17/18 Financial Results

[Ghost of Clough]

22 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.

16/17 - matchday revenue was £9.7m

17/18 - £5.5m lower than previous year = £4.2m

I imagine 16/17 was boosted by a playoff final, and away cup ties vs Man Utd and Chelsea. 17/18 saw a drop in attendance of 2k fans

[Rev]

1 hour 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...

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...

In fairness, with a name like Ramsbottom you'd be okay in prison.

Send him down!

[curb]

2 hours 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?

What consequences do we need to suffer?

it appears that it’s a pretty common accountancy practice and if it was done ten months ago then the process would have been started months before that. 

So last summer for instance when we brought in more players to keep us competitive with the Championship clubs with parachute payments we’d have known how much we could spend to stay within FFP, and if this wasn’t an option then we wouldn’t have brought players in and tried to get by with the Butterfields and Blackmans.

If you think MM suddenly woke up one morning thinking ‘oh damn we’ve spent all this money, can we come up with some dodgy accounting to get us out the poo’ then I think you’re underestimating him. 

[ram59]

There are quite a few clubs that don't own their ground, forest, Brighton and Bournemouth, just to name 3. It hasn't done the latter 2 much harm and all of those are owned by outside interests and not the owner of the club. 

As I've said, this can prove to be both a short term and long term way of avoiding ffp. 

[ramsbottom]

25 minutes ago, reveldevil said:

In fairness, with a name like Ramsbottom you'd be okay in prison.

Send him down!

[cannable]

6 hours ago, SaintRam said:

How do you know those questions weren't asked and Clement very confidently and resoundingly answered, with his "huge" team of "analysts" backing him, to get the transfer through?

You really do have to think though. There’s backing your manager, fair enough. 

But BJ wasn’t even in Derby until the afternoon. 

Accepting that we backed the manager, it’s still, at best, carelessness. No time to negotiate a fee and the lingering doubt of ‘why didn’t he ask for him BEFORE the opportunity arose’. 

Maybe I’m harsh because, and this isn’t point scoring, I had preconceptions about BJ that came to pass and I knew what we were getting. 

[curb]

5 hours ago, AdamRam said:

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.

 

We haven't sold the ground, Mel Morris owned the company that owned it, and now Mel Morris owns the company that owns it. 

He's just freed up money to keep us within the limits of FFP, protected his investment, and facilitated more investment over this three year period.

If we had sold the ground, either mortgaging it to a bank or selling it to an outside company, then it would be very concerning, but that hasn't happened. Mel Morris has bought the ground off himself to enable him to carry on investing in the club.

 

We should be standing up and applauding him, not whingeing about it on a forum.

[Mafiabob]

16 minutes ago, curb said:

We haven't sold the ground, Mel Morris owned the company that owned it, and now Mel Morris owns the company that owns it. 

He's just freed up money to keep us within the limits of FFP, protected his investment, and facilitated more investment over this three year period.

If we had sold the ground, either mortgaging it to a bank or selling it to an outside company, then it would be very concerning, but that hasn't happened. Mel Morris has bought the ground off himself to enable him to carry on investing in the club.

 

We should be standing up and applauding him, not whingeing about it on a forum.

Last paragraph, you got to wonder why he’s having to do this..... then wonder why people are questioning him. 

[G STAR RAM]

9 hours ago, David said:

I don’t think he ever said we are within 100k of the limit, just that you can be and the sale of tickets can swing it one way or another. I’ll try and find a time stamp.

It was certainly implied that we are, or have been, that close to the limit in my opinion.

How would he know or why would he be commenting on other teams situations?

 

[G STAR RAM]

7 hours ago, toddy said:

We sold the Stadium to avoid FFP.

Has this been confirmed by any source?

[Day]

1 minute ago, G STAR RAM said:

It was certainly implied that we are, or have been, that close to the limit in my opinion.

How would he know or why would he be commenting on other teams situations?

 

Go back and watch it again, 24 mins onwards. 

[G STAR RAM]

35 minutes ago, curb said:

We haven't sold the ground, Mel Morris owned the company that owned it, and now Mel Morris owns the company that owns it. 

He's just freed up money to keep us within the limits of FFP, protected his investment, and facilitated more investment over this three year period.

If we had sold the ground, either mortgaging it to a bank or selling it to an outside company, then it would be very concerning, but that hasn't happened. Mel Morris has bought the ground off himself to enable him to carry on investing in the club.

We should be standing up and applauding him, not whingeing about it on a forum.

Has this made more funds available for investment or has this just covered losses already run up?

[curb]

I can't remember the figures someone posted up, but it gives us a bit of wiggle room over this year and next year.

[Inglorius]

39 minutes ago, curb said:

We haven't sold the ground, Mel Morris owned the company that owned it, and now Mel Morris owns the company that owns it. 

He's just freed up money to keep us within the limits of FFP, protected his investment, and facilitated more investment over this three year period.

If we had sold the ground, either mortgaging it to a bank or selling it to an outside company, then it would be very concerning, but that hasn't happened. Mel Morris has bought the ground off himself to enable him to carry on investing in the club.

 

We should be standing up and applauding him, not whingeing about it on a forum.

Your last paragraph is very disingenuous; do you mean therefore we should be applauding someone getting us into a financial mess then formulating some whizz bang stellar ruse to escape from said mess?

[AdamRam]

50 minutes ago, curb said:

We haven't sold the ground, Mel Morris owned the company that owned it, and now Mel Morris owns the company that owns it. 

He's just freed up money to keep us within the limits of FFP, protected his investment, and facilitated more investment over this three year period.

If we had sold the ground, either mortgaging it to a bank or selling it to an outside company, then it would be very concerning, but that hasn't happened. Mel Morris has bought the ground off himself to enable him to carry on investing in the club.

 

We should be standing up and applauding him, not whingeing about it on a forum.

We have sold the ground to another entity, we will have to pay rent of which will be reduced from our available spend....remind me again, applauding for what ?

[G STAR RAM]

31 minutes ago, David said:

Go back and watch it again, 24 mins onwards. 

May come across different in video but being there I am sure it was said so as to apply to our own situation. 

Can't be arsed to watch the video so if I am wrong happy to hold my hands up.

It appears I wasn't the only attendee left feeling that was the way it was said though.

[Day]

10 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

May come across different in video but being there I am sure it was said so as to apply to our own situation. 

Can't be arsed to watch the video so if I am wrong happy to hold my hands up.

It appears I wasn't the only attendee left feeling that was the way it was said though.

It’s only a couple minutes from 24 mins on, if you get time and come back to me, see if you think the same.

To me, it sounded very much like an example of how tight it can be, following on from Mel that the club simply can’t afford to just give away cup vouchers when one game could be the difference between being compliant with 100k being used as a number as to how close you can be when you’re right up against it.

I posted the exact quote earlier in the post after the one you quoted me in tonight.

Could be wrong but watched it 3 times now, once when it came out and twice today. Hold my hands up if I’m wrong but that’s how it came across to me.

Not sure the club would even reveal the exact number to a fans forum when they were due to publish their accounts the following week. 

[ossieram]

33 minutes ago, AdamRam said:

We have sold the ground to another entity, we will have to pay rent of which will be reduced from our available spend....remind me again, applauding for what ?

Do you know how much the rent will be?  Would you applaud if it was £1 a week?

[AdamRam]

3 minutes ago, ossieram said:

Do you know how much the rent will be?  Would you applaud if it was £1 a week?

Peppercorn rent is irrelevant for FFP, a realistic rental value would have to be taken into account.

[LazloW]

This is a very interesting read.  In terms of  the workings of FFP I come from a position of ignorance (or lack of interest... you either pass the requirement or not; I’m personally not fussed about by how close you are to the limit, you get no prizes for being well under the limit).

I don’t really see the ‘sale’ of the ground as taking advantage of a loophole.  The rules presumably don’t stop club selling assets to ensure a  ‘sustainable’ financial footing.  The FA/EFL don’t want clubs to go under and if selling assets such as the ground helps with that then I imagine they’ll be more than happy with that.  I don’t get the impression that FFP has much to do with levelling the playing field at all (perhaps why they are changing the name, as FFP sounds like it’s aim is about competition and not financial stability).   We clearly aren’t cheating or doing anything underhand; rather we are ‘sweating an asset’.  I can’t say I’m too chuffed about the principle of the club and ground being ‘separate’.  Although we currently have the same owner that may not always be the case and that could lead to problems. However, let’s cross that bridge when we get there. Unless we end up in SISU territory it shouldn’t affect on the pitch stuff which is my main interest.

If FFP were about trying to ensure  level playing field then it has clearly failed from the start; which was inevitable considering it would be the aforementioned turkeys voting for Christmas.  

Not speaking for others, but if I started bemoaning the signing of Johnson and Butters now then it would be very much repainting my personal history.  I was quite satisfied at the time.  Every signing is a risk, both financial and professional.  There are always a lot of naysayers about our signings, so not that surprising there are a few ‘I told you sos’ about.  Signing two established Championship players well thought of at their respective clubs, albeit for a fairly large fee, seemed to make sense.  I have no qualms about what we did and there is no criticism of Mel for backing his manager and taking a calculated financial risk.  Lessons have probably been learned,  we live with the consequences (including the possible need for financial slights of hand - which might also be referred to as ‘the contingency plan!) and we move on.