FFP

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Would it make more sense to do it when your income is at its highest? This season they can probably charge what they want and we'll all pay it, we have a great chance of 16 play offs (they wouldn't have known that of course), so that's extra revenue too. Would we be able to offset our income at its highest or is it an aggregate of the previous 3 years?

[Somniloquism]

The infrastructure costs don't count. I've never seen anything about we can ignore the revenue loss of the work though but glad to be proven wrong. And how do you decide the loss? For example the NS now probably produces more revenue then it did last season.

[Smithy]

Without the North our capacity would be 35,000. If we were to relocate temporarily to do a big rebuild we'd be very, very fortunate to find a 35,000 capacity alternate ground.

We hope to be successful every season so that means we cannot expand our stadium and cater to the increased demand? Makes absolutely no sense, why are other clubs doing it then?

No, somebody at the club bottled this and I think we all know who it was. The guy who is on record stating he decided in November 2023 that it was a 'bad idea'.

I didn't mention that. PSR at the moment means that the reduced capacity fell in the same time as Grealish coming off the books. If we can increase the revenue with constant CL qualification and better off the pitch deals, then the loss of revenue for 12-18 months is less of an issue.

And tell me which other club is upgrading their stadium whilst trying to compete for top four and who don't have a better revenue then us? The closest to our current situation was Spurs a few years ago, but they happened to have a national stadium of greater capacity they could use. As you rightly point out, if we had a 40-50k option in the locality, we might have gone there temporarily.

 And yes, he decided in Nov 2023. Remind me where we were in the table and where we finished the year before.

You're allowed to factor in a reduction in matchday income for stadium redevelopment though, so PSR is largely irrelevant in that case.

Is that true? We could have said to the league, "We're at 33,000, but would have sold 42,000 for every game, including in the champions league, and therefore our stadium redevelopment has cost us £X against our PSR"?

I knew the cost of the redevelopment itself was outside of PSR, but I didn't realise the potential lost match-day revenue from a redevelopment could be included in the figures as well.  It puts a very different complexion on the decision to postpone.

[paul_e]

The infrastructure costs don't count. I've never seen anything about we can ignore the revenue loss of the work though but glad to be proven wrong. And how do you decide the loss? For example the NS now probably produces more revenue then it did last season.

You can definitely include it but I'm also not sure how they calculate it, my worry is that Everton have had points deductions because they included things in the stadium costs that the league decided not to accept so their is precedent for those allowed deductions to be less than the club plans and that could create problems. Personally I'd rather we had a lot more 'wiggle room' just in case, the risk of missing out on another season in europe over something silly like that just isn't worth it.

[Risso]

Everton tried to take the piss by including things like salaries for sales people trying to flog hospitality in the new ground, and loan interest for loans that were nothing to do with the new stadium.

[paul_e]

Everton tried to take the piss by including things like salaries for sales people trying to flog hospitality in the new ground, and loan interest for loans that were nothing to do with the new stadium.

I know but it's still a cautionary tale if you're running very close to the limits. All it needs is for the league to disagree with our numbers slightly.

[Dogtanian]

I'd imagine one of the key issues with knocking down the North for two years isn't the decrease in revenue, it's the lack of an increase.

If we knock it down and get dispensation for lost revenue in PSR, that would only cover what the North brings in now.

But we need that revenue to increase, not stay still, as we would still have lost the gains made over the last season and this which the PSR dispensation wouldn't consider as they hadn't happened yet.

Maximising the revenue from the North before knocking it down would make sense as you get more covered in the dispensation.

[Gareth]

No, somebody at the club bottled this and I think we all know who it was. The guy who is on record stating he decided in November 2023 that it was a 'bad idea'.

I would still disagree on the ‘bottled this’ slightly….took a decision that might very well be a bad one or could be a good one but it was the pathetic way it was communicated and continues not explained with any clarity that was awful.  Terrible leadership or intentional lack of information…either is not a good look.

My issue with the North was always and would continue to be that by the time you finish North the Witton has to be fixed too and I’m not sure the potential to grow enough capacity wise is there to justify the massive outlay for both…which is why I reluctantly concluded that I was more in favour of either sticking as is or completely twisting elsewhere.

Having said all that if we do move eventually and having seen the signing off of a tunnel that looks like a 70’s brothel please don’t put him in charge of any design decisions :-)

[Dogtanian]

No, somebody at the club bottled this and I think we all know who it was. The guy who is on record stating he decided in November 2023 that it was a 'bad idea'.

I would still disagree on the ‘bottled this’ slightly….took a decision that might very well be a bad one or could be a good one but it was the pathetic way it was communicated and continues not explained with any clarity that was awful.  Terrible leadership or intentional lack of information…either is not a good look.

My issue with the North was always and would continue to be that by the time you finish North the Witton has to be fixed too and I’m not sure the potential to grow enough capacity wise is there to justify the massive outlay for both…which is why I reluctantly concluded that I was more in favour of either sticking as is or completely twisting elsewhere.

Having said all that if we do move eventually and having seen the signing off of a tunnel that looks like a 70’s brothel please don’t put him in charge of any design decisions :-)

...unless of course we open a brothels?

[itbrvilla]

Well if matchday revenue is a factor, considering our per head his dreadful compared to many, perhaps they want to boost that figure before factoring it is loss of match day revenue to give us more headroom?  Obviously I could be completely wrong as I'm sure higher salaries and bonus have eat away at any significant revenue boost.

[garyellis]

What strike me regarding our wheeling and dealing is how important it was that SUE had people around him sorting this out who he totally trusts.

[Somniloquism]

Something in that message as well that apparently out of Kamara, Buendia, Mings and Ramsey, three of them are are on the highest wages. I can understand Kamara as he was a freebie and so we could pay more as no purchase fee, but surprised a player from Norwich and one from Bournemouth are up there. Of course they might be more middling but were being shown that they still cost against FFP/PSR even when not playing. TBH, I'm surprised there isn't an injury ruling to some extent.

[Somniloquism]

Having said all that if we do move eventually and having seen the signing off of a tunnel that looks like a 70’s brothel please don’t put him in charge of any design decisions :-)

..unless of course we open a brothels?

Should definitely increase revenues.

[algy]

If he said ok we wnat to extend stadium but after CL campaign as we want all fans there for this then i think everyone would have been good with that.

But we want to be in the Champions League next season too. To me, that article makes the short term thinking make more sense.

I suspect if we were still hanging around mid-table and not having a genius like Emery, then the North would have been done even if Heck was brought in. But with the chance of CL and the need to keep the extra revenue going for PSR etc, that does seem to be the reason for decision. Even with CL, a season (and half?) with 33k instead of 41k would have a knock on for the transfers if we are butting so close to the line.

As for the GA+, they aren't meant for repeat customers are they? They are there for the one or two time visitor who wants to see a match. The likes of Derry Villain wanting to come over for certain games etc.

I'd assume from what's been said before that you get the share of the revenue for the stand that's been knocked down.  Had we knocked down the North Stand in the summer, that's what - I'd guess about £30 a head plus the corporate seats as of the end of last season.  Playing in the Champions League will no doubt increase the average ticket price, and putting in some more corporate seats (The Cells) will again raise the 'revenue lost' figure a bit higher.  When our PSR position is so precarious, I think it's fairly easy to see why we wouldn't want to lock in our revenue from the North Stand for several seasons at anything other than it's highest realistically possible figure.

Basically I think we're just having to play the game with the North Stand redevelopment, although it no doubt also suits/helps us in we've got those American stadium folk in recently (Can't remember the name - is it Atairos or something like that?) so they get a bit more space to work on top of that.

EDIT: noticed that a few other folk have made this same point. I agree with them.

[Risso]

Something in that message as well that apparently out of Kamara, Buendia, Mings and Ramsey, three of them are are on the highest wages. I can understand Kamara as he was a freebie and so we could pay more as no purchase fee, but surprised a player from Norwich and one from Bournemouth are up there. Of course they might be more middling but were being shown that they still cost against FFP/PSR even when not playing. TBH, I'm surprised there isn't an injury ruling to some extent.

Well, Buendia was our record signing at the time and had had interest from Arsenal. Mings might have come from Bournemouth but since then has had two contract extensions to reflect his true worth to the team.