Latest club accounts

[Barry the bird boggler]

So, where's all the money really gone then?

[Ian Royal]

So, where's all the money really gone then?

To pay off Prince Phillip's loan which he used to bribe MI6 to kill Diane and Dodi.

[FiNeRaIn]

Yeah, where the fcuk is Royal Blue anyway?

Ignoring anything that doesn't conform to his view? Finerain also notable in his absence.

PS: great article.

Just seen the update to the thread. I'll have a look shortly.

[melonhead]

tis a very good article.


wont make the blindest bit of difference

like he says if you believe the accounts are being fiddled in an Nron kind of way, stop reading here

[Extended-Phenotype]

The last point of the article is rather spurious – surely higher wages are being spent on better players? The author can’t be seriously suggesting just paying your players more money will improve your position! Here Jem Karacan, here’s another 100k a year. Now be a creative midfielder.

I could be wrong, but I’m not sure many fans WERE asking where the money had gone; aren't most just wanting a little more faith to be shown in the team by replacing lost stars with more quality - JM injecting a little more or RFC running at a slightly bigger loss?

If anything, this report shows Reading have plenty of room to operate at a larger loss with JM being the major creditor (the author assures us that because of this, even if our debts exceed our assets the club won’t go insolvent – plus, JM ‘injects’ money into the club simply by reducing his own bill).

So I’m still keen for us to bring in a player of proven ability to make an immediate impact, with the faith that our team which has consistently finished circa play-offs would only improve with a good signing, and our accounts more than capable of withstanding the debt.

[Royal Rother]

If anything, this report shows Reading have plenty of room to operate at a larger loss with JM being the major creditor (the author assures us that because of this, even if our debts exceed our assets the club won’t go insolvent – plus, JM ‘injects’ money into the club simply by reducing his own bill).
.

Could you clarify that please?

[Bandini]

The last point of the article is rather spurious – surely higher wages are being spent on better players? The author can’t be seriously suggesting just paying your players more money will improve your position! Here Jem Karacan, here’s another 100k a year. Now be a creative midfielder.

If, of course, he's a £100K better this season than the previous season, paying him a higher wage to reflect that improvement and to tie him to a longer term contact isn't spurious at all.

[FiNeRaIn]

What the accounts confirm is that even after we have sold most of our recognised quality players we are still paying MASSIVELY over the odds on wages, which is frankly quite worrying. Who negotiates these contracts...good grief.

No qualms as to where the money has actually gone...we keep having to sell our best players to...well...pay for all the average ones.

[Extended-Phenotype]

The last point of the article is rather spurious – surely higher wages are being spent on better players? The author can’t be seriously suggesting just paying your players more money will improve your position! Here Jem Karacan, here’s another 100k a year. Now be a creative midfielder.

If, of course, he's a £100K better this season than the previous season, paying him a higher wage to reflect that improvement and to tie him to a longer term contact isn't spurious at all.

It IS spurious when the statistic is being used to make the point that wages are more significant than signings in terms of table position. Wages simply aren’t the factor, which even you stress in your point – to correct his argument, quality/performing footballers are more significant than transfers in table position. Which is a silly point to make, really.

If you don’t HAVE the quality footballers whom deserve more wages, then transfers are your option – not wage increases - the two factors are incomparible.

[Bandini]

The last point of the article is rather spurious – surely higher wages are being spent on better players? The author can’t be seriously suggesting just paying your players more money will improve your position! Here Jem Karacan, here’s another 100k a year. Now be a creative midfielder.

If, of course, he's a £100K better this season than the previous season, paying him a higher wage to reflect that improvement and to tie him to a longer term contact isn't spurious at all.

It IS spurious when the statistic is being used to make the point that wages are more significant than signings in terms of table position. Wages simply aren’t the factor, which even you stress in your point – to correct his argument, quality/performing footballers are more significant than transfers in table position. Which is a silly point to make, really.

If you don’t HAVE the quality footballers whom deserve more wages, then transfers are your option – not wage increases - the two factors are incomparible.

The comparison is that transfers and wages have to come out of the same pot of money; the more the club spends on transfers the less it can spend on wages. The club needs to spend money on both in order to assemble and maintain a competitive squad and obviously from time to time the proportion spent on transfers as against wages will increase or decrease.

[Hoop Blah]

To be fair to the 'where's the money gone' lot these accounts don't really show where all the Premier League money's gone because they don't include a penny of it (bar Stephen Hunt's transfer payments from Hull).

I've never doubted that the accounts were accurate or that the club/SJM were taking money out of the club etc (for the record) but I have bemoaned the way we've spent some of it. Dirk said the other day that we're the most efficient spenders of our resources in the league. I'm still not sure that's the case considering the income we've had over the last 5 or so years and the postion we're in. Our wages have been pretty top dollar since we got relegated but we're not back in the Premier League (no bad thing in many ways I might add) and we've not got players of the quality we used to have. Others who have paid less than us have outperformed us.

Nice overview of the accounts though. I might've concentrated on the football clubs accounts as opposed to the holding company itself, but considering the often asked questions over the hotel this view might be better.

[Red]

Suddenly we all fancy ourselves at accountants do we

Stick to champ man guys

[Extended-Phenotype]

I’m just going by what the article said:

“In short, the
more you pay for your players in wages, the higher you will finish; but what you pay for them in
transfer fees doesn’t seem to make much difference.”

You don’t “assemble” a good team by paying them more wages. You assemble a good squad through your academy and by transfers. Paying higher wages is not an alternative strategy unless you already have players worth paying highly for already.

Even this seems counter-intuitive with regards to Reading, as we don’t seem willing to keep players either.

It’s all very well saying we pay competitive wages but if all the players worth high wages are sold, who are we spending high wages on?

I’d have far more confidence in articles like this if they would show just an inkling of impartiality, rather than a big Hooray spoilt by flawed logic from one of JM’s mates.

[westendgirl]

The last point of the article is rather spurious – surely higher wages are being spent on better players? The author can’t be seriously suggesting just paying your players more money will improve your position! Here Jem Karacan, here’s another 100k a year. Now be a creative midfielder.

I took the relevance to be that all those on here who say we show no ambition unless we spend a lot on transfers should maybe concentrate more on the wage structure. I agree there is no point in just paying more for the sake of it but there seems even less for paying transfer fees for the sake of it.

[Extended-Phenotype]

I don't think anyone is suggesting the club pay more in transfers for the sake of it.

It's not like we are all going to be happy with Manset if he cost us 5m - we still ended up with Manset - and nobody is going to moan if we signed Messi for 25K.

[Bandini]

I’m just going by what the article said:

“In short, the
more you pay for your players in wages, the higher you will finish; but what you pay for them in
transfer fees doesn’t seem to make much difference.”

You don’t “assemble” a good team by paying them more wages. You assemble a good squad through your academy and by transfers. Paying higher wages is not an alternative strategy unless you already have players worth paying highly for already.

Even this seems counter-intuitive with regards to Reading, as we don’t seem willing to keep players either.

It’s all very well saying we pay competitive wages but if all the players worth high wages are sold, who are we spending high wages on?

I’d have far more confidence in articles like this if they would show just an inkling of impartiality, rather than a big Hooray spoilt by flawed logic from one of JM’s mates.

Paying wages which are appropriate to the players' worth is an alternative strategy, and its a strategy the club has been attempting to execute since, at least, the second season in the premiership when Coppell opted, as far as possible, to keep the squad together.

[Hoop Blah]

I posted this on another thread the other day. Some of it may be more relevant here.

I do wonder how much money we waste on the lesser players and how much we do pay our top earners. We're always told on here (I think you're one of those who put forward the argument at times) that the club won't pay too much because we're a team without stars and the wage reflects that and it's a strength that we're all in it together blah blah blah. You're post would seem to contradict that though, not that I think you're wrong this time of course.

In terms of us being the masters of efficient use of money and resources, I've done a little bit of digging on this. The only way I can really see to measure this is to look at how well we spend our money and turn that into league performance. I think our source of income is more honest and sustainable than others but at the end of the day that doesn't translate into points.

The below is a selection of turnover/wages/finishing positions from the 2009/2010 Championship. I've not included Newcastle or West Brom who went up 1st and 2nd.

Forest - 14.6m turnover, 15.6m wages, finished 3rd
Cardiff - 15m, 16m, 4th
Leicester - 16.2m, 14.4m, 5th
Swansea, 10m, 7.5m, 7th
Sheff U, 15m, 16.7m, 8th
Reading, 27m, 18.2m, 9th
QPR, 18.2m, 14.3m, 13th
Derby, 29.7m, 14.3m, 14th
Ipswich, 15.6m, 17m, 15th
Watford, 11.25m, 10.8m, 16th

The above doesn't show how much those clubs spent on transfer fees, just how much they paid the staff. What was interesting for me was that apart from Newcastle and West Brom (I assume they were paying a lot more than us so didn't look) we were the club with the highest wage bill but we finished 9th (the Rodgers/post-Coppell clear-out effect).

I've not done the same for 2009, although I might, but I have looked at the majority of the wage bills for that season and only Boro (£33m) appear to have paid out more than us (£25m). Even Birmingham (£23.6m), Wolves (£16.7m) and Sheff U (£20m) paid less than us in wages that season.

It does dispel the myth that we're poor payers in this league too.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

What the accounts confirm is that even after we have sold most of our recognised quality players we are still paying MASSIVELY over the odds on wages, which is frankly quite worrying. Who negotiates these contracts...good grief.

"over the odds" would indicate that clubs in a similar position have considerably lower wage bills. I doubt that's the case.

It's more that there are so many clubs that have no interest in balancing the books pushing the wages higher and higher.

One of JM's complaints was that our squad was too big, and he probably has a point.

Then again, I'm sure we do have some players on salaries more suited to the premier league. If the rumours are true (could be complete nonsense) then Kebe wants to be the highest earner at the club. Given that we signed him as a premier league club, it's a little alarming if he isn't that already.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Paying wages which are appropriate to the players' worth is an alternative strategy, and its a strategy the club has been attempting to execute since, at least, the second season in the premiership when Coppell opted, as far as possible, to keep the squad together.

It’s fine if you have stars in place, but you don’t turn average footballers into stars simply by paying them more. And what do clubs pay transferred players? Chocolate coins?

It isn’t an alternative strategy. It’s just another factor in running a club. There is no point have the ability to pay players competitively, if they are all shite.

PS - I'm not suggesting the Reading players are shite...

[Hoop Blah]

What the accounts confirm is that even after we have sold most of our recognised quality players we are still paying MASSIVELY over the odds on wages, which is frankly quite worrying. Who negotiates these contracts...good grief.

"over the odds" would indicate that clubs in a similar position have considerably lower wage bills. I doubt that's the case.

It's more that there are so many clubs that have no interest in balancing the books pushing the wages higher and higher.

One of JM's complaints was that our squad was too big, and he probably has a point.

Then again, I'm sure we do have some players on salaries more suited to the premier league. If the rumours are true (could be complete nonsense) then Kebe wants to be the highest earner at the club. Given that we signed him as a premier league club, it's a little alarming if he isn't that already.

Kebe probably would've had to take the 40% pay cut that was supposedly across the board on relegation from the Premier League. Some players were then encouraged to stay and signed new contracts, presumably on the Premier League wages (c. £25k basic) and I don't think Kebe would've been one of those.

Pretty sure he's had at least one contract renewal since then though so he'll probably be one of our higher earners already, he just wants more.