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Club accounts - 'expert' help needeb

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This relates to the club furlough thread - but I thought it get lost there - and not attract the accountant typs

I've had a stab at it and came up with an annual figure of £292,000 - however if ant one can clarify what is the figure I think that would help - as the idea is to see what this would cost the club to do the 'homourable' thing.

As a supporter of long standing (and some sitting) I am against the club doing this as it does not show appreciation to all those 'lesser souls' at the club. Yes they will get the money but in should be in a wage packet (yes I know) that is completely yellow and green. And I dread to think where this puts in the holier than thou position with regard to the binners

https://files.canaries.co.uk/canaries/AR2019.pdf

Could folks only use this to explain the accounts if they know, and use the Telegraph thread to continue that discussion, ta

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As an accountant type what I can tell you based on the Annual Report is that the non footballing staff wage bill last year was around £19 million. This must rationally include some senior staff who will not have been furloughed. I would guess that about £1million per month would be the ballpark.  I understand the reasoning if this goes on 6 to 12 months or so and we loose Sky monies but I am also against based on up to 3 months and no sky losses. Besides how can this be done on one hand and a contribution to the NHS on the Other? And remember those promotion bonuses of near £11 million players plus £2million 25% bondholders mainly club insiders. Nothing for shareholders whose money could now be at real risk. I wish more people would formerly complain to the Club. 

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£19 million - that does seem extraordinary high

where did you find that figure ?

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30 minutes ago, essex canary said:

As an accountant type what I can tell you based on the Annual Report is that the non footballing staff wage bill last year was around £19 million. This must rationally include some senior staff who will not have been furloughed. I would guess that about £1million per month would be the ballpark.  I understand the reasoning if this goes on 6 to 12 months or so and we loose Sky monies but I am also against based on up to 3 months and no sky losses. Besides how can this be done on one hand and a contribution to the NHS on the Other? And remember those promotion bonuses of near £11 million players plus £2million 25% bondholders mainly club insiders. Nothing for shareholders whose money could now be at real risk. I wish more people would formerly complain to the Club. 

I suspect it would be more accurate to say that figure represents the wage bill for the non-playing staff. It may for example, include footballing staff such as coaches etc as wellof course as all those not directly connected with the football side of the business.

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Page 22 Note 7 shows Total Salaries and Wages as £54.4 million.  Page 9 shows Turnover as £33.7 million. Page 1 shows players wages as percentage of turnover as 105%. Therefore players wages equal £35.4 million leaving £19 million for non-playing staff. 

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The furlough assistance is limited to a maximum of £2500 per month per person, currently for 3 months. The accounts show there were 148 non-football staff employed as at 30th June 2019. That is a maximum of £1,110,000. Assuming quite a number of those 148 staff actually earn less than £30,000 per annum I would suggest the amount at issue is something substantially less than £1m.

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1 hour ago, sgncfc said:

The furlough assistance is limited to a maximum of £2500 per month per person, currently for 3 months. The accounts show there were 148 non-football staff employed as at 30th June 2019. That is a maximum of £1,110,000. Assuming quite a number of those 148 staff actually earn less than £30,000 per annum I would suggest the amount at issue is something substantially less than £1m.

If it is £19m as stated then divide that by 148 staff

and it comes out at about £128, 300 per annum per staff member 🤔

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I'm afraid that is an impossible question to answer. We don't know the club's definition of 'football staff' nor do we know for certain who has been furloughed. For example, have we just left the grass to grow or is someone cutting it? 

As someone  has said above, there are 148 non playing staff according to the accounts. That figure seems ridiculously low to me bearing in mind the number of part time match day people. Perhaps some are employed by an agency. 

The other issue is that we don't know how many non football staff earn more than £30k so it's simply impossible to compute a meaningful figure. 

The important thing is that there was a cut off date for joining the scheme. At the moment we don't know how long this is going to last and neither did the club when they took the decision. 3 month figures are all well and good but this could go on for far longer. So the club was probably looking at worse case scenario when it made the decision. 

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@sgncfchas it right as best you can surmise from the information available.

148 non-playing staff x £2500 per month =£370,000 per month assuming all those staff earn at least £2500 per month (which i doubt they do).

If you have zero coming in, which is where all football clubs are currently, then its a substantial amount of money to find. The only other option is to make them all redundant which also has cost implications, probably bigger cost implications than that.

I don't really have an issue with the club furloughing them as because as i said above the only other option is to make them redundant which will also cost the club and the Govt money in the short term.

What i do have an issue with, and its a football-wide issue, is that the huge sums of money come in one end and are immediatley spent, mainly on player wages and transfer fees. Football clubs as a whole do not carry any sort of reserves, despite the huge sums coming in.

How many on here were moaning a few weeks ago that we had not spent enough on new players?? How stupid that would have looked now!

 

 

 

Edited by duke63

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Upon reflection it is of course as stated less than £370k for non playing staff though it is possible that some more junior footballing staff would be added. In a sense this lower figure makes it less understandable because the sums of money involved cannot really create serious risk for the business at least in a three month period. In addition the Club says it is giving to the NHS on one hand but doing this on the other whilst also holding on to supporters advanced payments. There could of course be much bigger problems if this bites deep into next season which maybe a good idea for behaving cautiously. I believe Sheffield United have adopted a holding approach. Perhaps that would have been the best position to adopt? 

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2 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

I'm afraid that is an impossible question to answer. We don't know the club's definition of 'football staff' nor do we know for certain who has been furloughed. For example, have we just left the grass to grow or is someone cutting it? 

As someone  has said above, there are 148 non playing staff according to the accounts. That figure seems ridiculously low to me bearing in mind the number of part time match day people. Perhaps some are employed by an agency. 

The other issue is that we don't know how many non football staff earn more than £30k so it's simply impossible to compute a meaningful figure. 

The important thing is that there was a cut off date for joining the scheme. At the moment we don't know how long this is going to last and neither did the club when they took the decision. 3 month figures are all well and good but this could go on for far longer. So the club was probably looking at worse case scenario when it made the decision. 

I agree with that.  At the risk of extreme nerdiness, there is some confusion about the numbers and what they refer to. The accounts give figures of 139 'football staff' and 148 'other', ie non-football staff.

But the wage figure that essex correctly quoted of £35.4m is not for all football staff but only for player wages, including this time bonuses.

So the assumption has to be, if the accounts are correctly making the distinction that not all football staff are players, that the remaining wage figure, of £19m is not purely for the 148 non-football staff but includes football staff, such as coaches, who are not players.

So I don't think you can simply divide the £19M by 148. It probably needs to be divided by a larger number, and that is without knowing, as dylan says, exactly what the club's definitions are and and who has been furloughed.

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I agree with Purple. I think all things considered we should rationally conclude that it will be somewhere between £250,000 and £500,000 per month. 

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3 minutes ago, essex canary said:

I agree with Purple. I think all things considered we should rationally conclude that it will be somewhere between £250,000 and £500,000 per month. 

We shouldn’t be doing it if those are the sorts of figures we are talking about, the reputational damage will be more than that. 

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8 minutes ago, Van wink said:

We shouldn’t be doing it if those are the sorts of figures we are talking about, the reputational damage will be more than that. 

No one can say with any accuracy what the figures are, we just don't have enough information. We also don't know what the long term implications of the virus are for Norwich City. Some may say that we just need to sell a player to balance the books but there is the possibility that transfer fees will drop dramatically or transfers could be banned altogether. It's very easy to criticise Webber but none of us is standing in his shoes. 

As for reputational damage, I haven't heard any specific criticism of the club. Most pundits seem to accept that we are in a different financial position to the other clubs in the EPL 

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31 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

I agree with that.  At the risk of extreme nerdiness, there is some confusion about the numbers and what they refer to. The accounts give figures of 139 'football staff' and 148 'other', ie non-football staff.

But the wage figure that essex correctly quoted of £35.4m is not for all football staff but only for player wages, including this time bonuses.

So the assumption has to be, if the accounts are correctly making the distinction that not all football staff are players, that the remaining wage figure, of £19m is not purely for the 148 non-football staff but includes football staff, such as coaches, who are not players.

So I don't think you can simply divide the £19M by 148. It probably needs to be divided by a larger number, and that is without knowing, as dylan says, exactly what the club's definitions are and and who has been furloughed.

' Er Indoors works in TOTT on a matchday and at a few non football functions so obviously her hours vary due to the number of games or functions in any particular month and she has been furloughed. Her colleagues have also been furloughed and that amounts to a substantial number of them as you can imagine throughout the ground.

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15 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

No one can say with any accuracy what the figures are, we just don't have enough information. We also don't know what the long term implications of the virus are for Norwich City. Some may say that we just need to sell a player to balance the books but there is the possibility that transfer fees will drop dramatically or transfers could be banned altogether. It's very easy to criticise Webber but none of us is standing in his shoes. 

As for reputational damage, I haven't heard any specific criticism of the club. Most pundits seem to accept that we are in a different financial position to the other clubs in the EPL 

I think there has been some reputational damage (not nedessarily justified), and the PR could have been much better handled, but otherwise I agree with this. It is a fantasy that the club is awash with Premier League money and that the budgeted income it has already lost through missing out on three home games doesn't matter. Even just in the short-term the club might have needed to furlough, and that is without knowing what the longer-term damage could be, given that we lack a billionaire to bail us out.

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15 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

No one can say with any accuracy what the figures are, we just don't have enough information. We also don't know what the long term implications of the virus are for Norwich City. Some may say that we just need to sell a player to balance the books but there is the possibility that transfer fees will drop dramatically or transfers could be banned altogether. It's very easy to criticise Webber but none of us is standing in his shoes. 

As for reputational damage, I haven't heard any specific criticism of the club. Most pundits seem to accept that we are in a different financial position to the other clubs in the EPL 

I fully accept that and all I can do is make an observation without full knowledge, but clearly a choice has been made and I suspect it wasn’t an easy choice. The perception for me is that it looks greedy and opportunistic, we may be poorly funded as a EPL team but we are by choice  part of that world where millions of pounds are talked of as confetti, our choice is made to look worse by clubs like Bournemouth. I agree though that certainly so far the pundits nor the press have gone after us for the decision, as we begin to stick out more that may change however.

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15 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

' Er Indoors works in TOTT on a matchday and at a few non football functions so obviously her hours vary due to the number of games or functions in any particular month and she has been furloughed. Her colleagues have also been furloughed and that amounts to a substantial number of them as you can imagine throughout the ground.

And as they are on variable contracts one would assume if they don't work they don't get anything? So in this way are the club actually ensuring that the transient staff get more than they would otherwise be obliged to get?

 

I am not being an apologist and just looking for positive spin in this, I am actually curious as to how these kind of workers are affected, but I do also believe that the moralistic grandstanding some are undertaking is OTT. The issue the club will have is with immediate cash flow, we are not quite living hand to mouth, but, with our model, should we get relegated without getting anymore march day income then I can imagine the purse will be very tight next season unless the players (yes the players, not the club) take a wage cut now.

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It is excruciatingly embarrassing that we have decided to do this with so many genuine cases of business’s needing the cash to stay afloat.

Shame on you Delia Smith 

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29 minutes ago, Uncle Fred said:

It is excruciatingly embarrassing that we have decided to do this with so many genuine cases of business’s needing the cash to stay afloat.

Shame on you Delia Smith 

Around £50m in PAYE and Vat flows out of Norwich City to the Government in a Premier League season. That's quite a lot for a business that you don't see as genuine. 

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Given the huge sums we paid to Auditors for tax advice I hope we have minimised what we paid. We could take the view that given the public subsidies that the likes of Manchester City and West Ham have received in respect of their stadiums we should not feel guilty. On the other hand we could take the view that furloughing is not intended for businesses with average salaries of £180k per year. If it had any principles the FA would sort this out on behalf of football as a whole. Delia could fairly argue that it is not her problem. Then again given her TV interview claiming to stand up for the Burys of this world etc. she could take the view that she should try to shame the FA into action in defence of the reputation of football in general and in support of taxpayers and the NHS. 

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Marvelous stuff 

We haven't had any of this since the FPAs heyday on here in the Doomaster years. "If this is that and that is this and we assume they are them and say them are they then those are these and it's a disgrace"🙃

My 'what if' is : If the players had taken a 30% cut and we hadn't have furloughed would the government have been better off?

My overriding thoughts are that these seeds were sewn in different times and to disagree with the situation for this period alone is a bit hypocritical.

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7 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

Marvelous stuff 

We haven't had any of this since the FPAs heyday on here in the Doomaster years. "If this is that and that is this and we assume they are them and say them are they then those are these and it's a disgrace"🙃

My 'what if' is : If the players had taken a 30% cut and we hadn't have furloughed would the government have been better off?

My overriding thoughts are that these seeds were sewn in different times and to disagree with the situation for this period alone is a bit hypocritical.

Lots of fag packets being used today.😂

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2 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:
2 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

No one can say with any accuracy what the figures are, we just don't have enough information. We also don't know what the long term implications of the virus are for Norwich City. Some may say that we just need to sell a player to balance the books but there is the possibility that transfer fees will drop dramatically or transfers could be banned altogether. It's very easy to criticise Webber but none of us is standing in his shoes. 

As for reputational damage, I haven't heard any specific criticism of the club. Most pundits seem to accept that we are in a different financial position to the other clubs in the EPL 

I think there has been some reputational damage (not nedessarily justified), and the PR could have been much better handled, but otherwise I agree with this. It is a fantasy that the club is awash with Premier League money and that the budgeted income it has already lost through missing out on three home games doesn't matter. Even just in the short-term the club might have needed to furlough, and that is without knowing what the longer-term damage could be, given that we lack a billionaire to bail us out.

Two excellent posts sum it up pretty well imo.  it's easy to make superficial sound bites that make it seem that the decision to furlough is wrong, but if you really look at it with an open mind, there are plenty of reasons why this was a sensible move and one that protects jobs and the viability of the club. 

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Anyone know how much it costs to charter an executive jet (Citation type) or if cash flow is a bit tight, a propeller powered (King Air type) to fly same day return (UK/England internally)..?

..Just asking for a friend...(Who's not overly concerned about that damaging environmental carbon footprinty stuff).....

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4 hours ago, duke63 said:

@sgncfchas it right as best you can surmise from the information available.

148 non-playing staff x £2500 per month =£370,000 per month assuming all those staff earn at least £2500 per month (which i doubt they do).

If you have zero coming in, which is where all football clubs are currently, then its a substantial amount of money to find. The only other option is to make them all redundant which also has cost implications, probably bigger cost implications than that.

I don't really have an issue with the club furloughing them as because as i said above the only other option is to make them redundant which will also cost the club and the Govt money in the short term.

What i do have an issue with, and its a football-wide issue, is that the huge sums of money come in one end and are immediatley spent, mainly on player wages and transfer fees. Football clubs as a whole do not carry any sort of reserves, despite the huge sums coming in.

How many on here were moaning a few weeks ago that we had not spent enough on new players?? How stupid that would have looked now!

 

 

 

Its not really a substantial amount (bearing in mind the above is the maximum figure and the real figure is likely to be lower) to find for a premier league football club though is it and one that has already budgeted for a "substantial profit" this season (close to £20m as I recall). Obviously, as the paupers of the premier league we probably have the best "excuse" of any club in the division to use this scheme but in my view its still questionable.

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Simple fact is that the club is protecting the jobs of those lower paid workers by furloughing them, the other option is to make them redundant.

No sensible company pays staff for doing nothing and with no idea when these employees might have work again.

Its been mentioned many times that only us and Burnley are the only other self funded in the PL, all other clubs have very wealthy owners. And Burnley are the only club initmating that they will have some serious financial problems as a result of this.

 

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46 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Its not really a substantial amount (bearing in mind the above is the maximum figure and the real figure is likely to be lower) to find for a premier league football club though is it and one that has already budgeted for a "substantial profit" this season (close to £20m as I recall). Obviously, as the paupers of the premier league we probably have the best "excuse" of any club in the division to use this scheme but in my view its still questionable.

It is if you do not have any money in the bank or the money in your bank is already put aside for other expenditure and there will be no more money coming into the bank for the foreseeable future.

 

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1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Lots of fag packets being used today.😂

I resent that😊 I did mine on the back of a jigsaw box. Turns out I'm missing a few pieces........ 

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