Club debt rises to £163.8 million!!!

Well that's the part that I don't understand and may be a dodgy way around it.

Although I'm sure that it is turnover of the football club to losses on wages and running costs.

I've read about it but it bores me to tears and I haven't taken it all in.

Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

I don't think we need to worry about any fines associated with promotion for a good while yet.....

Maybe that's Darkside's genius plan.

He knows we'd get fined if we went up, so he appoints Freedman, safe in the knowledge that there's absolutely no way he'd ever get us up......

Clever.....

karlypants wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

Yes very much so.

That is what should happen.

karlypants wrote:Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

To be fair that is what would probably happen rather than giving out a huge financial fine - possibly between 8 to 10 point reduction!

bwfc71 wrote:

karlypants wrote:Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

To be fair that is what would probably happen rather than giving out a huge financial fine - possibly between 8 to 10 point reduction!

You would hope so as putting the club into more debt isn't going to help and seems a crazy way to penalise a club where a points reduction seems better.

With regards to our debt and our 4 big outgoings with the likes of the hotel and other developments that will be starting, if you take this away from the debt then our debt hasn't changed since last year.

If I understand your post correctly then we are not going to be able to reduce this debt much as long as we are in the Championship and we need to really push for promotion to get our £60M from the Premier League to be able to reduce it.

Would it really be such a bad idea if we threw say £10M at trying to achieve this with buying some better players?

I know Leeds did it and they did go bankrupt twice but surely must be worth a shot as a can't see us being back in the Premier league for the next 5 years then.

The thing is that no matter how you look at it we are in a lot of debt and if there are investors behind who we don't know about what's to say they just want to pull out and say "enough! wasted too much money I'm out!" for example?

There is only so much money investors will pump into a club ultimately to get a return on their investment as it is ultimately a business.

The way I see it is they have invested in buying out De Vere's and invested in the educational company thus they must see some sort of financial return which would help oy the parent company eventually whether its the 2013-14 financial year or the 2014-15 financial year.

If anything I predict only small tweaks are required as we still ahve to receive 2 more parachute payments (if we stay in The Championship) which will help but only slightly.

Problem we have now is if we gain promotion we will be the leading contenders to go straight back down and financially speaking that would actually be worse than currently as we wouldn't have a stable financial base for 2 season!!!!

Found this which may make it easier to understand for some.....



[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

There are two ways to go as I understand it, take a massive gamble, throw even more money at players and wages to get promoted back to the Premier League, then spend as little as possible and hope to get promoted again after the inevitable relegation. Secondly recognise the reality of the situation we are in and initiate a sound business plan to steadily reduce the debt, enable the club to become economically sustainable and learn the harsh lessons of our past profligacy.

IMO the first option is a fools errand and a massive gamble, plus the club would come under massive pressure to spend once more IF promotion was achieved. I see that the messages coming out of the club regarding where they see themselves have changed, in an effort to manage expectations, this should have been the message from the moment we were relegated.

My view is that the whole structure of the professional game is not sustainable in the long term and that the Premier League and Football League have made a complete pigs ear of managing their competitions. Clubs know what they can expect to receive in revenue from TV, sponsorship, ticket sales etc and they should budget accordingly. The whole thing is run on greed, greedy players, owners, broadcasters and supporters and is utterly reckless, no other business in the world would conduct its financial affairs like football clubs. They have always relied on the benevolence and good will of wealthy business men and community leaders but never to the extent they do now, it beggars belief that there have been so few casualties up to now.

NickFazer wrote:There are two ways to go as I understand it, take a massive gamble, throw even more money at players and wages to get promoted back to the Premier League, then spend as little as possible and hope to get promoted again after the inevitable relegation. Secondly recognise the reality of the situation we are in and initiate a sound business plan to steadily reduce the debt, enable the club to become economically sustainable and learn the harsh lessons of our past profligacy.

IMO the first option is a fools errand and a massive gamble, plus the club would come under massive pressure to spend once more IF promotion was achieved. I see that the messages coming out of the club regarding where they see themselves have changed, in an effort to manage expectations, this should have been the message from the moment we were relegated.

My view is that the whole structure of the professional game is not sustainable in the long term and that the Premier League and Football League have made a complete pigs ear of managing their competitions. Clubs know what they can expect to receive in revenue from TV, sponsorship, ticket sales etc and they should budget accordingly. The whole thing is run on greed, greedy players, owners, broadcasters and supporters and is utterly reckless, no other business in the world would conduct its financial affairs like football clubs. They have always relied on the benevolence and good will of wealthy business men and community leaders but never to the extent they do now, it beggars belief that there have been so few casualties up to now.

Absolutely spot on.

I've been banging on about this for ages.

Modern football is rotten to the core and it's the money that's ruining it.

Will it die on its arse?

Probably not, because there are too many wealthy / influential egos involved and they won't allow the golden Goose to croke because they'd lose too much.

However, I can't see things staying the way they are now for much longer.

We'll have a Global Super League at some point, with franchises in all the big cities and the rest of us will be left behind.

I fully expect to see Bolton playing in a 5000 seater stadium in North West League Two against Bury and Accrington at some point in my lifetime.

Breadman wrote:

NickFazer wrote:There are two ways to go as I understand it, take a massive gamble, throw even more money at players and wages to get promoted back to the Premier League, then spend as little as possible and hope to get promoted again after the inevitable relegation. Secondly recognise the reality of the situation we are in and initiate a sound business plan to steadily reduce the debt, enable the club to become economically sustainable and learn the harsh lessons of our past profligacy.

IMO the first option is a fools errand and a massive gamble, plus the club would come under massive pressure to spend once more IF promotion was achieved. I see that the messages coming out of the club regarding where they see themselves have changed, in an effort to manage expectations, this should have been the message from the moment we were relegated.

My view is that the whole structure of the professional game is not sustainable in the long term and that the Premier League and Football League have made a complete pigs ear of managing their competitions. Clubs know what they can expect to receive in revenue from TV, sponsorship, ticket sales etc and they should budget accordingly. The whole thing is run on greed, greedy players, owners, broadcasters and supporters and is utterly reckless, no other business in the world would conduct its financial affairs like football clubs. They have always relied on the benevolence and good will of wealthy business men and community leaders but never to the extent they do now, it beggars belief that there have been so few casualties up to now.

Absolutely spot on.

I've been banging on about this for ages.

Modern football is rotten to the core and it's the money that's ruining it.

Will it die on its arse?

Probably not, because there are too many wealthy / influential egos involved and they won't allow the golden Goose to croke because they'd lose too much.

However, I can't see things staying the way they are now for much longer.

We'll have a Global Super League at some point, with franchises in all the big cities and the rest of us will be left behind.

I fully expect to see Bolton playing in a 5000 seater stadium in North West League Two against Bury and Accrington at some point in my lifetime.

I can't agree more with this, although not sure about the last paragraph!

The divide will grow and grow and the smaller clubs will get left behind as they will not be able to compete.

For years I have been saying the club needs to be sold.....thanks Eddie but time to move on....some fat yanks with bazillions to spend can clear that debt and infuse financial know-how.  That would clear the decks of all the current tossers in management. New owners would require a winning culture....losing is not acceptable in USA sports.

Somebody above says football can't be sustained in the current format.....I said that for years.  We need to use a similar system to American Football....that is.....each region puts together a club to cover that particular region.....in our case we would be combination of Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury etc......Northwest United if you like. Clubs as we know them now would be gone and we would become fans of the new giant club.....along with giant fan base and resources......salary caps .....
Any of of the above going to happen.....not in my lifetime.....but sooner or later all small clubs will go under as expense rises.  Here endeth the lesson.

We need Dan Snyder in charge.

He's done a great job at my beloved Redskins.......

The club can only be sold if someone wants to buy it (I'm sure i didn't need to say that)

And they will only do that if it's a viable business. And you can see from the "glory days" in the premier league and the UEFA where we lost millions that it's not. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. 

You can never put in place an American system into football, way too many teams, far too much variety (europe, asia, south america etc etc) no college/university system, no desire or need from above for a salary cap, will never ever ever happen. And losing is acceptable in the USA there are plenty of franchises that have been absolutely abysmal for many many many years.

See my comment above regarding the farce that is the Washington Redskins under Snyder.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Reebok Trotter wrote:
We give a shit because we are passionate about our club. We have seen what has happened to teams like Leeds, Portsmouth and Coventry and we genuinely care about the future of our great club.

Leeds are above us with a much better squad - I'm happy to go the same way as them.

Leeds also have much bigger fan base and gates!! Quite handy really when you need income?!

Breadman wrote:We need Dan Snyder in charge.

He's done a great job at my beloved Redskins.......

First to fire his coach on Black Monday!

observer wrote:

Breadman wrote:We need Dan Snyder in charge.

He's done a great job at my beloved Redskins.......

First to fire his coach on Black Monday!

Yeah, Gartside, take note and act accordingly.

bwfc71 wrote:

Natasha Whittam wrote:Mr Amos - in these accounts do the club have to value the playing squad?

That would be a laugh if they do.

They haven't valued the players individually but as a net value.

2012 Net value of the squad was £49,750,000
2013 Net value of the squad is £14,100,000

A big difference!!!

2012  60 Players on the books
2013  59 Players on the books

Also noticed that BUrnden Leisure own the Freehold of the land which makes the asset worth even more than if it was Leasehold

As I understand it the players value is based on Historic cost less amortisation on a straight line basis over the life of the contract.
Players (unlike other non -current assets) are not valued at fair value( the other allowable method under UK company law and IAS(International accounting standards) as there is no efficient arms length market in which to value them.  When players are sold  any profit or loss will pass through the Income statement .
The write off for example on Fabrice will have passed through the income statement as an exceptional item less any insurance claim that was reimbursed to the club.
 It looks to me (and I've not had a chance yet to examine the Accounts) that there have been severe impairments in players values caused by relegation  - in other words the book value of each individual player has been examined ( with input from the auditors) and been reduced dramatically. One technical thing about this is that it affects the profit/loss of the club ,but has no impact on cash flows -therefore it's not as damaging as it might seem at first sight.

Reading have shown you can get promoted to the PL and get relegated again without crippling the club.

On a separate note, would anyone really care if BWFC went bust and had to re-start as FC Bolton in the Evo-Stik League? It would be a lot more fun than the current shite on offer.

I've been to watch Chorley a couple of times recently and the atmosphere there with 750 people on is far better than the Reebok with 15k on.