New beginnings - 25% Truth, 80% Bollocks

[Batch]

That whole list of expenditure is made up from guesswork though. So what's the point in specifics.

Wet finger in the air is as good a gauge - and it doesn't seem ridiculous we are down the list.

[Bob's Orange]

https://www.efl.com/news/2021/september/efl-statement-swindon-town/

• A suspended three points deduction to be immediately activated in the event that the Club breaches Regulation 63.7 on or before 30 June 2022.

Now lapsed by the look of it.

Yeah it seems the issue was on June 2021 and lapsed in June 2022.

"The EFL received an allegation that the Club failed to pay its Players in respect of the month of
June 2021 and as such failed to strictly adhere to the terms of each Player’s contract"

"a suspended 3-point deduction to be immediately activated in the event that the Club
breaches Regulation 63.7 on or before 30 June 2022;"

If true and the October wages were paid on 31st October (albeit late) I assume we're all good rules wise? (for now)

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

If we humour this and say that it is true, (at this stage it's difficult to tell the difference between fact and fiction) then surely it's very concerning that Clem is putting in 250k in November to aid cash flow. The biggest outgoing is the player wages I assume? So if our income is circa 6-7m (can't remember the exact figure) then deducting the players wage outgoing of 2m leaves 4-5m. Clearly there are other costs to deduct, but would these accumulated costs be more than 4-5m per year?

I’d assume you could get a fair idea from the last set of published accounts. £5m is a hefty amount to spend once wages are already taken care of.

Just looked turnover £6.4m and whatever admin costs are £2.3m which needs to be broken down.

This is what is on the gov.uk site

‘ HMASAC2300 - Accounts: What are the types of Administrative Expenses as presented in the accounts?

This will include all expenses incurred by the business, not included in the trading account, examples given below:

Directors remuneration, i.e. wage/salary
Staff wages
Rent/rates
Utilities
Audit fees/tax advice
Miscellaneous expenses

So, wages could be part of that

[Frigby Daser]

I’ll cling onto hope that the reason that every possible cost has been stripped out of the club is to make it a more attractive acquisition for a credible buyer.

Sadly not paying debts (if true) doesn’t quite stack up with that hope though.

If Morfuni and co won’t fund the club, then what on earth is their objective? What’s in it for them unless they’re readying for an exit? You either fund and stay, or realise you can’t fund it and exit.

[DiV]

I’ll cling onto hope that the reason that every possible cost has been stripped out of the club is to make it a more attractive acquisition for a credible buyer.

Sadly not paying debts (if true) doesn’t quite stack up with that hope though.

If Morfuni and co won’t fund the club, then what on earth is their objective? What’s in it for them unless they’re readying for an exit? You either fund and stay, or realise you can’t fund it and exit.

…you can only exit if you’ve got someone who wants to buy…

[4D]

Points deduction is the Kraken beneath the surface here. Couple that with the owner(s) pulling the plug and we can all start planning our away day to Wealdstone.

You want some? 

[Peter Venkman]

…you can only exit if you’ve got someone who wants to buy…

And someone who wants to sell.

[DiV]

I mean logically speaking if you’re running a business that you can’t afford to run and have to continually plug & you’re the main person they owe money to; then you’d be open selling right?

You’d get rid of the business, wouldn’t have to keep plugging the gaps and you’d get x amount back as part of the sale & probably continue to get small instalments for the next few years (assume hypothetical new owner doesn’t pay off all the debt owed to club as part of the purchase)

I know Clem has said it’s not for sale but I assume that’s just as likely to be him playing hard ball.

Unless he (thinks) he can turn over a hefty profit from Stadium renovations - then what else is there in it for him?

[Peter Venkman]

I mean logically speaking if you’re running a business that you can’t afford to run and have to continually plug & you’re the main person they owe money to; then you’d be open selling right?

You’d get rid of the business, wouldn’t have to keep plugging the gaps and you’d get x amount back as part of the sale & probably continue to get small instalments for the next few years (assume hypothetical new owner doesn’t pay off all the debt owed to club as part of the purchase)

I know Clem has said it’s not for sale but I assume that’s just as likely to be him playing hard ball.

Unless he (thinks) he can turn over a hefty profit from Stadium renovations - then what else is there in it for him?

That does depend on if you believe everything Clem says, or even part of what Clem says.

He says he doesnt want to sell and that the club is not for sale, or, maybe this also, is a lie?

[DiV]

That does depend on if you believe everything Clem says, or even part of what Clem says.

He says he doesnt want to sell and that the club is not for sale, or, maybe this also, is a lie?

I think in reality everything is for sale for the right price.

My house isn’t for sale but if someone offered me good money for it - I’d sell it….

…now if my house was also out of my price range and needed some serious renovation; I’d jump at a, decent offer…

[Pookemon]

I wouldn’t take all those budgets at face value, though. It’s really just a collection of wage data from this site. Can’t believe even Clem is only paying the scholars £50pw!

https://salarysport.com/football/#sky-bet-league-two

I'm not convinced by the these numbers.

It includes players in on loan but it's not clear if that is the amount the loaning club pays or the wage of the player at his parent club.. 
It also excludes players loaned out, so Aguiar and Adoloye and you would assume we are paying some of those.

Some of the wages of the loaned in players may be quite big and distort the figures.   
All 3 of Sutton's top earners on the list are loans for example

[DiV]

I'm not convinced by the these numbers.

It includes players in on loan but it's not clear if that is the amount the loaning club pays or the wage of the player at his parent club.. 
It also excludes players loaned out, so Aguiar and Adoloye and you would assume we are paying some of those.

Some if the wages of the loaned in players may be quite big and distort the figures.   
All 3 of Sutton's top earners on the list are loans for example

Walsall’s top earner is on £5.2k a week but also on loan from Wolves…

[horlock07]

I think in reality everything is for sale for the right price.

My house isn’t for sale but if someone offered me good money for it - I’d sell it….

…now if my house was also out of my price range and needed some serious renovation; I’d jump at a, decent offer…

This, plus in terms of your earlier post I think basic business logic seems to fly out the window when football clubs are involved.

[RobertT]

Regardless of Horlocks knowledge of the industry, I still would bet good money that Clem's in this for the ground as he always was from the start.  There are certainly ways to lose good money in football, but we  also know there are ways to extract money as well, and none of it needing to be illegal.  It's surely why some of the hangers on are hanging on.  Zav using the club as a Trojan Horse for a Visa business for example.  The partnership with the Aussie private Academy looks a bit weird as well - it's not us setting up some talent pool, it's us partnering with a well established local Academy that basically runs local youth football leagues.  Thus far the only output from that appears to be us sending Gav Gunning to watch the kids play for two days and charging the parents 299 AUSD for the privilege.

There is basically a lot of stuff that makes no real sense to the outside observer, but likely earns someone a few quid here and there.  The ground development gets Axis some money back, maybe they never come out of this the way Clem wanted, but he's been moving money around his businesses for a while to keep the lights on it seems.   Nothing in the public domain suggests a booming business, quite the opposite.  There has been an awful lot of "restructuring", or liquidations, whichever word you fancy.  The ground maybe a way into a new market to keep that business going, use it as marketing material as it's been a while since they were involved in the Spurs toilets for example.

Take yourself back to September 2022, and Clem is faced with two options.  Find 2.9m quick sharpish to enable the Eady Trust to buy the ground, give his business half and lease his business the full asset for 299 years at half the current rate of rent, or pull out of the deal, say the club can't afford it.  That was an option, he did not need to proceed.  The Debenture was either called in or forced to be cleared because of the asset transfer.  If the club did not take the asset, the Debenture remains worthless, in terms of what anyone could really get if they tried to force repayment.

To proceed means that asset transfer was the potential payoff - we had to have it, because the strategy from there on relied on it.  It created more confusion in ownership and muddied the financial waters, but Clem is all in on the sunk cost fallacy right now (if Horlock is right).  Rather than cut your losses and bail, he's had to go all in.  Now he just needs to find a way of surviving until contracts can be drawn-up, or someone buys into the potential and takes it off his hands.  I think he would prefer to have Axis sewn-up in the deal either way.

That's all opinion, based on some fact, and I could be very wrong.  But it just feels more likely than not right now.  Nothing is being invested in for the long term future of the football club, we are changing recruitment strategy mid season, let alone from season to season, which would be bad enough.  Everything just has the smell of gambling, panic, reacting - nothing looks well planned.  I mean, if running a football club for the long term was the plan, a CEO would be onboard who knows how to run a football club.  Even though he BS's quite a bit, I don't doubt Clem when he says it's hard work, especially while abroad.  All the more reason you appoint someone who knows their arse from the elbow.  He can still have his Axis team involved, on the Board, to oversee the ground development.

[ThreeDrawsMentality]

Given takeover talk is all the rage at the moment, rumours have broke this morning that Shrewsbury Town are in talks with 2 different consortia -  one domestic and the other Scandinavian. Shrews from the outside have appeared well ran and backed, yet their fans have been quite toxic about their owner, who's also a fan.

Carlisle also in prolonged talks with a wealthy Floridian.