Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Ad@m on February 28, 2013, 01:20:43 PM
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It's Christmas Day for Villa-supporting bean counters everywhere - yes, it's the accounts filing deadline for the 2012 accounts.
So assuming we don't take Blues' lead by just not filing them we should get a better picture of where the club was financially 9 months ago at some point today.
I've checked a few times this morning with Companies House and they're not showing as filed yet but the system does get a little overwhelmed at month ends so it can sometimes take time to catch up.
I'm expecting most on here will be disappointed though. The results will be for the year ended 31 May 2012 so won't show any of the cost-cutting of this season and will only show a partial effect of the cost-cutting of last season.
If I were a betting man I'd suggest they will still show a sizeable loss but they will also show we're heading in the right direction. I don't think we'll see the picture of where Randy wants to get to until the 2014 accounts, when all of the contracts MON signed have expired.
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I am going to we made a loss of £27 million.
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It used to be the fixture list that we all eagerly awaited. Now it's the latest report and accounts.
Modern football is shite
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£35 million loss I reckon, Lerners a ******.
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£35 million loss I reckon, Lerners a c***.
Less of it, if you don't mind.
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'STICK THE AUDITS UP YOUR ARRRRRRRRRSSSSSSE, STICK THE AUDITS UP YOUR ARSE!'
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£35 million loss I reckon, Lerners a c***.
How is it Lerners fault ? He's bankrolling the club.
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Small profit I'd guess.
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Small profit I'd guess.
Who cares about finance or football - rejoice to the fact that we are carbon neutral! ;) ;)
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Randy Lerner is a frugal bastard for even caring about money matters. No results to show for any strategy he's ever implemented. Lose, lose.
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
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We're carbon neutral, that's all you need to concern yourself with.
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Which of these am I meant to be looking at ?
ASTON VILLA LIMITED
00046572 UK00003632 VILLA PARK,BIRMINGHAM,, B6 6HE
ASTON VILLA FC LIMITED
02502822 UK02164619 VILLA PARK,TRINITY ROAD,BIRMINGHAM, B6 6HE
ASTON VILLA FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED
03375789 UK03033776 VILLA PARK TRINITY ROAD,ASTON,BIRMINGHAM,WEST MIDL B6 6HE
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It used to be the fixture list that we all eagerly awaited. Now it's the latest report and accounts.
Modern football is shite
Couldn't have put it better myself mate.
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We're carbon neutral, that's all you need to concern yourself with.
These Carbon Neutral digs are getting a bit tiresome. The point has been made.
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We're carbon neutral, that's all you need to concern yourself with.
These Carbon Neutral digs are getting a bit tiresome. The point has been made.
What was the point again?
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£35 million loss I reckon, Lerners a c***.
Less of it, if you don't mind.
Yea, stop beating about the bush, get off the fence and tell us what you really think...
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So will the accounts be released today or are we looking at tomorrow now?
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We're carbon neutral, that's all you need to concern yourself with.
These Carbon Neutral digs are getting a bit tiresome. The point has been made.
What was the point again?
Carbon Neutral would be a great idea for a band name. On the subject of accounts, Small Heath's will be known in March. Definately this time. Even more definately than the last time they would definately be revealed. And definately more definately than the definate time before that.
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Looks like they're late then...unless Companies House just haven't updated their Webcheck service.
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Which of these am I meant to be looking at ?
ASTON VILLA LIMITED
00046572 UK00003632 VILLA PARK,BIRMINGHAM,, B6 6HE
ASTON VILLA FC LIMITED
02502822 UK02164619 VILLA PARK,TRINITY ROAD,BIRMINGHAM, B6 6HE
ASTON VILLA FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED
03375789 UK03033776 VILLA PARK TRINITY ROAD,ASTON,BIRMINGHAM,WEST MIDL B6 6HE
None of them. Reform Acquisitions Limited is the one you're after - that's the ultimate holding company in the UK so gives you the full picture.
But, as Risso has said, they either haven't been filed or Companies House are still working through the backlog they're sitting in (amazing in this age that the majority of company's accounts are still hand delivered to Companies House!).
If it's the former, then may be the finances are worse than we thought!!! If it's the latter, then it should be either tomorrow or Monday when we get to see them.
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
Hold the party for now.
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
The 5 April date for individuals came about due to the change to the Gregorian calendar in the UK in the 18th century. UK Corporation Tax came into being because of the finance act that became law on 1 April 1965, so that's why the year end is different for companies. So now you know.
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
The 5 April date for individuals came about due to the change to the Gregorian calendar in the UK in the 18th century. UK Corporation Tax came into being because of the finance act that became law on 1 April 1965, so that's why the year end is different for companies. So now you know.
I can do a great Frank Spencer impression you know. Oooh Betty oooh. Oooh Betty ooh. I will get me coat. Our accountant has just taken delivery of most of our ''stuff''. Thank fuck for her cause i have not a clue- ish ;)
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
The 5 April date for individuals came about due to the change to the Gregorian calendar in the UK in the 18th century. UK Corporation Tax came into being because of the finance act that became law on 1 April 1965, so that's why the year end is different for companies. So now you know.
..crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread....
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
The 5 April date for individuals came about due to the change to the Gregorian calendar in the UK in the 18th century. UK Corporation Tax came into being because of the finance act that became law on 1 April 1965, so that's why the year end is different for companies. So now you know.
..crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread....
Wasn't that when Accountants were called ''Highway men?'' Robbing bastards.
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Happy new tax year, everyone!
*blows party hooter, gropes fat bird from HR, is sick in stationery cupboard*
*Accounting pedant alert*
Sorry Damon but the new tax year doesn't start until 6 April (unless you're a company, in which case it's 1 April - I've been in accountancy for 15 years and I still haven't found anyone who can tell me why these are different).
The 5 April date for individuals came about due to the change to the Gregorian calendar in the UK in the 18th century. UK Corporation Tax came into being because of the finance act that became law on 1 April 1965, so that's why the year end is different for companies. So now you know.
..crop rotation in the 14th century was considerably more widespread....
Wasn't that when Accountants were called ''Highway men?'' Robbing bastards.
After John.
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
Bottom Burp actually.
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Well that's disappointing. I come on here for some RED HOT AMORTIZATION CHAT and the buggers haven't even got it up yet. Booo!
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Well that's disappointing. I come on here for some RED HOT AMORTIZATION CHAT and the buggers haven't even got it up yet. Booo!
Pele knows how to solve that problem.
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Well that's disappointing. I come on here for some RED HOT AMORTIZATION CHAT and the buggers haven't even got it up yet. Booo!
Pele knows how to solve that problem.
It's not the same. I want to hear how much money Lerner's taken bac..., er reinvested in other core business strategies
*sulks*
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I wonder if Faulkner's hand delivering them to the Cardiff office now it's out of hours?
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Probably trying to file them on-line.
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The information is always at least 9 months out of date. The wages vs income comparison will be interesting.
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It's going to be hard going about my daily business with this kind of suspense. I feel like Eastie on deadline day.
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I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it.
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Tomorrow morning I am going to have our wage bill total on one monitor, the Spurs one on another, and wank myself off until all I have left is a bloody stump.
Too sexy for words.
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hell yeah!
*sends out Villadawg bat signal*
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Tomorrow morning I am going to have our wage bill total on one monitor, the Spurs one on another, and wank myself off until all I have left is a bloody stump.
Too sexy for words.
Like your style.
I'll have a PDF of 2012 and 2011 on one monitor, with 2010 and 2009 on the other. That's just the way I like to roll baby. Think I'll have a bacon sarnie while I'm doing it. A bit crazy and out there perhaps, but when you're a bad ass accountant, sometimes you've just got to let your wild nature off the leash.
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The most disappointing staying up until midnight since the end of the transfer window:
"Last Accounts Made Up To: 31/05/2011 (GROUP)
Next Accounts Due: 28/02/2013 OVERDUE"
Oh dear, they can't even submit the sodding accounts on time.
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Oh dear, It's Rangers all over again.
(http://www.liddellgrainger.org.uk/images/PAGEHEADS/Tax_man_cartoon.jpg)
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Tomorrow morning I am going to have our wage bill total on one monitor, the Spurs one on another, and wank myself off until all I have left is a bloody stump.
Too sexy for words.
Just another normal day in the walnuts household then paulie?:D
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I'm going to print the accounts off and place them in a half moon shape in the living room, then i'll have a leisurely 'crescent wank.'
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a loss of 21.5 Million£ is my guess.
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They've even denied me the pleasure of analysing the accounts. When will this suffering end?
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
Bottom Burp actually.
Wasn't that Toxteth O'Grady?
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£23m loss.
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
Bottom Burp actually.
Wasn't that Toxteth O'Grady?
I know that crop rotation in the 16th century was considerably more widespread after John.
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
Bottom Burp actually.
Wasn't that Toxteth O'Grady?
I know that crop rotation in the 16th century was considerably more widespread after John.
I'm off to stuff loads and loads of paper down the toilet.
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I think last year they released the details of the accounts to the press, before they were available on Companies House. I expect they'll do the same thing again even though they're still
"OVERDUE".
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I think last year they released the details of the accounts to the press, before they were available on Companies House. I expect they'll do the same thing again even though they're still
"OVERDUE".
It wouldn't surprise me if the accounts are already at Co House and have been for some time. That bunch are slow at the best of times
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I was hoping for more from this thread I've got to be honest :) I hope we made profit, we've hardly spent much have we?
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I think last year they released the details of the accounts to the press, before they were available on Companies House. I expect they'll do the same thing again even though they're still
"OVERDUE".
It wouldn't surprise me if the accounts are already at Co House and have been for some time. That bunch are slow at the best of times
Nope. The actual accounts might take a while to appear on the website, but as soon as they're filed they should appear as having been lodged. It's massively damaging for companies to have accounts to be shown as late, it puts all sorts of worries in the minds of creditors etc. If Companies House got that wrong they'd probably be sued.
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Everything in keeping with the veil of silence at the head of the club - now we are not aware of when the accounts are going to be revealed.
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Maybe a Mr W Gates or a Mr W Buffett bought the company yesterday afternoon and that's what's delaying things
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Maybe a Mr W Gates or a Mr W Buffett bought the company yesterday afternoon and that's what's delaying things
Or Mr C Yeung and Mr P Pannu...
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I'm sure its all just an oversight. Delay in faulkner's order for carbon neutral paper clips holding things up. That sort of thing.
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Just seen coventry have been placed under a transfer embargo for failing to discolse accounts on time yesterday and could face adninistration as sisu threaten to pull the plug - any punishment options for villa not revealing accounts or are we subject to different rules?
The below applies to coventry according to their website but could we face any kind of penalty if not filed on time?
"The auditors need to be sure that the club is a going concern for 12months + from now to be able to sign off the accounts today. . It isnt just about having the accounts from management figures I am afraid. "
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Biggest bogey? Rick, Britian.
Bottom Burp actually.
Wasn't that Toxteth O'Grady?
I know that crop rotation in the 16th century was considerably more widespread after John.
I'm off to stuff loads and loads of paper down the toilet.
We're going to beat the oiks, ra! ra! ra!
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Have we got a video?
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No, but Daddy lent me his Porsche and sends hugs xx
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I think last year they released the details of the accounts to the press, before they were available on Companies House. I expect they'll do the same thing again even though they're still
"OVERDUE".
It wouldn't surprise me if the accounts are already at Co House and have been for some time. That bunch are slow at the best of times
Nope. The actual accounts might take a while to appear on the website, but as soon as they're filed they should appear as having been lodged. It's massively damaging for companies to have accounts to be shown as late, it puts all sorts of worries in the minds of creditors etc. If Companies House got that wrong they'd probably be sued.
It doesn't quite work like that. Like UKR hsa said, they could still be processing them. One of my clients filed on deadline day back in September and the day after the website showed overdue and that was subsequently removed once the accounts were processed by Companies House.
However, February deadline day is probably one of the quietest Companies House has so it shouldn't take them too long to sort them out.
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from david conn at the guardian: @david_conn
Aston Villa lost £18m last year; income £12m down, gates 3,500 down, £27m made selling players, and they cut costs - presume wages. Unhappy.
Aston Villa say Randy Lerner waived £20m interest on £107m loans to the club in 2011-12. He must be delighted with how it's all gone....
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Oh dear, the income is a big worry.
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A worry for this year I would guess, but the TV money we will get next year will dwarf that. I wonder where it has come from? Surely not from losing 3500 people in 11/12 compared to 10/11?
What did we lose the year before, £56 million? I wonder if anybody can have a good guess at to what state we're in as of now.
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I would say gates are slightly up and didn't the kit sell very well in summer? Plus the wage bill must surely look a bit better now?
Not having to pay compo at the end of the season would be a big positive too.
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from david conn at the guardian: @david_conn
Aston Villa lost £18m last year; income £12m down, gates 3,500 down, £27m made selling players, and they cut costs - presume wages. Unhappy.
Aston Villa say Randy Lerner waived £20m interest on £107m loans to the club in 2011-12. He must be delighted with how it's all gone....
So if he'd taken his cut we'd have lost 38m? What ARE these players earning?
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I guess in Doug-enomics it losing £12million in fans turning up worked.
Lose £12 million for complete loss of trying to compete, but sell Downing/Young and get £27million in. Repalce two players with one at the cost of £10 million, leaves you £5 million up.
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Oh dear, the income is a big worry.
Not really, income only £12 million down and we finished seven places lower than the previous season, and did worse in both cups. Bearing in mind that the next television deal will be much higher, I reckon if we stay up then next year we'll be in profit.
Which makes the decision not to invest (significantly) in January to ensure our survival all the more ludicrous.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
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Oh dear, the income is a big worry.
Not really, income only £12 million down and we finished seven places lower than the previous season, and did worse in both cups. Bearing in mind that the next television deal will be much higher, I reckon if we stay up then next year we'll be in profit.
Which makes the decision not to invest (significantly) in January to ensure our survival all the more ludicrous.
you sure?. remember those figures include 27 million profit on transfers and randy waiving his 20m. Next seasons accounts will have a 25m loss on player transfers, even lower income and probably Randy taking his Interest.
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
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Is it Randy himself or the trust charging us interest?
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@thegoalzone: Villa reveal that despite turnover reducing by 11. 6 million the club have reduced losses from 53.9 to 17.7 mil for year ending may 2012
@thegoalzone: Villa a/cs also reveal attendance down from 37,220 to 33,873
@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds
@thegoalzone: Villas Operating costs reduced from 158.7 million to 138.4 million
@thegoalzone: Villa made 26.9 million pounds on player trading thats 8.1 million more than previous year
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Oh dear, the income is a big worry.
Not really, income only £12 million down and we finished seven places lower than the previous season, and did worse in both cups. Bearing in mind that the next television deal will be much higher, I reckon if we stay up then next year we'll be in profit.
Which makes the decision not to invest (significantly) in January to ensure our survival all the more ludicrous.
you sure?. remember those figures include 27 million profit on transfers and randy waiving his 20m. Next seasons accounts will have a 25m loss on player transfers, even lower income and probably Randy taking his Interest.
I reckon we'd be ok as the next TV deal is supposed to be riduculously high. Not exactly sure how high but I know the team that finishes bottom next year will get more than this year's Champions. That must be a lot of cash. I'd assume if the Premier League is expanding to even more TV markets and making more money on t'internet we'd get at least some of that cash too. Finally, Richard Dunne will be leaving which will mean we can close down that branch of Greggs we were running at Bodymoor Heath. Feel a bit sorry for the staff though.
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"@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds"
Does that mean he (or the Trust) is charging the club about 18-ish% interest?
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"@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds"
Does that mean he (or the Trust) is charging the club about 18-ish% interest?
I would guess it means the interest accrued since 2006.
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"@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds"
Does that mean he (or the Trust) is charging the club about 18-ish% interest?
I would guess it means the interest accrued since 2006.
That would sound more reasonable!
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Why doesn't RL convert his debt to equity, in effect writing off the debt, like Abramovich, Al Fayed, Whelan and others have done? Surely this would be the most alruistic gesture.
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Why doesn't RL convert his debt to equity, in effect writing off the debt, like Abramovich, Al Fayed, Whelan and others have done? Surely this would be the most alruistic gesture.
He already has with a chunk of the debt.
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"@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds"
Does that mean he (or the Trust) is charging the club about 18-ish% interest?
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
How are we ever going to break even if we potentially have to pay £20m in loan fees and whatever other costs this charlatan has schemed for himself? Reduce player wages to £250 a week?
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
How are we ever going to break even if we potentially have to pay £20m in loan fees and whatever other costs this charlatan has schemed for himself? Reduce player wages to £250 a week?
You do know what 'waived' means don't you?
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
How are we ever going to break even if we potentially have to pay £20m in loan fees and whatever other costs this charlatan has schemed for himself? Reduce player wages to £250 a week?
You do know what 'waived' means don't you?
Is he going to keep waiving these ''fee's'' forever?
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
How are we ever going to break even if we potentially have to pay £20m in loan fees and whatever other costs this charlatan has schemed for himself? Reduce player wages to £250 a week?
You do know what 'waived' means don't you?
Is he going to keep waiving these ''fee's'' forever?
He has done so far. This 'charlatan' has also written off quite a lot of his loans.
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The guys a joke, £20 million interest? He might aswell fuck off now and take his dogsbody lackeys with him before he completely destroys our club.
You missed the word 'waived.'
How are we ever going to break even if we potentially have to pay £20m in loan fees and whatever other costs this charlatan has schemed for himself? Reduce player wages to £250 a week?
You do know what 'waived' means don't you?
Is he going to keep waiving these ''fee's'' forever?
I don't know, but it strikes me as a bit unfair to be crucifying him for not waiving the interest when has just, errr, waived the interest.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
I take it you're not being entirely serious.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
I take it you're not being entirely serious.
Doug's justification for spending £1.5 million on Cascarino. It would only have gone on tax.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
I take it you're not being entirely serious.
Doug's justification for spending £1.5 million on Cascarino. It would only have gone on tax.
With hindsight, i wish we'd just ponied up the tax.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
I take it you're not being entirely serious.
Doug's justification for spending £1.5 million on Cascarino. It would only have gone on tax.
With hindsight, i wish we'd just ponied up the tax.
Or signed his partner instead teddy sheringham.
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@thegoalzone: Villa reveal that despite turnover reducing by 11. 6 million the club have reduced losses from 53.9 to 17.7 mil for year ending may 2012
@thegoalzone: Villa a/cs also reveal attendance down from 37,220 to 33,873
@thegoalzone: Villa owner Randy Learner waived intrest on loans to club of 107.1million creating one time benefit to club of 20.3 million pounds
@thegoalzone: Villas Operating costs reduced from 158.7 million to 138.4 million
@thegoalzone: Villa made 26.9 million pounds on player trading thats 8.1 million more than previous year
Surely, in the great plan, this is an absolute fuck off success. To reduce losses from nearly £54m to just under £18m is a phenomenal achievement....seriously.
The fact we are flirting with relegation to achieve it, is merely a piffling detail.
George Osbourne take note.
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The amazing thing about Cascarino wasn't that we paid so much for him but that Celtic gave us most of it back.
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Not that much of a success if 20 million of it is down to Randy writing off interest due, but yes, otherwise, steps in the right direciton.
It's almost as if we're being prepared for sale.
One thing I do hope is that, any more money he puts in to the club is spent a bit more wisely, certainly more sensibly than the wild, badly planned pissing away of cash we've engaged in for the last few years.
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Risso is going to say something kind about him...I can just sense it!
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The amazing thing about Cascarino wasn't that we paid so much for him but that Celtic gave us most of it back.
We should've just given him loads of drugs, like Marseille did. He was excellent for them.
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When are the wage bill figures revealed and it's percentage to our turnover, is that in May figures?
That's the one I'm most interested him seeing as it's the main issue for the last few years.
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Is this going to be a 'Lerner is a twat for letting the manager spend' thread? We haven't had one of those for a good couple of months.
'Lerner is a twat for not backing the manager' threads are getting a bit monotonous.
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Much better set of accounts. The CEO deserves a big bonus :P
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When are the wage bill figures revealed and it's percentage to our turnover, is that in May figures?
That's the one I'm most interested him seeing as it's the main issue for the last few years.
We'll get the details of the accounts, including the wage figures, when the accounts become available with Companies House. That should be early next week.
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The fall in income is troubling because it cannot be accounted for by a drop in attendances alone.
It seems that the substantial increase in the size of the commercial department is not now earning its corn.
Judging by the number of suits which attended the meeting where fans demanded blackboards for noughts and crosses and more Twix bars in the vending machines, Villa is encumbered with an ever-increasing number of managers, which can't be good.
Especially as the trend these days for financial bods to claim they have done a bonus-worthy job even when they have made a loss.
Did I read somewhere that Villa now employ 500 people or did I imagine it?
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Is this going to be a 'Lerner is a twat for letting the manager spend' thread? We haven't had one of those for a good couple of months.
'Lerner is a twat for not backing the manager' threads are getting a bit monotonous.
He's just a twat. Insert your own reasons.
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We should never be in profit. Why give to HMRC what you can give to the manager in the trasnfer window?
I take it you're not being entirely serious.
Doug's justification for spending £1.5 million on Cascarino. It would only have gone on tax.
And Gary Penrice.
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The fall in income is troubling because it cannot be accounted for by a drop in attendances alone.
It seems that the substantial increase in the size of the commercial department is not now earning its corn.
Judging by the number of suits which attended the meeting where fans demanded blackboards for noughts and crosses and more Twix bars in the vending machines, Villa is encumbered with an ever-increasing number of managers, which can't be good.
Especially as the trend these days for financial bods to claim they have done a bonus-worthy job even when they have made a loss.
Did I read somewhere that Villa now employ 500 people or did I imagine it?
The main driver for most football club income figures is the TV and prize money which are obviously very strongly linked to on-pitch performance.
Effectively in these accounts we'll be comparing 2010/11 with 2011/12 seasons. In 2010/11 we finished 9th and reached the 5th round of both the FA and League Cups.
In 2011/12 we finished 16th (so got a much lower league placing award - I think it's roughly £700k per position which accounts for £5m straight away), only made the 4th round of the FA Cup and the 3rd round of the League Cup so there would be lower prize money and lower TV revenue.
The leaked info said that attendances fell by roughly 3,500 per game. Over 19 home matches that's 66,500 fewer tickets sold. At a fairly conservative £20 a ticket that's almost £1.5m in lost revenue. The shorter cup runs also meant we had an extra home cup game in 2010/11 which would've been at least half a million lost in ticket sales.
As for the staff numbers - that probably sounds right if it includes matchday stewards. There certainly won't be that many fulltime staff.
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I've just checked the details and the Premier League broadcast payments (effectively the combined TV money and final position award for the Premier League) dropped from £49.1m in 2010/11 to £42.1m for 2011/12. There's £7m of the £11.6m fall in revenue.
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Do these accounts include any Genting money?
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Do these accounts include any Genting money?
They should do, yes, as the Genting deal started with the 2011/12 season.
It's a fair point as I'm sure when that was announced there were rumours it was our largest ever sponsorship deal by some way. I think £8m a season was bandied about?
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Risso is going to say something kind about him...I can just sense it!
WRONG ;) ;)
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The fall in income is troubling because it cannot be accounted for by a drop in attendances alone.
It seems that the substantial increase in the size of the commercial department is not now earning its corn.
Judging by the number of suits which attended the meeting where fans demanded blackboards for noughts and crosses and more Twix bars in the vending machines, Villa is encumbered with an ever-increasing number of managers, which can't be good.
Especially as the trend these days for financial bods to claim they have done a bonus-worthy job even when they have made a loss.
Did I read somewhere that Villa now employ 500 people or did I imagine it?
The main driver for most football club income figures is the TV and prize money which are obviously very strongly linked to on-pitch performance.
Effectively in these accounts we'll be comparing 2010/11 with 2011/12 seasons. In 2010/11 we finished 9th and reached the 5th round of both the FA and League Cups.
In 2011/12 we finished 16th (so got a much lower league placing award - I think it's roughly £700k per position which accounts for £5m straight away), only made the 4th round of the FA Cup and the 3rd round of the League Cup so there would be lower prize money and lower TV revenue.
The leaked info said that attendances fell by roughly 3,500 per game. Over 19 home matches that's 66,500 fewer tickets sold. At a fairly conservative £20 a ticket that's almost £1.5m in lost revenue. The shorter cup runs also meant we had an extra home cup game in 2010/11 which would've been at least half a million lost in ticket sales.
As for the staff numbers - that probably sounds right if it includes matchday stewards. There certainly won't be that many fulltime staff.
Yeah, TV money and rewards for finishing-position; that sounds about right.
I would like to know how much value Lerner's commercial department add to the business.
Can anyone quote the commercial earnings so I can put my hobby-horse back in the stable?
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Do these accounts include any Genting money?
They should do, yes, as the Genting deal started with the 2011/12 season.
It's a fair point as I'm sure when that was announced there were rumours it was our largest ever sponsorship deal by some way. I think £8m a season was bandied about?
Thanks Ad@m.
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@thegoalzone: Villa a/cs also reveal attendance down from 37,220 to 33,873
I guess that equates to about £2million.
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So the £107m is the loans owed to the Lerner Trust??? Was it £70m that he paid Doug??? So that would be the thick end of £200m if anyone wanted to buy it off him???
Think Randy night be around for a while
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So the £107m is the loans owed to the Lerner Trust??? Was it £70m that he paid Doug??? So that would be the thick end of £200m if anyone wanted to buy it off him???
Think Randy night be around for a while
From memory he's also got £100m of equity in the club so he's actually spent almost £300m on the Villa. There's no way the club's worth that now.
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
I'll pay it. I'll buy the club. I'll pay the £60m. Someone lend me a tenner.
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So the £107m is the loans owed to the Lerner Trust??? Was it £70m that he paid Doug??? So that would be the thick end of £200m if anyone wanted to buy it off him???
Think Randy night be around for a while
From memory he's also got £100m of equity in the club so he's actually spent almost £300m on the Villa. There's no way the club's worth that now.
Per the 2011 accounts it was just over £200m spent in loans and equity, including the original purchase price.
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Where is Nicholas Padfield QC.
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So.......have they actually released them yet? I'm dying to know how you can sell most of the higher earners, flog 27 million pounds worth of players, waive 20m pound interest payments and still make a massive loss.
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Depreciation of assets I'd guess.
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Or Houllier pay-off + TSM's signings not being that cheap?
Been trying to think who of the MON-era big earners would still be included in that period
Ivanhoe
Petrov
Cueller
Dunne
Collins
NRC,
Ireland
anymore? EDIT: Warnock of course
Plus if you guess that the clubs refusal to pay big wages started at the end of GH's reign (would make sense given the list of targets he reportedly wanted), then you'd include Bent and Makoun
Given that 5 of those names are still with us now, does that mean we'll take another hit in next year's accounts?
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Or Houllier pay-off + TSM's signings not being that cheap?
Been trying to think who of the MON-era big earners would still be included in that period
Ivanhoe
Petrov
Cueller
Dunne
Collins
NRC,
Ireland
anymore?
Plus if you guess that the clubs refusal to pay big wages started at the end of GH's reign (would make sense given the list of targets he reportedly wanted), then you'd include Bent and Makoun
Given that 5 of those names are still with us now, does that mean we'll take another hit in next year's accounts?
Given? Hutton?
That's what really rags me off with the shit we're in. We spent last season compounding the problems we'd already realised we had, making the job even harder this season.
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Or Houllier pay-off + TSM's signings not being that cheap?
Been trying to think who of the MON-era big earners would still be included in that period
Ivanhoe
Petrov
Cueller
Dunne
Collins
NRC,
Ireland
anymore?
Plus if you guess that the clubs refusal to pay big wages started at the end of GH's reign (would make sense given the list of targets he reportedly wanted), then you'd include Bent and Makoun
Given that 5 of those names are still with us now, does that mean we'll take another hit in next year's accounts?
Given? Hutton?
That's what really rags me off with the shit we're in. We spent last season compounding the problems we'd already realised we had, making the job even harder this season.
well thats the interesting point really. I'm pretty sure Faulkner and Co were spouting financial prudence from soon after Houllier got ill, if not before. So what are the likes of Given, Hutton and N'Zogbia on and if its mental money how does that sit with Faulkner's "Ajax of the midlands" Youth policy plan? Not very well i'm guessing.
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
Well arsenal are being bought for £1.5Bn and I'd say we're worth at least 25% of what they are so about £350m sounds feasible .
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
Well arsenal are being bought for £1.5Bn and I'd say we're worth at least 25% of what they are so about £350m sounds feasible .
Arsenal aren't being bought - they're not selling, which suggests the required money to buy that club would be higher than the 1.5 talked about.
Financial decisions like that aren't based on a "if they are worth this, we are worth that" basis, either.
Do the sums. Bought six years ago for £65m, when we had no debt.
We are now struggling for survival as we were in 2006, except this time, we've huge debts, too, but even so, you reckon we're worth more than 5 times what we were worth then?
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Easily yes, provided we stay a PL club.
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So the £107m is the loans owed to the Lerner Trust??? Was it £70m that he paid Doug??? So that would be the thick end of £200m if anyone wanted to buy it off him???
Think Randy night be around for a while
Well if he sold it for £200 million he would have made £23million profit wouldn't he so not too bad. If blues was sold for £80 million then surely Villa would be worth £200 million?
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Easily yes, provided we stay a PL club.
I bet Randy wishes you were a billionnaire!!!
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
Well arsenal are being bought for £1.5Bn and I'd say we're worth at least 25% of what they are so about £350m sounds feasible .
Arsenal aren't being bought - they're not selling, which suggests the required money to buy that club would be higher than the 1.5 talked about.
Financial decisions like that aren't based on a "if they are worth this, we are worth that" basis, either.
Do the sums. Bought six years ago for £65m, when we had no debt.
We are now struggling for survival as we were in 2006, except this time, we've huge debts, too, but even so, you reckon we're worth more than 5 times what we were worth then?
You are right Paulie, but if we stay up and Lambert's methods work out, we will be worth a lot more with the extra income next year.
Low wage bill, young playing staff with actual sell on value and huge income.
Of course get relegated it'll mean fuck all.
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The club is worth what someone is willing to pay for it so I don't think you can rule out any figure. When it is sold, it will be to some foreign billionaire who wants a piece of the action and footballing history so don't rule anything out.
Keep dreaming that a gazillionaire is about to pony up £300m for us whilst knowing he'd have to spend at least that to get us anywhere near winning anything.
Back in the real world if Randy paid £60m for a club battling relegation with no debt I can't see anyone paying that for a club battling relegation with £100m of debt.
Well arsenal are being bought for £1.5Bn and I'd say we're worth at least 25% of what they are so about £350m sounds feasible .
Arsenal aren't being bought - they're not selling, which suggests the required money to buy that club would be higher than the 1.5 talked about.
Financial decisions like that aren't based on a "if they are worth this, we are worth that" basis, either.
Do the sums. Bought six years ago for £65m, when we had no debt.
We are now struggling for survival as we were in 2006, except this time, we've huge debts, too, but even so, you reckon we're worth more than 5 times what we were worth then?
You are right Paulie, but if we stay up and Lambert's methods work out, we will be worth a lot more with the extra income next year.
Low wage bill, young playing staff with actual sell on value and huge income.
Of course get relegated it'll mean fuck all.
ha ha, true,
its like a massive gamble on the Roulette table, everything on either black or red
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ha ha, true,
its like a massive gamble on the Roulette table, everything on either black or red
In terms of it actually paying off, more like sticking it all on number 19.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
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So the £107m is the loans owed to the Lerner Trust??? Was it £70m that he paid Doug??? So that would be the thick end of £200m if anyone wanted to buy it off him???
Think Randy night be around for a while
Well if he sold it for £200 million he would have made £23million profit wouldn't he so not too bad. If blues was sold for £80 million then surely Villa would be worth £200 million?
Blues were only ever worth £80m to the crooks that bought them for their own criminal needs.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
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We could be the Next Big Thing.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
10 years is a long time in football
That's why arsenal are going for +$2billion !
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
10 years is a long time in football
That's why arsenal are going for +$2billion !
You're just plucking numbers out of thin air. Who says Arsenal are being bought for more than £2bn? And even if they are, how's that of more relevance to the value of the Villa than what someone paid to buy the Villa 6 years ago?
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
You have to factor in debts and accumulated losses though, plus expenses and the chances of being around to enjoy the increased TV money over the next few years. I don't think anybody would pay anything like £300m
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
You have to factor in debts and accumulated losses though, plus expenses and the chances of being around to enjoy the increased TV money over the next few years. I don't think anybody would pay anything like £300m
I don't think they would either, but I'm pretty sure that if we were to be sold then our market value would be a significant increase on what was paid. I'd have said about £200m wouldn't be unfair.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
You have to factor in debts and accumulated losses though, plus expenses and the chances of being around to enjoy the increased TV money over the next few years. I don't think anybody would pay anything like £300m
I don't think they would either, but I'm pretty sure that if we were to be sold then our market value would be a significant increase on what was paid. I'd have said about £200m wouldn't be unfair.
Based on what? There's a lot of finger-in-the-air guesswork going on here.
Unless we're looking at a multi-billionaire who just wants a plaything (and I doubt someone like that would pick a team from Birmingham) whoever were to invest would expect a return.
There are plenty of ways of valuing businesses and none of them suggest the Villa would be worth considerably more than we were 6 years ago.
The most common way is on a multiple of earnings. Well we've made losses for every year Randy's owned us I think so that's not going to work.
Earning potential? Whilst the new TV deal might look attractive, football clubs don't have a great record of keeping hold of such money. The current TV deal is a world away from the deal back in the 80s but the club is in a much worse financial state than it was back then. So what's the justification for saying the club will keep any more of this new deal? The new Premier League financial rules allow for substantial losses so don't expect them to come in to it.
Value of the assets? Well with £100m of debt sitting on the balance sheet and very little to show for it (ie the same ground, a slightly better training facility, a new pub, and....) the value of the club's net assets is probably as low as it's ever been.
There is just no justification to believe there are likely to be people willing to buy Randy out for what he's put in. Unless he takes a big loss I don't think he's going anywhere. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
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Depressing to read the accountants no-doubt accurate if prudent verdict.
Must take you to task on "slightly better training facility" though. Bodymoor Heath is regarded now as one of the top training facilities in Europe. A significant improvement on the former centre.
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Depressing to read the accountants no-doubt accurate if prudent verdict.
Must take you to task on "slightly better training facility" though. Bodymoor Heath is regarded now as one of the top training facilities in Europe. A significant improvement on the former centre.
Indeed it is, but I think it cost £5m to build. In the context of £200m going in to the club, the £5m training facility being all we have to show for it isn't great.
And as sad as it is to say it, if you wanted a club with a state of the art training facility, as things stand an investor would be much better off buying the Baggies and then spending £5m recreating Bodymoor with them.
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...an investor would be much better off buying the Baggies ...
Sorry Ad@m. Just, no!
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Yes, wash your mouth out man of Eve. There's some things that even financial scrutiny cannot reason.
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...an investor would be much better off buying the Baggies ...
Sorry Ad@m. Just, no!
I know, I was just using an extreme to make a point.
But if you looked at this from a purely financial perspective and ignored the fact they're a bunch of 6-toed inbreds they are a sounder investment proposition at the moment.
That's how much of a shambles financially the last 6 years has been.
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...an investor would be much better off buying the Baggies ...
Sorry Ad@m. Just, no!
I know, I was just using an extreme to make a point.
But if you looked at this from a purely financial perspective and ignored the fact they're a bunch of 6-toed inbreds they are a sounder investment proposition at the moment.
That's how much of a shambles financially the last 6 years has been.
God that's depressing!
Gather you are talking cumulatively - there have been some moments where it looked as if it was going to take off, as it were. Mainly earlier on, granted.
Also, hasn't the last year seen a fairly major chunk of debt disappear and overspending redressed? For Villa, I mean.
Even a tactically dodgy bottom 6 club with better financial standing, more support and more assets could be more attractive than one that goes boing every couple of years?! :)
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Wheres this extra £200m been spent on then...ridiculous players wages, paying off managers contracts and releasing shit players signed for millions for free?!
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Wheres this extra £200m been spent on then...ridiculous players wages, paying off managers contracts and releasing shit players signed for millions for free?!
Neutralising our carbon emissions
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
You have to factor in debts and accumulated losses though, plus expenses and the chances of being around to enjoy the increased TV money over the next few years. I don't think anybody would pay anything like £300m
I don't think they would either, but I'm pretty sure that if we were to be sold then our market value would be a significant increase on what was paid. I'd have said about £200m wouldn't be unfair.
I don't even think he'd get that to be honest. It would probably take 3 - 4 years of the new Premier League deal to square off our combined losses, and there's no guarantee that we'll be in the Premier League for that long, or that the TV deal after this one will be as generous. Even if we avoid relegation this year, our side isn't magically going to go surging up the table next year. It still needs investment, and if Lerner isn't prepared to do that, as he showed quite clearly in January, then we're just delaying the inevitable.
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Oh and the accounts STILL aren't showing on Companies House.
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Assuming we stay up, forget all the crap, we are a big club with big potential , we have the history and pedigree. We would easily fetch £300m in the mad world of Premier League football.
Based on what? In a considerably betterfinancial state less than 10 years ago we were worth £63m.
What justification is there to say anyonewould pay £300m?
Less than ten years ago we were sharing television revenue of approximately £1.6bn. Assuming we stay up we'd be sharing television revenue of just over £5bn.
In terms of the income that the club would generate, the amount would increase considerably so it's not unreasonable to assume that cost of the business that would generate that income should also increase.
You have to factor in debts and accumulated losses though, plus expenses and the chances of being around to enjoy the increased TV money over the next few years. I don't think anybody would pay anything like £300m
I don't think they would either, but I'm pretty sure that if we were to be sold then our market value would be a significant increase on what was paid. I'd have said about £200m wouldn't be unfair.
I don't even think he'd get that to be honest. It would probably take 3 - 4 years of the new Premier League deal to square off our combined losses, and there's no guarantee that we'll be in the Premier League for that long, or that the TV deal after this one will be as generous. Even if we avoid relegation this year, our side isn't magically going to go surging up the table next year. It still needs investment, and if Lerner isn't prepared to do that, as he showed quite clearly in January, then we're just delaying the inevitable.
aye. Lerner's net transfer spend since MON left is something like 8m or 2.3m per season. Lambert's 25m spend this season was basically covered by last season's sales. If it continues to form, then any spending in the summer will be funded by a big sale I reckon.
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I see Liverpool have reported a £40 million loss to go with a similar loss for last season.
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I read that our wage bill for last season was £70 million.... surely that cannot be correct? How is/was it still so high? This seasons accounts possibly wont be much better if you factor in smaller attendances again and drop in income and the addition of 7 new players against getting Warnock, Heskey, Cuellar and Collins off the wage bill. Similar loss again next year? Or slightly reduced?
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According to this report http://soccerlens.com/finance-in-english-football-wage-disparities-between-the-divisions/92692/ (http://soccerlens.com/finance-in-english-football-wage-disparities-between-the-divisions/92692/) before this season started the average wage of a premiership footballer was £22k per week, before bonuses (of which we should barely have paid any). If that equals £1.1m per season per player, assuming we had a squad of 25 senior players last season how do we fork out nearly treble what seems to be the average?
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Why do accountants struggle getting to grips with common sense.
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Why do accountants struggle getting to grips with common sense.
Go on, why do accountants struggle to get to grips with common sense..?
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
Charging yourself interest isn't really the best investment idea I can think of. The trust did it because it's a separate legal entity, and probably had reasons for showing that the loans were made at a commercial rate of interest.
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
Charging yourself interest isn't really the best investment idea I can think of. The trust did it because it's a separate legal entity, and probably had reasons for showing that the loans were made at a commercial rate of interest.
But, theoretically, I would still be taking money out of my football club in the way of interest and paying it into my own account, wouldn't I.
So I would still be making money out of my investment, wouldn't I.
Just asking like.
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
Charging yourself interest isn't really the best investment idea I can think of. The trust did it because it's a separate legal entity, and probably had reasons for showing that the loans were made at a commercial rate of interest.
But, theoretically, I would still be taking money out of my football club in the way of interest and paying it into my own account, wouldn't I.
So I would still be making money out of my investment, wouldn't I.
Just asking like.
I can think of lots of reasons Randy Lerner deserves stick, but if you're seriously suggesting that he's taking money out of the club to line his own pockets, then, sorry, you must be nuts.
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
Charging yourself interest isn't really the best investment idea I can think of. The trust did it because it's a separate legal entity, and probably had reasons for showing that the loans were made at a commercial rate of interest.
But, theoretically, I would still be taking money out of my football club in the way of interest and paying it into my own account, wouldn't I.
So I would still be making money out of my investment, wouldn't I.
Just asking like.
I can think of lots of reasons Randy Lerner deserves stick, but if you're seriously suggesting that he's taking money out of the club to line his own pockets, then, sorry, you must be nuts.
I am merely asking a question, and wondering whether 20% interest on loaned money is the going rate.
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Pop down Natwest in the morning and see if they will do you 7.9% on £200 million.
Let is know what they say.
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I am merely asking a question, and wondering whether 20% interest on loaned money is the going rate.
This will be the interest he waived in any case?
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Just a question for the financial whizz kids out there.
If I had some serious money to invest, could I do ANY better than buy a football club, lend it shit loads of money, and then charge 20% interest ? This could potentially net me I dunno, maybe £15, £20 million per annum on my investment.
Would I be seen as a noble benefactor who loves football and his club, or as a cynical business man who is getting a whopping return on his investment?
1) It's not 20% - it's spread over several years.
2) He hasn't taken it anyway.
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I am merely asking a question, and wondering whether 20% interest on loaned money is the going rate.
This will be the interest he waived in any case?
Since he took over ? Or just this year?
All I'm saying is that the interest being charged by Lerner is netting him a pretty penny.
Why couldn't the rate be 10%.
If this was the good old days, and it was Doug charging the club 20% interest, he would be being ripped to pieces on here, and elsewhere.
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I am merely asking a question, and wondering whether 20% interest on loaned money is the going rate.
This will be the interest he waived in any case?
Since he took over ? Or just this year?
All I'm saying is that the interest being charged by Lerner is netting him a pretty penny.
Why couldn't the rate be 10%.
If this was the good old days, and it was Doug charging the club 20% interest, he would be being ripped to pieces on here, and elsewhere.
He's not charging the club 20% interest, for starters. The loans were at the standard LIBOR rate plus 2%.
You also talk about him charging the club interest and have a go at him about it, when he's waived it. Seems odd to me.
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For fucks sake, who's having a go!!
I asked a question whether 20% is the going rate for money loaned to the club.
Personally, I think it's a huge amount to charge, and proves that he is probably more astute a business man than many give him credit for.
Shame some of the 'waived' interest couldn't be spent on a centre half.
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I think it's pretty obvious what you are hinting at, ie that Lerner is charging too much interest for the money he has put into the club.
How much of that money do you think he's ever likely to see back?
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Again. It isn't 20%. And he hasn't taken it.
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Again. It isn't 20%. And he hasn't taken it.
Fuck it, the hounds have have won, I give up
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Christ, andy, keep yer knickers on!
We were only pointing out that it isn't 20 percent, and he has waived it, and it was interest on a gigantic loan that he'll almost certainly never actually see back in any case.
Personally, i think he is largely hopeless as a chairman these days, but that does seem a bit of a harsh stick to be beating him with.
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No-one has 'won', andyh. This is a discussion board.
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The interest was never paid anyway, it was all rolled up and added to the outstanding loan balance. The interest and the waiving of it has just been one big paper exercise.
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erm....I take it they're still not out? Getting suspicious now.
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Randy isn't on the latest Forbes' billionaires list. Bearing in mind it includes all dollar-billionaires, that means he has less than £660 million at current exchange rate.
Didn't he used to have loads more than that? Maybe his missus did clean him out.
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There was a story a while ago that he'd increased his net worth and was now a sterling billionaire.
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erm....I take it they're still not out? Getting suspicious now.
They've been submitted at last but aren't available to view yet.
edit: in fact, they now are, back in a sec!
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Love this bit:
"Risks
The key risk facing any club in the Premier League is that of relegation. The board mitigates this risk to the best of its ability by providing the manager with first class facilities and appropriate payroll and transfer budgets".
Chinny reckon.
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Anyway:
Turnover down to £80.3m from £92m.
Operating expenses down to £138m from £159m.
This gives an operating loss of £58m compared to £66m last year.
Profit from player sales was £27m compared to £19m last year.
Lerner then wrote off £20.5m, including £6m charged this year, giving a net movment of £14m.
This takes us down to a loss of £17.7m compared to £54m last year. Obviously though, he won't be able to write off the accumulated interest every year, and that operating loss of £58m is still huge and very worrying.
The overall deficit in the accounts has risen from £20m to £32m.
All elements of turnover in the year decreased. matchday was down from £21.5m to £19.9m, TV down from £53.8m to £46.7m, and commercial down from £16.7m to £13.7m. Wages decreased from £83m to £70m. The percentage of wages to turnover has therefore decreased from 90.6% to 86.6%.
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Anyway:
Turnover down to £80.3m from £92m.
Operating expenses down to £138m from £159m.
This gives an operating loss of £58m compared to £66m last year.
Profit from player sales was £27m compared to £19m last year.
Lerner then wrote off £20.5m, including £6m charged this year, giving a net movment of £14m.
This takes us down to a loss of £17.7m compared to £54m last year. Obviously though, he won't be able to write off the accumulated interest every year, and that operating loss of £58m is still huge and very worrying.
The overall deficit in the accounts has risen from £20m to £32m.
All elements of turnover in the year decreased. matchday was down from £21.5m to £19.9m, TV down from £53.8m to £46.7m, and commercial down from £16.7m to £13.7m. Wages decreased from £83m to £70m. The percentage of wages to turnover has therefore decreased from 90.6% to 86.6%.
What will all this mean if we are in the Championship next season?
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Well, turnover will plummet and the losses would worsen.
Another point from the accounts is that it looks like it cost nearly £6m to pot McLeish and co.
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86.6% wages/turnover is still too high. I'd guess it improves to a decent level, one where we could spend again, with the new Sky money. IF we stay up, of course.
Remind me again when this is calculated to and who we've lost since?
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Well, turnover will plummet and the losses would worsen.
Another point from the accounts is that it looks like it cost nearly £6m to pot McLeish and co.
Worth a moment's thought for those so keen to pot Lambert, innit?
*wink*
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Well, turnover will plummet and the losses would worsen.
Another point from the accounts is that it looks like it cost nearly £6m to pot McLeish and co.
Worth a moment's thought for those so keen to pot Lambert, innit?
*wink*
Yes, they should have kept McLeish after all. Not only would we have saved £6m, but we'd also be doing better in the league!
*winkbackatcha*
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86.6% wages/turnover is still too high. I'd guess it improves to a decent level, one where we could spend again, with the new Sky money. IF we stay up, of course.
Remind me again when this is calculated to and who we've lost since?
31 May 2012 is the accounting end date. We lost Cuellar and Collins plus Warnock in January, so don't think there will be any big improvement.
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I still cannot fathom how we had to pay McLeish 6 million to fuck him off. He's been rewarded for gross incompetence. We should have been well within our rights to fuck him off. But there you go, that's the state of football these days. A complete and utter pile of wank.
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I still cannot fathom how we had to pay McLeish 6 million to fuck him off. He's been rewarded for gross incompetence. We should have been well within our rights to fuck him off. But there you go, that's the state of football these days. A complete and utter pile of wank.
I don't know why football clubs don't put more restrictions in the contracts on a case by case basis. If you were offering Mourinho a job I don't think he'd take too kindly to a clause that said if he performed badly he'd be sacked without compensation, but if you're offering a no hoper like McLeish a job after relegation surely they could be more bullish? It may be against employment law I suppose, but it seems absolutely ridiculous that a club like Villa has lost £18m in two years in paying off managers.
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I still cannot fathom how we had to pay McLeish 6 million to fuck him off. He's been rewarded for gross incompetence. We should have been well within our rights to fuck him off. But there you go, that's the state of football these days. A complete and utter pile of wank.
I don't know why football clubs don't put more restrictions in the contracts on a case by case basis. If you were offering Mourinho a job I don't think he'd take too kindly to a clause that said if he performed badly he'd be sacked without compensation, but if you're offering a no hoper like McLeish a job after relegation surely they could be more bullish? It may be against employment law I suppose, but it seems absolutely ridiculous that a club like Villa has lost £18m in two years in paying off managers.
He was unfortunate in having to pay off Houiller. He should'nt have employed McLeish in the first place.
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Even a year and a bit on, I can't even begin to fathom the sheer stupidity that got Lerner to appoint McLeish.
A truly mind boggling act of utter stupidity.
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Can't see us ever breaking even the way things are going, even if we get the wages bill down further. Thing is its probably risen from 70m since those accounts.
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I still cannot fathom how we had to pay McLeish 6 million to fuck him off. He's been rewarded for gross incompetence. We should have been well within our rights to fuck him off. But there you go, that's the state of football these days. A complete and utter pile of wank.
I don't know why football clubs don't put more restrictions in the contracts on a case by case basis. If you were offering Mourinho a job I don't think he'd take too kindly to a clause that said if he performed badly he'd be sacked without compensation, but if you're offering a no hoper like McLeish a job after relegation surely they could be more bullish? It may be against employment law I suppose, but it seems absolutely ridiculous that a club like Villa has lost £18m in two years in paying off managers.
I think the problem is they work both ways. Any club will appoint a manager as they think he'll do well. And if he does well, the vultures will circle. A strong contract allows them to defend against such approaches, but if you add a 'we can sack you if you're shit' clause, then the manager and his agent will look to negotiate the opposite, which is a release clause if a certain level of club come in for him.
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86.6% wages/turnover is still too high. I'd guess it improves to a decent level, one where we could spend again, with the new Sky money. IF we stay up, of course.
Remind me again when this is calculated to and who we've lost since?
31 May 2012 is the accounting end date. We lost Cuellar and Collins plus Warnock in January, so don't think there will be any big improvement.
And Heskey.
I reckon that's about £10m a year.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seems to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seem to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
I think one feeds the other. Lower wages = worse team and worse team = less turnover.
But our biggest issue is we're still paying the sort of overall wages that should be sufficient to be competitive in the PL, however it's going to the wrong players. If you take the combined wages of Hutton, Warnock, Dunne, Ireland and Bent and paid them to players actually contributing, we'd be in a better position financially as turnover would be up, despite the wages being unmoved.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seems to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
Precisely Greg.
The worrying thing now is that we're still making big losses that can only be partially offset by selling players, and we're fast running out of the sort of players who can make a big dent in the sort of numbers we're talking about. If we stay up we'll probably be OK, but if we go down we'll HAVE to sell the likes of Benteke and Weimann.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seem to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
I think one feeds the other. Lower wages = worse team and worse team = less turnover.
But our biggest issue is we're still paying the sort of overall wages that should be sufficient to be competitive in the PL, however it's going to the wrong players. If you take the combined wages of Hutton, Warnock, Dunne, Ireland and Bent and paid them to players actually contributing, we'd be in a better position financially as turnover would be up, despite the wages being unmoved.
I agree but its not going to help us for the next accounts. No doubt turnover will have dived again and only the likes of Ivanhoe, Collins etc off the wages bill and then all the new signings. It will be the accounts after that where we really see where we are, but even they could be awful if we go down.
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Can't see us ever breaking even the way things are going, even if we get the wages bill down further. Thing is its probably risen from 70m since those accounts.
Yeah, after Risso's analysis it really looks like we'll be fucked if we go down and can't get back up. Business Men my arse.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seems to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
Precisely Greg.
The worrying thing now is that we're still making big losses that can only be partially offset by selling players, and we're fast running out of the sort of players who can make a big dent in the sort of numbers we're talking about. If we stay up we'll probably be OK, but if we go down we'll HAVE to sell the likes of Benteke and Weimann.
yep, its pretty bleak really.. Faulkner should fall on his sword for allowing this to happen. He won't obv.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seems to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
Precisely Greg.
The worrying thing now is that we're still making big losses that can only be partially offset by selling players, and we're fast running out of the sort of players who can make a big dent in the sort of numbers we're talking about. If we stay up we'll probably be OK, but if we go down we'll HAVE to sell the likes of Benteke and Weimann.
yep, its pretty bleak really.. Faulkner should fall on his sword for allowing this to happen. He won't obv.
Yet these sort of losses simply can't be turned around when you're operating at a wages/turnover ratio of 86.6%. And when the club have tried to address this, they've recieved criticism.
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Anyway:
Turnover down to £80.3m from £92m.
Operating expenses down to £138m from £159m.
This gives an operating loss of £58m compared to £66m last year.
Profit from player sales was £27m compared to £19m last year.
Lerner then wrote off £20.5m, including £6m charged this year, giving a net movment of £14m.
This takes us down to a loss of £17.7m compared to £54m last year. Obviously though, he won't be able to write off the accumulated interest every year, and that operating loss of £58m is still huge and very worrying.
The overall deficit in the accounts has risen from £20m to £32m.
All elements of turnover in the year decreased. matchday was down from £21.5m to £19.9m, TV down from £53.8m to £46.7m, and commercial down from £16.7m to £13.7m. Wages decreased from £83m to £70m. The percentage of wages to turnover has therefore decreased from 90.6% to 86.6%.
Why does this say turnover of £64m?
http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/westmidlands/news/439803-huge-fall-in-turnover-announced-by-aston-villa.html
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Anyway:
Turnover down to £80.3m from £92m.
Operating expenses down to £138m from £159m.
This gives an operating loss of £58m compared to £66m last year.
Profit from player sales was £27m compared to £19m last year.
Lerner then wrote off £20.5m, including £6m charged this year, giving a net movment of £14m.
This takes us down to a loss of £17.7m compared to £54m last year. Obviously though, he won't be able to write off the accumulated interest every year, and that operating loss of £58m is still huge and very worrying.
The overall deficit in the accounts has risen from £20m to £32m.
All elements of turnover in the year decreased. matchday was down from £21.5m to £19.9m, TV down from £53.8m to £46.7m, and commercial down from £16.7m to £13.7m. Wages decreased from £83m to £70m. The percentage of wages to turnover has therefore decreased from 90.6% to 86.6%.
Why does this say turnover of £64m?
http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/westmidlands/news/439803-huge-fall-in-turnover-announced-by-aston-villa.html (http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/westmidlands/news/439803-huge-fall-in-turnover-announced-by-aston-villa.html)
I expect that's one of the underlying companies that gets consolidated into Reform Acquisitions Limited, ie Aston Villa Football Club Limited, Aston Villa Limited or Aston Villa FC Limited. The various activities are split and then merged into the Parent company, RAL.
edit: I was right, that turnover is for Aston Villa FC Limited which effectively owns the players. The turnover is a group recharge and seems to be essentially meaningless by itself.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seems to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
Precisely Greg.
The worrying thing now is that we're still making big losses that can only be partially offset by selling players, and we're fast running out of the sort of players who can make a big dent in the sort of numbers we're talking about. If we stay up we'll probably be OK, but if we go down we'll HAVE to sell the likes of Benteke and Weimann.
yep, its pretty bleak really.. Faulkner should fall on his sword for allowing this to happen. He won't obv.
Yet these sort of losses simply can't be turned around when you're operating at a wages/turnover ratio of 86.6%. And when the club have tried to address this, they've recieved criticism.
well that's true but people on here were complaining (and i was one of them) about the massive squad who didn't play under MON. We were bullshitted with stuff like "there's no budget", and then we find out not only was there a budget, but they totally ignored it.. If MON had only bought the players he actually used ,then the last 3 years wouldn't have been a headlong downwards plunge but a more structered gradual cost cutting exercise with the youth players replacing the reserves instead of being flung in the deep-end. Personally i think someone should take responsibility for the complete pigs ear they've made of it
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seem to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
I think one feeds the other. Lower wages = worse team and worse team = less turnover.
But our biggest issue is we're still paying the sort of overall wages that should be sufficient to be competitive in the PL, however it's going to the wrong players. If you take the combined wages of Hutton, Warnock, Dunne, Ireland and Bent and paid them to players actually contributing, we'd be in a better position financially as turnover would be up, despite the wages being unmoved.
And who wanted these players to be brought into the club? And who at the club questioned a) are they the correct player that we need; and b) is the deal that they are asking for/we are giving too high?
It all goes back to when MON was appointed and they just let him get on with it. There was no pathway laid down re the way forward for the club, we just lurched from day to day. The appointment of the various managers since (as has been done to death on here) shows there is no logic or forethought gone into how the club should progress over a long term basis. Until, that is, when the s**t hit the fan and RL woke up to what the position really was and he put the brakes on so hard we have come to a virtual full stop which, in all probability, will end up with us falling off the cliff edge of the Premier League which will only serve to exacerbate the problem a thousand times.
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Looks like we are trying to turn around the Titanic....
We complain about no football people involved but it seems that the 'business' people we have onboard are not particularly good at running a business. Relegation could cause chaos.
I expect the Chief Executive to fall on his sword..............as if.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seem to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
I think one feeds the other. Lower wages = worse team and worse team = less turnover.
But our biggest issue is we're still paying the sort of overall wages that should be sufficient to be competitive in the PL, however it's going to the wrong players. If you take the combined wages of Hutton, Warnock, Dunne, Ireland and Bent and paid them to players actually contributing, we'd be in a better position financially as turnover would be up, despite the wages being unmoved.
And who wanted these players to be brought into the club? And who at the club questioned a) are they the correct player that we need; and b) is the deal that they are asking for/we are giving too high?
It all goes back to when MON was appointed and they just let him get on with it. There was no pathway laid down re the way forward for the club, we just lurched from day to day. The appointment of the various managers since (as has been done to death on here) shows there is no logic or forethought gone into how the club should progress over a long term basis. Until, that is, when the s**t hit the fan and RL woke up to what the position really was and he put the brakes on so hard we have come to a virtual full stop which, in all probability, will end up with us falling off the cliff edge of the Premier League which will only serve to exacerbate the problem a thousand times.
I think it goes back to when he was sacked. Our high league position and subsequent turnover hid/compensated for the fact that we were wasting a lot of money on players not getting a look in. The sudden shift from MON to Houllier and then Houllier to TSM increased that wastage, due to the vast changes in style, as players who were playing and 'earning' their wages then being on the outside looking in.
That leads us to now, where we're still trying to shake the wastage of the last 2-3 years, so can only afford to look for players on less than average wages until the whole lot are cycled out of the club.
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Thing is the drop in the wage bill seem to be swallowed up by the drop in turnover. Ever decreasing circles.
I think one feeds the other. Lower wages = worse team and worse team = less turnover.
But our biggest issue is we're still paying the sort of overall wages that should be sufficient to be competitive in the PL, however it's going to the wrong players. If you take the combined wages of Hutton, Warnock, Dunne, Ireland and Bent and paid them to players actually contributing, we'd be in a better position financially as turnover would be up, despite the wages being unmoved.
And who wanted these players to be brought into the club? And who at the club questioned a) are they the correct player that we need; and b) is the deal that they are asking for/we are giving too high?
It all goes back to when MON was appointed and they just let him get on with it. There was no pathway laid down re the way forward for the club, we just lurched from day to day. The appointment of the various managers since (as has been done to death on here) shows there is no logic or forethought gone into how the club should progress over a long term basis. Until, that is, when the s**t hit the fan and RL woke up to what the position really was and he put the brakes on so hard we have come to a virtual full stop which, in all probability, will end up with us falling off the cliff edge of the Premier League which will only serve to exacerbate the problem a thousand times.
Aye. You just have to look at MON's signings. Out of the 28 or so, a good 11 or 12 would have had little or no effect on where the team finished if they'd never been bought. What that equates to in wages and transfer fee's i'm not sure but its not peanuts.
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But it is not just about MON it is how the club has been run virtually from day 1 of the RL era. There has been no long term (or even medium term) plans put in place as to how the teams will play, what style of manager etc. Just look at Swansea and see how they have formulated a plan and worked it through even to the extent that the chairman has said if Laudrup is tempted to move on they have plans laid down in relation to his successor. (and there is another club not a million miles away who also appear to be run very efficiently!)
Do you think that they even considered MON would leave at some point? And did they consider that Houlliers health might mean he would not be staying? It just beggars belief, IMO.
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This gives an operating loss of £58m compared to £66m last year.
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If we get relegated we are absolutely fupped financially - completely and utterly.
How did it ever come to this?
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But it is not just about MON it is how the club has been run virtually from day 1 of the RL era. There has been no long term (or even medium term) plans put in place as to how the teams will play, what style of manager etc. Just look at Swansea and see how they have formulated a plan and worked it through even to the extent that the chairman has said if Laudrup is tempted to move on they have plans laid down in relation to his successor. (and there is another club not a million miles away who also appear to be run very efficiently!)
Do you think that they even considered MON would leave at some point? And did they consider that Houlliers health might mean he would not be staying? It just beggars belief, IMO.
Ahh - succession planning. Doug always had a plan in that respect which he executed every 3 years or so.
MON - Houllier - TSM - Lambert.
Motivator and Organiser followed by a Coaching Director followed by Turgid Robot followed by an (albeit briefly) Bright Young Thing.
Where is the fucking logic?
And why on earth is Faulkwit still in a job?
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I would imagine the likes of Collins and Heskey going has been off set by the new signings, so we wont see too much movement there next year.
I expect Ireland, Bent, Dunne and Given to go, which at a rough guess you’re probably talking in excess of £240k per week. If we bring in 6 or 7 players again, then the wages may not decrease a great deal, but if they’re of sufficient quality then you would hope that the league placings would improve and the extra TV money would make a healthy addition to the balance sheet.
I find that operating cost staggering though and would love to know how it compares with other clubs and exactly where the money is going. I wouldn’t have thought there were too many left on big wages.
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We now owe about £260m in share capital, loan notes and other loans. Still, at least we're not Leed.....well actually, we're not far off.
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You lot make me sick, putting an overly negative slant on these figures.
There are about 60 League clubs who would love to be in our position.
Hang your heads in shame, so called 'Villa supporters'
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Leeds went the way they did because they paid the likes of Seth Johnson stupid amounts of money. We've stopped doing that now.
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So when will we actually see some dissenting, anti-Lerner shouts at Villa Park?
We seem to be resigned to our fate, like a....like a.... like a frog in a pan of boiling water.
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Leeds went the way they did because they paid the likes of Seth Johnson stupid amounts of money. We've stopped doing that now.
We'll still be paying Shay Given lots of money for a few years yet. Even Stephen Ireland has another year to go on his contract, and I can't see there being a queue of buyers for him in the summer.
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Thought I'd add to the analysis...
Firstly, the operating loss - yes, on the face of it £58m looks horrific but there are 'paper' losses in there (amortisation and depreciation) which have absolutely no bearing on the club's ability to finance itself. When these are stripped out the loss is £33m vs £34m last year. This was caused by the £12m drop in revenue (discussed already) and the £13m drop in costs (all related to staff costs). Like others have said, this would appear to be a case of ever decreasing circles but because of the nature of football clubs (ie a core set of fans will turn up whatever) the costs will have further to fall than the revenue.
As for the costs, before amortisation the club's operating costs were £113m of which £70m was staff costs. Firstly, those staff costs still include the wages of a number of players bought present during the MON or GH era (ie before we think the wage cap came in) such as Cuellar, Collins, Heskey, Warnock, Given, Dunne, Ireland, Makoun, Petrov, Bent & Gabby). I wouldn't be surprised if that lot were on an average of £40k a week which equates to £23m a year. Cuellar, Collins and Heskey disappeared just after the year end presented here and Warnock disappeared six months later. Even with all the new signings (players from lower leagues or the Dutch league so likely to be on considerably less) that will represent a further saving next year.
The slight confusion I have is the other costs. Excluding wages we spend £43m a year. £6m of that is depreciation and £6m is pay-offs for sacking managers (McLeish) or stealing managers (Lambert). But what is the other £31m? This seems high. That said, if we assume the revenue doesn't drop much lower than £80m and assume the £31m of other costs remains, we should still have more than enough to build a competitive squad. But the short-term target should certainly be to try to get the wage bill below £50m - a reduction of £20m on where we were in 2011/12. I reckon getting rid of Heskey, Cuellar, Collins and Warncok will cover almost half of that. Getting rid of the others who aren't contributing (Bent, Makoun, Ireland, Given & Dunne) might well cover the rest.
The trouble with the wages is that they'd got so out of hand that a complete clearout became necessary. Having high earners on the books forces up the other players' salaries as they all compare themselves with one another - anyone remember NRC complaining that he wanted pay-parity with Young? By getting rid of all the high earners you shift the base down and negotiations become more sensible with new contracts.
Other thoughts
Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.
Summer 2012 transfers cost £22m for signings and generated £2.5m for sales.
The club employs 544 full time staff (what do they do?!) and a further 1,196 part-time staff.
So, as I said at the start of this thread, these results were never going to be showing a profit but at least they show we're going in the right direction. Even the 2012/13 accounts won't show a profit. If we manage to stay up this year and move on more of the high earners in the summer then the 2013/14 accounts might be close to break even.
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Looking at the latest numbers and attempting to predict a positive or negative future for the club is futile because ultimately everything depends on the whim of the owner.
Even if the club was now breaking even at this point in time it does not mean that the club is going to spend the maximum it can within the FFP regulations.
We may know the numbers almost a year after they had any relevance and we might identify a trend, one way or the other, but the great unknown still remains unknown.
Without knowing what Lerner's vision for the club is, knowing if the club is profitable or not does not help.
Other clubs make big profits but they do not spend them on players, so why would we assume Lerner would either?
Until he converts the debts into equity we cannot be sure that he won't continue to take millions a year out of the club in interest.
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Until he converts the debts into equity we cannot be sure that he won't continue to take millions a year out of the club in interest.
How can he continue to do something he hasn't done in the past?! I've lost count of the number of times it's been mentioned in this thread that Randy, as of 31 May 2011, has charged the club exactly zero in interest on the £240m of cash he's put in to the club. Is that really something you can criticise?
As for the rest of your post, to dismiss the accounts as meaningless because we can't read Randy's mind seems to miss the point somewhat. If that were the case why are so many people paid to analyse financial statements and provide advice on the future off the back of that?
I think Randy's motivations are fairly clear in that he wants the club to be successful, both on and off the pitch, whilst not wanting to bank roll that success with a bottom pit of cash. He's put a hell of a lot in so far on a gamble of Champions League qualification and it's not unreasonable for him to want to break the cycle of cost-increases now Champions League qualification seems very unlikely in the short-term.
With that in mind, I think an analysis of the current and likely future performance and position of the club is entirely valid.
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I'll leave the analysis of the figures to people better qualified than me, but it doesn't look good. We appear to be as bad on the business side of things as the football side of things. We really really need to stay up.
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Until he converts the debts into equity we cannot be sure that he won't continue to take millions a year out of the club in interest.
How can he continue to do something he hasn't done in the past?! I've lost count of the number of times it's been mentioned in this thread that Randy, as of 31 May 2011, has charged the club exactly zero in interest on the £240m of cash he's put in to the club. Is that really something you can criticise?
As for the rest of your post, to dismiss the accounts as meaningless because we can't read Randy's mind seems to miss the point somewhat. If that were the case why are so many people paid to analyse financial statements and provide advice on the future off the back of that?
I think Randy's motivations are fairly clear in that he wants the club to be successful, both on and off the pitch, whilst not wanting to bank roll that success with a bottom pit of cash. He's put a hell of a lot in so far on a gamble of Champions League qualification and it's not unreasonable for him to want to break the cycle of cost-increases now Champions League qualification seems very unlikely in the short-term.
With that in mind, I think an analysis of the current and likely future performance and position of the club is entirely valid.
But surely if we are going to assess the financial performance of the club we can't consider our personal estimation of the owner's future behaviour as due diligence?
The fact that the debt appears in the accounts and that the owner decided to waive his interest payments does not mean that that debt is not a threat to the business's future, especially if its income falls and the interest swallows up an ever-increasing proportion of the club's income.
I don't think Lerner's motives are clear at all.
He has put the club's status and future prospects in peril by pushing through his cuts over an unrealistic timetable.
He has stuck to that plan through endless failure and gives the impression that his priorities are overwhelmingly financial.
Any other interpretation is just denial and wishful-thinking.
We do not know what he thinks because he has never taken the trouble to actually tell us.
The only thing we know is that he radically changed his mind and there is nothing to say he won't do the same in the future.
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I dont get it. No one asked Lerner to buy us. With buying a Premier Club you have to invest so why do we have to pay anything back?
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Looking back at the old accounts, the first lot of loan notes issued are due for repayment in 2016. I wonder what will happen then.
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Anyone like to hazard a guess at how many years we could afford to be outside the Premiership before financial problems become potentially club threatening?
I'm not sure we could do what Ashley did at Newcastle and keep on a lot of their higher earners, as well as make significant signings like Nolan (albeit before knowing if they'd be down).
We'd likely have to just strip the club bare as quick as possible of our "name" players. Easier said than done of course, as finding takers for the likes of Dunne and Ireland will be hard. A lot will depend on how much we can get from Benteke's fee. It's be good to get absolute top dollar.
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Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.
On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes. I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run. It's in the creditors due in less than one year total. All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.
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Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.
On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes. I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run. It's in the creditors due in less than one year total. All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.
Fair enough - I was rushing my review over lunchtime!!
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Deary me, Villadroid - you don't half write some shite!
But surely if we are going to assess the financial performance of the club we can't consider our personal estimation of the owner's future behaviour as due diligence?
It's not really a personal estimation. He sent a statement to all season ticket holders either the start of this season or last where he said he had ambitions for the club to be successful on the pitch whilst being self-financing off it.
The fact that the debt appears in the accounts and that the owner decided to waive his interest payments does not mean that that debt is not a threat to the business's future, especially if its income falls and the interest swallows up an ever-increasing proportion of the club's income.
No-one said it was but you said Randy could 'continue to take millions a year out of the club in interest'. How can he 'continue' to do this when he hasn't taken a single penny out of the club in interest since he arrived?
I don't think Lerner's motives are clear at all.
He has put the club's status and future prospects in peril by pushing through his cuts over an unrealistic timetable.
He has stuck to that plan through endless failure and gives the impression that his priorities are overwhelmingly financial.
Any other interpretation is just denial and wishful-thinking.
Cuts over an unrealistic timetable? There's no fire sale going on here. When silly offers come in for players we're selling them and when contracts run out on others we're letting them lapse. That's a pretty sensible way to deal with the annual deficit isn't it?
Stuck to his plan through 'endless failure'?! What's this endless failure? Not winning a trophy? I don't quite class that as 'endless failure' or 95% of clubs have endured 'endless failure' for most of their histories.
We do not know what he thinks because he has never taken the trouble to actually tell us.
The only thing we know is that he radically changed his mind and there is nothing to say he won't do the same in the future.
We do know what he thinks - he told us before.
And yes, he has radically changed his mind - in a perfectly rational way. The MON approach wasn't working. That's why we didn't finish any higher than 6th. What was meant to happen in that situation? Carry on throwing ever larger cheques at it until he was bankrupt as well as the club? We're going about it a different way now but unfortunately there's a lot of repair work that's needed before we can start to grow again.
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Randy put another £10m in during 2011/12 so he's now put £133m in as equity and £107m as loans which aren't repayable until at least the end of 2021.
On top of that, there's £30m owed to the parent undertaking that isn't in the form of loan notes. I assume this is just cash paid over to keep things going in the short run. It's in the creditors due in less than one year total. All of the loan notes are due in more than one year.
Fair enough - I was rushing my review over lunchtime!!
I wasn't saying you were wrong, as you weren't, and it's easy to miss as they're not really highlighted like the loan notes.
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I don't know about you lot, but all this accounting talk has given me a right chubby on.
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I don't know about you lot, but all this accounting talk has given me a right chubby on.
Haha...I was just about to say. Seeing Adam being so masterful with Villadroid...fucking alluring.
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So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.
*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*
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So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.
*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*
at least we have our new pub...........
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So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.
*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*
at least we have our new pub...........
And we're carbon neutral. They didn't even mention that in the accounts.
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So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.
*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*
at least we have our new pub...........
And we're carbon neutral. They didn't even mention that in the accounts.
Not at the end of the last financial year Risso...
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So, to put a finer point on it, we've become stung by modern football and can't keep up.
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Deary me, Villadroid - you don't half write some shite!
But surely if we are going to assess the financial performance of the club we can't consider our personal estimation of the owner's future behaviour as due diligence?
It's not really a personal estimation. He sent a statement to all season ticket holders either the start of this season or last where he said he had ambitions for the club to be successful on the pitch whilst being self-financing off it.
Exactly so, but just read that carefully; what does he actually say?
It is just typical business vague-speak until you know what he means by "successful".
Success is a relative term and can mean anything you like.
Success this season would be surviving relegation.
Success next season could mean looking likely to qualify for the play-offs.
We don't even know what being self-financing means precisely.
Does it mean making a profit?
Does it mean financing the debts he has burdened the business with?
All we know is that one of his minions probably wrote that paragraph and put his name to it.
These customer-relations messages mean nothing, especially when a company's actions do not match their words.
So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.
The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.
All signs of poor management and a failing business.
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So to sum up these accounts we're pretty much buggered for the foreseeable future, unless we go down then we're really buggered.
*checks Randy's 5 Year plan*
at least we have our new pub...........
There's no sadder site than driving past that and knowing it's only being used to sell club tat.
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So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.
The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.
All signs of poor management and a failing business.
Exactly right on all three points. Their first strategy in the "five year plan" was to achieve Champions League football, but they went about it entirely in the wrong way, giving virtyually all of the power at the club to one man.
It's telling that as the losses started to rack up, that Krulak was on here and other places saying that the sending and losses were all expected and planned for.
When it became clear that this was in fact not the case, they then went into panic mode, sold all of the saleable assets and basically stopped pretending that we could compete on an even keel with even mid-ranking clubs in the Premier League.
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So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.
The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.
All signs of poor management and a failing business.
Exactly right on all three points. Their first strategy in the "five year plan" was to achieve Champions League football, but they went about it entirely in the wrong way, giving virtyually all of the power at the club to one man.
It's telling that as the losses started to rack up, that Krulak was on here and other places saying that the sending and losses were all expected and planned for.
When it became clear that this was in fact not the case, they then went into panic mode, sold all of the saleable assets and basically stopped pretending that we could compete on an even keel with even mid-ranking clubs in the Premier League.
I can remember reading several quotes from Krulak which stated that the losses were expected and accepted and I regretted I never took a copy, when the fans started to claim that bullyboy O'Neill had stolen Lerner's lunch money.
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So, I say that the accounts are interesting in terms of assessing the performance of the management but you'll get no better picture of the club's vision except their intent to offer their customers a lower grade of football product.
The only thing we can tell is that the club is losing income, running at a loss and the customers are not happy.
All signs of poor management and a failing business.
Exactly right on all three points. Their first strategy in the "five year plan" was to achieve Champions League football, but they went about it entirely in the wrong way, giving virtyually all of the power at the club to one man.
It's telling that as the losses started to rack up, that Krulak was on here and other places saying that the sending and losses were all expected and planned for.
When it became clear that this was in fact not the case, they then went into panic mode, sold all of the saleable assets and basically stopped pretending that we could compete on an even keel with even mid-ranking clubs in the Premier League.
While I think it is fair to say, for most of the time, the willingness to make the money available was there, where we went wrong was in absolutely nobody at the club having a long term plan or vision of what we were trying to do.
It was "get into the champions league", but that's not really a plan, that's an objective.
Clearly, O'Neill's running of the entire club had two effects.
Firstly, it hid the fact that that rest of the management were clueless. When they did try to impose some order, MON saw off their appointments - Cunnah, FitzGerald, people who didn't last very long at all. When we finally did get a new bloke in, he was totally unqualified to do the job.
Look at who the likes of Man City and Chelsea got in when they started spending big money. People from other clubs, or from the likes of Nike.
What did we get? Someone who'd been running a call centre in Chester.
Secondly, MON calling all the shots meant that everything was done to his taste. Lerner seems to have spent four years just saying yes to requests for money, which is all fine and dandy, but what would then happen when the manager didn't want to do it anymore? What happened was we found out just how shit-or-bust and short term everything had been.
Ageing, crap players on huge deals. A squad of players either tutored in, or tailor made for, playing a somewhat archaic form of football.
Even worse, though, we found out just what a mess the finances were. It's all well and good for people to say "yeah, but nobody complained about the money when we were spending a fortune on players", but the fact is, we didn't know the full mess of the finances.
What's more, on the occasion that anyone dared to mention this, or - god forbid - the wage bill, General Krulak would gently patronise them and tell them "don't worry about the money, we know what we're doing".
So what happens when things go really wrong? They disappear from the dialogue with the fans faster than a rat up a drainpipe, and we find out that, actually, the finances were totally, totally fucked. So fucked that we had to retrench way too fast and ended up where we are now.
Those who want to convince themselves he was taking money out of the club are totally, totally wrong - you can't argue with the money Randy he has made available, but the way it has been managed over six years at the club has been nothing short of horrendous.
It should be really, really difficult to spend the sort of money we have since 2006 and end up largely exactly where we started - at the arse end of the table, skint, and with a squad that is nowhere near strong enough - except now with a mountain od debt.
Good stewardship is not entirely about spunking money into the club all the time, it is also about managing the business, and on that level, we have been a laughable mess.
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Excellent post Paulie. The brutal truth is that after 6 and a bit years of Lerner, we have accumulated losses of £165m AND are in the last chance saloon in the Premier League. One or the other could be excused, but both together sums up the sorry tale you've told above.
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There are players bought that left most supporters shaking there heads in disbelief, when you look at the sheer waste of money over four years it makes me angry. Today the same problems are there, we are a rudderless ship with no-one in control and the only plan is to cut costs. Lerner has to take most of the blame as he has overall control, some of the millions he spent should have gone towards getting the right staff in to run the place.
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Some good points there, Paulie but you fail to mention one factor that must have had an huge impact on all boardroom decisions, that being the global financial crisis. Whilst we don't fully understand the impact it had on Randy Lerner, we do know that MBNA was merged into Bank of America and payment was made in both cash and shares. We also know that Bank of America nearly collapsed and were snapped up by Merrill Lynch in 2008.
It's all well and good having a go at the General and like you I do recall him telling us that loses had been planned for, so not to worry but as I've mentioned, it was a whole new ball game after 2008.
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Some good points there, Paulie but you fail to mention one factor that must have had an huge impact on all boardroom decisions, that being the global financial crisis. Whilst we don't fully understand the impact it had on Randy Lerner, we do know that MBNA was merged into Bank of America and payment was made in both cash and shares. We also know that Bank of America nearly collapsed and were snapped up by Merrill Lynch in 2008.
It's all well and good having a go at the General and like you I do recall him telling us that loses had been planned for, so not to worry but as I've mentioned, it was a whole new ball game after 2008.
True, but the spending went way past 2008.
Plus, it is not just about the money spent, it is the way it was managed - ie not at all, by the looks of it.
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There are players bought that left most supporters shaking there heads in disbelief, when you look at the sheer waste of money over four years it makes me angry.
Who remembers pelty on here dropping the fact that Heskey was the highest paid player at the club?
That's Emile Heskey, who was nudging 32 when we threw a 3.5 year deal at him.
That's an example of the sort of dreadful decision making we've engaged in.
There's nothing wrong with shirking players with no future value and buying wisely so that you'll have sell on potential - even Spurs do that. My problem currently is that, we seem to have realised that now, but we're doing it on far too large a scale, too quickly.
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Forking out millions on hiring and firing/mutually parting (with) O'Neill, Houllier, McLeish and their backroom teams pisses me off far more than the likes of Beye, Sidwell and Heskey stewing on the bench or even Bent and Given doing the same now. At least those players would contribute if they could.
We've been incredibly wreckless with contracts and continuously stung in having to honour them suggesting we didn't have much foresight when drafting them. The board...whoever they are, need a lesson or two in negotiation.
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Who did themwhen O'Neill was here? Him or the CEO?
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Some stats from the accounts that show how badly run the club is:
Cost of hiring and firing AM, GH and MON in last 2 years : £18m
% of wages to turnover: 87%
Total wage bill at Aston Villa FC: £70m
Total wage bil at Swansea FC: £35m
Every time the wage bill gets reduced the income falls, meaning a our wages are unhealthily high as a proportion of turnover.
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Cost of hiring and firing AM, GH and MON in last 2 years : £18m
That was the income from Ashley Young's transfer well spent then?
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We haven't mentioned Spurs for a while, and we'll never tempt VD back if that isn't rectified.
For 2011, their wage bill was £91m compared to ours of £83m. VD should be glad that we're finally paying less than them, it's just a shame how it's been achieved, ie they're still knocking around the top 4, while we're more concerned with the bottom 4.
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Pay more wages = get better results...isn't that the maxim for modern football? Nice to see we're breaking the mould.
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We haven't mentioned Spurs for a while, and we'll never tempt VD back if that isn't rectified.
For 2011, their wage bill was £91m compared to ours of £83m. VD should be glad that we're finally paying less than them, it's just a shame how it's been achieved, ie they're still knocking around the top 4, while we're more concerned with the bottom 4.
£8m a year is about 2-3 top players. Spurs are abviously more than 2-3 players better than us. So it just goes to show it's all about how the money is spent. And if you take those 2-3 players and also have our higher earners contributing as befits their salary, then would be that far off them?
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Who did themwhen O'Neill was here? Him or the CEO?
I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that.
I've mentioned on here before that before Faulkner was appointed CEO he had been working in a role within the club which was to do with liasing with agents and being involved with players transfers. It was to give O'Neill more time to focus on playing matters. Someone I know had spoken with Faulkner and another important Villa bod in the August of 08/09 season. Faulkner told him that was the main chunk of his role within the club at that time. He became CEO later on.
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We haven't mentioned Spurs for a while, and we'll never tempt VD back if that isn't rectified.
For 2011, their wage bill was £91m compared to ours of £83m. VD should be glad that we're finally paying less than them, it's just a shame how it's been achieved, ie they're still knocking around the top 4, while we're more concerned with the bottom 4.
£8m a year is about 2-3 top players. Spurs are abviously more than 2-3 players better than us. So it just goes to show it's all about how the money is spent. And if you take those 2-3 players and also have our higher earners contributing as befits their salary, then would be that far off them?
That's one of the biggest problems - the big earners who should be the backbone of the team just haven't contributed this season. I'd say in each area of the team, the following are by far and away the highest earners:
GK - Given
DF - Dunne
MF - Ireland
ST - Bent
When you add in Hutton, Warnock, N'Zogbia and Gabby, I reckon you are talking well over £400,000 pw for a group of players who have contributed hardly anything.
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There are players bought that left most supporters shaking there heads in disbelief, when you look at the sheer waste of money over four years it makes me angry.
Who remembers pelty on here dropping the fact that Heskey was the highest paid player at the club?
That's Emile Heskey, who was nudging 32 when we threw a 3.5 year deal at him.
That's an example of the sort of dreadful decision making we've engaged in.
There's nothing wrong with shirking players with no future value and buying wisely so that you'll have sell on potential - even Spurs do that. My problem currently is that, we seem to have realised that now, but we're doing it on far too large a scale, too quickly.
Or giving a 35-year old goalkeeper a 5-year contract.
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We haven't mentioned Spurs for a while, and we'll never tempt VD back if that isn't rectified.
For 2011, their wage bill was £91m compared to ours of £83m. VD should be glad that we're finally paying less than them, it's just a shame how it's been achieved, ie they're still knocking around the top 4, while we're more concerned with the bottom 4.
£8m a year is about 2-3 top players. Spurs are abviously more than 2-3 players better than us. So it just goes to show it's all about how the money is spent. And if you take those 2-3 players and also have our higher earners contributing as befits their salary, then would be that far off them?
That's one of the biggest problems - the big earners who should be the backbone of the team just haven't contributed this season. I'd say in each area of the team, the following are by far and away the highest earners:
GK - Given
DF - Dunne
MF - Ireland
ST - Bent
When you add in Hutton, Warnock, N'Zogbia and Gabby, I reckon you are talking well over £400,000 pw for a group of players who have contributed hardly anything.
Just for Given, Dunne, Ireland and Bent I think that would amount to £220,000 per week or £11,440,000 over a year. For those 4.
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Still, at least we're not the only club dicing with disaster:
Queens Park Rangers has said that its wage bill doubled during its first year back in the Premier League.
Spending on wages nearly doubled from £27.6m to £56m in the year to 31 May 2012, financial results showed.
It reported a loss of £22.6m and debts jumped 57% to nearly £90m according to the accounts, which do not include the club's latest spending on new players.
QPR chairman Tony Fernandes admitted that spending needed to be "closely monitored and controlled".
However, he added: "A critical driver of any club's value is its presence in the Premier League and the club achieved its key objective for the 2011-12 season by successfully securing its Premier League status.
"The financial results reflect the club's focus on on-pitch success."
Since the end of the last financial year the club has brought in a number of players, both during the summer and during the January transfer window.
The club twice broke its transfer record during January when it spent more than £20m on Loic Remy and Christopher Samba.
QPR are currently bottom of the Premier League and the signings aimed to strengthen the squad for its battle to avoid relegation.
The club sacked manager Mark Hughes in November and brought in Harry Redknapp.
QPR are partly owned by Mr Fernandes, and the Malaysian business tycoons Kamarudin Bin Meranun and Ruben Emir Gnanalingam, who have a combined 66% stake. The remainder belongs to the Mittal family.
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..he has radically changed his mind - in a perfectly rational way. The MON approach wasn't working. That's why we didn't finish any higher than 6th. What was meant to happen in that situation? Carry on throwing ever larger cheques at it until he was bankrupt as well as the club? We're going about it a different way now but unfortunately there's a lot of repair work that's needed before we can start to grow again.
Perfectly summed up, Ad@m. Mistakes have been made and most of them very costly but the problem had to be addressed. Which ever way you look at it, our ambition will always outstrip our revenue. The only risk I see is maintaining our Premier League status this season but that responsibility falls with Lambert not Lerner. He's been given the funds and on paper inherited a decent squad that with the right leadership and tactical nous, should be nowhere near the foot of the table.
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I'd say there are a lot of us who agree that something had to be done re the spending - vast amounts getting pissed away, nobody wants to see that.
It's not the fact something had to be done about costs which we argue about, it is the fact that it has been done way too fast, and the ultimate reflection of that is the current squad, where we are relying on too many inexperienced young players at any one time, which contributes largely to our league position.
Look at Baker, Lowton, Bennett and Clark who have formed our defence very frequently. Total lack of top flight experience, yet thrown into it, week after week.
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An analysis of Liverpool from the Guardian:
"The effect on Liverpool of signing expensive players in the first year of ownership by the Boston-based Fenway Sports Group [FSG] has been revealed, with accounts showing the club lost £40.5m in the 10 months to 31 May 2012. During the period, which covered Liverpool's transfer activity in the August 2011 and January 2012 windows, the club's biggest signings were José Enrique, from Newcastle United, and Sebastián Coates, from Nacional, but the wages still accounted for 70% of the club's total income.
The wage bill, £109m for the 10 months, equating to £131m over a full year, was very close to the £134m Liverpool paid in the previous year, and included the salaries of Andy Carroll, Luis Suárez, Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Charlie Adam, all signed in the early months after FSG's October 2010 takeover.
The accounts disclose that Liverpool paid £9.6m in termination payments "to former employees ... including the change in coaching staff", which relates to FSG's sacking of several people last May, including Kenny Dalglish and his assistants.
Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, argued that the club is in a transitional period and has now "implemented a new transfer strategy" which aims to "bring in talented players on sensible contracts".
Ayre claimed that despite the £40.5m loss and increase in net debt to £87m from £65m in 2010-11, Liverpool are being prudent. "We've done it in a frugal way," he said, explaining that players have been put on "the right contracts", with payment in instalments both for them and the selling clubs. "It's important that we have that sort of prudent approach as we want to create sustainability for the club, he added.
The £40.5m loss followed another of £49m for the year to 31 July 2011, covering FSG's first months since its takeover from the former owners, US-based Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Although John Henry, principal of FSG, is a confirmed advocate of financial fair play rules, Liverpool, if they repeat these figures next year, would fail the new regulations introduced by the Premier League, which limit annual losses to £35m.
FSG has been loaning money to Liverpool in an effort to improve the club's financial position. During its first months, FSG lent £30m, then in the 10 months to 31 May, the club repaid FSG £8m. In August, FSG loaned a further £47m to the club, which was used to pay off bank borrowings, including £38m owed in loans relating to the club's work on its stadium plans. In October, FSG clarified that it intends to expand Liverpool's stadium at Anfield rather than build a new stadium on Stanley Park, which had been planned for a decade.
The accounts show again why Liverpool are seeking this expanded capacity, to make more money from fans and thereby narrow the income gap on Manchester United, Arsenal and the other highest-earning Premier League clubs. Liverpool's income was £169m for the 10 months to 31 May 2012, a period covering the full 2011–12 season. Matchday income, £42m, was lower than that from TV and media rights, and commercial revenue. By comparison, Arsenal's turnover for 2011-12 was £243m, while United's was by far the highest of any English club at £320m.
Liverpool have spent a net £39m on players since, including Fabio Borini, Joe Allen, Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho. The club will expect to record a loss again for the current financial year, as FSG struggles to steer Liverpool into the top rank again."
It'll be interesting to see how they manage things because they are, in my opinion, the club whose current position mirrors our the most. The pattern of their spending since Fenway took over seems very similar to Lerner's and I believe Henry is of similar wealth to Randy.
If they are following a similar pattern to us could Rodgers be their Houllier and Sturridge their Bent?
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So who's to blame, Paulie? Is it Lambert for spending his budget on untried full backs whilst ignoring the two he inherited, only one central defender, three central midfielders from the Dutch and French (Div 2) leagues and English Third Division, a winger unwanted by Spurs trying to make a living in the MSL, whilst spending £7m on a striker when we already had a £24m top striker, Gabby, N'Zogbia, Holman, Wiemann and the Fonz?
Or is it Lerner for not giving Lambert more to spend?
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So who's to blame, Paulie? Is it Lambert for spending his budget on untried full backs whilst ignoring the two he inherited, only one central defender, three central midfielders from the Dutch and French (Div 2) leagues and English Third Division, a winger unwanted by Spurs trying to make a living in the MSL, whilst spending £7m on a striker when we already had a £24m top striker, Gabby, N'Zogbia, Holman, Wiemann and the Fonz?
Or is it Lerner for not giving Lambert more to spend?
They're all to blame to some degree.
It's too easy and facile an argument to lump it on one person alone. The club didn't start declining when Lambert rocked up, it has been on the way down for three years now, so if you want me to make it easier and start saying it is all Lerner's fault, or all Lambert's, you're not going to get it.
Lerner has run the club abysmally for three years now. Look at the spunked away sums of money on paying off managers. Look at the McLeish appointment, and look at the kind of financial profligacy that caused us to cut back so much, so quickly, we look to be getting relegated.
I notice that all Lambert's signings have come from low wage, lower league sides or selling European leagues. Having been told for three years now that the wage bill is a problem, I suspect that is no coincidence. In fact, I think you'd have to be nuts not to spot the connection on that one.
They keep telling us they want the club to be self sufficient - that is going to mean a considerably lower wage bill, no getting away from it. You can't have failed to notice their self sufficiency mantra, can you? We've heard it again, in the report with the annual accounts.
There has been absolute zero footballing nous at the club, above the level of team manager, for several years, with the result that we wound up with a plethora of shit players on big money, many of whom sat out their contracts right to the end.
How many clubs in this league could you see wasting the sort of money we did on the likes of Beye, Heskey, Cuellar and NRC? How many clubs see so many of their assets walk away for nothing at the end of their contracts? How many clubs would have a situation like the Makoun one? How many of us had actually forgotten he still played for us?
I don't just want Lerner to throw more money at it, I want him to start managing the business properly, because, much as I would like to see evidence to the contrary, the only way a club can go right back to where it started in 2006 - unbalanced, poor squad, broke and fighting relegation - except now with £165m worth of debt, is down to some pretty piss poor management.
For three years now, it has been an utter shambles both on, and off the pitch - that is not going to be the fault of one person alone, but there is only one person who can - and should - start to appoint some more clued up people at the club to make it stop.
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It comes down to whether there was scope for Lambert to buy more proven players at higher wages last summer and in January. In the case of last summer the Dempsey bid suggests so.
Save for signing yet another two untried players he didn't do anything in January either and yet there are strong murmurs from the likes of Gnasher and Eastie on here that he had more money to spend but didn't.
I feared last summer that he was still in the mindset of being the Norwich manager - picking-up lower league players en masse and giving them a shot at the big-time and I'm worried that will come back to haunt him.
Is he uncomfortable dealing with "stars"? The biggest players he's managed in his career are Darren Bent, Shay Given and Stephen Ireland; all currently ostracised or dropped. Even TSM managed to get something out of each of them.
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It comes down to whether there was scope for Lambert to buy more proven players at higher wages last summer and in January. In the case of last summer the Dempsey bid suggests so.
Save for signing yet another two untried players he didn't do anything in January either and yet there are strong murmurs from the likes of Gnasher and Eastie on here that he had more money to spend but didn't.
I feared last summer that he was still in the mindset of being the Norwich manager - picking-up lower league players en masse and giving them a shot at the big-time and I'm worried that will come back to haunt him.
I'm thinking along the same, Eammon. I don't see the line of we had to buy lower league players to get the wage bill down. I'm sure we now have a wage structure in place but to say it's so limited we have to buy untried players is at best, unfounded. You make an interesting point about Lambert's transfer targets. Maybe he went for those players that were just out of Norwich's reach but within ours, the error in that plan was the fact he had a very settled side at Norwich and was looking to improve on it, rather than here where he made a complete rebuild.
I guess he never counted on a season without Dunne, nobody wanting to buy Hutton and Warnock, not getting to meet Jean Makoun, Vlaar and Bent missing so many games, his inability to get anything out of Ireland, N'Zogbia only turning up in February, which add together give him some defence of such a poor season.
We most certainly needed a centre half in January but didn't the news of Dunne's setback come just after the window closed? As Paulie pointed out, we have no football nous on the board and I do wonder if the board are repeating the mistakes of MON by giving Lambert a free reign to do as he pleases, which in principle is fine but as we're finding out, in practice could have devastating consequences.
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Save for signing yet another two untried players he didn't do anything in January either and yet there are strong murmurs from the likes of Gnasher and Eastie on here that he had more money to spend but didn't.
Ah, the true route to the inside track - Gnasher!
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In Gregory we trust (not John...though he's not a bad'un).
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Huge worry for me is the wages of course.
We have lost a lot of big names over the last 18 months to the effect the squad still has a few big names floating about but is mostly youth and untried cheap players from abroad, we've cut 15m from the wage bill and yet shaved only a cut of % off.
Said this time last season anymore cutting and we'd eventually get relegated and it's happening, either this season or next if we go down the same route in the summer of getting cheap kids in.