Thetownend.com

Thi point has been raised whereby members of this forum believe that the current STFC board are raising funds to simply walk away afterwards. This initself seems unfeasable as surely they would be held accountable for their actions but just to raise a few issues...

£     x        increased gate recipts / playoff gates 2003/2004
£450,000+ for sale of Sam Parkin
£300,000   for sale of Rory Fallon
£125,000   for transfer of Sean o'Hanlon
£1,200,000 investment by Bill Power
£300,000+ for transfer of Dennis Wise & Gus Poyet
£750,000   for sale of Lucas Jutkiwicz
£     x       increased gate reciepts 2006/2007
£3,125,000 UNACCOUNTED FOR!!!

Granted there are factors to consider.....

Player tansfer fees free up revenue for wages of players that are brought in on free's for example Lee Peacock.
A good year previous leads to an increase in budgets, however a lack of performance in the higher bidget season will lead to reductions the following season.

But and this is a big but ... You do not reduce your budget following a promotion! Absolute bollocks, considerring we were lucky to get straight back up as apposed to dropping and dropping ala the likes of Bradford, Wimbledon etc.

Is our board full of A level accounting students (and i can say this becuase i've been there) that who crearte a suspense account for any innacuracies intheir records and just let it float around.... Theres a reason we're in a bloody CVA you know!

Simply the money goes to pay off the interest and capital on loans raised against the properties of SSW.

I know from working in accounts in my previous job for 4 years there is a term used 'creative accounting' where by people ammend there records in certain situations and I fear this could certainly be the case at the moment because as you say the amounts going into the club and not improving the clubs financial situation is inexplainable.  

The fact the auditors disagreed with the accounts for the holding company is another worrying factor and again brings into question the current board and how they run the club.

Couple of things that have been a nagging worry for me in recent times is as I said in the other thread they could be making as much money as they can before doing a runner this could be done through getting payments up front and not releasing exact agreements then perhaps putting a portion into the club and keeping some themselves.  

The other scenario is that the dealings of the club over the last few years have been that dodgy/bad that the possibility of facing criminal charges is too much so they will just take the club under.

Could be way over the top but they are things I am sure have crossed others minds.

Creative accounting would be picked up by the auditors if it was substantial enough. Like the holding company accounts.

If I remember rightly there was an increase in turnover for the playoff year. The club still didn't make a profit though.

It does seem, given that the Club cannot pay this CVA money, that the losses are getting larger though and the additional income isn't covering them. Where's the money going? With so many loans and finance costs my guess is here. Let's also not forget that the board's strategy of cutting the playing staff budget when we got relegated probably lost them a lot of income, given the dire performances on the pitch.

Although the crux of the situation remains in the fact that we don't have accounts for 05/06, or 06/07 to look at. It makes it ever more difficult to determine.

has the playing budget really been cut?

i must have missed that revelation!

eh?

maybe i've mis-read richard's post but he seems to think the playing budget has been cut...

Wasn't Sturrock quoted as saying he had a small budget to deal with next year? I am sure its been around somewhere.

It was in the Adver a couple of days after promotion. He said something along the lines of that we'd have one of the smallest playing budgets in League One next season. And given that the board have spent all season bitching about Mark D's "overspend" including the playing budget, it seems that the budget that got us out of League Two is likely to be slashed back to more like the budget that got us relegated from League One.

Would you expect anything less from the football experts in the boardroom?

Must be Sandy Gray's turn to be chief executive again soon as well I would imagine.

this is depressing. i need a holiday.

Well i hope it doesn't cost us second time round by slashing the budget.

  I think straight away, the extension of contracts of many of the existing players rather than a clear out suggests that Sturrock,  has little room to manoevre.  Even so we will be stronger than two seasons ago when relegation was always likely after the budget cuts handed to King....I wouldn't expect us to compete at the top end of the table though.

I think you'll find the latest accouts published had around £1.5m in 'admin expenses'. This is bigger than most of the budgets in the bottom two divisions.

Unfortunately, the club no longer gives a breakdown of these 'admin expenses'.

We're being fucked over by these barrow boys - we all know it the great question is what the hell we can do about it.

I think it has to go through the holding company first. Didn't SiPie highlight the auditors saying that the loans from the holding company to the football club didn't mean anything? That doesn't mean they aren't claiming it back with interest. Which is sort of what you said reg.

 Its similar to the situation at Liverpool and ManUre, whereby the owners take out massive loans to gain the ownwership, then the money generated by the club goes to pay that money back.   Of course its a difference of scale, though no doubt that Newbury takes a chunk for services provided and consultancy fees etc.

Is that per financial period!?! Expect to see Mr Diamandis' 'consultancy' fees! For god sake the running of this club is rediculous!

Surely the board realise they have lost all confidence from the fans! So why does SSW who we believe to 'have the best intrests of the club at heart' allow these idiots to drive this club to the limit!

Surely even the board of STFC can realise that with Paul Sturrock at the helm, we have the best chance since Hoddle to reach new heights given his proven track record. So for god's sake, give the man some financial backing and lets do it! Right now i couln't give a toss as to what radio station we're on, whether we have a new staium or not, but all i care about is seeing some sucess for one that doesn't crumble due to a lack of balls by the people upstairs!

IIRC, Mr Diamandis is paid a salary of £80,000 but has not drawn it for a number of years. It was mentioned in the Adver's 'At home with Mike' article last year.

Yes that was what I was trying to say but in a much more backward way that they are taking money out whether it be salaries or not.  

Diamandis was quoted in paper last year saying he hadn't been paid in months.  

So wouldn't surprise me with all these latest lets make a quick buck schemes that he is taking all his back pay now.  

Still baffles me that no one in the adver really wants to get there teeth into the overall story of our board.  The accounts alone should have covered a full page with an accountant giving there opinions of them, then they should be querying despite increased income why we run at the same loss, why wont they enter an NDA with Bill Power, the list goes on and on.  This kind of story could make a career for a journalist.

If we are to believe Mike D on this (and obviously there is no reason why we shouldn't) while it may well be the case that he personally has not drawn his salary, that doesn't mean that Dunwoody aren't charging the club a substantial amount for the consultancy and "marketing expertise" (stop sniggering) they provide. There's more than one way to skin a cat or wreck a football club come to that.

They wouldn't be able to afford paying an accountant for their opinion. You might be able to get someone to do it, but if they work for a company they're likely to want to remain anomynous and so it would destroy the credibility of the article.

An accountant wouldn't really provide an opinion on the accounts anyway, just a commentary on them. If they don't have the source documents they wouldn't want to start making statements about facts and figures which were their own opinion.

In an ideal world you'd have someone who knew what they were talking about interviewing a board member about the accounts and asking them the questions.

We paid £300k in interest charges in the 2004/05 period, which was at least 2 times the rent payment that has so often been dragged out in public to show why we can't possibly expect to break even.

Add in the £1.5m Admin expenses and we are over £2m a year in basic operating costs before we even put a football team out.

At this level, that is a hefty set of costs to work with but we have no idea what the £1.5m is made up from.  £2m in costs is above some clubs overall level!  Effectively I think it costs more to run the club now than it did in the season we won promotion to the Premier League.  Granted that was a long time ago, but it's those seasons that we were told caused our club to hit decline, plus we were probably paying more in wages then than we do now.

Yes annoying as it is, the detailed profit and loss account does not form part of the statutory accounts and so isn't on the Companies House website

Actually, 300k interest works out at about 5% of £6m

It's 200k up on the previous year

Presume there is little we can do to judge if any of the loan itself is being repaid other than try and compare the balance sheet year on year?

Imagine having a £6m loan sitting there and just paying the interest on it, someone could make a lot of money over time from that.

I have no idea where all this money is going, but I am sure they have a rather large contract with a national stationer to provide lots  of brown envelopes!!  In my day the "expenses" were placed in your footy boots, guess now they are in the inside pockets of Saville Row suits!

I personally think most of the 'Admin expenses' are going to the Bank of Newbury, a subsidary of BCCI !!!

Well with an ex-Maxwell aide on the Board alongside Diamandis, I draw my own conclusions.
Suffice to say that if the interest has increased by 200k, that would indicate that the capital on which the interest has been paid has increased from 2 to 6 million.
So we have another £4,000,000 from somewhere that has gone somewhere else.
To which period does this relate , beacuse if this is the year ending 2006, that means that we are now talking figures of this last years unaccountted for £3,000,000 plus , AND the £4,000,000 too.
Bloody hell no wonder they ain't bothered about the CVA !
Of course we could all be barking up the wrong tree. If so, the club could clarify matters very simply, couldn't they ?

Budget cuts again, what a suprise.

Most of the money is indeed going to Newbury. Time for these parasites to go