The land behind the Jarrold stand.........

[BigFish 1,986]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Lol YC.

As of next season twenty of those clubs will be either one or two leagues above us.  Three will be in the same league (if you include MkDons as "Wimbledon").  Only one will be below us.  Eighteen of those clubs have a lower average attendance than us.

Good argument.....[:|]

[/quote]

I think if you were a Wimbledon supporter you would be most upset at someone counting MKDons as the same club!!

[Desert Fox 0]

BF,

It wont be that long before AFC are playing in the same division as us, never mind MK Dons who could get promoted this year.

[T 190]

[quote user="Desert Fox"]

T,

You sound like someone who is perhaps closely involved in this project.

[/quote]

or perhaps someone closely involved with investment decisions making

[Mr.Carrow 376]

[quote user="T"][quote user="Desert Fox"]

T,

You sound like someone who is perhaps closely involved in this project.

[/quote]

or perhaps someone closely involved with investment decisions making

[/quote]

Like a paid advisor to the club, you mean?

[Desert Fox 0]

Mr C,

I was thinking more along the lines of someone employed by the club!!

Surely no adviser to this calamity would ever have the nerve to poke the head above the parapet.

[T 190]

You don''t need to be adviser or employee to see that the arguments on this thread are illogical. Whether it is a good decision at the time or long term I can''t say as I''m not privy to the information as others aren''t. I can understand that the club needs to raise other sources of cash to compete. Where would you seek to raise cash? What I can say is that including the cost of the car park in the calculation of the profit/loss on the land is a schoolboy error as anyone who understands investment decisions knows.

[Desert Fox 0]

T,

I am afraid your knowledge of this scheme and other off the field activities is a little too close to the bone for me to believe that you are not connected.

I have not included the car park in any calculations or posted any calculations- I believe that is TFA''s territory. However, far from enabling us to compete these speculatiev off the field activites are actually having the opposite effect in that they are requiring the playing bugdet to be constrained. As Mr C has pointed out many times, the size of our affordable playing budget relative to our resources is a complete joke and not an unconnected random event.

[T 190]

You mean the off field activites which are profitable per the accounts , which all clubs undertake to varying degrees,  Man U being an extreme example where the commercial activites are the key source of revenue, and without which we would be even worse off? The fact is that for all clubs ticket revenue is not enough to cover a competitive player budget and the operating costs so where would you raise the additional cash to run the club?

[Desert Fox 0]

T,

I am curious to which version of the accounts you refer to. There is the statutory accounts which do not contain segmental reporting and then there is the management accounts, which cough cough, are only available to the management. Pray tell me how you have access to this information?

As for the argument that a club with our turnover can compete with the likes of Swansea, Plymouth, Blackpool etc, the words ''stuck'' and ''record'' spring to mind.

[T 190]

The mgmt accounts published by the Board which reconcile to the audited accounts.

The arguments that football clubs are an investment opportunity, that football clubs should not seek to raise additional sources of income, or that business including football clubs should not spend money on fixed assets makes about much sense as if I was to argue that the club''s football performance in recent years is satisfactory.  

Again, how would you fill the funding gap to make the club competitive?

[Desert Fox 0]

T,

Lets be clear about something. The Management accounts are not published by the Board. They are internal to the management and are not in the public domain. Please tell me how you have got access to this information?

[T 190]

You are correct the detailed mgmt accounts are not published but summary mgmt accounts showing the profit/loss by activity i.e. what you would expect to see in the mgmt accounts was published in the edp. This showed that other activites make a positive contribution. The debate has moved on. The land deal which costs the club 300k a year in interest is the one which is open to question.

[Desert Fox 0]

T,

At last we are getting somewhere.

Unlike statutory accounts, management accounts are not audited and do not follow any set format. They are simply to inform the managment in the running of the business. As such, they can present information however the Board wishes to show it.

Specifically, it is unusual for mamagment accounts to fully apportion overheads to each budget and there are normally reported at the corporate level. Therefore, each income generating budget should be making a healthy contribution to overheads and may appear profitable.

The information reported in the EDP by Doomy was not a set of management accounts, but rather an analysis which was attempting to convey a story that he wished to present. This analysis could have been cut a number of different ways to present different stories. I would love to have access to the management accounts because I am sure that I would be able to present a story that was radically different to Dommy''s. For instance, I have a strong suspsicion that the non-match day catering operation is a drain on the club, but without the management accounts will never be able to prove it. On the contrary, you feell confident to claim that the off the pitch activies are supporting the playing budget simply on the back of Doomy''s bag of the fag packet job. There is simply not enough information in his analysis to make this judgement, unless of course you have inside information.

The ''debate has moved on''. Really? I note that you have not denied that pattern of your posting over a period of time suggests that you are a club insider

 

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]The information reported in the EDP by Doomy was not a set of

management accounts, but rather an analysis which was attempting to

convey a story that he wished to present. This analysis could have been

cut a number of different ways to present different stories. I would

love to have access to the management accounts because I am sure that I

would be able to present a story that was radically different to

Dommy''s. For instance, I have a strong suspsicion that the non-match

day catering operation is a drain on the club, but without the

management accounts will never be able to prove it.[/quote]Have you considered offering your financial services to the club, free of charge, as a concerned supporter ?  Can you imagine the hoo-hah you could create after they spurn your advances ?

[The Butler 0]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]The information reported in the EDP by Doomy was not a set of management accounts, but rather an analysis which was attempting to convey a story that he wished to present. This analysis could have been cut a number of different ways to present different stories. I would love to have access to the management accounts because I am sure that I would be able to present a story that was radically different to Dommy''s. For instance, I have a strong suspsicion that the non-match day catering operation is a drain on the club, but without the management accounts will never be able to prove it.[/quote]

Have you considered offering your financial services to the club, free of charge, as a concerned supporter ?  Can you imagine the hoo-hah you could create after they spurn your advances ?
[/quote]

MEOOW

[Desert Fox 0]

Hooray! BlahBlahBlah to the rescue once again. Whenever a club insider boxes him/herself into a corner, you appear on your charger with precisely what I am not sure.

''T'' has made some claims which I would love to see backed up. The only information that he/she can provide is not in the public domain. Draw your own conclusions.

All I am after is an objective debate, but of course that is too threatening, henc ethe likes of you and Lappinitup appear on the scene to try and make it look like a joke. Well I am not laughimng about our current position and frankly I am disturbed by how much time the club is spending on this site trying to cover their tracks.

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="Desert Fox"]

Hooray! BlahBlahBlah to the rescue once again. Whenever a club insider boxes him/herself into a corner, you appear on your charger with precisely what I am not sure.

''T'' has made some claims which I would love to see backed up. The only information that he/she can provide is not in the public domain. Draw your own conclusions.

All I am after is an objective debate, but of course that is too threatening, henc ethe likes of you and Lappinitup appear on the scene to try and make it look like a joke. Well I am not laughimng about our current position and frankly I am disturbed by how much time the club is spending on this site trying to cover their tracks.

[/quote]DFYou misread my intentions.  There appear to be 4 or 5 capable finance bods on this forum with an understanding that outstrips mine.  If you all got your heads together and made a proposal to help the club free of charge as a group of concerned supporters, how could they turn you away ?

[Desert Fox 0]

BBB,

Thats not how it read and you know that the club would not welcome this.

Care to comment T?

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="Desert Fox"]

BBB,

Thats not how it read and you know that the club would not welcome this.

Care to comment T?

[/quote]...And when the club doesn''t welcome it you can go to Archant and say that a group of respected members of the business community and concerned fans have been turned away, which creates another drip after Cullum and Tweed.  Win - win on your part, surely ?

[T 190]

The mgmt accounts do tie into the audited accounts but I agree that any set accounts is open to different allocations. However, unfortunately again we have a logic error. It is literally day one finance that apportioning overheads is entirely arbitary so what matters is whether a business activity makes a contribution to cash/covering overheads. In which case the other activities are making a direct contribution. There are only activites which other clubs commonly undertake anyway. I do appreciate that you are honest enough to admit that your opinion is based on prejudice rather than the information available. What is your basis for assuming that non-match catering is not profitable. If it is there for match days anyway then providing it makes a contribution on non-match days then it is worth doing. In any case I understood the catering facilities were financed directly by the directors. I suspect that either way it does not make a hugh difference one or the other.

I have said repeatedly said that I have no affiliation with the club in any form other than as a fan and I would be delighted if someone else appropriate with more financial clout took over the club and ultimately I hold the club''s director''s responsible for our current position. However, I do agree with PC that some of the criticism is unfair and unkind. More to the point as far as I''m concerned is that a lot of the financial criticism as you have been honest enough to admit is based on a selective emotional  appraisal rather than a logical analysis consistent with the generally accepted views on finance and football finance in particular. My biggest concern is why should anyone put money into the club when football is not a viable business as PC said when all you get is unwarranted abuse in return i.e. the fans are inadvertantly preventing a much needed new cash injection. I don''t use the word investment because it most certainly isn''t when it comes to football.

I''ve tried to answer your question so now mine - how would you address the cash shortfall commonly experienced by nearly all football clubs? 

 

[YankeeCanary 0]

[quote user="Mr.Carrow"]

Lol YC.

As of next season twenty of those clubs will be either one or two leagues above us.  Three will be in the same league (if you include MkDons as "Wimbledon").  Only one will be below us.  Eighteen of those clubs have a lower average attendance than us.

Good argument.....[:|]

[/quote]

Mr. Carrow, you will do almost anything to create a false argument as long as it reflects poorly against NCFC. Take a look again at the argument I was making, not the one I wasn''t. Cherub''s point, which I higlighted, was the criticism of Chase''s approach because what it yielded "was peanuts compared to what we would have received if we had stayed in the Premiership", with "if" being the operative word. What I pointed out was that if staying in the Premiership was so easy then why did the 25 clubs I cited get relegated from the Premiership? Now, if you''re really interested in giving Norwich fans perpective on best financial practices for football clubs why don''t you try and answer that question. I mean, after all, Cherub''s point was that all this money is just sitting there in the Premiership waiting to be picked up.

 

[Desert Fox 0]

T,

I am afraid that I simply dont believe that you are not connected to the club. You have made too many statements that are not in the public arena.

As for what I would differently as aposed to limply pumping in more cash to the business:

1. Review the cost effectiveness of the academy. This ought to be self financing in producing a conveyor belt of young talent, but has simply not done the job in recent years. This may be controversial, but the reality is we could be stuck in division 3 for some time and could face year upon year falling revenues.

2. Radically reduce non-playing costs, including the club administartion and the catering empire (which I am sure is not likley to make any significant return relative its cost of capital).

3. Bring in a thrid party to develop the land so that either a revenue stream is developed more quickly or a cpaital receipt to offset the debt. This would generate an immediate reduction in the debt repayment. We should also look at refinancing, but I do concede that this would be very difficult in the short term.

4. Raise fresh quity from the fans with the specific intent of using this to pay down debt and reducing the veto of the majority shareholders below 50%. This would need to be a rate that reflects the real netw orth of the club, not £30 per share.

5. Look at generating more revneue from the ground during the summer months (concerts etc) or non-playing days. Although this would only be a small earner, we should do guided tours, meet the players and have lunch days.

6. Reduce the dependence on loans and the transaction costs these bring.

7. Cash in on anybody who has a decent value in the squad and immediately reinvest 100% of this in up and coming players from less well placed clubs - Peterborough have been very sucessful in doing this over the last few years. This of course means developing a more effective scouting netowrk than we have had recently. This will not be popular with many fans, but will need to urgently improve our football ''balance sheet'' and rediscover a astrategy that did us well in the Ken Brown/Dave Stringer days.

8. Similarly, many other teams are picking up some good overseas players for not much cost, precisely through havng a good overseas network - look at Swansea for instance.

9. Look at outsourcing or cost sharing for certain departments such as finance, HR, PR and box office. Big local employers like NU and the County Council may eb open to cost sharing back off functions. We should be looking to match as many costs as possible to revenue rather than having staff on permanent contracts. For example, what do the box office staff do during the summer. Do we really need a team of 5 PR staff?

10. Utilisie the talents of the associate directors and local business community. The recent letter from Mr Bertram was one of the best pieces of constructive dialogue re our club that I have seen in a long time.

11. Suspend all non-urgent capex for the next three years in order to ensure that we free up resources for the playing squad to get back up to the CCC as quickly as possible - I cant stress how vital this will be to shoring up our revenue base.

12. Look to build overseas relationships - either through growing an international fan base or developer a feeder relationship with an overseas club. For example, we could aim to tour say in a specific region of China every year for 3 to 5 years to attempt to build up an overseas fan base. We tour anyway and the internatioanl costs would not be significant.

13. Look at using seat debentures to create an immediate fund to reduce debt. Yes this would reduce future season ticket revenue, but this is about the sequencing of cashflow.

14. Look for a longer term relationship with Aviva re sponsorship, stadium naming rights, selling of financial products and most critically, restructuring the debt.

15. Make the players work much harder off the pitch. They could be a source of additional revenue generation and along with the ground, are our most under utilised asset. Player sponsored events could generate significant marginal income.

16. Consolidate retail outlets - do we need two full time shops a mile apart. I assume that the rent on the Castle Mall site is not cheap, and I would be interested to discover how much this is generating on a net basis, especially as it willbe cannibalising sales from the ground.

17. Make much more effctive use of e-commerce, to reduce both overheads and build up a more effective b2c operation. Our extended fanbase worldwde is another under untilsied asset.

18. Reduce player travelling costs - if I recall this was a surpising high cost in Doomy''s recent analysis. Our players are too cosseted and they need to face the reality of Div 3.

19. Reveiew the scope for tax optimisation of the corporate structure of the club, particulalry in relation to VAT recovery.

20. Develop a long term financial strategy which is openly communicated with the fans. The club has alienated too many members of its customer base, and this would be a vehicle for building confidence and building bridges with them. More importantly, this does not cost anything.

21. Build on the Charlton beam back event and pilot to establish whether this could generate a viable revenue stream for all away matches. This would not canibalise club income and potentially generate decent returns on catering, subject to media rights and set up costs.

22. Tighten up contractual terms so that sacking mamagers dosnt cost us so much. Its not like we pick managers who have lots of bargaining power is it?

23. Look for commercial partners who will take a share in income generation/branding for no up front costs.

24. Review scope for energy usage optimisation - solar power given from the unsused roof space. This will not have an immediate payback, so may need a thrid party partner. Water from bore hole if this is not already done.

25. Bring back the reserve team - but instead play rotational games in places like Lynn, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Cambridge etc to try to build a bigger fan base in peripheral areas.

26. Use the fan base as a source of debt financing. Most fans get virtually nil interest on their savings and teh club is paying crica 7% on its debt. Why not direct market (will need a partner like N&P or Aviva) and split the difference.

I appreciate that this list is eclectic and scatter gun like, but this is just top of my head and hopefully is intended that there are a number of constructive approaches available to the club. No doubt many of these ideas may not be achieveable once inside information becomes available, but I am trying to be positive. I am sure you will fun knocking down as many of these as possible.

[T 190]

DF,

I sincerely applaud your post which is one of the best I''ve seeen in ages as it really is constructive rather than the usual quite frankly negative emotional illogical drivel that is posted which serves absolutely no purpose. Why not send to the Board as they are certainly worth considering?

You are still 100% wrong on one particular matter. It could just be that whilst I can totally understand the current emotional responses they are largely illogical and do not serve any constructive purpose unlike your last post.

 

[blahblahblah 2]

Thoroughly agree T - DFs'' last post would make a good starting point for anyone looking to implement change at the club, there are some points that I''d argue against, but that is the nature of the beast.DF - why not copy that post onto a new thread for all and sundry to dissect ?  I''m sure there will be takers - it might get missed on the 9th page here.

[blahblahblah 2]

Er, sorry, make that 6th page...

[Tangible Fixed Assets anyone? 0]

Its time the spin department took a rest.

 

[T 190]

I agree you should give stop trying to propogate the same old myths

[lappinitup 629]

[quote user="Tangible Fixed Assets anyone"]Its time the spin department took a rest.[/quote]Thank goodness for that, you have been spending far too much time on here lately! [;)]

[GMF 742]

Frankly, there seems too much time spent on working out the costs associated with the development of the multi storey car park, when the crux of the matter is:-

A) The Club are highly unlikely to develop the car park themselves.

B) The land was allocated as a multi storey car park as part of a much wider Planning Brief which was needed to secure that wider planning permission, as the planning application did not accord with the provisions of the Local Plan, so consent wouldn''t be forthcoming without an approved Planning Brief.

C) Just because the site was allocated as a car park, doesn''t mean that a car park has to be built on it. Planning Permission are time sensitive and lapse if development doesn''t commence within the permissable period.

D) It follows on, if the thing isn''t financially viable, why would any developer want to bid for the site in the first place and, perhaps more importantly, why would the Club agree to sell the land to the car park operator to develop out?  The Club can do similar apprasials to any developer and if it doesn''t stack up, they''d be negligent to sell.

[GMF 742]

DF, following on from your excellent post, if you really believe that certain aspects of the Club''s operations are not profitable, are you seriously suggesting that the Club''s officers are negligent in continuing to persue such activities?