[Albion] Albion lose £21.2m in 2018/19

[blue-shifted]

Am I the only person depressed about this? Not just for the Albion, but football in general. Apart from a very very few no matter what a club earns it seems to overspend. Lower league clubs have incomes of about £500,000 and spend £550.000. Championship clubs have incomes of around £20 million and spend £22+ million. PL clubs have incomes of around 140 million and spend 150, 160, 170, whatever million. No matter what the figures are (and I've just picked those at random) clubs seem to overspend. The debts pile up as clubs try and satisfy their fanbases, and then when they get into trouble they blame the FA, the PL, Sky, Thatcher, anything and anyone but themselves.

We are lucky of course that we have a 'good' (and rich) owner, not someone who has breezed in, promised the earth to fans only too eager to believe everything they're told - and then bailed when they've found it impossible to deliver their promises. But even then relying on the goodwill and largesse of one man is not a good business model. What if TB falls under a bus and his family decide they don't want to maintain the commitment?

Well. He mustn't be allowed to walk near any roads

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

People have been saying that clubs spend more than they earn since the 1960s (that's as far back as my memory goes). If gloomy predictions ( [MENTION=177]Brovion[/MENTION] et al) are correct, every club should have gone bust by now.

 

[Justice]

TB said he’s heart rules his head on occasion and asks if we go more in transfer fees for certain players and gets shut down by the finance chiefs I wonder what players he was talking about

 

[Weststander]

The madness of PL thinking - sports ‘specialist’ Sally Nugent of BBC Breakfast gave an inaccurate, blasé comment this morning that “in fairness to Silva, the Everton Board hadn’t backed him with player investment in the last 18 months” (3 transfer windows).

So these are immodest sums?:

Richarlison £35m (rising to £50m)
Gomes £22m
Kean (from Juve) £27.5m
Iwobi £25m
Delph £10m
Gbami £25m
Mina £27m
Digne £18m

By a club with relatively low commercial income and no CL money.

If that’s a lack of support, the PL is a madhouse.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

Let's seewhat Mr Maguire has to say about it....

I hope you don't mean Kevin.

 

[Brovion]

People have been saying that clubs spend more than they earn since the 1960s (that's as far back as my memory goes). If gloomy predictions ( [MENTION=177]Brovion[/MENTION] et al) are correct, every club should have gone bust by now.

Yeah, it's a fair comment. As you say it's been a perennial problem since the dawn of the professional game, and clubs are still here. (Ditto the sugar daddies). It's just that the sums involved are so vast. I genuinely (and wrongly) thought that if we got into the Prem the huge riches would be more than enough for us to live on and we'd make a stonking profit every season. Build up a bit of a war chest to help bounce back after the inevitable relegation. But like I said, we've earnt it all and we've spent it all - and a bit more.

I suppose the only change for me is I'm a lot more hard-hearted. I always felt sorry for clubs in financial difficulties: "All that money in the game" I used to think, "And poor Ragarse Rovers are going bust owing less that Wayne Rooney earns in a week." Now, unless they've had criminal owners, my view is more: "Well you shouldn't have spent money you hadn't got trying to reach a league position you couldn't sustain." And yes I do believe fans are partly to blame in these situations for always demanding that the chairman should get his chequebook out and invest. Maybe football does need a whole raft of clubs to go bust, and yes if we're one of them (after TB's unfortunate bus accident) I wouldn't be able to complain.

 

[Ernest]

The madness of PL thinking - sports ‘specialist’ Sally Nugent of BBC Breakfast gave an inaccurate, blasé comment this morning that “in fairness to Silva, the Everton Board hadn’t backed him with player investment in the last 18 months” (3 transfer windows).

So these are immodest sums?:

Richarlison £35m (rising to £50m)
Gomes £22m
Kean (from Juve) £27.5m
Iwobi £25m
Delph £10m
Gbami £25m
Mina £27m
Digne £18m

By a club with relatively low commercial income and no CL money.

If that’s a lack of support, the PL is a madhouse.

And everyone of them is shite

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yeah, it's a fair comment. As you say it's been a perennial problem since the dawn of the professional game, and clubs are still here. (Ditto the sugar daddies). It's just that the sums involved are so vast. I genuinely (and wrongly) thought that if we got into the Prem the huge riches would be more than enough for us to live on and we'd make a stonking profit every season. Build up a bit of a war chest to help bounce back after the inevitable relegation. But like I said, we've earnt it all and we've spent it all - and a bit more.

I suppose the only change for me is I'm a lot more hard-hearted. I always felt sorry for clubs in financial difficulties: "All that money in the game" I used to think, "And poor Ragarse Rovers are going bust owing less that Wayne Rooney earns in a week." Now, unless they've had criminal owners, my view is more: "Well you shouldn't have spent money you hadn't got trying to reach a league position you couldn't sustain." And yes I do believe fans are partly to blame in these situations for always demanding that the chairman should get his chequebook out and invest. Maybe football does need a whole raft of clubs to go bust, and yes if we're one of them (after TB's unfortunate bus accident) I wouldn't be able to complain.

Indeed. I feel the same about some clubs. It is hard to feel sorry for clubs that have spent money they never had and were never likely to have. Remember the insane schemes Leeds cooked up when they were in the Champion's League in the early noughties? They were still paying 75% of one player's salary (was it Fowler?) long after he had left the club. Hard to feel sorry for them when it all went to bollocks (that, and it was Leeds after all, so...).

I think there may be something here we are missing, though, and I don't share your perception that we are competing because Tony is prepared to take a massive sustained personal loss. Yes, there are owners prepared to throw money at a club and take the loss, but I can't help feeling there must be some creative accounting at work here, or surely we would have seen more if not most clubs gone to the wall by now. On a small scale, and as a possible example of something or other, when we were in the championship, the club posted losses that were spookily exactly on the threshold of what was allowed by financial fair play. Of course some dimwits and Palace trolls used this to argue that the club was making unsustainable losses etc etc. However this was clearly not the case, and was clearly all part of some sort of plan that none of us really understood (because we don't know anything about how Tony manages his finances - BHA accounts are just a tip of one iceberg).

Related, if our loss were concerning or real or a harbinger of the doom to come, how come Tony has cheerfully sunk a ton of money into building at Lancing, as one small example....

Bottom line, I suspect that the headline numbers tell very little of the real story.

I'm sure that [MENTION=31]El Presidente[/MENTION] can clarify matters, but I suspect that publishing a clarification would not be in anyone's interest, even if it were possible to truly access all the relevant data.

In the meantime I am content to be content.

 

[dazzer6666]

Indeed. I feel the same about some clubs. It is hard to feel sorry for clubs that have spent money they never had and were never likely to have. Remember the insane schemes Leeds cooked up when they were in the Champion's League in the early noughties? They were still paying 75% of one player's salary (was it Fowler?) long after he had left the club. Hard to feel sorry for them when it all went to bollocks (that, and it was Leeds after all, so...).

I think there may be something here we are missing, though, and I don't share your perception that we are competing because Tony is prepared to take a massive sustained personal loss. Yes, there are owners prepared to throw money at a club and take the loss, but I can't help feeling there must be some creative accounting at work here, or surely we would have seen more if not most clubs gone to the wall by now. On a small scale, and as a possible example of something or other, when we were in the championship, the club posted losses that were spookily exactly on the threshold of what was allowed by financial fair play. Of course some dimwits and Palace trolls used this to argue that the club was making unsustainable losses etc etc. However this was clearly not the case, and was clearly all part of some sort of plan that none of us really understood (because we don't know anything about how Tony manages his finances - BHA accounts are just a tip of one iceberg).

Related, if our loss were concerning or real or a harbinger of the doom to come, how come Tony has cheerfully sunk a ton of money into building at Lancing, as one small example....

Bottom line, I suspect that the headline numbers tell very little of the real story.

I'm sure that [MENTION=31]El Presidente[/MENTION] can clarify matters, but I suspect that publishing a clarification would not be in anyone's interest, even if it were possible to truly access all the relevant data.

In the meantime I am content to be content.

Agreed. On the basis TB is a qualified accountant, runs a highly successful multinational business, is an absolute expert in risk management, is surrounded by all manner of quant-type boffins and has colossal pile of cash, I’m not going to worry too deeply about things. Calculated losses are sometimes a good way of limiting your tax bill.

 

[Uter]

Tony Bloom seems happy to step in with additional loans whenever necessary, so maybe he's fairly relaxed about it. Still not ideal though.

Worth noting these losses are for the group as a whole:


I wonder what steps the club will take to try and limit these losses in future?

The new agreement with American Express should help boost commercial income by a good few million.

I can't see matchday income going up much more, but they did hint at some stadium investment a few months ago to add a few hundred seats around the stadium.

The women's game seems to be gaining profile so I'd expect more games at the Amex, with a big marketing push to try and make inroads into their £1.8m losses.

 

[Uter]

... and who is Boo Up?

 

[Lifelong Supporter]

... and who is Boo Up?

View attachment 117861

BDO Stoy Hayward

 

[Knocky's Nose]

One player sale and it's a break-even year. In the grand scheme I don't think that loss is tragic.

Besides, Uncle Tony probably made that back on betting on his own gee gees.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

... and who is Boo Up?

View attachment 117861

Blackadder*: [very long pause] Yes, I can. My friend is a missionary and on his last visit abroad brought back with him the chief of a famous tribe. His name is*Great Boo. He's been suffering from sleeping sickness and he's obviously just woken because as you've heard,*Great Boo's*up.

 

[nwgull]

One player sale and it's a break-even year. In the grand scheme I don't think that loss is tragic.

Besides, Uncle Tony probably made that back on betting on his own gee gees.

Knockaert fee is agreed as around £10m, isn't it? The loss is eye watering on paper, in reality the appreciation in value of some of our players - many of whom aren't even playing in the first team squad this year - wipes that out easily, and some.

 

[Pavilionaire]

There are a number of players contracted to the club that don't figure that have a significant combined asset value - Knockaert, McAllister, Tau, Andone, Locadia, Ali J - while the production line has already produced Connolly, with Baluta getting closer and Molumby, Walton and Ben White earning plaudits in the Championship.

With the prospect of getting money in for some of those that aren't playing, and saving a few quid in the summer by drafting in the likes of White and Molumby, Bloom must be tempted to go big on a replacement for Murray.

 

[Uter]

Blackadder*: [very long pause] Yes, I can. My friend is a missionary and on his last visit abroad brought back with him the chief of a famous tribe. His name is*Great Boo. He's been suffering from sleeping sickness and he's obviously just woken because as you've heard,*Great Boo's*up.

Ha ha!! That's why that name rang a bell.

 

[dazzer6666]

Blackadder*: [very long pause] Yes, I can. My friend is a missionary and on his last visit abroad brought back with him the chief of a famous tribe. His name is*Great Boo. He's been suffering from sleeping sickness and he's obviously just woken because as you've heard,*Great Boo's*up.

Well DONE Edmund [emoji16]

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Am I the only person depressed about this? Not just for the Albion, but football in general. Apart from a very very few no matter what a club earns it seems to overspend. Lower league clubs have incomes of about £500,000 and spend £550.000. Championship clubs have incomes of around £20 million and spend £22+ million. PL clubs have incomes of around 140 million and spend 150, 160, 170, whatever million. No matter what the figures are (and I've just picked those at random) clubs seem to overspend. The debts pile up as clubs try and satisfy their fanbases, and then when they get into trouble they blame the FA, the PL, Sky, Thatcher, anything and anyone but themselves.

We are lucky of course that we have a 'good' (and rich) owner, not someone who has breezed in, promised the earth to fans only too eager to believe everything they're told - and then bailed when they've found it impossible to deliver their promises. But even then relying on the goodwill and largesse of one man is not a good business model. What if TB falls under a bus and his family decide they don't want to maintain the commitment?

Funding football has always been a struggle because there were clubs with a big fan base and others with a smaller following. However, up until Sky took the rights to football there was always a semblance that money didn't dominate - now it does.

I pointed this out before - when Sky took over the top players in the PL were on about £5K a week while full-timers in the Conference were on £250 a week - now in the PL top players get up to £500K a week what at the other end the wage can still be as low as £250 a week. This is unsustainable and will eventually wreck football (VAR is a symptom of this and it is a shambles).

Now - this problem can be solved (at least partially) - by taking the approach of the NFL - limit every squad to 25 players - cap the total transfer budget for every club - and set up a salary cap for the 25 players with a minimum salary and benefits that have to be paid for every player. Now this will lead to massive profits for some clubs - so you counteract that by distributing the money evenly across all the leagues - this would stop individual clubs across all leagues, it would raise wages down the leagues and it would stop individual clubs dominating (as they now do in practically every country). And to work this would need to be implemented on a global basis - which won't happen because there is too much money involved for a few conglomerates.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

With the prospect of getting money in for some of those that aren't playing, and saving a few quid in the summer by drafting in the likes of White and Molumby, Bloom must be tempted to go big on a replacement for Murray.

To survive in the PL every team needs a striker who scores goals (in fact they really need two) - and they are a very scarce commodity - Haller cost £50million as did Richarlison - this is the minimum now and there is no guarantee it will work.