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Football Finance

Outdated and still interesting.

Swiss.jpg
 
Outdated and still interesting.

Swiss.jpg
Yeah, Villa were in a mess in 2023. The calculations I did of the UEFA football costs ratio (target for this season is 80%) had them over 100% (it includes amortisation as well as wages).
They've sailed close to the wind on Premier League style PSR and got away with it as they had the profit on Grealish propping them up, but that's now dropped out. They may still be getting away with it due to player sales (principally Douglas Luiz) but it's no surprise that they are one of the clubs shilling for City right now around the challenges to the associated party rules.
 
Yeah, Villa were in a mess in 2023. The calculations I did of the UEFA football costs ratio (target for this season is 80%) had them over 100% (it includes amortisation as well as wages).
They've sailed close to the wind on Premier League style PSR and got away with it as they had the profit on Grealish propping them up, but that's now dropped out. They may still be getting away with it due to player sales (principally Douglas Luiz) but it's no surprise that they are one of the clubs shilling for City right now around the challenges to the associated party rules.
I imagine they are doing the smart thing and looking for a deal that delivers City whilst merely toasting their arses rather than burning them
 
One other thing to share around FFP and the like. In the early days of FSG's ownership the club was summoned to a UEFA hearing for failure to comply with FFP - we'd made some chunky losses, some of which were legacy issues from the Hicks and Gillet era, some of which were just about the process of turning things around, and some of which were business / footballing decisions which hadn't paid off. We'd done a capital restructuring to allow us to access a higher loss limit (as the losses would be largely covered by equity injections) but we were still a bit over.
I was told that the hearing was like the scenes in the Godfather II where Michael Corleone gets called before the senate hearings - really formal, parliament style set-up, quite intimidating. Our people were sitting, mic'ed up, behind a desk in front of a big UEFA panel.
In our evidence, we went through the processes we used to monitor our compliance, to show that we took things seriously. A lot of this focused around the process of forecasting, how we regularly projected our financial results over a 5-year period, including determining how much we could spend on players whilst still remaining within the FFP limits. This was just something the club had always done, and was also something FSG were very keen on - we would constantly be re-forecasting for them. It became part of our monthly reporting process, and was often done more than once a month, particularly in the later stages of the season where progress in the league and particularly in Europe could swing profits quite significantly (including triggering bonuses, contingent transfer payments, prize money etc). In truth it was a real pain. The baseball financial model meant that the Red Sox could forecast pretty accurately - lots of guaranteed games, very controllable revenues, easy to predict. The only time there would be a major difference was if they made the World Series, and if that happened they were all so pleased in a sporting sense that they didn't care the numbers were wrong. With football this wasn't so easy and it was something of an education exercise to explain to them why we couldn't be so accurate - a late goal in a game could make a huge difference.
UEFA were really impressed with this whole process, the attention to detail and the responsible principles behind it all. It was a large part of why they didn't hand down any fines (we were in breach, but only to a minor extent, and the fact we had processes for monitoring persuaded them we weren't being reckless). And on top of that was the narrative, largely already in the public domain, that adherence to FFP was a huge part of FSG's business case for buying the club - they were persuaded that FFP would make it possible for them to compete on a level playing field with other clubs in England and across Europe. They expected that it would eventually constrain Chelsea (albeit they would still have an in-built advantage from historic spending before FFP was introduced), that Man United had earned their financially dominant position by fair means, and that it was possible to copy what they did and catch them up. Ditto Arsenal, who had the Emirates (plus we had their former CFO who was tasked with looking into stadium options). FSG had no inkling that other clubs (principally City) would not take the rules as seriously as they did.
But back to the forecasting, we had assumed that all clubs would do this kind of work, but apparently not (or if they did, it wasn't something they presented to UEFA). It was an area where FSG's financial discipline put us in a good position.
 
I imagine they are doing the smart thing and looking for a deal that delivers City whilst merely toasting their arses rather than burning them
Their support for City was mainly on the associated party rules, so I suspect they were planning some over-priced sponsorships to dig them out. But they lost that vote so it didn't get them anywhere.
But I do think they could, and should, be on a really sticky wicket with UEFA's new rules (as in the potential fines could wipe out any benefit of being in the Champions League).
 
Yeah, Villa were in a mess in 2023. The calculations I did of the UEFA football costs ratio (target for this season is 80%) had them over 100% (it includes amortisation as well as wages).
They've sailed close to the wind on Premier League style PSR and got away with it as they had the profit on Grealish propping them up, but that's now dropped out. They may still be getting away with it due to player sales (principally Douglas Luiz) but it's no surprise that they are one of the clubs shilling for City right now around the challenges to the associated party rules.
Villa’s owners also have $billions worth of business with City’s owners.
 
Reading that club still owes FSG £70m. Wasn't the £140m from Dynasty International used to repay FSG? Why does Brighton have so much debt? i can't believe despite spending £700m they they have a lower debt than us, and thats Arsenal
 
I posted a comment about the likely value we are carrying Darwin at in our books. For what it's worth, in case it's of interest, these are my rough estimates of the current carrying values of the squad (i.e. the prices we would need to realise to avoid making a loss on any January sales). These are based on rumoured fees and my estimates of agent fees and levies when they were signed and on any contract renewals.

Mac Allister £30.9m
Alisson £9.4m
Robbo £2.0m
Ramsay £2.6m
Irish Kev £0.5m
Gakpo £26.7m
Jones £0.8m
Darwin £35.0m
Jota £16.8m
Szobo £49.0m
Chiesa £12.7m
Mamardash £26.3m
Harvey £2.8m
Ibou £11.8m
Gomez £1.4m
Kostas £4.2m
Diaz £23.5m
Pitaluga £0.1m (this is what we just lost, releasing him on a free)
Mo £2.8m
Nat £0.2m
Gravy £29.0m
Badger £0.1m
Trent £0.4m
Morton £0.1m
Virgil £5.0m
Endo £10.9m

Of the summer sales, Carvalho and van den Berg were at £1.5m and £0.2m respectively, so chunky profits there. I've not bothered putting Ben Doak on my schedule but we picked him up for about £0.6m, so it won't be a big number.

Just to give a steer on accuracy here, my schedule estimated the squad value at £295m at the end of 31/5/2023, and the accounts had it at £289.1m (so 2% out in total).
 
I posted a comment about the likely value we are carrying Darwin at in our books. For what it's worth, in case it's of interest, these are my rough estimates of the current carrying values of the squad (i.e. the prices we would need to realise to avoid making a loss on any January sales). These are based on rumoured fees and my estimates of agent fees and levies when they were signed and on any contract renewals.

Mac Allister £30.9m
Alisson £9.4m
Robbo £2.0m
Ramsay £2.6m
Irish Kev £0.5m
Gakpo £26.7m
Jones £0.8m
Darwin £35.0m
Jota £16.8m
Szobo £49.0m
Chiesa £12.7m
Mamardash £26.3m
Harvey £2.8m
Ibou £11.8m
Gomez £1.4m
Kostas £4.2m
Diaz £23.5m
Pitaluga £0.1m (this is what we just lost, releasing him on a free)
Mo £2.8m
Nat £0.2m
Gravy £29.0m
Badger £0.1m
Trent £0.4m
Morton £0.1m
Virgil £5.0m
Endo £10.9m

Of the summer sales, Carvalho and van den Berg were at £1.5m and £0.2m respectively, so chunky profits there. I've not bothered putting Ben Doak on my schedule but we picked him up for about £0.6m, so it won't be a big number.

Just to give a steer on accuracy here, my schedule estimated the squad value at £295m at the end of 31/5/2023, and the accounts had it at £289.1m (so 2% out in total).
You can see the temptation in selling some of those so
 
BBC reporting a deal value of around £400m. I believe this will be the price paid for Moshiri's shares.
It was reported he paid £200m for Kenwright's shares. Since then, he has put in £747m in further funding, for which he has had no repayment.
Which would mean he lost £547m on the deal.
By contrast, the Guardian is reporting £500m, but that that figure includes repaying debt and they are suggesting Moshiri will walk away with only £25m.
That's why I said we won't really know until the accounts are published, but either way he's taking a huge loss.
Oops!
Some clarification on the Everton deal. The company that bought the club has confirmed that it issued £290m worth of shares in the build-up. This gives a possible price for Moshiri's sales. I say "possible" because they may also have put some debt into that company, and if they did then they will have paid more for the shares. They will also have paid acquisition costs out of the £290m - could be £10-15m, depending on whether they used investment banks or not.
NB this debt wouldn't give them an issue with PSR as the interest charge would be in the holding company, not in the club itself.
But if they didn't put any extra debt in, then Moshiri has lost £0.7bn for getting involved with Everton.
There is reporting elsewhere that says he didn't get any repayment on the money he loaned to Everton - it was all capitalised pre-sale (Everton's company filings seem to support this, but they don't explicitly say so). It's not how I would have structured the deal as it means they will have paid £1.5m in stamp duty, which they could have avoided if they structured it as a debt repayment.
Don't shoot me on the ethics of that, it's just how M&A works.
 
Prompted by the on-going ticket price protests, and the reference to the inflation in prices, I decided to have a look for the earliest set of accounts I could find for the club.
In 1973, Shankly was manager, we won the league and the UEFA Cup. Our annual wage bill, for the entire club, was £286k.
Applying basic RPI inflation, our wage bill now would be £4.7m. In 2023 it was £373m.
 
Questions;
Why is Diaz being linked to Barca, they can't even get Dani Olmo registered, btw whats happened with his case?
How is Chelsea still being allowed to spend? they have more than broken PSR.
How does FFP work in France as PSG continue to make losses but continue to spend as much some leagues?
 
Questions;
Why is Diaz being linked to Barca, they can't even get Dani Olmo registered, btw whats happened with his case?
How is Chelsea still being allowed to spend? they have more than broken PSR.
How does FFP work in France as PSG continue to make losses but continue to spend as much some leagues?
Diaz - because Barcelona are idiots. They're just trying to unsettle him ahead of a future bid.
Chelsea - they pass PL FSR rules due to their inter-group asset sales (which the PL hasn't clamped down on). They don't seem to care about UEFA's rules and I'm not sure why.
PSG - their president is "connected" in UEFA and FIFA circles. But yeah, they shouldn't be getting away with it.
 
Diaz - because Barcelona are idiots. They're just trying to unsettle him ahead of a future bid.
Chelsea - they pass PL FSR rules due to their inter-group asset sales (which the PL hasn't clamped down on). They don't seem to care about UEFA's rules and I'm not sure why.
PSG - their president is "connected" in UEFA and FIFA circles. But yeah, they shouldn't be getting away with it.
Why are they bidding on any one, they've dropped to third and can't register the players they have.
Chelsea should be docked points for cooking the books.
PSG are worse than Man City but there is no way the French league will do anything because without them the whole league dies.
 
Questions;
Why is Diaz being linked to Barca, they can't even get Dani Olmo registered, btw whats happened with his case?
How is Chelsea still being allowed to spend? they have more than broken PSR.
How does FFP work in France as PSG continue to make losses but continue to spend as much some leagues?

Who cares, just like the summer it's all murmurs.
Who cares, they're absolutely fucking shite.
Who cares, got bugger all to do with us.
 
Why are they bidding on any one, they've dropped to third and can't register the players they have.
Chelsea should be docked points for cooking the books.
PSG are worse than Man City but there is no way the French league will do anything because without them the whole league dies.
Agreed on all counts.
 
@Beamrider since you're in the know, how much money do you reckon Accrington will make from the game today?
AND what acctington stanley wage bill looks like
 
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