The Football Finance Thread

[MariborKev]

Back of the Business section in today's IT

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/1221/1224328078796.html

Lost €170,000 last year, cumulative losses of €1.5m

[Mr A]

Ouch! Is somebody in Bray covering these losses for them?

[White Horse]

Latest accounts for League of Ireland minnows Bray Wanderers have just been dropped into the Companies Registration Office and they indicate that the club made a loss in 2011 of €170,000. It had accumulated losses of €1.5 million at the end of November 2011.

Do the accounts say how they are managing to fund those losses? They must be borrowing money from somewhere.

[peadar1987]

Absolutely no excuse for managing the club so badly. I genuinely believe heads should roll over this, but they won't.

[Longfordian]

Latest accounts for League of Ireland minnows Bray Wanderers have just been dropped into the Companies Registration Office and they indicate that the club made a loss in 2011 of €170,000. It had accumulated losses of €1.5 million at the end of November 2011.

Do the accounts say how they are managing to fund those losses? They must be borrowing money from somewhere.

Directors' loans probably.

[Lim till i die]

Absolutely no excuse for managing the club so badly. I genuinely believe heads should roll over this, but they won't.

Show us all with simple maths how you run Bray at a profit.

I'm genuinely curious.

Talk, especially football supporter talk, is often cheap.

[osarusan]

I don't think that 'not managing the club so badly' needs to equal 'making a profit'. There may be acceptable and unacceptable levels of debt.

[peadar1987]

Show us all with simple maths how you run Bray at a profit.

I'm genuinely curious.

Talk, especially football supporter talk, is often cheap.

Simple maths?

Money spent<=Money earned

Have Longford made this sort of a loss? Have Waterford? Or Drogheda? Or Athlone? Then why should Bray be any different? If we're spending interest-free money from directors' gifts, fair enough. If we're making a loss equal to the entire club's gate receipts, and being expected to pay it back with interest, questions have to be asked.

[Spudulika]

Removing loans from Irish clubs books, are any club solvent? The FFP implementations are going to hit clubs hard, though I can see massive amounts of fudge from UEFA letting clubs away with all sorts. It just seems impossible that an Irish club can operate at break even without subscriptions and decent crowds, plus maximised sponsors, added to prize and tv money.

[Lim till i die]

Sorry I should have clarified by saying run at their current level maybe.

Obviously they could only spend what they earn but you'd be supporting a middling first division club if they did.

It's a toughie. At least three of the four examples you mentioned have someone writing a cheque. The problem at Bray seems to be that you don't.

Irish football isn't solvent.

[bullit]

Sorry I should have clarified by saying run at their current level maybe.

Obviously they could only spend what they earn but you'd be supporting a middling first division club if they did.

It's a toughie. At least three of the four examples you mentioned have someone writing a cheque. The problem at Bray seems to be that you don't.

Irish football isn't solvent.

It never was but loads tried to make money out of it and fcuked up clubs doing it,be careful how yee go Lims.

If Dundalk were posting books like those at Bray i would be asking a tonne of questions.

[pineapple stu]

It's a toughie. At least three of the four examples you mentioned have someone writing a cheque. The problem at Bray seems to be that you don't.
They do to an extent. They've cumulative losses of E1.5m (as per the article), but they've share capital of E800k and other reserves of E450k. So the directors (I assume) have bought E800k of shares to cover the losses, and have put in another E550k of loans to the club.

They have liabilities in excess of assets of over E250k, which I'm fairly sure was explicitly banned under licencing (unless you had a note from your mummy saying that it was ok this time). So potentially we're going to have another heap of fudge here while the FAI tell us how great licencing has been.

[Charlie Darwin]

Removing loans from Irish clubs books, are any club solvent? The FFP implementations are going to hit clubs hard, though I can see massive amounts of fudge from UEFA letting clubs away with all sorts. It just seems impossible that an Irish club can operate at break even without subscriptions and decent crowds, plus maximised sponsors, added to prize and tv money.
FFP will have absolutely no effect on Irish clubs, not even Limerick. As long as the clubs are tax compliant, which is already covered by existing legislation, Irish clubs will be subject to the exact same pressures they always have. Irish clubs aren't going to be losing much more than six figures, which is comfortably within FFP's acceptable parameters.

[pineapple stu]

I think there's a E5m turnover limit as well, which completely removes all LoI clubs (bar Limerick of course) from FFP.

[peadar1987]

Sorry I should have clarified by saying run at their current level maybe.

Obviously they could only spend what they earn but you'd be supporting a middling first division club if they did.

It's a toughie. At least three of the four examples you mentioned have someone writing a cheque. The problem at Bray seems to be that you don't.

Irish football isn't solvent.

Well that's pretty much what I was trying to say. I'd rather support a mid-table first division club than no club at all, which is where the club would seem to be heading if they keep accumulating losses like they are.

[dong]

There would still be appetite to reform under a new name and keep the show on the road so I don't see what you are worried about.
My point is, there will always be a club for you to support so they might as well keep doing what they are doing.

[peadar1987]

There would still be appetite to reform under a new name and keep the show on the road so I don't see what you are worried about.
My point is, there will always be a club for you to support so they might as well keep doing what they are doing.

I don't want to see my club default on its debts and reform like that either. I'm sure if you asked fans of Cork, Derry, Drogheda and Shels, most of them would prefer the club had lived within their means rather than having to do what they did.

[Dodge]

Have Longford made this sort of a loss? Have Waterford? Or Drogheda? Or Athlone?


At vrious stages, yes. All of them have. You can add Pats, Derry, Cork, Shels, Rovers, Bohs, Galway, Dundalk etc etc etc to that list too


I'm sure if you asked fans of Cork, Derry, Drogheda and Shels, most of them would prefer the club had lived within their means rather than having to do what they did.

I bet you not a single one* of them would hand back any of the trophies they won. Thats how being a football fan works. They might bitch and moan on the internet about things, but not one* of them would swap a couple of years in the doldrums and their titles for consistent mediocrity

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying football fans in the main care about results on the pitch more than financial stability, save for a couple of crackpots here

*Exageration for effect. A handful might.

[Longfordian]

At vrious stages, yes. All of them have. You can add Pats, Derry, Cork, Shels, Rovers, Bohs, Galway, Dundalk etc etc etc to that list too



I bet you not a single one* of them would hand back any of the trophies they won. Thats how being a football fan works. They might bitch and moan on the internet about things, but not one* of them would swap a couple of years in the doldrums and their titles for consistent mediocrity

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying football fans in the main care about results on the pitch more than financial stability, save for a couple of crackpots here

*Exageration for effect. A handful might.

Yeah pretty much bang on there. Think our record loss was over €300k back in the day. We've been on a fairly even keel since then really but then we've been a lot worse on the pitch so one is directly related to the other.

[Dove]

Peadar1987 ‘’Absolutely no excuse for managing the club so badly. I genuinely believe heads should roll over this, but they won't’’


What the club will probably do is write back loans that Mr. Cox said had been written off into the P&L account and therefore able to show a profit.

A deal which I now believe to be null and void, where loans that directors gave to the club in good faith and were FORCED to write off by an individual who acquired 300,000 for €30 which is a transaction which is contrary to the clubs own Memorandum & Articles of Association which prevents shares being sold at below their face value. The same individual also indemnified the club from any legal costs in relation to that transaction.

It appears that it is in the best interests of the club for one individual to acquire his shares in this way but then decide that it is not in the best interests of the club for others to try and buy shares at face value.

It says so much about the club and the goings on behind the scenes.

[dong]

I don't want to see my club default on its debts and reform like that either. I'm sure if you asked fans of Cork, Derry, Drogheda and Shels, most of them would prefer the club had lived within their means rather than having to do what they did.

So, hypothetically, if Bray were to ramp up their spending and rack up even more debt and secure a couple of league titles but then fall into financial ruin and reform as Bray Wanderers Co Op or something, you wouldn't be exhilerated by the few years success? You wouldn't be loving the European nights and trips away and you wouldn't support the new club while still claiming they are somehow the same club?

[peadar1987]

So, hypothetically, if Bray were to ramp up their spending and rack up even more debt and secure a couple of league titles but then fall into financial ruin and reform as Bray Wanderers Co Op or something, you wouldn't be exhilerated by the few years success? You wouldn't be loving the European nights and trips away and you wouldn't support the new club while still claiming they are somehow the same club?

I'd probably enjoy the success while it lasted, but be very ashamed that the club had screwed over its creditors. That's completely unethical. If you asked me now would I prefer the club to live within its means now, or recklessly spend money it didn't have, I'd choose living within our means every time.

[White Horse]

So, hypothetically, if Bray were to ramp up their spending and rack up even more debt and secure a couple of league titles but then fall into financial ruin and reform as Bray Wanderers Co Op or something, you wouldn't be exhilerated by the few years success?

You are assuming reformation inevitably follows debt-fuelled success.

There are fans of defunct clubs who may have a different view.

[Spudulika]

The usual line is that "it wasn't our fault". There's always someone/something else to blame. Human nature.

[Trainee]

Its very hard for all clubs to break even for the year never mind make a profit,I would be surprised if more than 2-3 clubs made a profit for 2012

[nigel-harps1954]

Harps made €10k more than the projected income for the year so far, as of the SGM two weeks ago.

Not sure if that means the club made a profit or not, but it's still good news.

[hedderman]

So, hypothetically, if Bray were to ramp up their spending and rack up even more debt and secure a couple of league titles but then fall into financial ruin and reform as Bray Wanderers Co Op or something, you wouldn't be exhilerated by the few years success? You wouldn't be loving the European nights and trips away and you wouldn't support the new club while still claiming they are somehow the same club?

Hey!
We didn't win any league titles during those years