More than £3m has been lost by a Greater Manchester hotel owned by Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs over a two-year period.
Hotel Football, which sits in the shadow of Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium, racked up pre-tax losses of £1.1m in 2021, according to recently filed documents. That comes after it also lost £2m in 2020.
The hotel's turnover increased from £1.5m to £3.5m in 2021 but was still down from the £6.6m it achieved in 2019.
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During the year the average number of people employed at the hotel dropped from 156 to 136.
Chan Lay Hoon, a Singaporean financial advisor who oversees the investments of Peter Lim, is also a director in the company that runs the hotel, Old Trafford Supporters Club Limited. Mr Lim is a Singaporean businessman who also owns part of Salford City along with the members of the Class of 92.
The documents filed with Companies House also show Old Trafford Supporters Club Limited pulled a restaurant from the National Museum of Football to save money. The company, while unable to operate during the Covid pandemic, continued to pay its workers throughout and opened up the building for the NHS to use free of charge.
A statement from Gary Neville in the accounts, which was signed off by the board, said: "The directors appreciate that the financial year ending 31 December 2021 was not a normal year with the world still in the midst of a pandemic, even though business started to pick up.
"During this period the hotel was open all year but the first six months of operation were hit drastically by the effects of the pandemic restrictions in place and this has obviously affected the financial figures of the business. Financial year 2021 continued to be a year of the 'unknown', especially in the beginning six months because of the pandemic but also because the challenges around inflation and the labour market continue up to this day.
"One also needs to not underestimate the significance that the hospitality industry is still regarded as a high risk industry by the financial markets in general and by employees."
Gary Neville added that the firm’s parent company Orchid Leisure Ltd had loaned the hotel business £10.2m to help it survive.
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