"It was the decline in revenues that has caused this significant loss," Summers said. "The reality is that our Club's core football related revenues have all been in decline since 2010. "In 2014, our average home game attendance dropped to below 24,000 while our membership numbers were down approximately 2,000 to 30,627. Having just one co-major sponsor also significantly impacted our financial result as did a turndown in merchandise sales and fundraising. "This is not an acceptable result by any means, however it is one which we are intent on never repeating and I'm confident the right changes have been made in the past 12 months to turnaround our club on and off the field." St Kilda CEO Matt Finnis said his priority since arriving as CEO in April was turn the club's finances around noting that the decline in numbers since 2010 was alarming. He said there was doubtless a correlation between on and off field performance but that strong clubs had matured to be able to withstand such on field driven fluctuations.

"Good clubs manage over time to put a ring around (their finances) to secure themselves against he fluctuations of on fie4ld performance," Finnis said. "We have to structure our business in such a way which is really smart in where we spend our money but you can also not go and cut expenses out of the business which are going to be critical to how we grow our revenue." Finnis admitted it would be unlikely the club could turn around such heavy losses within a year to return to the black next season but the club was working closely with the AFL to improve the financially parlous situation. "We now have a clear plan developed by our new executive team which aims to end the decline in our key metrics and start growing again," Finnis said. "In 2015 we are forecasting the first year of growth in membership since 2010 and are currently tracking nearly 2,000 members above the same time as last year.