The Finances of Football

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

I assumed 5 shirts = 5 different designs which seemed stupid and against the rules. I don't think having the same shirt with a different sponsor makes it a different shirt.

Possibly counting home & away goalie shirts to get to five - I don't think I've seen one of these since I was about eleven (were always quite popular with kids though for some reason)

teams have had european shirts for a few years, and teams have had 3rd shirts for a few years.

i've never got the 'teams have too many shirts out' argument tbh

It creates classmate competition for getting all the shirts and the concomitant wheedling of parents for same

kids wouldn't do any of that stuff if replica shirts didn't exist

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/10/united-we-stand-divided-we-fall.html
A very detailed account, if you've got time to read it all.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQcFEoJTHI/AAAAAAAACVc/CoaSiWfIowo/s400/3+Utd+Profit

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQe3217jMI/AAAAAAAACXU/ZAlq2rKiMx4/s400/18+Utd+Player

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQfhy0-J8I/AAAAAAAACXk/0Fx4z1nr4ww/s400/19+Utd+Debt

In fact, they’re a lot worse with Barcelona’s “leading” the way last year with £224 million

this cannot be sustainable, surely? no wonder they had to get a huge loan to bail them out in the summer and rossell is taking laporta to court.

Also surprised Stoke are paying so little* on wages. If they are being well run financially they could do p well when/as everyone around them starts to crumble.

*of their % turnover compared to others in the league, obv

lots of these articles making the obvious points about koscielny costing less than smalling and vdv only costing a million more than future ilfhof star bebe, which makes me lolwtflol the more i see it.

Even after all those interest payments, the debt has not reduced. In fact, the gross debt has slightly increased this year to £522 million, though net debt has fallen to £358 million, as cash balances are higher.

utd are so boned.

However, this is nothing compared to the Payment in Kind (PIK) notes, which is the most expensive debt in the Premier League. The interest rate was already a stratospheric 14.25%, before it rose to an eye-watering 16.25 % this summer after United broke the covenant whereby debt was not allowed to go above 5 times EBITDA. Unlike with a normal loan, the club do not have to pay back the principal on the debt in instalments – all the money is due to be repaid in 2017. This makes it an even more expensive way to borrow, as the club must pay interest on the growing balance. In this way, when the PIKs are due for repayment, the debt will have snowballed to £588 million, giving total debt of £1.1 billion.

you could buy liverpool 3 times with that and still invest 200m in the team.

Thanks NBS, will read with, uh, interest. Shall I get the dedicated thread up now then, what with Liverpool's problems being all solved and everything?

could wait until shit hits the fan, like we did with LFC.

it's prob the same deal for man u, as grim as it may be, that the club is big enough for somebody to buy it and clear the debt. but like liverpool it'll have to drop to its knees financially before anyone does this.

If there are that many Sheikhs out there with money to piss up the wall, how come one of them didn't go for Liverpool? I know a fair few Man United fans who are being astonishingly complacent about this. At some point the size of the debt is going to put off any investor.

Should I move the Evil Glazer thread over here?

broughton last week said something to the effect that there just aren't that many sheikhs or abramovichs out there. i like the sound of henry so far i have to say. obv early days but he seems v measured and relaxed.

Does anyone (Ismael?) have any final numbers on what the net result of the whole Liverpool thing was for Hicks and Gillett? I read a lot to the effect that they had each lost £75m, but I'm not clear how that's calculated, or whether it includes money taken out of the club as dividends etc.

or the difference between all the loans they took out against the club vs what total remained to be paid on their behalf.

I don't, no, I was mostly going by what was reported at any point in time (and therefore frequently felt totally lost) - Chris had some good figures at one point as I recall. It was usually quoted at c£150m, though I'm not even sure if it was public knowledge come to think. There was also a 25% stake owned by Wells Fargo that was almost never written about.

Would point out though that dividends don't necessarily equate to a profit though - if you've borrowed the money in the first place they are in a sense recompense for your cost in doing so; if it's your own money they're recompense in interest foregone by not being able to e.g. lend it out.

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/data/teams/team-29.htm

That City figure is so far out there I barely saw it. And Portsmouth are massively in the black?

Yeah they made a profit selling players they couldn't afford to buy or pay.

Weird how everyone thinks Man U are fucked as they aren't investing in the team (~£2m a year) yet Arsenal are very well managed etc when they're investing £7.5m less every season than United. The selling of Rooney should put Man U approx level with Arsenal.

Net spends don't really paint enough of a picture really, though it shows how much City, Spurs and Villa had to spend to join the big four (and how much Liverpool spent leaving it).

There's a difference between being well-managed as a business and well-managed as a football team looking to win things. On the latter, Man United and Arsenal are roughly even at the moment (although I'd argue United are in rapid descendency there). On the former, Arsenal ARE well-managed whereas United are a basket case.

Indeed, that's why net spend doesn't mean anything. Like Wolves = Chelsea

It does kind of give away which teams are spending their cash on things that aren't the team though - the big turnovers have to go somewhere, and in Utd and Arsenal's case it's not on top players (really need to take wages into account here too I guess)

I think Arsenal fans know its not going on top players and are ok with it (by and large).

wtf did spurs spend so much on?

also just buy selling bentley and rsc, blackburn have done terrific in the market

by*

wtf did spurs spend so much on?

Nine million of your English pounds iirc
http://www.givemefootball.com/GMF/files/dd/ddada7a2-8f1b-4bcb-9983-393d3a0dd028.jpg

bentley, modric, bent- 50 million right there

10m+ plus each to brinng robbie and defoe back

11m for crouch, thereabouts for corluka, woodgate, 14m pav

we dont get too many bargains. vdv, bale, lennon, thudd. dont make us arsenal. but most of the time we sell high, it's a useful rep for levy to have given us.

you spent 11m on woodgate? lols.

Also, RIP Pompey?

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49625000/jpg/_49625888_frattonpark466.jpg

Nice photo. Don't see it now myself - did at the time, but the point of greatest danger was months ago, and surely liquidation is in nobody's interests now?

Hope it works out.

Pompey out of administration and safely sold

http://www.fcbusiness.co.uk/news/article/newsitem=724/title=footballers+using+tax+loophole+to+save+millions

pity dave b doesn't post anymore else we could have a football coops/communities thread

I'm sure he could be persuaded to make a special appearance for that thread.