Philip McCosker

Since December 2020 I have been Associate Head of School (Quality and Accreditation) in the School of Economics, Finance and Accounting (EFA), responsible for leading on all quality assurance and enhancement activity relating to the School’s academic work including overseeing assessment checking, marking protocols, moderation, and assessment boards; providing guidance and advice on the development of new courses and changes to existing courses and modules; liaising with professional accreditation bodies ensuring necessary actions are taken to gain and retain appropriate accreditations for courses offered by EFA; and overseeing the academic misconduct process within EFA.  Prior to this role I was an Associate Professor in Accounting and Course Director for undergraduate accounting.

I have been module leader for a number of undergraduate and postgraduate financial accounting and financial reporting modules including 280ACC Financial Reporting and Analysis and 380ACC International Corporate Reporting.  Successful completion of these modules provided exemption accreditation from some professional accountancy exams.  To assist understanding and help engage students, wherever possible my teaching made reference to relevant real-world examples, and this included use of financial statements from several well-known companies including Next, Tesco, Manchester United and easyJet. 

Prior to Coventry University I was a Senior Trainer for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) where I was involved in delivering modules on CIPFA’s professional accountancy qualification. I won the CIPFA National Student Forum Excellence in Education award in 2008 and 2009. I was examiner for CIPFA’s Financial Reporting module from 2012-15.

Before lecturing I worked as an accountant gaining experience in public practice and industry. During this time I became a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Research:

Since 1992 football clubs in the English Premier League (EPL) have seen huge growth in revenue. Despite this clubs have struggled to report profits and several are very reliant on soft loans from owners and related parties. The poor performance of clubs around Europe led UEFA to introduce Financial Fair Play Rules (FFPR) from 2012. The EPL also introduced tighter financial regulation that limited expenditure on players’ wages. Using analysis of published financial data for all clubs that played in the EPL during the period 2004-2015 combined with interviews with key informants in the football sector, my thesis looked at why stricter financial regulation was necessary and examined whether this had improved financial performance.

Financial Reporting; Financial Accounting; Sport Finance