League One club Sunderland have posted a pre-tax loss of £10.58m for the 12 months up to 31 July 2019, reports BBC Sport.

The figures, published on Companies House, cover the 2018-19 season - the Black Cats' first after they were relegated from the Championship.

They will play in the third tier for a third successive season after their failure to secure promotion this term.

The accounts include an "impairment loss" of £20.538m, without which the club would have made £9m profit.

This is understood to be a parachute payment that was used to buy the club from Ellis Short in 2018, and is listed in the accounts as an "exceptional operating expense".

Sunderland reduced its wage bill from £46.8m to £26.7m in 2018-19, although the club say they believed it to be "substantially higher than any of our league rivals".