New beginnings - 25% Truth, 80% Bollocks

[RedRag]

Not sure that railing against the apathy of our fans and advocating an ownership ousting boycott is consistent.

The first step, imo, would be to educate and influence the wider fanbase with leaflets and perhaps back to orange?

And for the Trust to grow a pair in terms of obfuscation and broken promises by the Board. 

We desperately need new owners.  But I'm still open-minded as to what outcome a well supported boycott would actually achieve if that is the goal.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

There’s no guarantee any new owner will be a better owner - as we’ve found out with the succession of the 3 amigos.

The likelihood is, Clem would bow out leaving it to Kiely or even the resurrection of previous hangers on when Power was owner

[RedRag]

There’s no guarantee any new owner will be a better owner - as we’ve found out with the succession of the 3 amigos.

The likelihood is, Clem would bow out leaving it to Kiely or even the resurrection of previous hangers on when Power was owner

You're right of course in terms of the likely next step in terms of ownership.

I'd had in mind new owners who would drain the swamp.

Failing that, I'm yet to see what tightening the financial noose on Clem and Co would achieve.

[BambooToTheFuture]

Clem would have to put us into Admin then the Administrators would agree a % in the £ to the people we owe money to which is Clem. So he’d be basically doing himself out of money - so won’t ever happen.

Yeah but 60% of his money back clean, is much better than the 100% dirty money he's ''put in''. Remember that.

[BambooToTheFuture]

Clem will likely sell to Keily anyway...or we get another 'hostile takeover' {Clem's words} situation:

Kiely wants to own the ground and claims they put 3m in in 2022
The Trust get behind Kiely to oust Clem
Kiely lauded as the new saviour, gets given a ''Hero of the Year'' award
A few years down the line Kiely sells 20% ish shares to a mystery investor {probs Kinahan}

It all sounds so familiar and similar doesn't it. Rinse repeat until they've had enough or drained every professional element away from the club

[DiV]

Yeah but 60% of his money back clean, is much better than the 100% dirty money he's ''put in''. Remember that.

Yeah but surely selling the club and getting a chunk of his money back upfront and the rest back in stages is better than only getting 60% of it…

[DiV]

….and it’s Kiely

[BambooToTheFuture]

….and it’s Kiely

Pendant 

In fact, I did spell it Kiely in the first offering and kept getting a ''helpful'' assists to change it to Keily. But I knew Kiely was correct. If you see the rest of the comment...all the remaining Keily's are spelt in the correct way.

Then again, who knows really. Like Jed/Ged/Mc/Mac/Rory/Roary and Xav/Zav/ier/er maybe Mr Kiely spells his name Keily when it's convenient to need to?

[BambooToTheFuture]

Yeah but surely selling the club and getting a chunk of his money back upfront and the rest back in stages is better than only getting 60% of it…

You're talking as if these people follow the rules properly at all times. Which I would say in a more normal sense, then yes that'd be correct. I would say though that people who have unclean money, and will b in receipt of some clean money...then they don't hang around for long once they want out.

Also, due to the nature of other people involved. There's probably a chance he wouldn't see his future staged payments

[Nemo]

Lying in bed last night thinking about all this (I know, I know) and a few things kept going through my head. So all of this is from the last set of advisory board minutes, quoted verbatim.

As well as £250k earlier in the season, Clem has had to put in an extra £850k in the last 3 Months, this may not be the last cash injection required this season.

So that's £1.1m injected this season, with the expectation of more

Budget from summer transfer window was not fully used, we had 3 deals fall through the day before the end of the summer transfer window. There will be money there for January and Clem will add more money if needed to get what we need in the window.

The playing budget was not fully spent by their own words, and yet in the five months since then the club has needed £1.1m of cash injected into it. Was this due to unforeseen off-field costs? Or was this an expected part of our financial forecasts (do we have financial forecasts?). The only clearly new cost discussed in the minutes is £8k to fix the DRS roof, which is not going to scratch the sides of the supposed shortfall here.

[Posh Red]

Not trying to justify the expenditure but I do believe that some of the maintenance they have done on the stadium has cost more than expected.

With regards to whether the costs were expected, didn’t they say in one of the AB meetings that they were expecting a loss of over £1m this year, which we all (quite rightly) questioned at the time.

The problem is these are all costs that are hidden so could be genuine or just ways of siphoning off money

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

He said it was for VAT, HMRC and wages. If we can’t pay these from T/O we really are in the shit cos he can’t keep injecting money on an ongoing basis. Which is why I smell bullshit - probably to show the fan base he is still soooo committed to the club. Presume this cash injection would show up in the accounts.

[Nemo]

Workshopping some questions for the Advisory Board (I know some people think it's a total waste of time, but they do answer questions to some degree and I think it'd be useful to get things on record). What have I missed, and what can I improve the wording of to get a clearer answer?

The December minutes state that Clem has injected £1.1m into the club since the start of the season, and that this 'may not be the last cash injection required this season'. They also state that the playing budget for the summer transfer window was not fully spent. My questions are:

1) Was the £1.1m shortfall in line with the club's financial forecasts? 
2) If not, what costs arose that the club were not forecasting? The only notable new cost mentioned in the previous minutes was £8k on the DRS roof
3) If the playing budget had been fully spent, a higher amount clearly would have been needed to balance the books. Was Clem prepared to cover this as well?

Looking back at the club's published accounts from the 2021/22 FY (https://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/news/2023/february/swindon-town-release-accounts-for-the-202122-financial-year/) the club recorded an overall profit of £158,000 on a turnover of £6.4m. 

4. Whilst I understand this covers a period that completed nearly two years ago and that contained the Manchester City FA Cup game, how have we gone from being a profitable club to needing £1.1m investment to cover 5 months trading in the period since? 
5. I presume that all unfavourable commercial deals that Clem Morfuni and Anthony Hall have referred to were agreed under the previous owners of the club. If so, they're reflected in the 2021/22 accounts: have the terms become less favourable in some way since then?


Trying to ask reasonable questions that receive a reasonable answer - and ideally which can't just be "the Trust looked at the books and gave us a gold star"

[Bogus Dave]

It’s not that deep nemo. He’s making it up as he goes along and the trust are too weak/scared/enthralled to challenge

[Nemo]

It’s not that deep nemo. He’s making it up as he goes along and the trust are too weak/scared/enthralled to challenge

I'm not sure I'm completely subscribed to that view, but I can see it as a possible explanation. I struggle with it though, there are people in the Trust (not all of them!) who I have a lot of historic respect for, it seems a bit wild that just *now* they'd suddenly become completely toothless peons at the worst possible time.

As for Clem, I definitely do think there's a bit of the Boris Johnson "say whatever helps in the moment and hang the long term consequences" - but for me, that's a reason to get him on record saying stuff which may or may not prove clearly false later.

Ultimately, we're going to, in the next couple of months, submit the club accounts for 22/23. Whilst there's more room for creativity in accounting than people probably realise, they will on some level give proof/disproof to a lot of the claims that have been made - or at least bring up more questions (perhaps another 7 figures rise in 'administration expenses'?)