The Long Awaited Accounts....

[Risso]

As with everything there's two ways of looking at this.

The glass half full version is that as long as we go up this year it's not a problem and is completely manageable.

The glass half empty version is that's essentially what the General was telling us when we were trying to get in to the Champions League...

At least we have the likes of Wyness who knows what he’s doing, rather than Randy’s yes men. If we go up and they approach things sensibly we should be fine. There’s a big job to do, but hopefully expensive lessons of the past have been learned.

[Matt Collins]

It must be possible to take these figures and make an assessment of how ffp will affect us if we don’t go up?

Eg:

- assume commercial income remains the same, minus a reduction in parachute payments

- apply constraints of FFP (which I think is still applied over three years?)

- equals income we need to generate through transfers or reduced wages

I’m hoping some journo or blogger will do this?

[FanNOTCustomer]

People getting financial years mixed up. We made a smaller loss in dropping to the Championship than we did in our last season in the Premier League. The stripping back at the end of the old regime helped, as did the player wage reduction clauses. 

In summary, we took a hit but not that bad, and it's astonishing how much we were losing in the Premier League with the silly wage ratio/income we were running.

We don't have to sell all our players, but we can't afford to pay 12-15 million for new ones either , should we not go up.

[Ad@m]

People getting financial years mixed up. We made a smaller loss in dropping to the Championship than we did in our last season in the Premier League. The stripping back at the end of the old regime helped, as did the player wage reduction clauses. 

In summary, we took a hit but not that bad, and it's astonishing how much we were losing in the Premier League with the silly wage ratio/income we were running.

We don't have to sell all our players, but we can't afford to pay 12-15 million for new ones either , should we not go up.

The bottom line loss in our final year in the Prem was made much worse by impairment (is one-off paper) losses. The underlying loss increased in the Championship as you'd expect.

As for the wage ratio, it went up from 82% to 83% in our first year in the Championship. Given the loss of revenue it's incredible we managed to keep it so low.

[Ads]

The Mail had a tibbet about Wyness being in £370k p/a as opposed to Tom Fox, who was being paid £2.9 million for his efforts.

[London Villan]

Just how did that happen?

[Villan For Life]

Just how did that happen?

See Lerner R.

[Ad@m]

The Mail had a tibbet about Wyness being in £370k p/a as opposed to Tom Fox, who was being paid £2.9 million for his efforts.

Be interesting to know where they got that from.

The accounts disclose the remuneration of the highest paid director as £358k but the accounts don't name the recipient.  However, for the vast, vast majority of the year the only director of this company was Dr Tone so I'm 99% certain this was paid to him.

Wyness is a director of a number of subsidiary companies but the most obvious one he'd get paid out of (Recon Football Limited) doesn't disclose any remuneration.  It does cross-ref to Recon Sports Limited but those accounts haven't been filed yet.

So is the Mail genuinely in the know or are they just making stuff up?

[Risso]

Making stuff up I think Adam.  As you say, the £350K is likely to be for Xia himself as he was the only director in Recon Group for the vast majority of the year.  If it was Wyness, he's on a bloody fortune as he was only a director of that company for a few days.  The accounts do say that the other directors are remunerated in subsidiary companies.  I had a quick look, but the accounts for Recon Sports haven't been put online yet.

[Toronto Villa]

Does anything in the accounts present concern as to the legitimacy of Recon or Xia’s financial acumen? Or is that not possible to ascertain?

[Risso]

Does anything in the accounts present concern as to the legitimacy of Recon or Xia’s financial acumen? Or is that not possible to ascertain?

Very hard to ascertain. The ultimate company is Chinese, so next to impossible to get anything meaningful there. They obviously have though:
A) bought the club
B) injected tens of millions in capital and loans, and
C) convinced the auditors that they have the wherewithal to support the club as a going concern.

Biggest concern for me would be FFP if we don’t go up, not whether Xia is the real deal or not.

[not3bad]

BBC Summary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43088167

[Ad@m]

BBC Summary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43088167

So they've misrepresented the year-on-year movement in losses (by ignoring the impairment losses last year), they've got the wage bill wrong by excluding national insurance and pension costs, and they've come up with some very spurious player transaction figures which I can't for the life of me figure out how they've got to.

Apart from that it's a pretty accurate analysis...

[eamonn]

What's wrong with the transfer figures? They seem close to what they were reported at the time.

[Ad@m]

It's almost that special time of year again!! 

Thought I'd bump this thread as I'm sure it's at the front of everyone's mind.

Should we have a poll on just how bad the finances looked just before our new overlords took over (as these accounts will be drawn up as of 31 May 2018)...?