Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Manchester United Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions]. We would also like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. Before we begin, we would like to inform everyone that this conference call will include estimates and forward-looking statements, which is subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. Any such statements are forward-looking statements, should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary note in our earnings release regarding forward-looking statements and risk factor discussions in our filings with the SEC. Manchester United PLC assumes no obligation to update any of the estimates or forward-looking statements. I will now turn the conference over to the Executive Vice Chairman of Manchester United, Mr. Ed Woodward. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you, and thank you to everybody for joining us today. We're looking back today on what's been one of the most extraordinary and challenging seasons in recent history and I'm proud of the way the club continues to respond. There are still big challenges and uncertainties ahead as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt our way of life across the globe. This disruption is clear to see in the financial results that we're announcing today and we expect the impacts remain visible for quite some time to come. However, the past year has also demonstrated the underlying strength and resilience of the club, the special role that sports plays in our societies and the meaningful impacts the club can make in our communities through this period of uncertainty. On the field we will never be satisfied as Manchester United makes the winning choices, but our third place finish in the Premier League and strong cup runs last year showed us that while there is more hard work ahead and the path is not always smooth, we are making progress. We have a clear strategy under our league to build a successful committed team with a pool of homegrown talent blended with high quality recruits that plays fast line attacking football. To that end we are pleased with our recent additions to the first team squads of Donny van de Beek and Alex Telles, two players we have been tracking as part of our proven process for a long period of time and Edinson Cavani, a top striker who as a proven new option to our forward line. We also welcome Facundo Pellistri and Amad Diallo, who will join in January, two exciting young prospects who we have also been scouting extensively. Added to the arrival of Bruno Fernandes earlier…

Thank you, Ed and thank you to everyone for joining us today. Resilience is a trait closely associated with Manchester United and since we last spoke in May, that trait has been needed and demonstrated once again. Cliff will walk you through the impact that COVID-19 has had on our revenue streams and the continued impact we expect into fiscal 2021. And I'd like to share a few insights into how we've faced this challenge. First, throughout the fourth quarter, we continued to use our global platform to raise awareness and provide assistance to those in need in our surrounding communities across the UK and internationally. We stepped up our efforts via our Manchester United Foundation by supporting local food banks, providing meals for the NHS, making cash donations to partner schools, teaming up with supported clubs, and launching a fundraising campaign. Contributions to date are about already over £1 million pounds and climbing, and as we highlighted in May, we're appreciative of the generosity of our players and our colleagues who have donated their time and energy and it is our intent that these efforts will inspire more sustainable long-term support for our community. We are also incredibly proud of the individual efforts of Marcus Rashford, who served as an exemplary red both and off the pitch, this year by using his platform to bring incredible awareness to a cause that is very dear to his heart, child hunger. Marcus was successful with not only championing this very important cause and bringing considerable awareness that applied to many UK schoolchildren who were suffering during this pandemic, but he also campaigned for and successfully achieved, changed the affected children across the whole country. We also wanted to take a moment this morning to discuss the diversity and inclusion initiatives of…

Thank you, Richard. Firstly, I’ll talk through our fiscal year results which have been impacted by COVID-19 pandemic and then I’ll provide some details for the upcoming fiscal year. However, we will not be providing EBITDA guidance today. As a reminder, the year-on-year comparisons relative to fiscal 2019 have been impacted by non- participation in the Champions League as well as a number of games played in the year. In terms of headlined figures, total revenues for the period were £509 million, down £118.1 million versus last year due to the impact of COVID-19 particularly on broadcasting and Matchday revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was £132.1 million, down £53.7 million from prior year. Overall, we estimate the impact of COVID-19 on total FY '20 revenues were £70 million of which £40 million were lost from Matchday closures, Premier League rebates, an impact on our Megastore and other operations. The remaining £30 million relates to broadcasting revenues from the 2019-2020 seasons' matches which were played in July and August and those revenues will be recognized in the current year. We estimate that the adjusted EBITDA outcome for FY '20, had COVID-19 not occurred, would have been an additional £60 million, delivering a total adjusted EBITDA slightly over £190 million comfortably ahead of our previous guidance range. Turning to key items in the results, total commercial revenues were £279 million with sponsorship revenues of £182.7 million, 5.6% higher from the prior year. This reflects the underlying growth we saw throughout fiscal 2020. Merchandising and licensing revenues were £5.8 million below prior year at £96.3 million reflecting the closure of the Megastore from mid-March through mid-June. Broadcasting revenues decreased by £101 million to £140.2 million. This reflects both the lower Europa League revenues in FY '20 compared to Champions League in the prior-year, as well…

[Operator instructions] Today's first question comes from Randy Konik with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, can you hear me?

Yes we can.

Hi great, thanks guys. Good morning and congrats on the nice win yesterday at the start of the Champions League. I guess the first question is, now Richard you talked a little bit about some of the changes or adaptations you made in the Commercial and Sponsorship segment. Let's talk about, I guess, for example Chevy [ph] you extended the sponsorship by I think six months. Yes have you done that with any other partners? And then the other thing I picked upon in the remarks you talked about shifting some activations to more digital means kind of give your partners, good return on their -- in their partnership investments, et cetera. So give us some perspective on what you've kind of specifically done more there on the digital side, and help the partners kind of get great value for their sponsorship, is this sort of that?

Thanks Randy. I think, in some part, the second part of your question answered the first. In the overwhelming majority of individual sponsor cases what we've done is work with partners to build commercial strategies that leverage what is available to us. Obviously as you indicated, the work that we've done in establishing leadership in our field in terms of our digital engagement techniques with fans mean that we were able to offer them something that's pretty cutting edge in the market and very, very effective. And I think that's testament to the work of the team in this area that we were able to do that and also the support that we had from players and others in terms of deriving that content.

Got it. And then and then anything changes with expirations of deals in terms of the extension of the Chevy deal and I'm sorry just a one off, but anything there that we should be thinking about with other partners or no?

By and large no. Our partners are no more immune to the macro effects than any other businesses in the world. So you know, you've seen in these results the work that we've done supporting them, particularly on the cash flow basis. That having been said, equally we're hugely fortunate that we have some of the best companies in the world as partners. By and large, the majority of those have rebounded very strongly and have traded relatively well through the period and I think that the renewals we've seen even during this pandemic and literally during this pandemic in the last three months have been strong. And I think that that's an indication of the high caliber companies we have as partners, and the work that we've been able to do with those partners to drive results in even the most difficult of circumstances.

Great, very helpful. Thanks guys.

[Operator Instructions] Today's next question comes from Connor Murphy with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey everyone, just a few from me. We first have begun to a little more when you're anticipating fans might be able to come back at any sense of capacity? I know it's a very fluid situation, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how discussions are going and how that might evolve throughout the season? And then I have a couple others.

Yes, so as you're aware with subject to government regulatory environment in this regard, the initial expectation had been that there would be a return to partially filled stadiums starting on the first of October, following on from test events that were successfully conducted in August and September. That advice was changed, not because of the effect of what was happening as a result of the partially filled stadia, and in fact there's significant track record across Europe for that being executed successfully, but because of what was happening in other sectors, particularly around the return to school and university and the background infection rate. And the government guidance had been at that point in time, that absent what they refer to as the moonshot [ph] was not to affect -- not to expect full stadia prior to March next year, where they refer to moonshots [ph], that is the ability for us to have either variously vaccine programs or show quick response testing at mass scale so the, and what's often referred to as pregnancy type test where people can achieve certified infection free attendance. At this point in time it's unclear as to the probability and timing of those two moonshot [ph] items, so we remain subject to the more general situation in terms of the return of fans. The guidance in respect of the fill rate was a function of distancing, both in the access points to the stadium and in the stadium itself and that trended out, approximately 30% under the prior regulations. Below again going back to what I said earlier, the evidence was that the sort of professionally run stadia that had very well developed protocols in this area meant that there was no evidence at this point that that was an infection risk.

That's very helpful. And can we dig a little more into this deeper back your team Premier League and what the impetus is, it sounds like supporting lesser teams, but just, let's sort of flush that out a bit and what the advantages of a larger league would be?

Are you referring to what was in the press yesterday or are you referring to…?

Yes.

Okay, I mean, I saw the reports on that and candidly don't know where that story came from, but there isn't really anything for us to say. We are engaged on a very regular basis through my role with an ECA, and also on the UCCSA [ph] with UEFA with those two entities, ECA and UEFA talking about potential changes to the Champions League from 24 onwards. You might have read I think two or three days ago in the press, there was a story about whether the Champions League may go to 30/16 that's -- there the conversations that we're actively involved in, so I can't comment on your question.

Fair enough. And then the last one was, can you talk a little about the Premier League contract in China, and what the expectations are in terms of a new deal? And it sounds like you guys have -- it is very popular over there, so I guess your vision be for a longer term contract higher pricing?

Yes, if you heard on the call early you would have heard Richard talk about what happened there. So assuming you're up to speed with regard to that, absolutely the plan on the back of getting a fantastic partner in, which is Tencent in China for a -- you could be able to stopgap period of one year. It's pretty incredible actually that they've managed to lock that in so quickly. The plan now is to go back to market in due course in a much more measured way and try to do a full year deal to get us back lockstep with the cadence of the cycles, so for that will happen in the coming months.

Great, thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question-and-answer session, and today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.