the loss of matchday in revenue faced as a result of playing games behind closed doors.

The total spent on wages stood at 211 per cent of the club’s revenue, a fall on the 226 per cent recorded in the previous set of accounts.

The average wage of the club's first team stood at £17,460, with the total overall wage and salary bill (which includes all of the staff at the club) standing at £37.6m.

READ MORE: Reading FC captain Liam Moore deactivates Twitter account amid racist abuse

The total number of staff employed at the club, including players, management and coaching staff, administrative staff, matchday staff and staff employed under government training schemes, stood at 494 – down from 549 in the previous year.

The club received £2.6m in transfer fees, substantially lower than the £16m spent on new players.

READ MORE: Influential midfielder departs Reading FC Women

A fall in the number of season ticket holders was recorded, going from 10,052 to 9,561.

This was one of the contributing factors in the total of matchday revenue falling from £4.7m to £3.6m.

The club also faced a bill of £1.5m for renting the Madejski Stadium by owner Dai Yongge.