Club Financial Statement

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

When the accounts for the year end to June 2009 are published it will all be as clear as mud.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

I would hazard a guess that the money from the sales of Kitson, Shorey, Sonko disaapeared into our income that helped pay the huge wage bill we had last season, and hence why we had to offload those high earners this summer.

Last time we were there the wage bill was just under £10m, so double would be almost £20m, £11m from parachute and £10m from sales, tho of course that would not all have been recieved at the time of the sale, tho we would be receiving cash from other sales in the past, if we are to believe it does not all come up front, how you must all love finances

[Victor Meldrew]

Looking at the numbers again.
Players 42
Football Management & coaching staff 57
Admin staff 96
Isn't it all a bit top heavy on the non-playing staff?
Presumably with all the cost cutting of recent times we will one day see much reduced numbers in all areas?

I would still like to see an explanation of those massive "infrastrucure" costs at nearly £7.5 million when the tangle assets come to less than £60million.
Has anybody seen the extension to the ground or any other massive changes around the ground?

[Sun Tzu]

Looking at the numbers again.
Players 42
Football Management & coaching staff 57
Admin staff 96
Isn't it all a bit top heavy on the non-playing staff?
Presumably with all the cost cutting of recent times we will one day see much reduced numbers in all areas?

I would still like to see an explanation of those massive "infrastrucure" costs at nearly £7.5 million when the tangle assets come to less than £60million.
Has anybody seen the extension to the ground or any other massive changes around the ground?

There's a pretty chunky 3 story addition to the ground on the South West side - wrongly called a media suite but actually it houses most of the people who run the club and other things. Before it was built people were housed all over the place, some in what was no more than a broom cupboard. 100% necessary ? Possibly not, but it must make the place more efficient.
Hogwood has also had a lot of work on it. Again probably not strictly necessary but the story has always been that becasue we don't play top wages we try and make sure the players are offered the best facilities.

The numbers for coaches etc would almost certainly include all the coaches down through the age groups so the comparison of player to coaches is a bit false. If you assume we run a dozen teams all told then 3 coaches per team (which woul dbe under at the top level and over at the lower end) is maybe not so excessive.

[Victor Meldrew]

Looking at the numbers again.
Players 42
Football Management & coaching staff 57
Admin staff 96
Isn't it all a bit top heavy on the non-playing staff?
Presumably with all the cost cutting of recent times we will one day see much reduced numbers in all areas?

I would still like to see an explanation of those massive "infrastrucure" costs at nearly £7.5 million when the tangle assets come to less than £60million.
Has anybody seen the extension to the ground or any other massive changes around the ground?

There's a pretty chunky 3 story addition to the ground on the South West side - wrongly called a media suite but actually it houses most of the people who run the club and other things. Before it was built people were housed all over the place, some in what was no more than a broom cupboard. 100% necessary ? Possibly not, but it must make the place more efficient.

Good to hear there is some visible evidence of infrastrucure expenditure.
BTW just heard from a source that in the past has come up with accurate stuff that the sale of the club is not far off and we are talking of Asian owners and not Arabs.
Interesting to see whether they will spend money on the playing side now that the infrastructure is well up to speed.
It still sounds like a hell of a lot of coaches and admin staff to me.
Hogwood has also had a lot of work on it. Again probably not strictly necessary but the story has always been that becasue we don't play top wages we try and make sure the players are offered the best facilities.

The numbers for coaches etc would almost certainly include all the coaches down through the age groups so the comparison of player to coaches is a bit false. If you assume we run a dozen teams all told then 3 coaches per team (which woul dbe under at the top level and over at the lower end) is maybe not so excessive.

[Sun Tzu]

It still sounds like a hell of a lot of coaches and admin staff to me.
-----------
Most of the coaches won't be full timers. I'm also not too sure how the Community Scheme fits into things. Used to be at least partly funded by the PFA IIRC but that covers a fair few coaches who spend their time out in schools.

If the admin staff figures are for the holding company that would of course take in the hotel and conference centre ( I think, although the Conf Centre people may well actually be Compass employees in the main). It may also include groundstaff, maintenance people, IT etc etc. I don;t think it woul dbe too hard to make it up to that sort of number, again not all might be full time although matchday staff are listed seperately.

[Wycombe Royal]

I would hazard a guess that the money from the sales of Kitson, Shorey, Sonko disaapeared into our income that helped pay the huge wage bill we had last season, and hence why we had to offload those high earners this summer.

Last time we were there the wage bill was just under £10m, so double would be almost £20m, £11m from parachute and £10m from sales, tho of course that would not all have been recieved at the time of the sale, tho we would be receiving cash from other sales in the past, if we are to believe it does not all come up front, how you must all love finances

I'm pretty sure the wage bill for last season would have been higher than £20m.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Well why not release the figure, it would not have been difficult, they said double, i cant see why they would mean a lot more than double.

[Wycombe Royal]

Well why not release the figure

Because the accounts for the year ending 30/6/09 haven't been produced yet.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Nope they are allowed to release approx figures, so they could have said £22m or £25m for the year to end of Jun 09, same a stheyy are happy to release other figures, but they chose not to

[Ian Royal]

Why should they bother. Give all the minute details and they get accused of trying to hide things in details and make it impossible to understand. Release a summary and keep it simple and they're trying to hide something by not giving us all the information.

Some people have made their minds up regardless what the club say. You can't accuse the club of not being open now though. What other club would have done this?

[Uke]

Why should they bother. Give all the minute details and they get accused of trying to hide things in details and make it impossible to understand. Release a summary and keep it simple and they're trying to hide something by not giving us all the information.

Some people have made their minds up regardless what the club say. You can't accuse the club of not being open now though. What other club would have done this?

^^ What he said

I'm sure Pompey's new owner will be regularly publishing this information in future

[Victor Meldrew]

Why should they bother. Give all the minute details and they get accused of trying to hide things in details and make it impossible to understand. Release a summary and keep it simple and they're trying to hide something by not giving us all the information.

Some people have made their minds up regardless what the club say. You can't accuse the club of not being open now though. What other club would have done this?

^^ What he said

I'm sure Pompey's new owner will be regularly publishing this information in future

Won't he have to if it is a limited company?

[Sun Tzu]

Why should they bother. Give all the minute details and they get accused of trying to hide things in details and make it impossible to understand. Release a summary and keep it simple and they're trying to hide something by not giving us all the information.

Some people have made their minds up regardless what the club say. You can't accuse the club of not being open now though. What other club would have done this?

^^ What he said

I'm sure Pompey's new owner will be regularly publishing this information in future

Won't he have to if it is a limited company?

Doubt it.

Just the accounts.

And do you know how Pompey plc is structured ?

[Victor Meldrew]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

[Uke]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

Yes, the people who published them do

You don't need to know

When you fly in a plane do you demand to know where each part hasbeen sourced? And see the training records for all the mechanics who serviced the plane?

Or are you happy enough to take the word of the Airline that it's in good enough nick to fly?

[RoyalBlue]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

Yes, the people who published them do

You don't need to know

When you fly in a plane do you demand to know where each part hasbeen sourced? And see the training records for all the mechanics who serviced the plane?

Or are you happy enough to take the word of the Airline that it's in good enough nick to fly?

Not if it's a dodgy airline or one from certain Eastern European or African countries!!

Also, of particular relevance is the fact that various safety groups are now beginning to express concern over the way in which standards may be compromised because even previously well respected airlines are over-desperate to cut costs.

[Uke]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

Yes, the people who published them do

You don't need to know

When you fly in a plane do you demand to know where each part hasbeen sourced? And see the training records for all the mechanics who serviced the plane?

Or are you happy enough to take the word of the Airline that it's in good enough nick to fly?

Not if it's a dodgy airline or one from certain Eastern European or African countries!!

Also, of particular relevance is the fact that various safety groups are now beginning to express concern over the way in which standards may be compromised because even previously well respected airlines are over-desperate to cut costs.

I think my analogy still fits because in reality if you want to fly from Donetsk to Ulan Bator you haven't got a choice so it really doesn't matter

All you can do is put your trust in the pilot and pray you don't crash

[Sun Tzu]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

Yes, the people who published them do

You don't need to know

When you fly in a plane do you demand to know where each part hasbeen sourced? And see the training records for all the mechanics who serviced the plane?

Or are you happy enough to take the word of the Airline that it's in good enough nick to fly?

I'm assuming Vic was responding to the Pompey reference - and as Pompey haven;t published anything that I've seen...

Agree with the general thrust though - I have no more need to understand th enuts an dbolt of RFC's finances than I do those of Tesco or BP. I'm a consumer, I pay my money in return for watching a game of football. If the club use some of the income they generate to do some building work, pay over the odds for a deputy second assistant groundsman etc etc then more fool them but am I especially bothered ?

[BR2]

Does ANYBODY know how it is structured?

Yes, the people who published them do

You don't need to know

When you fly in a plane do you demand to know where each part hasbeen sourced? And see the training records for all the mechanics who serviced the plane?

Or are you happy enough to take the word of the Airline that it's in good enough nick to fly?

I'm assuming Vic was responding to the Pompey reference - and as Pompey haven;t published anything that I've seen...

Agree with the general thrust though - I have no more need to understand th enuts an dbolt of RFC's finances than I do those of Tesco or BP. I'm a consumer, I pay my money in return for watching a game of football. If the club use some of the income they generate to do some building work, pay over the odds for a deputy second assistant groundsman etc etc then more fool them but am I especially bothered ?

You are right it was a reference to Pompey.
I tend to agree with you that there is so little than we as fans can do about the running of what we think of as our club which in practice is not our club but merely a company that chooses to use us as it's trading name.
I still feel a bit narked though that for my insignificant (to the club,but significant to me) contribution each year I can't question the board (which would be the case if I were but a miniscule shareholder in a public limited company)to elaborate on the item of infrastrucure stated in the financial statement.
So far we have been able to establish the costs of the pitch,costs at Hogwood and the cost of the Media Centre together totalling around £4million but the other £3.5 million (or put another way 3 or 4 decent players)?

With any club there has to be a balance between what is spent on and off the pitch.
At the moment the assets on the pitch strike me as being vastly inferior to the assets off the pitch and if the assets on the pitch are not improved upon the assets off the pitch (revenue streams) will start to fall in value.