Ghost of Clough Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 57 minutes ago, The Key Club King said: We are justifying the actions because we don't want to suffer the consequences or consider that we could possibly do any wrong. I think this is known as the "Tony Blair defence" with regards Iraq. If it was another club selling their own stadium to themselves it would be considered pretty dodgy. People seem to be pretty apathetic with regards questionable financial dealings. Lionel Messi, Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho have all been given actual prison sentances and fined millions for tax evasion and nobody seems to care (and I apprceiate this is nothing to do with tax). As Whitney Houston once sang - "It's not right but its ok". As with most financial shenanigans we have exploited a loophole and it now needs closing. Though I guess we can only do it once? Someone said Reading (possibly others too) have sold their stadium Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddy Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 We sold the Stadium to avoid FFP. Nothing dodgy or underhand has taken place. But the real concern is for every £100 generated by turnover , almost £137 is spent on wages. This has to be addressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Clough Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 Just now, toddy said: We sold the Stadium to avoid FFP. Nothing dodgy or underhand has taken place. But the real concern is for every £100 generated by turnover , almost £137 is was spent on wages. This has to be addressed. Fixed. In the process of further addressing the imbalance too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenBr Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 3 minutes ago, ramsbottom said: Jesus wept!!! Did Reading sign Ronaldo and not tell anyone??? Last time i saw Derby play in Reading there were about 10 Reading fans in the entire stadium. Maybe there income is just lower than most other teams, which is why the percentage is high. (Also dont forget that the manager who spunked all our money away was Readings manager at the start of the season) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Day Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 12 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said: Someone said Reading (possibly others too) have sold their stadium They have to Renhe Sports (same owners). Cheats! Last post on page 4 onwards. http://hobnob.royals.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=185658&start=60 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Clough Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 16 minutes ago, GenBr said: Last time i saw Derby play in Reading there were about 10 Reading fans in the entire stadium. Maybe there income is just lower than most other teams, which is why the percentage is high. (Also dont forget that the manager who spunked all our money away was Readings manager at the start of the season) 16/17 saw Reading pull in £9.7m from matchday revenue. We were at £8.5m. In 14/15 the total turnover for Reading and Derby was about the same. Although Reading received parachute payments for being in the Prem in 12/13) 17/18 - Reading Total turnover decreased by £18.8m from £36.7 to £17.9m. Salary costs went up £6.6m to £35.3m Media revenue fell by £13.4m from £20.9m to £7.5m, Commercial revenue increase of £800,000 to £5.6m. Matchday revenue for the year fell by £5.5m ‘Other’ operating expenses increased by £4.2m to £21.4m Spent £19m on players £592,000 profit from their Madejski Stadium groundshar https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/sport/17480476.reading-fc-royals-post-losses-of-21-million-for-year-up-to-june-2018-in-latest-financial-figures-lodged-with-companies-house/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Key Club King Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 36 minutes ago, David said: And which league are they in now? You can pick individual results out but ultimately they were always at the bottom end of the table fighting relegation, where as Derby finished in the play offs competing with clubs for promotion. That’s what the difference in spending money in this league. So if you want to compare us, at least compare is with clubs with similar ambitions and standing in the league, not clubs which are financially great but now a league below. Pretty sure if Mel chose that path he would be lynched. I was using Burton precisely because we are at opposite ends of the table and in response to a query about an effective FFP system levelling the playing field to some degree. I was pointing out that on turnover generated through normal means we have roughly 2.5 times more money than Burton but we are "juiced up" by Mel and have 6 times their wage bill. So not only do we get the advantage of being a bigger club but we have spent an extra £25 million on top of this (which would have been our loss without selling PP). An FFP system that is followed and respected would reduce gaps like this and be fairer on clubs such as Burton and the clubs that we do naturally compete with such as Ipswich, Bolton, Reading, Hull etc. who do not currently have wealthy benefactors. Imagine a return to the depressing years of Clough and GSE where we could not compete with the others as we were "only" losing £4m a season. We are fortunate to have Mel cover such enormous losses. If he left and we did not find somebody daft enough to plough millions in per year, we could easily become Ipswich. Why leave a clubs fortunes up to whether or not there happens to be a billionnaire supporter near by? Getting progressively closer to spending what you've earned is why FFP was introduced. Practices such as selling your own stadium to yourself to gain an advantage just serve to increase the wage pressures that make the Championship so indebted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Clough Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 3 minutes ago, The Key Club King said: I was using Burton precisely because we are at opposite ends of the table and in response to a query about an effective FFP system levelling the playing field to some degree. I was pointing out that on turnover generated through normal means we have roughly 2.5 times more money than Burton but we are "juiced up" by Mel and have 6 times their wage bill. So not only do we get the advantage of being a bigger club but we have spent an extra £25 million on top of this (which would have been our loss without selling PP). An FFP system that is followed and respected would reduce gaps like this and be fairer on clubs such as Burton and the clubs that we do naturally compete with such as Ipswich, Bolton, Reading, Hull etc. who do not currently have wealthy benefactors. Imagine a return to the depressing years of Clough and GSE where we could not compete with the others as we were "only" losing £4m a season. We are fortunate to have Mel cover such enormous losses. If he left and we did not find somebody daft enough to plough millions in per year, we could easily become Ipswich. Why leave a clubs fortunes up to whether or not there happens to be a billionnaire supporter near by? Getting progressively closer to spending what you've earned is why FFP was introduced. Practices such as selling your own stadium to yourself to gain an advantage just serve to increase the wage pressures that make the Championship so indebted. Only way to do that is to introduce a wage cap or drastically reduce the allowable losses. You've lost your point when you say the system needs to be fairer when you say we have an advantage over Reading (244% to our 137% wages:income) and Hull (parachute payments). Ipswich are 115% to our 137% so not much of an advantage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Day Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 22 minutes ago, The Key Club King said: I was using Burton precisely because we are at opposite ends of the table and in response to a query about an effective FFP system levelling the playing field to some degree. I was pointing out that on turnover generated through normal means we have roughly 2.5 times more money than Burton but we are "juiced up" by Mel and have 6 times their wage bill. So not only do we get the advantage of being a bigger club but we have spent an extra £25 million on top of this (which would have been our loss without selling PP). An FFP system that is followed and respected would reduce gaps like this and be fairer on clubs such as Burton and the clubs that we do naturally compete with such as Ipswich, Bolton, Reading, Hull etc. who do not currently have wealthy benefactors. Imagine a return to the depressing years of Clough and GSE where we could not compete with the others as we were "only" losing £4m a season. We are fortunate to have Mel cover such enormous losses. If he left and we did not find somebody daft enough to plough millions in per year, we could easily become Ipswich. Why leave a clubs fortunes up to whether or not there happens to be a billionnaire supporter near by? Getting progressively closer to spending what you've earned is why FFP was introduced. Practices such as selling your own stadium to yourself to gain an advantage just serve to increase the wage pressures that make the Championship so indebted. We are fortunate which is why I have said on many occasions we should be grateful for the investment put into the club, sadly though any chance of a level playing field went years ago. If we went up, where is the level playing field there? We couldn’t compete with Man City and Man Utd, to even get a chance of competing we first have to get past 3 clubs which will come down with a minimum advantage of £45m in their back pocket which is £15m of our best ever Championship turnover. FFP came too late, should have been in place before Sky even turned up. If FFP was respected as you say, chances are the Premier League would be a closed shop over a few seasons, just how Bolton wanted it. Your 3 teams that come down will go straight back up, barring the odd club that managed to sneak in and disrupt things. Those clubs would get richer and richer, and the rest would be left behind. Some people might like the idea of that, can’t say I would. The most frustrating thing about all of this is the Football League not knowing their true worth, underselling the TV rights which puts us miles behind the Premier League....for the next 5 years. There needs to be change and it’s going to need both the Premier League, Football League and FA to all come together and figure this out as it’s not sustainable and clubs will not just simply give up any ambitions of going up, those numbers below will only grow until clubs go pop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Key Club King Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 5 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said: Only way to do that is to introduce a wage cap or drastically reduce the allowable losses. You've lost your point when you say the system needs to be fairer when you say we have an advantage over Reading (244% to our 137% wages:income) and Hull (parachute payments). Ipswich are 115% to our 137% so not much of an advantage. Blimey, I don't know what Reading have done to get to that level. Thought we'd helped them out by signing Blackman. Hull's parachute payments are disappearing and I think they are now going to suffer from not being bankrolled. These figures are of course from last season and I suspect they have trimmed this down quite a bit by now. I would indeed like to see drastically reduced allowable losses and everybody forced to comply with them. I appreciate the parachute payments system makes this difficult and this can only be addressed by reducing the TV money gap between PL and EFL. Seeing the advantages that spending gives to a club only makes me want to reduce this advantage by as much as possible, wherever possible. That includes us. Ultimately I would like success in football to be achieved more through sporting achievment than through financial doping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramsbottom Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 1 hour ago, The Key Club King said: We are justifying the actions because we don't want to suffer the consequences or consider that we could possibly do any wrong. I think this is known as the "Tony Blair defence" with regards Iraq. If it was another club selling their own stadium to themselves it would be considered pretty dodgy. People seem to be pretty apathetic with regards questionable financial dealings. Lionel Messi, Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho have all been given actual prison sentances and fined millions for tax evasion and nobody seems to care (and I apprceiate this is nothing to do with tax). As Whitney Houston once sang - "It's not right but its ok". As with most financial shenanigans we have exploited a loophole and it now needs closing. Though I guess we can only do it once? So you're saying we shouldn't have done anything and just taken the fines & points deductions on the chin? I hope you're not a defense lawyer... INT. CROWN COURT MEETING ROOM - DAY RAMSBOTTOM is handcuffed to a table, flanked by two armed guards. KEY CLUB KING entered, arms struggling to contain a mass of files. He practically drops them onto the desk. KEY CLUB KING Sorry to keep you waiting, but there's been a breakthrough. I've just been handed some vital evidence that will exonerate you fully. RAMSBOTTOM Really? That's amazing! When do we present it to the judge? KEY CLUB KING Well that's the thing. It's come from a bit of a dodgy source, so I'm not sure it's ethically right that we use it. RAMSBOTTOM Sod ethical, is it legal? KEY CLUB KING Oh absolutely, all above board and within the law. RAMSBOTTOM Then what the duck are you messing around at? Present it! I'm looking at life imprisonment here! KEY CLUB KING I understand completely. But it just doesn't sit right with me doing it, because it's a bit of a cheat. I think we should do the right, and fair thing in this case, and let you take the rap. People will think a lot more of you in the long run, if you took it on the chin, like an upstanding member of the community would, and do your bird. What do you say? RAMSBOTTOM I think I want a new lawyer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spanish Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 29 minutes ago, The Key Club King said: ? Getting progressively closer to spending what you've earned is why FFP was introduced. Practices such as selling your own stadium to yourself to gain an advantage just serve to increase the wage pressures that make the Championship so indebted. I think, to meet your expectations, clubs that don't own their own should all be made to buy them and then there will be a level playing field. You are entitled to your view but I think you are being very harsh on our club for taking advantage of situation. If they didn't it would give teams that have never paid for their ground or have sold it in the past a distinct financial advantage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MackworthRamIsGod Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 I wonder if our new investor(s) will be will be announced once the season is over. I still have a feeling talks are much further down the line than us fans know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Key Club King Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 10 minutes ago, David said: There needs to be change and it’s going to need both the Premier League, Football League and FA to all come together and figure this out as it’s not sustainable and clubs will not just simply give up any ambitions of going up, those numbers below will only grow until clubs go pop. Agreed. The gap between PL and EFL is the root cause of overspending as the rewards are simply too big. It has long annoyed me that it is ultimately the clubs that run the system as the PL and EFL are owned by their members, and with the majority of PL clubs happy to just avoid relegation every year, keeping this gap is like Turkey's voting for Christmas and just hoping that another Turkey gets picked for dinner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Key Club King Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 10 minutes ago, ramsbottom said: So you're saying we shouldn't have done anything and just taken the fines & points deductions on the chin? I hope you're not a defense lawyer... I'm not one, no, and there's nowt wrong with having ethics. The term sporting behaviour comes from somewhere and maybe it should return to its origins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Day Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 The obvious back of a beer mat answer to me is for the Premier League take over the Championship, rebrand as Premier League 2. Share prize money equally over the 2 leagues. Remove parachute payments, distribute the money to grass roots football, create pitches, development centres across the country. Grants to Football League club academies. Your big clubs wouldn’t go for it, Man City, Man Utd would kick up a right fuss, claim we are damaging their chances of competing in Europe, but domestic football should be the concern. To me it’s obvious, but football outside the Premier League is no concern to them, couldn’t care less if clubs go pop as long as they can have Turkey for Christmas. Anyway these numbers are depressing. Hurry up Saturday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RamLad1884 Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 15 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said: I wonder if our new investor(s) will be will be announced once the season is over. I still have a feeling talks are much further down the line than us fans know. Think you're right there, if I've learnt anything in the last season or so is that Mel has the ability to keep details of the club very close and choose when the media gain hold of the information. Look at our transfers last year: Malone and Holmes came out of nowhere, the Marriott deal was much lower than anywhere was originally reporting. If Mel has taken the risk of the media knowing about investment/sale, I dare say it's because talks are probably beyond the point of no return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenBr Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 57 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said: 16/17 saw Reading pull in £9.7m from matchday revenue. We were at £8.5m. In 14/15 the total turnover for Reading and Derby was about the same. Although Reading received parachute payments for being in the Prem in 12/13) 17/18 - Reading Total turnover decreased by £18.8m from £36.7 to £17.9m. Salary costs went up £6.6m to £35.3m Media revenue fell by £13.4m from £20.9m to £7.5m, Commercial revenue increase of £800,000 to £5.6m. Matchday revenue for the year fell by £5.5m ‘Other’ operating expenses increased by £4.2m to £21.4m Spent £19m on players £592,000 profit from their Madejski Stadium groundshar https://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/sport/17480476.reading-fc-royals-post-losses-of-21-million-for-year-up-to-june-2018-in-latest-financial-figures-lodged-with-companies-house/ How in gods name did Reading bring in more matchday revenue than us? Would that figure include stuff like parking. Dont know if they charge people to park in that massive car park next to the ground, but cant see what else they would do to bring that much in. Especially considering our average attendance last season was more than 10k above theres and is almost double this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Day Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 17 minutes ago, GenBr said: How in gods name did Reading bring in more matchday revenue than us? Would that figure include stuff like parking. Dont know if they charge people to park in that massive car park next to the ground, but cant see what else they would do to bring that much in. Especially considering our average attendance last season was more than 10k above theres and is almost double this year. TrIp to Wembley that season in the play offs and cup games v Arsenal and Man United may have helped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamRam Posted April 4, 2019 Share Posted April 4, 2019 Personally unhappy with the sale of the ground, not because it gets us around FFP guidelines but more that we have had to do it as the consequence of our actions over the past few years. The money given out by sky or all the other excuses is just a smoke screen, we knew the projected income and what the impact of our spending would be, cant believe that someone authorised this knowing we would have to sell our biggest asset to fund it. Yes I get that Mel is a supporter and wouldn’t do anything to hurt the club, but the simple fact is that there is a still a risk that this could go belly up, one hat wasn’t there when he took over the club. It is also going to have an impact on FFP with the rental value that will be attributed to the ground. Anyhow it’s done, will be interesting to see the final accounts and how much we made from Mr Rush and our out of court settlement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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