Off field activities?

[dhickl 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7846371.stm

"You don''t make money because 11 guys run around the pitch, you make money because of all the other commercial aspects that go with a football club"

From a guy who runs Falcon Equity (who are looking at buying Chelsea) and used to head up Deutsche Venture Capital.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

Yeah, venture capitalists have got a great rep at the moment.....[8-)]

It has been an absolutely disastrous policy for us an we even had a precedent not to follow after what happened with Chase.

[Matt Juler 208]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Yeah, venture capitalists have got a great rep at the moment.....[8-)]

It has been an absolutely disastrous policy for us an we even had a precedent not to follow after what happened with Chase.

[/quote]
You are deluded, if it wasn''t for our off the field activities this football club would have ceased to exist many many years ago.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="Matt Juler"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Yeah, venture capitalists have got a great rep at the moment.....[8-)]

It has been an absolutely disastrous policy for us an we even had a precedent not to follow after what happened with Chase.

[/quote]
You are deluded, if it wasn''t for our off the field activities this football club would have ceased to exist many many years ago.[/quote]

I`m sorry, but i`ve been having informed debates with people on this subject for years and no-ones even come close to proving that investing tens of millions in infrastructure whilst the core product- the team- goes to pot is a successful strategy.  Have a look at Charlton and Southampton- huge debts to pay for lovely new stands, no money for their struggling teams.  We can afford to spend less on the team now than we did before promotion- and that is because the costs associated with all the non-football activities have risen to ridiculous levels.

I look forward to you coming back with an informed, factual, pointed response......

[The Judge 0]

[quote user="Matt Juler"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Yeah, venture capitalists have got a great rep at the moment.....[8-)]

It has been an absolutely disastrous policy for us an we even had a precedent not to follow after what happened with Chase.

[/quote]
You are deluded, if it wasn''t for our off the field activities this football club would have ceased to exist many many years ago.[/quote]

and this off field activity that is also one of the main reasons for our £19m debt - which we have to service (i.e.repay inc interest) buy selling players....great strategy..

Yes it is absolutely essential and worthwhile for the top teams as they can rake in millions due to brand association - but you can''t apply that same logic to Norwich.

 

 

[James Kent 0]

What rubbish are debt is because we have a wage bill we can''t afford.

Nearly every championship club makes yearly losses. How do you suggest we make up the short fall, if not via off the field stuff?

One thing we could do is slash the wage bill to 4.5 million. However, it would be very difficult to be successful that way.

[singing canary 0]

i take it your never heard of comunnity spirit .

[ron obvious 1,711]

Caught the end of a Money Special on Beeb 2 last night, about how Porsche are trying to buy VW. I think I heard them say that last year Porsche made 1 billion euros from car sales. But they alxo made 6 billion euros from hedge fund activities. So, the interviewer asked a financial type, are Porsche a car manufacturer or a hedge fund? "Weeelll, I suppose, you''d have to say .......... in reality ........ hedge fund" came the reply.I wonder if Porsche do consultancy work?

[The Judge 0]

[quote user="Jim Kent"]What rubbish are debt is because we have a wage bill we can''t afford. Nearly every championship club makes yearly losses. How do you suggest we make up the short fall, if not via off the field stuff? One thing we could do is slash the wage bill to 4.5 million. However, it would be very difficult to be successful that way.[/quote]

Sorry but you are incorrect. Our 19m debt (i.e. AXA secured loan) has nothing to do with player wage bills. It has been built up over time through off-field infrasture developments, such as the Jarrold stand. The Corner infill, the land behind the Jarrold stand, the Road etc etc. Some things we had to invest in some we didn''t.

You could argue that we could have paid more of it off if we didn''t have such a high player wage bill - but to think the debt funds player wages is wrong.

[Blofield Canary 12]

The earlier poster hit the nail on the head. No off field activity = No Norwich City. Anyone listening to Talk Sport yesterday morning would have heard that our crowd would need to be 52,000 just to pay the wage bill.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]Sorry but you are incorrect. Our 19m debt (i.e. AXA secured loan) has

nothing to do with player wage bills. It has been built up over time

through off-field infrasture developments, such as the Jarrold stand.

The Corner infill, the land behind the Jarrold stand, the Road etc etc.

Some things we had to invest in some we didn''t.[/quote]And yet, as has been done to death millions of times on this board, the things we didn''t have to invest in don''t come close to a single seasons'' player wages.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="jbghost"]

The earlier poster hit the nail on the head. No off field activity = No Norwich City. Anyone listening to Talk Sport yesterday morning would have heard that our crowd would need to be 52,000 just to pay the wage bill.

[/quote]

Again, you are probably falling for the old trick of confusing the overall wage bill with player wages.  Ticket sales easily cover the player wage bill and since relegation it has also been greatly subsidised by big year-on-year profits in the transfer market.

[Robert N. LiM 6,276]

Mr C, can you point me to the bit in the accounts that shows that? I am not taking issue with your claim - I would be very interested to see where it comes from. Are the accounts available online or do you have to be a shareholder to see them?

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="Jim Kent"]What rubbish are debt is because we have a wage bill we can''t afford. Nearly every championship club makes yearly losses. How do you suggest we make up the short fall, if not via off the field stuff? One thing we could do is slash the wage bill to 4.5 million. However, it would be very difficult to be successful that way.[/quote]

Could you please enlighten me how we could afford a £5.2m player wage bill with no transfer profit and with the club making an overall £500k profit in `02 (ie. before most of the infrastructure investment), yet now we can only afford £4m according to Doncaster- with gates some 8k higher?  Does this show that off-pitch activities are contributing revenue to strengthen the team?

By the way, over the last 14 financial years NCFC are overall well in profit, so i`m afraid the "loss-making" thing is simply a myth.

[7rew 0]

[quote user="The Judge"]

[quote user="Jim Kent"]What rubbish are debt is because we have a wage bill we can''t afford. Nearly every championship club makes yearly losses. How do you suggest we make up the short fall, if not via off the field stuff? One thing we could do is slash the wage bill to 4.5 million. However, it would be very difficult to be successful that way.[/quote]

Sorry but you are incorrect. Our 19m debt (i.e. AXA secured loan) has nothing to do with player wage bills. It has been built up over time through off-field infrasture developments, such as the Jarrold stand. The Corner infill, the land behind the Jarrold stand, the Road etc etc. Some things we had to invest in some we didn''t.

You could argue that we could have paid more of it off if we didn''t have such a high player wage bill - but to think the debt funds player wages is wrong.

[/quote]Sorry but you are incorret.  The debt has been built up over time based on the outgoings of the football club being larger than the income.  It is secured on the land/building since this is what banks like to take as secuities.To lump the expenditure you dislike with the debt is just sophistry.  For example you include the Jarrold stand in the debt, you do not include the revenue from the Jarrold stand against this, same with the corner infill, yet this expenditure was neccesary to make this income possible (people cannot (yet) hover in mod air to watch the match).The debt, does in part fund the players wages, since it funds the activities of the club, opne of which is paying the players.

[7rew 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"][quote user="jbghost"]

The earlier poster hit the nail on the head. No off field activity = No Norwich City. Anyone listening to Talk Sport yesterday morning would have heard that our crowd would need to be 52,000 just to pay the wage bill.

[/quote]

Again, you are probably falling for the old trick of confusing the overall wage bill with player wages.  Ticket sales easily cover the player wage bill and since relegation it has also been greatly subsidised by big year-on-year profits in the transfer market.

[/quote]Again, you are utilising the old trick of pretending that all non-player wages are unneccesary and so the sum would be 0 if the club were well run.  Unfortuantely this is not true by quite a long way.  Unless the figures in the accounts provide breakdowns for the profitability of each different off the field activity (canarytravel, match day food, the shops, etc etc.), which I guess they don''t or you would have been outraged by each specific example on here many times and not just argued on your own guesses about the breakdown, then you can''t tell what part if the wage bill is spent purely on (non-playing) football related staff, what part is spent on buisnesses that make the club profit (and as such should be kept [right?]) and what of those wages are wasted (spent on non-profitable ventures). btw are you seriously suggesting that each year we make more money in the transfer markets than we did the previous year?  Possibly you ment big yearly profits in the transfer markets?To answer another of your posts: the reason we can afford less now is due to the interest payments required to build the new stands which take up slightly more than the extra 8k attendences provide.  However I have never seen an answer from you as to how you would have avoided paying this money for the Jarrold stand (ie what better management could have been done to avaoid getting into this debt)  if there is no answer to this and it was unavoidable, given the state of the previous stand, then, I''m afraid, you have absolutely no point to your complaints about the board on this point.

[The Fish Seller 0]

[quote user="Jim Kent"]What rubbish are debt is because we have a wage bill we can''t afford..[/quote]No the debt is due to off field ventures as explained repeatedly on here. A football club cannot borrow to buy players or pay their wages directly.A bit off topic now as it seems some people still don''t understand our debt.I think it''s important to point out that the first half of the securitisation deal money (circa £7.5m) went on re-financing the original debt inherited from Robert Chases tenure which raises the following points.1) Why after 12 years in charge does Delia Smith and her board still owe £7m on a £6m debt?2) How does this debt exist if Delia really did ''save the club''? Surely the £6m that was going to bankrupt us would have been paid off or was it really just re-financed and word put out that the club had been ''saved''?3) Whilst it''s easy to point the finger at Chase and blame him for this amount of the debt it is much more constructive to ask why when Chases investments matured (both players and land) none of it was used to pay off the original debt? 4) This debt from the Chase years is still at best running at the same level as 1996 (6-7 million pounds) despite 12 years of interest payments and quite a few years of profit at this club so bearing this in mind which of the following statements is true? a) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan the Board are depriving the squad of funds through large interest repayments? b) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan the Board are likely to pass on the 1996 debt in it''s entirety to the next owner of this club? c) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan the Board are sinking deeper and deeper into debt? d) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan in years of profit the Board have put the long term future of this Club in a position of more risk of financial failure?  e) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan the Board are portraying themselves as poor borrowers to prospective investors and or financial institutions? Would you lend to someone who struggles to make the minimum repayment

even when they''ve made huge profits? f) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan or the securitisation deal itself the Board are effectively just buying themselves time in position with no thought for the legacy they will leave behind? g) By failing to make Capital repayments on the original inherited loan or the securitisation deal itself the board have had to introduce the wage bill as a red herring to divert attention away from the true causes of  the black hole of debt.

Having millions of pounds to repay on a stagnated land deal hasn''t helped much either.

Back to the OP''s post now."You don''t make money because 11 guys run around the pitch, you make money

because of all the other commercial aspects that go with a football club"Not the first time I''ve heard this said but to me it''s a fatally flawed argument.Let''s imagine for a minute that there is no football team at NCFC and see what happens when those 11 guys do not run around the pitch.Bang goes the merchandise!Bang goes the Saturday catering revenue.Bang goes the Saturday bar take.Bang goes the Advertising revenue.Bang goes the website and Canaries World revenue.Bang goes the tv money.Oh and bang goes the ticket income!!Nope I think it is fact that you really do need a football team to make money at a football club to say otherwise is patently foolish. It also becomes quite apparent that on the whole the better the guys are who are running round the pitch then the more money you will make as more people want to be associated with them.

[shefcanary 2,950]

Okay:

Unlike Chelski, we haven''t got an owner with a bottomless pocket. 

Unlike ManUre, we haven''t had a long history of being based in a major urban capital with 2 million people within 30 minute drive time, thus enabling a history of 60,000 plus attendances that was more than enough to enable both payment of players, investment in the ground, passing on profits to the clubs owners and building up a reputation as a must play for club amongst the best players in the world. 

Unlike Liverpool, ditto to ManUre.

Unlike Aresenal, ditto to ManUre except the figure is closer to 5 million, but also bribing officials in the First World War to ensure they maintained top flight status at a critical time in the history (whoops better not go there!).

And you expect Norwich to compete with the likes of the big 4 without doing something off the field. 

Granted not every off the field investment has made the returns that were hoped for, but as other sensible people on here have said without the advantages the Big 4 have had we would most definitely have been scrapping around in League 2 or the BSP with the likes of Exeter / Torquay etc.

FFS get real! 

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Mr C, can you point me to the bit in the accounts that shows that? I am not taking issue with your claim - I would be very interested to see where it comes from. Are the accounts available online or do you have to be a shareholder to see them?[/quote]

I don`t think you can get them online, and i`m not entirely sure what you`re asking me to provide, but if you`re talking about ticket income/player wages then in `07 player wages were 31% of turnover at £7.4m and ticket income was £7.7m.  We also had a parachute payment in that season and a £2m transfer profit.  In the last accounts (`08) the club decided not to give a figure for player wages, but given that overall wages fell by nearly £1m and the players were supposed to be on tiered contracts which dropped once parachute payments ended, then i think it`s safe to assume they dropped to below £7m- again ticket income was £7.75m.  If you factor in the £3.5m transfer profit then the bulk cost of the team was less than £4m out of a £19m turnover.  The cost of the team is not the problem- it`s all the other costs which have spiralled out of control.

[shefcanary 2,950]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Mr C, can you point me to the bit in the accounts that shows that? I am not taking issue with your claim - I would be very interested to see where it comes from. Are the accounts available online or do you have to be a shareholder to see them?[/quote]

I don`t think you can get them online, and i`m not entirely sure what you`re asking me to provide, but if you`re talking about ticket income/player wages then in `07 player wages were 31% of turnover at £7.4m and ticket income was £7.7m.  We also had a parachute payment in that season and a £2m transfer profit.  In the last accounts (`08) the club decided not to give a figure for player wages, but given that overall wages fell by nearly £1m and the players were supposed to be on tiered contracts which dropped once parachute payments ended, then i think it`s safe to assume they dropped to below £7m- again ticket income was £7.75m.  If you factor in the £3.5m transfer profit then the bulk cost of the team was less than £4m out of a £19m turnover.  The cost of the team is not the problem- it`s all the other costs which have spiralled out of control.

[/quote]

So Mr C, a business can survive long term on the basis of paying £7.4 million in players wages out of £7.8 million of income - which seems to be your view. 

Granted that someone has to:

• look after the wee little cherubs we so idolise and make sure their every little whim is catered for,
• make sure that they have a pitch to play on,
• make sure they have somewhere to practise on to ensure that the pitch is not cut up too much for the weekly games,
• make sure there is a stadium with adequate space for people to watch them to generate the £7.8 million in relative health & safety,
• make sure people are there to collect and count their ticket money
• make sure that the fans know when the club is playing,
• make sure that they can do this at night as well as in the day,
• pay the police for attending the ground (yes and/or the security firm the club partly owns),
• make sure the football licencing authorities are paid the annual fees for allowing the club to call itself a football league club,
• make sure the media feel welcome to ensure that some kind of exposure is maintained within the press / on TV & radio, just in the hope we may actually generate some kind of sponsorship / corporate support that might just keep the ball rolling.

The list could go on but I hope that you can catch the drift.  And you think that can all be done on the remaining £0.4 million.  You get my vote for Chairman - please take over immediately.

[7rew 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Mr C, can you point me to the bit in the accounts that shows that? I am not taking issue with your claim - I would be very interested to see where it comes from. Are the accounts available online or do you have to be a shareholder to see them?[/quote]

I don`t think you can get them online, and i`m not entirely sure what you`re asking me to provide, but if you`re talking about ticket income/player wages then in `07 player wages were 31% of turnover at £7.4m and ticket income was £7.7m.  We also had a parachute payment in that season and a £2m transfer profit.  In the last accounts (`08) the club decided not to give a figure for player wages, but given that overall wages fell by nearly £1m and the players were supposed to be on tiered contracts which dropped once parachute payments ended, then i think it`s safe to assume they dropped to below £7m- again ticket income was £7.75m.  If you factor in the £3.5m transfer profit then the bulk cost of the team was less than £4m out of a £19m turnover.  The cost of the team is not the problem- it`s all the other costs which have spiralled out of control.

[/quote]hmmm, I would like some more clarity on this please:Sentance one:31% turnover on player wages @ 7.4 million means that 7.7m ticket sales were 32% of our income. Why not state this?  If it is important for one figure it is surely important for both.Sentance two:2 million transfer profit being headlines fees added up, or including agent fees, signing on fess etc?Sentance three:Based supposistion, but a reasonable one and stated, no problems here.Sentance four:No no no no no.  Player wages were somewhere around 7m  from the 19m turnover, the transfer fees are part of the turnover, so you are counting that 3.5million twice here. Very bad form.Overall: Why are we comparing player wages and ticket income?  Neither figure is a particularly accurate representation of the costs involved in running the football club.Player wages: Aren''t the only wages required to be able to play football.  Wages of the management/physio etc staff and grounds staff for example are also neccesary to have a team playing.  also upkeep of the pitch itself and the power bills for the flood lights.Ticket income: Also rather irrelevant.  Some of this has to go on the up keep of the stands etc, pay the people who sell the tickets/ man the turnstiles.  More useful would be to compare the profits from match day enterprises (tickets - stadium upkeep, cost of the ticket office staff, but + the profits from programs and match day food etc).

[The Fish Seller 0]

[quote user="shefcanary"]

The list could go on but I hope that you can catch the drift.  And you think that can all be done on the remaining £0.4 million.  You get my vote for Chairman - please take over immediately.

[/quote]Go back to my list briefly.Let''s imagine for a minute that there is no football team at NCFC and

see what happens when those 11 guys do not run around the pitch.Bang goes the merchandise! profitable.Bang goes the Saturday catering revenue. profitable.Bang goes the Saturday bar take. profitable.Bang goes the Advertising revenue. profitable.Bang goes the website and Canaries World revenue. profitable.Bang goes the tv money. profitable.The above revenue schemes are all profitable in themselves and generate positive cash flows for the club and go hand in hand with fielding a team. Pay the players wages and you might have some spare change out the ticket money but you will also benefit from all the above net revenue raisers to the tune of several million £££''s pa to meet the  other costs you highlight. So if the above revenues are cash positive and the football team is cash positive in respect of ticket sales then what is causing the problem? Something at the Club is running at a large enough loss to detract from all this revenu.e

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="7rew"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"][quote user="jbghost"]

The earlier poster hit the nail on the head. No off field activity = No Norwich City. Anyone listening to Talk Sport yesterday morning would have heard that our crowd would need to be 52,000 just to pay the wage bill.

[/quote]

Again, you are probably falling for the old trick of confusing the overall wage bill with player wages.  Ticket sales easily cover the player wage bill and since relegation it has also been greatly subsidised by big year-on-year profits in the transfer market.

[/quote]

Again, you are utilising the old trick of pretending that all non-player wages are unneccesary and so the sum would be 0 if the club were well run. 

Unfortuantely this is not true by quite a long way.  Unless the figures in the accounts provide breakdowns for the profitability of each different off the field activity (canarytravel, match day food, the shops, etc etc.), which I guess they don''t or you would have been outraged by each specific example on here many times and not just argued on your own guesses about the breakdown, then you can''t tell what part if the wage bill is spent purely on (non-playing) football related staff, what part is spent on buisnesses that make the club profit (and as such should be kept [right?]) and what of those wages are wasted (spent on non-profitable ventures).

btw are you seriously suggesting that each year we make more money in the transfer markets than we did the previous year?  Possibly you ment big yearly profits in the transfer markets?

To answer another of your posts: the reason we can afford less now is due to the interest payments required to build the new stands which take up slightly more than the extra 8k attendences provide.  However I have never seen an answer from you as to how you would have avoided paying this money for the Jarrold stand (ie what better management could have been done to avaoid getting into this debt)  if there is no answer to this and it was unavoidable, given the state of the previous stand, then, I''m afraid, you have absolutely no point to your complaints about the board on this point.
[/quote]

Look, there is no way we can do a full analysis of each department of the club as we are not given enough information to do that, but we can look at what we are given and form a general impression.  It`s not too much of an exaggeration to say that in the last financial year we could hardly afford a professional football team at all and that does not suggest that all the other investments are providing funds for the team- more the opposite. 

I`m not suggesting that we make more money each year in transfers than we did the previous year, and that`s why i haven`t posted anything to indicate i think that.

The projected cost of the Jarrold stand was £8m.  Here`s a breakdown of infrastructure costs from P.8 of the `06 accounts:

2001:  £1.283m.   2002:  £1.613m   2003:  £6.621m   2004:  £9.121m   2005:  £6.872m   2006:  £3.903m    Total:  £29.413m

Now are you going to tell me that all that expenditure (plus plenty more since) was absolutely vital as i`ll accept the Jarrold stand was?  I`m sorry but just saying "you haven`t got a full breakdown of the figures, therefore your argument is invalid" is just a cop-out.  Our club is in an absolute financial mess and it is clear where our boards priorities have been and just like under Chase, it`s been a disaster.

[shefcanary 2,950]

[quote user="The Prisoner"][quote user="shefcanary"]

The list could go on but I hope that you can catch the drift.  And you think that can all be done on the remaining £0.4 million.  You get my vote for Chairman - please take over immediately.

[/quote]

Go back to my list briefly.

Let''s imagine for a minute that there is no football team at NCFC and see what happens when those 11 guys do not run around the pitch.

Bang goes the merchandise! profitable.
Bang goes the Saturday catering revenue. profitable.
Bang goes the Saturday bar take. profitable.
Bang goes the Advertising revenue. profitable.
Bang goes the website and Canaries World revenue. profitable.
Bang goes the tv money. profitable.

The above revenue schemes are all profitable in themselves and generate positive cash flows for the club and go hand in hand with fielding a team. Pay the players wages and you might have some spare change out the ticket money but you will also benefit from all the above net revenue raisers to the tune of several million £££''s pa to meet the  other costs you highlight.
So if the above revenues are cash positive and the football team is cash positive in respect of ticket sales then what is causing the problem? Something at the Club is running at a large enough loss to detract from all this revenu.e


[/quote]

Yes, agreed we can generate income in that way but all that in itself costs money to achieve, because we don''t have a Big 4 brand or an owner with bottomless pockets, and I think soemwhere up above we agreed that the club had not made a significant loss over the past ten years or so!

My comparison to the Big 4 was the key to my argument here.  If we had had the catchment area they had in the 50''s/60''s/70''s and the ability to generate big attendances to enable us to deliver a history to attract the best 11 players and manager to manage them, we could have been able to do all that without investing huge amounts.  But we don''t have a big 4 brand, and thus we have to continually invest in all of the above and off the field activity to attract the corporates / football league authorities / itenerant players and managers to treat us seriously and come here in the first plae in order to generate those profitable income streams.  Don''t do that and Cambridge Utd here we come.

Granted the old Wimbledon club managed to get right to the top of the pyramid, like we did in ''93, ob the back of being a family club but with a big rich benefactor in the shape of Sam Hamman, but look where they are now after things got a bit tough, stuck several steps down the league ladder, once again relying on someone with relatively deep pockets to begin the long climb up again.  Without the off the field activites, I''m sorry but you won''t be able to convince me otherwise, we would be down there scrapping with them.

[7rew 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Look, there is no way we can do a full analysis of each department of the club as we are not given enough information to do that, but we can look at what we are given and form a general impression.  It`s not too much of an exaggeration to say that in the last financial year we could hardly afford a professional football team at all and that does not suggest that all the other investments are providing funds for the team- more the opposite. 

I`m not suggesting that we make more money each year in transfers than we did the previous year, and that`s why i haven`t posted anything to indicate i think that.

The projected cost of the Jarrold stand was £8m.  Here`s a breakdown of infrastructure costs from P.8 of the `06 accounts:

2001:  £1.283m.   2002:  £1.613m   2003:  £6.621m   2004:  £9.121m   2005:  £6.872m   2006:  £3.903m    Total:  £29.413m

Now are you going to tell me that all that expenditure (plus plenty more since) was absolutely vital as i`ll accept the Jarrold stand was?  I`m sorry but just saying "you haven`t got a full breakdown of the figures, therefore your argument is invalid" is just a cop-out.  Our club is in an absolute financial mess and it is clear where our boards priorities have been and just like under Chase, it`s been a disaster.

[/quote]I believe that you are misunderstanding me:Well, it does rather depend on what those infrastructure projects were, doesn''t it.  Saying that it exists therefore it is a waste is also a cop out.  Included in that are the jarrold stand and the corner infill, which I guess account for more than half of it (and with our attendence expanding the ground by the infill was a no brainer.)  I would guess these projects have payed for themselves by now. As to which other ones have payed for themselves, I would have no idea, and neither do you. I would argue that any that are making a profit are woth it though.What you are ignoring is the increased cost of fielding a team which have more effect that the off the field infrastructure investment. by your own figures in this thread,  we are spending around 2 million more on player wages than we were in 2002.  This is consistent with spending £11 per seat profit per match on the playing squad''s wages, which doesn''t take into account that most of those seats had to be built in the first place.  This doesn''t strike me as much more than a stagnation in our finances.  They are not getting massively better, nor massively worse in a way that could actually be called a disaster with anything other than extreme melodrama.It was your use of the phrase year-on-year profits (profits in excess of last years profits) in relation to transfer dealings that alarmed me.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="7rew"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

[quote user="Robert N. LiM"]Mr C, can you point me to the bit in the accounts that shows that? I am not taking issue with your claim - I would be very interested to see where it comes from. Are the accounts available online or do you have to be a shareholder to see them?[/quote]

I don`t think you can get them online, and i`m not entirely sure what you`re asking me to provide, but if you`re talking about ticket income/player wages then in `07 player wages were 31% of turnover at £7.4m and ticket income was £7.7m.  We also had a parachute payment in that season and a £2m transfer profit.  In the last accounts (`08) the club decided not to give a figure for player wages, but given that overall wages fell by nearly £1m and the players were supposed to be on tiered contracts which dropped once parachute payments ended, then i think it`s safe to assume they dropped to below £7m- again ticket income was £7.75m.  If you factor in the £3.5m transfer profit then the bulk cost of the team was less than £4m out of a £19m turnover.  The cost of the team is not the problem- it`s all the other costs which have spiralled out of control.

[/quote]

hmmm, I would like some more clarity on this please:

Sentance one:
31% turnover on player wages @ 7.4 million means that 7.7m ticket sales were 32% of our income. Why not state this?  If it is important for one figure it is surely important for both.

Sentance two:
2 million transfer profit being headlines fees added up, or including agent fees, signing on fess etc?

Sentance three:
Based supposistion, but a reasonable one and stated, no problems here.

Sentance four:
No no no no no.  Player wages were somewhere around 7m  from the 19m turnover, the transfer fees are part of the turnover, so you are counting that 3.5million twice here. Very bad form.

Overall: Why are we comparing player wages and ticket income?  Neither figure is a particularly accurate representation of the costs involved in running the football club.

Player wages: Aren''t the only wages required to be able to play football.  Wages of the management/physio etc staff and grounds staff for example are also neccesary to have a team playing.  also upkeep of the pitch itself and the power bills for the flood lights.

Ticket income: Also rather irrelevant.  Some of this has to go on the up keep of the stands etc, pay the people who sell the tickets/ man the turnstiles.  More useful would be to compare the profits from match day enterprises (tickets - stadium upkeep, cost of the ticket office staff, but + the profits from programs and match day food etc).



[/quote]

All i can suggest is that you try and get hold of the annual reports and then you may grasp the bigger picture- i can only really give little snapshots posting on here.  I have no agenda, if the figures painted a picture of a club straining every financial sinew to provide as much cash as possible for the team on the pitch whilst keeping off-pitch costs to an absolute minimum then i would say that.  They don`t.

On "sentence four"- this is from the Chairmans report:  "During 2006/2007 a number of players were sold contributing a gain on sale of £3m".  On P.22 it gives the figure for "Gain on disposal of players registrations" as £3.465m.  It also states under "Cost of players registrations: Additions of £3.117 and Disposals of £6.485.

I think with all that it is fair to say that the club made a £3m plus profit on transfers in that financial year.  That is NOT included in turnover- it is treated as "exceptional".  We are told that the club has a system whereby the manager is given a budget which includes everything- wages, transfer fees, other costs etc. therefore if we are prepared to accept that player wages were about £7m it is entirely accurate and relevant to include the £3m overall transfer profit in that budget ie: the team cost about £4m out of a £19m turnover.

[Mr.Carrow 394]

[quote user="7rew"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Look, there is no way we can do a full analysis of each department of the club as we are not given enough information to do that, but we can look at what we are given and form a general impression.  It`s not too much of an exaggeration to say that in the last financial year we could hardly afford a professional football team at all and that does not suggest that all the other investments are providing funds for the team- more the opposite. 

I`m not suggesting that we make more money each year in transfers than we did the previous year, and that`s why i haven`t posted anything to indicate i think that.

The projected cost of the Jarrold stand was £8m.  Here`s a breakdown of infrastructure costs from P.8 of the `06 accounts:

2001:  £1.283m.   2002:  £1.613m   2003:  £6.621m   2004:  £9.121m   2005:  £6.872m   2006:  £3.903m    Total:  £29.413m

Now are you going to tell me that all that expenditure (plus plenty more since) was absolutely vital as i`ll accept the Jarrold stand was?  I`m sorry but just saying "you haven`t got a full breakdown of the figures, therefore your argument is invalid" is just a cop-out.  Our club is in an absolute financial mess and it is clear where our boards priorities have been and just like under Chase, it`s been a disaster.

[/quote]

I believe that you are misunderstanding me:
Well, it does rather depend on what those infrastructure projects were, doesn''t it.  Saying that it exists therefore it is a waste is also a cop out.  Included in that are the jarrold stand and the corner infill, which I guess account for more than half of it (and with our attendence expanding the ground by the infill was a no brainer.)  I would guess these projects have payed for themselves by now. As to which other ones have payed for themselves, I would have no idea, and neither do you. I would argue that any that are making a profit are woth it though.

What you are ignoring is the increased cost of fielding a team which have more effect that the off the field infrastructure investment. by your own figures in this thread,  we are spending around 2 million more on player wages than we were in 2002.  This is consistent with spending £11 per seat profit per match on the playing squad''s wages, which doesn''t take into account that most of those seats had to be built in the first place.  This doesn''t strike me as much more than a stagnation in our finances.  They are not getting massively better, nor massively worse in a way that could actually be called a disaster with anything other than extreme melodrama.

It was your use of the phrase year-on-year profits (profits in excess of last years profits) in relation to transfer dealings that alarmed me.
[/quote]

This really does seem futile- i`ve listed all the infrastructure projects which were clearly non-vital dozens of times before: the millions spent on land, roads, new pitch, ticket office, Jarrold stand refurb., Colney conservatory and gym equipment are just a few of the things which do not directly increase the revenue of the club.

Yes, we do spend around £2m more on the team than in `02 but my point is that in that year we didn`t have to rely on huge transfer profits to pay a large chunk of it.  We could afford £5.2m in `02 and still turn a profit yet now we can only afford £4m according to Doncaster.  Do you think he`s lying?  Does this indicate that all the expensive non-football projects instigated since then (and largely responsible for our debt) are increasingly contributing money for players or not?

Sorry, but saying year-on-year profits does not mean "profits in excess of last years profits".  If i`d meant that i would have posted "increasing year-on-year profits".

[Barclay_Boy 0]

[quote user="Matt Juler"][quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Yeah, venture capitalists have got a great rep at the moment.....[8-)]

It has been an absolutely disastrous policy for us an we even had a precedent not to follow after what happened with Chase.

[/quote]
You are deluded, if it wasn''t for our off the field activities this football club would have ceased to exist many many years ago.[/quote]

and you say someone else is deluded?????????????????????????????????????????????????

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]land, roads, new pitch, ticket office, Jarrold stand refurb., Colney conservatory and gym equipment[/quote]Land I grant you, I can''t see the purpose of that.  Yet.  Road was neccesary to allow people to get to the hotel which will provide income to the club at some point.  New pitch & ticket office - built at the time we were going into the Prem ?  Premiership clubs need Premiership facilities.  Gym equipment, is this for the players ?  Anything at Colney is hard to argue against because it''s the working environment of the players.  People like to work somewhere nice - you aren''t going to sign Ched Evans on loan if you tell him he''s got to run over Mousehold 3 times a week these days.

[O.T.B.C 1]

Ah, Mr Carrow, the man who thinks he knows the whole in''s and out''s of our finances. Where would we be with out him.