The Albion posts losses of £14.7m

[KZNSeagull]

Read this this morning. I think in time, people's ire towards Gus will dissipate. I think it's quite clear Gus knew this was coming, knew that belt's would be tightened and for an ambitious manager, therefore, Brighton was no longer the place for him. I absolutely 100% support the club in having to change our attitude and consider our financial limitations but the fact is we are no longer the club we were. TB cannot help us out anymore and we have to stand on our own two feet. That means having to limit our expectations in line with that.

Gus couldnt do that so he went. It seems Oscar can work within that.

Mine and I am sure others "ire" towards Gus is that he got within touching distance our realising both his and our ambitions and then oversaw a capitulation against a team that we had royally stuffed not 3 months earlier.

But there we are - we are where we are we have to make the most of it. I agree, Oscar seems more likely to work within our limitations and get us punching above our weight. And the academy will help in time.

 

[Rich Suvner]

Read this this morning. I think in time, people's ire towards Gus will dissipate. I think it's quite clear Gus knew this was coming, knew that belt's would be tightened and for an ambitious manager, therefore, Brighton was no longer the place for him. I absolutely 100% support the club in having to change our attitude and consider our financial limitations but the fact is we are no longer the club we were. TB cannot help us out anymore and we have to stand on our own two feet. That means having to limit our expectations in line with that.

Gus couldnt do that so he went. It seems Oscar can work within that.

To suggest that we are longer the club we were is a ridiculous rewriting of history.

During the last two decades we have been broke and homeless. We are significantly more than the club we were.

It was inevitable we would experience growing pains, review the situation and cut our cloth accordingly.

What surprises me is frankly how competitive we have remained this season with a half fit, misfiring team. Barely got into any stride all season. Solid but not fluid.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

Mine and I am sure others "ire" towards Gus is that he got within touching distance our realising both his and our ambitions and then oversaw a capitulation against a team that we had royally stuffed not 3 months earlier.

But there we are - we are where we are we have to make the most of it. I agree, Oscar seems more likely to work within our limitations and get us punching above our weight. And the academy will help in time.

That was the most annoying aspect about Poyet for me. It was in our hands that evening, home advantage. He really didn't help the situation by annoucing months before that he wanted out. What sort of manager does that?. Wrong time, wrong place I'm afraid and TB must honestly have been raging about it after he backed him so much. Smacks of looking after number one too me, and kind of selfish that he didn't want to see it through especially for us supporters.

I can understand why TB got shot in the end and good riddance. As for the BBC annoucing his sacking on TV, Well if it is true Poyet new he was already going, I have got to say that was a really cheap stunt by our national broadcasters, all to make us the club, us the supporters look like the bad guys. That's what I think anyway.

 

[Seagull over NZ]

Without seeing the full accounts they wouldn't be able to write off a great deal of the training ground costs. Most of these costs would be capitalised and written off over a number of years so won't have an effect on last years results but I expect where they could get away with writing the costs off they would have done. The theory of "its a bad year, lets take all the pain in one go" and then future years will look better is something that could have happened. i was trying to rack my brains as to what large transfer fees we paid back last year but none stand out massively. Mackail-Smith would have been the year before.

 

[Bozza]

Without seeing the full accounts they wouldn't be able to write off a great deal of the training ground costs. Most of these costs would be capitalised and written off over a number of years so won't have an effect on last years results but I expect where they could get away with writing the costs off they would have done. The theory of "its a bad year, lets take all the pain in one go" and then future years will look better is something that could have happened. i was trying to rack my brains as to what large transfer fees we paid back last year but none stand out massively. Mackail-Smith would have been the year before.

Ulloa - c£2m.

 

[Machiavelli]

I'm doing the best I can to get to the bottom of the numbers, but until they appear at Companies House am quasi-blind.

For 2011-12 ticketing income at the Amex was £7.87 million, and TV income was £5.69 million. i'm expecting those figures to be about £10.4 million and £4.8 million (the latter as confirmed by the Argus) respectively.

If we compare the Albion to a club such as Bolton, who to their credit put the full accounts on their website, they had ticketing income of only £3.76 million last season (which is about right if you think of their attendances) but their TV income, as a result of parachute payments, was £19 million, and remember that is BEFORE the new TV deal came into being in the PL.

The gap between the Premier League and the Championship is ever widening, and that is creating the problem, as effectively club chairmen see that promotion will bring in £90 million.

Put it this way, if you could buy a lottery ticket, and it had a 1 in 8 (i.e. 3 in 24) chance of brining you potentially £90 million a YEAR, how much would you be willing to pay for the ticket?

We are just to lucky to have TB in charge though, because he is never going to lose interest or make the type of threats you get at clubs such as Cardiff, Hull, Hearts, Pompey etc.

El Pres/The King documents no end of details about the financial situation. This metaphor is as good as any to explain the thinking. To extend it, those 24 chairmen may spend so much on this particular lottery in the hope or nailing those three places that they'll have to sell their business, re-mortgage their home, eventually sell their home, and perhaps even end up declaring themselves bankrupt.
TV wonga is what is driving football finances, and as El Pres indicates, the reward for TV rights is getting higher, thus accentuating the difference between those that get it -- however temporary -- and those that don't. This will in all likelihood become starker still now that Murdoch is actually getting a bit of competition from BT who seem the best placed company from over the last two decades to challenge this particular monopoly that has yielded him so much.
As for B&HA, rearrange this famous phrase: virtue is a patience.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

That was the most annoying aspect about Poyet for me. It was in our hands that evening, home advantage. He really didn't help the situation by annoucing months before that he wanted out. What sort of manager does that?. Wrong time, wrong place I'm afraid and TB must honestly have been raging about it after he backed him so much. Smacks of looking after number one too me, and kind of selfish that he didn't want to see it through especially for us supporters.

I can understand why TB got shot in the end and good riddance. As for the BBC annoucing his sacking on TV, Well if it is true Poyet new he was already going, I have got to say that was a really cheap stunt by our national broadcasters, all to make us the club, us the supporters look like the bad guys. That's what I think anyway.

It has been said that Diego Poyet knew of Gus' sacking before the TV show. I assume there was a tweet, but I haven't seen it.

 

[eaglejez]

Comfortably £1bn (£1,000,000,000) "net worth".

Anything less doesn't make sense. He has allocated at least £200m cash to his Albion hobby.

not being controversial but whats the source for that claim. If you search the internet there is literally no mention of his wealth apart from the Sunday Times 50m rich list and a 1m profit on the sale of his internet business (and some NSC threads)

 

[hybrid_x]

If ANY football club cannot remain solvent with over 23,000 fans each home game it has bad management.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

not being controversial but whats the source for that claim.

Annoying isn't it ?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I'm doing the best I can to get to the bottom of the numbers, but until they appear at Companies House am quasi-blind.

For 2011-12 ticketing income at the Amex was £7.87 million, and TV income was £5.69 million. i'm expecting those figures to be about £10.4 million and £4.8 million (the latter as confirmed by the Argus) respectively.

If we compare the Albion to a club such as Bolton, who to their credit put the full accounts on their website, they had ticketing income of only £3.76 million last season (which is about right if you think of their attendances) but their TV income, as a result of parachute payments, was £19 million, and remember that is BEFORE the new TV deal came into being in the PL.

The gap between the Premier League and the Championship is ever widening, and that is creating the problem, as effectively club chairmen see that promotion will bring in £90 million.

Put it this way, if you could buy a lottery ticket, and it had a 1 in 8 (i.e. 3 in 24) chance of brining you potentially £90 million a YEAR, how much would you be willing to pay for the ticket?

We are just to lucky to have TB in charge though, because he is never going to lose interest or make the type of threats you get at clubs such as Cardiff, Hull, Hearts, Pompey etc.

Good man El Pres. We are fortunate to have your expertise for these debates.

And we have won the lottery as regards Club chairmen. It is behoving on all of us to follow the wise words of Machielli - a patience is virtue.

 

[gripper stebson]

...

 

[Publius Ovidius]

I'm sure I remember TB saying some time ago that he would build and pay for the infrastructure, but the club had to be self-sufficient. It's the only sensible way, but how many years will it take to get to that situation ? (And so much is dependent on the authorities successfully introducing FFP as the first step).

Its all very well building and paying for the capital costs of the infrastructure projects, however the day to day running costs of those assets are to be met by the football club.

So in one way its fantastic having a state of the art stadium and training facility, but if it is too expensive to run, it defeats the object. Certainly companies have R&D facilities, like our youth academy, but the only way they break even is sales of decent players ( or conversely not buying any players and only using these lads) United certainly did that around the Beckham Scholes era and were incredibly successful at it...the rest of the football world rely on buying increasingly expensive players in the hope they fit in and relying on the big bucks of the TV men!

I think the more worrying thing in this is that the only way we will get out of this spiral of losses is premiership TV /Prize money and to do that you need to invest in good players, which making huge losses every year proves extremely difficult to do as we have found with the likes of Murray, Barnes and Bridcutt who all left for better money.

I still think if we lose touch the next few weeks with clubs in the playoff positions, the club will look very seriously at a hike in ST with the reason of us making huge losses and we need money to cover that and buy new players.

I may be, and hope I am wrong, but continuously posting losses means we are technically insolvent and relying on a cash cow that cant go on forever

 

[Acker79]

Usually we talk about transfer fees being spread over the accounts for the duration of the players' contracts, is it possible that they have not done that for ulloa and put the full fee in last season's accounts, or do they have to spread it out?

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Bottom line is we will probably never have as good a chance as we did last year of going up. And we royally ****ed up from the clackers to the bottle jobs on the pitch to the manager.

 

[El Presidente]

I may be, and hope I am wrong, but continuously posting losses means we are technically insolvent and relying on a cash cow that cant go on forever

Being insolvent means that you cannot pay your debts as they fall due. The Albion owe their money in the main to TB, and he doesn't want it back, so we're not in danger of insolvency, but before you go to bed each night EVERY Albion fan should pray (even atheists like me) that Uncle Tony doesn't fall under a bus or similar.

 

[Brighton Breezy]

Presumably the fans using these figures as a stick to beat Poyet with in terms of his playing budget v non promotion will do the same with Oscar Garcia, who, as we know, enjoyed a slight increase on playing budget compared to last season.

The reality of the situation is that, in almost 90 per cent of cases, teams finish in the division in roughly the same place they would if the table was ranked on playing budget. Ours may have increased, but it is still not near the top end. Certainly not, I would imagine, in the top six. Poyet over-achieved significantly. Oscar will, I imagine, do the same - albeit perhaps not as drastic an over-achievement as finishing fourth with a mid table budget.

 

[fosters headband]

Palace were sent into admin for much smaller losses than this.

I thought your LAST admin was for a figure of £31 million?

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

The reality of the situation is that, in almost 90 per cent of cases, teams finish in the division in roughly the same place they would if the table was ranked on playing budget. Ours may have increased, but it is still not near the top end. Certainly not, I would imagine, in the top six. Poyet over-achieved significantly. Oscar will, I imagine, do the same - albeit perhaps not as drastic an over-achievement as finishing fourth with a mid table budget.

We were certainly told it was a mid-table budget - but as the figures come out - was it still mid-table ? I'd have said both Burnley and Palace had higher budgets - but apparently not.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Being insolvent means that you cannot pay your debts as they fall due. The Albion owe their money in the main to TB, and he doesn't want it back, so we're not in danger of insolvency, but before you go to bed each night EVERY Albion fan should pray (even atheists like me) that Uncle Tony doesn't fall under a bus or similar.

Yes but what about the day to day debts. I assume in the accounts the loss is a trading loss, which has depreciation of the stadium in it? ...but are we taking the costs of the training grounds against the trading of the club?