The Finances of Football

Multiple xp to Ismael (re: 'type 3 debt'):

The thing is if you load ALL the debt onto the club then you have ZERO personal exposure, so it's a risk-free venture. It doesn't matter if the business "has enough spare capacity that it can afford to throw off spare cash at the top" - maybe it can't. Maybe it can't meet the interest payments. But you still lose nothing, because you've put nothing in. The club can go bust, but you're not hurt, you just shrug and say "Maybe next time it'll work out better" then move onto the next club.

essentially the club income is paying off your own personal debt, like, say, yr typical small business startup loan?

It's more like 'here's a business that can afford a parasite, come and join me in the endeavour'. I'd be surprised it's legal if it didn't actually happen, seeing as the whole scheme is essentially irrelevant to the business and interests of the company. I can only assume the principle is that you can do what you like with it once it's yours, but it's just surprising that you can act that way in capacity as an office-holder of it.

I can't think of a business better-suited to harbouring such a parasite than Man Utd btw - generating huge amounts of cash in a conservative business, with a massively-protected competitive position, against a background of industry-wide growth.

Schumpeterian Creative Destruction going on imo, these yanks are tearing up the old game and bringing something new and fresh to the market.

http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/8072 a quick and easy guide to the figures arsenal released. its quite different to the situations of our immediate rivals.

This book's released on 9th November. Looks like it'll be a good'un.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0955925339

Synopsis

As billionaire ‘super-benefactors’ fight for the right to own English football clubs, Pay As You Play takes a detailed look at the correlation between success and transfer spending.

Tactics, motivation, fitness and luck play a part; but is an expensive squad increasingly essential for success?

Which managers have excelled in the transfer market? And who blew their budgets on bad buys? Which clubs punched above their financial weight, and which ones punched well below theirs? What players proved to be great value for their price tag, and who ended up as a shocking waste of money?

By converting all Premier League transfer fees since 1992 to current-day prices – using our specially devised Transfer Price Index (TPI) system to give precise ‘football inflation’ figures – teams could be accurately assessed against one another, whether from 1993 or 2010. How would the prices paid for Dean Saunders, Roy Keane or Frank Lampard compare with Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney or Robinho?

All 43 clubs to have played in the Premier League up to May 2010 are analysed, with noted writers and journalists – including Jonathan Wilson, Gabriele Marcotti and Oliver Kay – also providing their views on the club they support or report on.

All in all, it makes for an entertaining and revealing read on the world’s most popular game, and its most appealing league.

yes!

ooooh would read. and then act even more smug.

^ cosign

United still trying to flog season tickets to all and sundry, now on a pro rata basis two months into the season:
Dear Supporter

The 2010/11 season is well and truly underway and the Theatre of Dreams has already seen some great football with plenty of goals and moments to remember. We have just released some fantastic seats in the South Stand at pro-rata pricesand we also have limited numbers of seats available in alternative areas within the stadium. Don't miss this opportunity to secure your own seat for the remainder of the season and support the Reds in their campaign to reclaim the Barclays Premier League.

All Season Tickets sold over the next 2 weeks will be effective from (and including) our home game vs.Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday 30 October. Please see below for a list of areas where we have seats available, complete with re-calculated prices. Don't forget that we have Season Tickets available for juniors in North Stand tier 3 for just £150.

New pro-rata (adult) prices as follows:

North Stand Tier 3 - £495.00 (Over 65s - £247.50) (Juniors - £150.00)
East Stand Tier 2 - £540.00 (Over 65s - £270)
North East / North West Quad T1 - £555.00 (Over 65s - £277.50)
North East / North West Quad T2 - £615.00 (Over 65s - £300)
South Stand Lower - £645.00 (Over 65s - £300)
North / South Wings - £690.00 (Over 65s - £300)
North/ South Stands Centre - £735.00 (Over 65s - £300)

If you're interested in purchasing a Season Ticket, call 0161 868 8000(Option 1)from 8am to 8pm weekdays, or 9am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

This won't stop know-nothing journalists still referring to the fabled 'waiting list' tens of thousands long.

Meanwhile they've decided to close two sections of the ground for the Carling Cup match against Wolves due to low ticket sales.

That sounds worryingly like Celtic who have been half-season tickets and five-game packages and the like for a couple of years now, and closed the top tier of all stands for the recent cup game against SPL opposition (OK, only Caley Thistle, but the game was only £10 for season ticket holders, and was still pretty empty).

The Celtic website has been showing photos taken from various parts of the season and going "Seat of the Day! This could be your view!"

Various parts of the season?

stadium. it's late.

Why are attendances at United down? Beyond just Ronaldo being gone? I can see that financially things may not be rosy but the on-field product is still really pretty good?

Ailsa, just out of interest:
1) Do Celtic fill the ground for most/all home league games?
2) What proportion of the crowd are season ticket holders?

Is it? 10 years ago they were undoubtably watching the best team in the world, now they are watching Owen and Macheda up front not being able to break down a defence with Titus Bramble in it.

xpost

Like no offense to the Utd fans here but we can establish many are glory hunters, right? And the only way for Utd is seemingly down for the near future. That and protesting by not spending money to pay off the debts of people they don't want owning the club.

Also if you gave up yr season ticket its not like you are going to be struggling for decades to get one back atm or post-glazer mess.

1) not any more, but they used to. Last season was the first time in a very VERY long time that there was a public sale of tickets for the Rangers game
2) no idea off the top of my head, tbh. Don't think there's a huge walk-up crowd, hence empty seats all over the place.

I'll see if I can google up some stats for you.

some xposts

Why are attendances at United down? Beyond just Ronaldo being gone? I can see that financially things may not be rosy but the on-field product is still really pretty good?

I don't think attendances are substantially down, but demand is substantially down. If you go back maybe seven or eight years, there really was excess demand for season tickets and significant excess demand for members' tickets for individual matches. That has largely evaporated: partly due to the huge price hikes inflicted post-takeover (on top of the huge inflation-busting price rises at *all* football grounds from the late-80s onwards), and partly due to two waves of boycotting. They're now reduced to putting season tickets and matchday tickets on general sale and hawking them wherever they can, but there's still just about enough interest to more or less fill the ground for league matches.

I was a waiting list for a year before I got my first season ticket in 1998 - was sharing one with my brother before that. Waiting list would have got longer after Martin O'Neill showed up. Can't find figures, but I reckon it's dropped from about 45k season ticket holders to around 30k (home support capacity in the region of 57k, I think). There's always been a large allocation to supporters clubs so the season ticket thing isn't necessarily an indication of regular attendance.

I've seen a definite decline in the people who go anyway, from being able to sell out almost every game in the league. I've toyed with the idea of not renewing the last couple of years, but from a personal financial point of view rather than a lack of support for the club. Any evidence that others are doing the same would be purely anecdotal.

Just saying, though. Celtic were full to capacity a few years ago, it was difficult to imagine that they'd still be hawking decent seats on the halfway line seven games into the season to anyone that wanted them.

was *ON* a waiting list. fucking hell, I can't type, so don't expect any coherent points. I suspect darragh has a point about the glory hunters all fucking off again though, which can happen to just about anyone. Even Man Utd.

1) Do Celtic fill the ground for most/all home league games?
2) What proportion of the crowd are season ticket holders?

(sorry to Ailsa if she's typing something up - ah xpost she already did)

1) No, average attendances are down to something around 47000 from 58000 a couple of years back
2) Vast majority I reckon. When we were selling out 60000 we had 53000 season ticket holders.

I get season tickets for my sons for £50 each - five years ago it would have cost hundreds extra to upgrade to a parent and child seat.

It'll be interesting to see if we sell out the Rangers game at the end of the month...

lol I was about to say onimo would probably have the stats to hand, so good to see they don't vary massively from my estimates, apart from number of season tickets sold, I was reckoning on the supporters bus allocation as still being a thing separate from season tickets, but I haven't been on a supporters bus since 1992, so I have no idea if that's actually true really, I'm just going on stuff people say on the internets.

...and people coming in to pick up bundles of actual paper tickets every time I've had occasion to be in the ticket office.

The reason I was asking is that I had a theory that a lot of people got season tickets because it was the only way they could guarantee getting a ticket for the games that they *really* wanted to see (say City, Liverpool, and probably Arsenal and Chelsea for United; presumably just the Rangers matches for Celtic). So the ground might well be full every week (or at least the quoted attendance figure would indicate a full ground, as it reported seats sold as opposed to seats occupied), but that wasn't necessarily an indication of the real demand on a match-by-match basis. In some strange hypothetical world where Old Trafford was infinitely large, instead of getting circa 76,000 for every game, they would probably (pre-2005) have drawn a crowd of 150,000 for a match against Liverpool, but only 40,000 for a match against Middlesbrough (for example). The fact that 76,000 would have watched (or at least paid for seats) against Middlesbrough didn't so much reflect a desperate longing to see that particular fixture, more a case of a large number of season ticket holders having to watch that game as part of the package they'd signed up for, combined with a large number of ordinary members fighting for a small number of tickets sold on a match-by-match basis who would count themselves lucky to get into *any* match.

Once the bubble is burst, I reckon that demand falls away pretty sharpish. Many people will have swallowed the season ticket price rises on the understanding that they could still guarantee themselves a seat for the *key* matches, and flog their ticket (possibly at a reasonable profit) to other people for the matches that they don't want to go to. Once they discover that a) there isn't anyone looking to buy their season ticket off them for the games against Birmingham and Sunderland because those people could just get tickets on general sale, and b) it's easy enough to get tickets for most games anyway on a match-by-match basis, then season tickets seem a lot less attractive. Once fewer people have season tickets, then crowds fluctuate a lot more (just like they used to) depending on how attractive an individual match is.

That's almost definitely what is happening at Celtic Park. I always liked my season ticket status as allowing me the possibility of tickets for cup finals, champions league games (and, of course, I got a ticket to go to the UEFA Cup Final out of it as well). It's not a necessity any more for any of those things, but if I didn't chuck it this season, I probably never will. Also, I go to nearly every game anyway, think I've missed maybe five in the last five years or so due to holidays, illness, unbelievably bad weather and, um, forgetting to leave the pub.

Like, not just because I've already paid for them. I actually, mostly, like going.

Once the bubble is burst, I reckon that demand falls away pretty sharpish. Many people will have swallowed the season ticket price rises on the understanding that they could still guarantee themselves a seat for the *key* matches, and flog their ticket (possibly at a reasonable profit) to other people for the matches that they don't want to go to.

Getting the kids tickets so cheap is my main incentive to buy a season ticket. If I wasn't taking the kids I'd probably buy on a match by match basis, taking the risk of missing out on Rangers games and possibly Champions League games should we ever get there again.

Hence my "It'll be interesting to see if we sell out the Rangers game at the end of the month..." --- if they don't sell out derby match with both teams possibly still on 100% records then a lot more people will question the value of a season ticket.

Getting the kids tickets so cheap is my main incentive to buy a season ticket.

:-( and here was me thinking it was the guarantee of my sparkling company once a fortnight, with the kids an added bonus.

My main incentive is that, um, I give Celtic my money regardless of whether they are shite or not. It's like smack addiction without any of the highs, tbh.

Aye that as well :)

smack addiction without any of the highs

the best inside forward since Charlie Tully

This drug thing is more widespread than I thought! Nurse! Aye, even when time is actually STANDING STILL on a Saturday afternoon, it brings a warm glow to my heart to know I've paid enough upfront to cover Glenn Loovens for one whole game of standing looking confused as people run round him.

I suspect darragh has a point about the glory hunters all fucking off again though, which can happen to just about anyone

pfft i get blamed for every semi-controversial comment around here these days eh??

Whoops! As you can probably tell from my sentence construction last night, I was not entirely awake and paying attention :-)

granted, granted, i'm just trying to minimise unpopular opinions registered to my name.

well, the ones that don't actually belong to me at least.

I posted this in the SPL thread a while back - well worth a read to see how precarious Celtic's financial position could be, particularly with falling attendances.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/09/celtic-if-you-know-history.html

58% of Celtic's income comes from matchday revenue with 17% from TV. Compare that with Juventus who bring in 7% from matches and 65% from TV and you see just how important bums on seats is to Celtic. Juventus losing 20% of their supporters gives them a manageable ~2% drop in income, whereas for Celtic it would represent a huge drop in turnover. Couple that with the £10m drop from not having European football and things look very grim indeed, good job we had an Aiden McGeady to sell.

isn't man united's average attendance this year still something stupid like 75,000?

yeah, as (I think) NBS said, the demand is still above what the staidum will hold, but not to the tune of 10x Old Traffords like it was a few years back or w/e

Yet they're punting season tickets?

The point, I think, is that excess demand gives United a lot more earning power. If there are say a thousand extra people wanting to get into games, they can raise income in all sorts of ways - directly raising prices, making entry contingent on also buying less attractive products (i.e. season tickets), charging an extra £100 for a sandwich buffet beforehand, etc etc. All they have to worry about is burning off the extra thousand punters who aren't getting to give United their cash anyway.

But if they're not selling out anymore and thereby stuck with excess supply, any attempt to raise income by doing those things then starts burning off those punters who *are* giving United their cash, either by driving them away outright or by giving them the option to buy a less expensive product.

It'd even be possible to make more money by reducing capacity and charging punters more, depending on how elastic demand at various levels of capacity is.

I thought the Glazers were more interested in selling to the occasional visitor than the season ticket regular as they'd be more likely to sell merchandise to those visitors.

xpost following my own post on

http://www.emfootball.co.uk/attend.html

It takes Wigan four games to fill an Emirates. They'll be hoping that Bosman of TV Rights woman doesn't win.

Usmanov probably dug up all those he's buried, went through the pockets and took the spare change:

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour has returned to the top of football's rich list, according to the latest figures from FourFourTwo magazine.

The 40-year-old's vast fortune is estimated to have risen by £3billion, moving him back in front of QPR shareholder Lakshmi Mittal, whose fortune has dipped to £17bn.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, whose wealth once dwarfed all other fortunes on the list, has now dropped as far as fourth - displaced by Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, whose estate has exploded to rise from £1.3bn to £8bn.

Usmanov's fellow Arsenal shareholder Stanley Kroenke is eighth on the list with a fortune of £1.85bn, while Mittal's partner at QPR, Bernie Ecclestone, also makes it into the top 10 with his £1.4bn estate.

The controversial owners of Manchester United, the Glazer family, are ranked ninth with an estimated fortune of £1.53bn.

Others figuring in the top 10 are Southampton owners the Liebherr family, fifth with a fortune of £3bn, Tottenham owner Joe Lewis, sixth at £2.7bn, and Celtic's Denis O'Brien, seventh with a fortune of £1.87bn.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett, whose ownership of Liverpool could come to an end if the club's other directors are able to force through a sale, do not feature on this year's list at all. Having been listed joint 16th last year with an estimated £500million each, analysts said it was now impossible to verify their worth as the turmoil continues at Anfield.

Allegedly.

Celtic's Denis O'Brien, seventh with a fortune of £1.87bn.

^does not own Celtic, or even 5% of it iirc

does not own 1.87bn either tbf

I thought the Glazers were more interested in selling to the occasional visitor than the season ticket regular as they'd be more likely to sell merchandise to those visitors.

To some extent, yes, but only if they have a never-ending supply of such people. What they don't want are any unsold seats and season tickets guarantee that while also providing large sums of money up front (which is also very important if you're experiencing, um, 'cashflow problems').

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/06/football-fans-tighten-wallet-merchandise

The survey of 4,000 Premier League fans reveals that 42% of supporters will spend less on goods including replica shirts, programmes, general club clothing and household goods.

Some of this doesn't sound like the bad news it's painted as e.g. "Around 34% of Tottenham fans won't buy a new kit this season despite the club launching five new shirts."

Translates as "66% of Tottenham fans will buy a new kit this season as the club launched five new shirts" which seems a pretty handy return to me. Although FIVE new shirts WTF Spurs?

"the average matchday cost (including a pint of lager, a match ticket, a replica shirt, and a match programme as well as some travel expenses)" WAHT?! People count replica shirts as a matchday cost?

Although FIVE new shirts WTF Spurs?

Is that because we've now got two sponsors, depending on whether we're in domestic or Champions League football?

xp

yeah but only one pint included let's get real here

Not too sure. If we pretend that wages in the Prem stay exactly the same as they are now and then add in the new TV money how many clubs in the league would still fall foul of ffp?

Are the majority of clubs here living so far beyond their soon to be increased revenue that they wouldn't be able to increase salary anyway?

the Glazer family have taken the unusual step of buying out DHL, so certain are they of negotiating even greater revenue

I'm giving up trying to understand this stuff

surely it's pretty simple, they want a new and bigger deal immediately so they end the dhl deal now?

tbf I did get that bit, it's why anyone would pay even more that is the mystery

Bolton in £163.8m of debt. Turnover £25.8m. I don't see how they can ever hope to pay that back.

Barcelona cannot register any new signings, not Memphis Depay, Sergio Agüero, Eric García or Emerson Royal, after exceeding the La Liga salary limit.

Despite selling Konrad de la Fuente, Jean-Clair Todibo, and Junior Firpo, Barcelona need to reduce their wage bill by €200,000.

— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) July 5, 2021

Extraordinary

Lmao. They are supposedly even going to pay some players to leave on a free, like Pjanic

hmmm, that may account for Trincão coming to us

lol yeah next tweet mentions that

€200,000 can't be the right figure there?

Saw a clarification that its about the weight of pesos in kilos or some similar slang!

Also just presumed it was per week, and with messi not yet signed i figured that was..... serious

Oh haha yes I suppose it could be a week. Though even that is probably only a mid-range player or three for them.

i assumed that was a weekly figure i guess, Football Manager not always the best metric for understanding this stuff

Pjanic is on about €300k a week so no major surprise he didn’t volunteer to cancel his contract.

Also Messi apparently earns 100 times more than Junior Firpo.

I am keen that Pjanic doesn't come to the Premier League because of the temptation his name would cause to every my-age, indie-arsed, Egg-from-This-Life football journalist with an untreated Smiths obsession.

Do ittttt