To me it's like a statement of work model. We have the booking and even the cash for the second half broadcasting money. Based on this SoW, you only recognise the revenue when the games are televised. Therefore deferring this revenue seems sensible and acceptable and aligns with the in-year performance. It's not as if the PL and the TV companies have been definitive on what happens in each scenario so until they do, you take the most cautious approach. I have no clue on the current stance of the sponsors. If there is a threat they want to recoup money because we haven't been putting their brand out there, then a similar approach.
As for who to impress, I would be less worried about the stakeholders Lewis and Levy and their board. If they can't understand a single loss / break even in a pandemic within a 5 year overall picture then that raises it's own questions. We've just had 2 amazing years of profits, given £40m to HMRC and delivered the new stadium. The optics to the creditors are the key one. You'd surely be worried that they want you to refinance any debt, pay over a longer term on a higher interest rate. Ideally, we wouldn't do that as I'm assuming we negotiated the previous deals from a position of strength.
As for what it achieves, it just buys us time in my mind so we can learn more about all these fluid variables. It's somewhat of a moot point anyway, as it's 19 May and I have a feeling we'll know so much more by 30 Jun.
The other big one is what does each club do on their stated valuation of players on the balance sheet? From what I know, these are mostly understated anyway based on the market value, especially the longer serving players or homegrown. I'm guessing there night be an opportunity to push some more loss to the P&L in by reducing a couple of new player values.
Out of interest, what would you do with the very few variables you have to play with at this end of the fiscal? Make 19/20 as strong as possible or smooth it into 20/21?