The Finances of Football

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/nov/03/jeremy-hunt-premier-league-debt-rules

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-15/manchester-united-to-pay-off-353-million-of-soccer-team-s-corporate-debt.html

The PIKs are reportedly about to be paid off, which suggests either another refinancing job or possibly a stake in the club sold to a third party.

Refinancing at a better rate I'd guess - the last refinancing was at about the worst possible time iirc, getting finance is a lot easier now aiui

rumours that 150-200m to come out of club funds just scaremongering?

The club still has funds? Or enough players to make that much in the Market?

As I understand it, they aren't taking the money out of the club's bank account, which (as I said) points to another refinancing (i.e. borrowing new money to pay off these debts) or perhaps some kind of partial sale.

I suspect it's a refinancing, so a lot depends on the interest rate on that new debt, but getting the PIK's off the books can only be a good thing surely?

(Very busy at work so can't write much)

If we accept that the PIK debt was the club's responsibility then refinancing it to avoid the savage >16% interest rates is a good thing. But Gill has repeatedly sworn blind that the PIKs are nothing to do with the club and are solely the Glazers' responsibility (though virtually no one believes him). If this is the result of a refinancing and the end result is that the PIK debt (albeit no longer in the form of PIKs) *is* saddled onto the club, that is a bad thing and reveals the lie.

best case is this comes out of club, and is returned promptly when new financing is sourced at a lower rate

It can't *all* come out of the club, because the club doesn't have that much cash

ah, misread you above, was wonderin tbh

Why Bolton have so much debt - terrific, straightforward article envisaging tough times for trotter

1. they have gone backwards to the tune of 3.7m in gate receipts within five years? because people miss allardyce's total football compared to what they see now?

2. 20+m a year on "other expenses"?

3. how about you stop complaining about high wages and just fucking pay within your limits?

4. i'm surprised that a team like bolton hasn't gone to the big 10 european clubs and said 'hi guys want a feeder club at the highest level' yet. think about bolton - have had dealings with real before, need quality players, could have given guys like granero and mata essential playing time early in their career in a top level league.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/11/milans-age-of-austerity.html?utm_source=BP_recent is also fascinating; it seems selling kaka etc. didn't even put a dent in their losses

juve+ac+inter+roma still make less in gate receipts than arsenal

Will read. I tackled the Ajax one at lunchtime. The inescapable conclusion of that and all sorts of other stuff I've been pondering, is that club football all over Europe is going to be dead within the decade outside the top five leagues, and maybe only Russia and Turkey have a chance of avoiding that fate.

I dunno I just think clubs need to wake tf up and learn to run themselves properly.

...and learn to run themselves properly so that they can they fall prey to hostile takeovers

Clubs pay £67m to Agents. I presume there are a couple of super-agents raking in £66m, and all the others share the rest between them for telling their pet feckless idiot what car to buy.

Liverpool - £9,032,528.49

good job all involved

apropos of hughton's sacking
http://transferpriceindex.com/sample-chapter/

lol just posted that in the other thread.

ha "When that approach ‘inevitably’ failed (and I say inevitably purely because it’s Newcastle)..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-burma-manchester-united-takeover

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jan/11/uefa-footballpolitics

It will be interesting to see how on earth City comply with this, given that their wage bill is actually higher than their entire turnover.

£300m season ticket for the Sheikh, sorted.

something like that, yeah. New jersey bought for everyone in qatar or w/e

Hahaha. I was trying to think up some sort of wage-low-turnover-heavy subsidiary for them to open up and skew it that way - Citeh Property Trading and Gold Mines Inc or something - but that's a much better plan.

Hmmmmmmm. It's difficult to see how Platini could get round that.

course it is, football authorities arent any cleverer than internal revenue and 1/3 of britain's 700 biggest companied pay no tax at all (readasundaytimesarticleLAD)

I'm not sure Platini minds too much about "benefactors" gifting large sums of cash to fund footballing success. Irritating, perhaps, but not ruinous, and that's money coming into football from outside. I reckon they figure that there simply aren't enough people who are rich enough and mad enough to want to spend half a billion quid on buying some trophies for a football club to warp the competition beyond recognition.

I think they're trying to dissuade people from running up huge debt trying to compete with benefactees: fewer mad spenders will reduce the inflationary pressure on wages and fees.

If that works, of course, it will lower the cash requirements for entry into the benefactor game, but they'd still need to best what the biggest clubs actually earn, so that's still quite a lot of money.

I don't think this will solve all of football's problems but it is a move, and a start. I wish the FA / Premier League / Football League / Conference would do something similar.

Yes, it's a step in the right direction

I never knew that it was officially 'break even for the three years before 2013... give or take 30m'

According to the Guardian the rules "will also take into account any sponsorship or marketing deals not deemed to be at market rates." So yes, I agree with y'al above that it will be v hard to police that. Still suspect that's the bit the authorities care least about mind.

anyone see last night's panorama on the notts county fiasco? holy shit.

I saw it, amazing how far a brass neck and nothing else can get you.

Mostly it just made me realise how different the mentality of guys like that is. The whole time I was thinking 'How can they possibly have thought they'd get away with it? How could they think this was going to turn out well?' It was only when the door opened at the end that I realised that he had got away with it and it had turned out well - sending some cash out to Bahrain and living there in a decent flat was probably the point all along. Wouldn't it just be easier to get a regular job?

I missed it, what was the general thrust?

A couple of guys, one posing as a prince, convinced people that they were managing a fund for the Bahraini royal family and hence had access to billions, managed to acquire Notts County, half an investment bank and exclusive rights to exploit North Korea's mineral and coal reserves. The method used seems to have been a mix of charm and signed statements (not bank statements or anything like that, just the guys signing letters basically), then once the club was on board Sven & co being paraded around to convince the bank & nk that these guys were major players. Sven recounting being wined & banquetted in Pyongyang, while worthless share certificates were being written out to pay the koreans, was pretty wtf.

yeah, i'd only add that the mineral rights in n. korea were valued at over $1 trillion! and sven said at the time he was being told that notts county couldn't even afford to pay the milkman. it's really worth watching the whole thing, half an hour well spent imo.

that's pretty much how we ran an entire country tbf

sounds amazing. is that available anywhere online?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010p00r

Available in UK only, I think.

wow...totally crazy.

can't help but feel it's no coincidence sven was involved here. not suggesting he did anything untoward but followed the money as usual.