essex canary

Maybe the Government should have instructed companies with high earners to rebalance their payroll in favour of lower earners and that help would only be offered once such options were exhausted? Doubtless some clients paying out for premium TV sports packages are claiming state support for other elements of their personal budgets.

None of the Clubs living off the TV money PL honeypot should have taken it

I thought it was reported that we were the only PL club to claim it. Fair enough if we weren't.

We were the only Premier League Club to take the Government's Covid support money albeit that it is clear that a couple of other Clubs had more modest wage bills than us. Both of them were in the automatic promotion places last season still with more modest wage bills than us.

Quite. It doesn't measure things such as whether the Club actually consulted fans about season ticket prices or away members schemes. Just that they produced some notes about whatever they did discuss such as poorer behaviour among away fans.

She supports the underdog seemingly now the Tory Party.

Surely the actual squad value should be higher than recorded on the Balance Sheet for 2 reasons: 1. Players developed by the Club have never been subject to an incoming transfer fee and therefore are not on the Balance Sheet but will be deemed to have a value. 2. Amortisation schedules on average are likely to be prudent in nature and players will retain value to a greater extent than implied by the schedules. This is one reason why Clubs must be worth more than on the declared Balance Sheet though Derby County apparently revalue players on their Balance Sheet according to their own estimates. The difference in Southampton's case still seems staggering.

Perhaps then some of those £70 million loans will still be outstanding when the parachute payments are fully received?

Quite. The Club had a Shareholders Association at one point then it gets quietly abandoned.

The financial stuff looks quite objective. The rest of it asks questions such as whether a policy or notes of meeting exist rather than analysing its underlying quality or circulation. We are quite good at feeding that kind of tick box logic but it is the underlying quality that really matters.

More like 1 year ago in terms of published accounts. I doubt whether Southampton have acquired that value in the past 12 months. Either way their VFM is a complete shambles. Let's hope we get them rather than Leeds in the play off final especially with the man in charge who likes to put a plaque on a wall when his team scores after 50 successive passes.

Must be the false news society when the facts become a criticism though those squad values may not be factual.

Amazing how Southampton have apparently got a squad 4 times the value of ours but still had a wage bill £5 million lower than ours in 2021/22. All things considered we may be happy to lose the play off final v Leeds.

The original post was a great read and largely accurate. Why blame it all on Stu though? Aren't other Board Members responsible? Why is Stu's Executive Director missus unable to write some inspiring Programme Notes a la Neil Doncaster?

See previous response to Nutty. Our wage bill was modest in 2004 and 2011 but in 2019? Ignoring bonuses that years Wage bill even excluding bonuses was way over 100 per cent of Turnover. A calculated gamble perhaps. Was the doubling of our basic wage bill the next season a calculated gamble when by Stu's own admission we stood no chance? Why not £20 or £30 million in the ground development fund? Is it a Business or a Charity or as a Community Football Club potentially something in between? In choosing to be a Public Limited Company it did make some kind of decision in that context even if there are current Board members around who are uncomfortable with that.

If Tom was doing his sums now he would be saying Auntie invested £8 million 27 years ago, how much is that now at 7% ROI? Answer is around £1 million per percentage point ie. surprise surprise the amount referred to in the Articles of Association. Foulger has probably already had his hence why they have hit the buffers with the Takeover Panel. 7 per cent is too much for our current level of performance. The B preference share rate of 4.5% is probably a better reflection. 7% maybe Attanasio's target though with sensible salary cap.

Despite all that they still managed to get promoted with doubtless a significantly more modest wage bill than ours.

The essential point about Tom is the shares he is likely to own in future but may cash in somewhere down the line including 100 he has already got acquired at £1 each plus the other 4 he may have paid the going rate for.

The value of the shares they have bought is clearly only a little over £8 million. Maybe they use their own opportunity cost logic involving foregone interest etc. but a figure that high is hard to justify. Equally the figure you quoted for MA must on a comparative basis be enhanced. I agree with you that our club can't afford too many investments at 7%, why then create the first one? Besides if this is ever paid it will become an effective tax on fans and other shareholders and from MA's perspective compensation for a premium return he may well have paid to Foulger. We can always be sure that the ordinary folk pay the price. Even if S&J seek no profit, how can you be sure that Tom won't?

Foulger did pay over £2 million into the Club that is now in MA's ownership. We don’t know what Foulger's ultimate ROI was. Agree with you about the 7% but then why did S&J vote for it?

You haven't included in MA's assessment what he paid to buy MF out.

If the highest transaction price so far is £30 per share or thereabouts it would seem perfectly possible that acquiring around 50,000 more shares would reach the 30% theshold at a cost of between £1 and 2 million thereby leaving the way clear for the new investment. Then again the suspicion is that the highest transaction to date is a three figure sum per share. Therein would lie the real problem.

Avoidance = legal. Evasion = illegal. For a community Football Club circumventing the rules should be off limits whichever category it falls in. Whatever they want to achieve minority shareholders should not be the meat in the sandwich.

@dylanisabaddog, @wcorkcanary, @littleyellowbirdie it is quite simple. Of course anyone receiving a non-existent or poor quality service having paid should receive a refund. Equally no one should be entitled to access a bond investment without first being a fully fledged member. Nothing difficult about either.

The simple way is don't seek such trivial income in the first place then the hassle wouldn't follow.