City release accounts - Ouch!

[Finley_Smith10]

Could this lead to a points deduction? 

[Lrrr]

2 minutes ago, Finley_Smith10 said:

Could this lead to a points deduction? 

Given we don't seem likely to break FFP allowed losses then no 

[spudski]

58 minutes ago, bcfc01 said:

Lifelong fan ? 

 

Sorry to pick on these two (could of been a load of others), but it always amuses me that people announce that they aren't supporters anymore as if it matters to anyone except themselves. Just devalues their contribution on this site.

Bit like flouncing off the forum with a long post on why they've left - who the **** gives a shit ?

Just go.

 

I still go...just not a season ticket holder anymore.

It's a bit like falling in love, getting married, being blindly besotted and still caring, but the spark has gone, not feeling the same anymore, and rather than going through the motions deciding to take a break. I can change...but sadly the other half and infrastructure around it won't...just dieing slowly. 

I'd suggest most would stop going if they based it on being entertained. Most go out of habit, seeing mates, having a few beers etc. 

Everyone cares about the Club...they wouldn't be on here otherwise.

Thing is...a great majority moan about how football is run ..but do very little about it. Just words. It won't change unless fans take action.

Perhaps those that are willing to step away and want change, are actually better supporters long term, than those who blindly follow,  moan, but do nothing physically about it. It'll never change if you keep supporting something that obviously isn't working...not the Club perse...but professional football in this country.

We lose £412,000 a week, and have done weekly for 10 years. 

Why the hell would you support that.

Think about it.

[Davefevs]

55 minutes ago, !james said:

https://dcfcfans.uk/topic/38870-bristol-city-next-to-fail-p-and-s/#comments

Crikey @Mr Popodopolousgets about! Why on earth does every Derby fan on there hate him?! 

Just posted, refreshed….

I had a login from the Kodjia days when they thought he’d go there for £1.5m….they missed a 1 off!!!

Can you screenshot my post please.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Davefevs

[Lew-T]

£38.4m and for what? The last couple of seasons has been awful on the pitch.
 

What a shitshow of a club we are. 

[Kingswood Robin]

1 hour ago, IAmNick said:

From that twitter thread linked:

Average 1st team wage is 16k? Can that really be true?! I know average isn't always the best measure as it can be heavily skewed, but as far as I know we don't have any 40k+'ers who would do that.

Looking at that squad, and who there has some value that's unbelievable.

That certainly caught my eye. Look at the weekly wage from 2017 to 2021 and think of the quality of football on show in that period, unbelievable is the right word. The cost per shot on target chart must look horrific.

[Davefevs]

[Simon bristol]

21 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Nice post dave, just read it on the derby forum… the loss figures are horrific, but aren’t exactly a great surprise, and will be broadly in line with other non pp championship clubs i guess.

we are in dire need of moving a few of the top earners off the wage bill,,, we all know who they are, but no one is going to want to take them on!

[Always Believesham]

Interesting to read info and opinions - seems the level of gratitude to SL has fallen slightly, I'm sure he'll be less invested (for want of a better word) himself, it must be so draining to watch countless millions go through something you love when all you've really got to show for it is the hope of a good season - 30 games would probably do it tbf). Unfortunately last year we had the opposite, after a good first dozen and a half games.

I want to engage but know I am less than an amateur when it comes to this stuff - I don't mean to cause offense with naivety but feel free to totally disregard...

13 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

So am I right in thinking that by putting all these debts on to the holding company, it will prevent us from getting points deductions or other sanctions?

I am not a finance pro but it may be helpful to compare;

2019-20

BCFC Holdings: turnover, £27m, loss, £8.5m

BCFC ltd turnover, £16m, loss £6m

Looking at between 2/3s and 3/4s of turnover are BCFC football club and probably a bit more or a proportion of losses. 2018-19 comparison shows a greater share of the Profits were BCFC club so when things are "good" money goes straight back into the club. Looks like as much as can be done, is done to move as much "loss" to holding company - don't think that will change. I know it's not as simple as that.

13 hours ago, East Londoner said:

Although isn’t there a special dispensation for losses during the covid period?

SL exchanged £71m worth of debt for shares in 19-20, although nothing confirmed - is there anything in SL converting £26m debt to shares in the year? I think £24m is the limit for the 3 year period, would that point towards a something re:losses and agreement with EFL? or more likely a limit on what was allowed in 2019-20 (forcing him to do it in 2 steps)? I don't expect so, but this was is something he'd only done once before in 2013.

Interesting to note SL created 155m worth of shares in the last 2 decades (all nominally valued at £1). I'm sure Burnley were only sold for £200m last year and they are a prem club with a lot more income due in the next 4-5 years.

13 hours ago, Olé said:

Good point but surely there is an accounting adjustment for early season ticket revenue on this season, which has not been fulfilled. I've assumed season ticket revenue as published is banked and relates to the 20/21 season only within the trading year. £700,000 is what, about 2500-3000 season tickets? If it's inclusive of early sales this year, that makes the benevolent actions in 20/21 much smaller. How many names were on that third shirt? 

13 hours ago, Olé said:

To answer my own question @RonWalker 21/22 season ticket revenue is classed as deferred income. We also issued £4.6m worth of refunds in the trading year.

This bugged me, in the back of my mind thought the ST donations were 5k - link shows 5,434 bcfc.co.uk/news/fans-third-shirt-out-for-delivery/

13 hours ago, Olé said:

Our accounts for 20/21 are due by the end of February 2022 so they weren't needed now. You could certainly argue we are using this to soften the expectation in the transfer window. Last year we filed two months later on February 1st, but prior to that we filed fairly regularly in November (a month earlier than this) so I don't think it's too unusual .

Good point, is this all a move by SL? Get the accounts of the holding company out Pre-window, disclose the FC position after the window. What has been shared is an indication to how little we've got to play with but isn't showing all his cards (bracing ourselves for FC figures to be worse I assume?).

11 hours ago, O'Garlandinho said:

I thought football manager contracts these days = salary paid for leavers until they get a new job? Or paid until end of contract if they don’t get a new job, obviously.

Also, i believe a full year of Wells compared to prior year is an additional circa £1m in wage bill.

 

I heard this about Tottenham and wondered if many other clubs did it... (Kieron Maguire podcast talked about Mourinho being on gardening leave, as a result able to agree a low slary at Roma, which is topped up by Tottenham). I think it would make sense in Holden, or anyone on a rolling contract's case - maybe not so with LJ, he struck me as shrude enough to get a pay-out promised in writing. You can't amortise it like a transfer though.

4 hours ago, billywedlock said:

Of course now having got ourselves in this pickle, and it is bad as many assumed, getting out of it is even harder. We should have been maxing out the areas of non FFP performance investments for years (Academy cat 1) as we will be relying on youth development for many years to come now. Taking players from the Prem reserves looks unlikely when Palmer was on £28k a week at Chelsea (now that shows how far apart these leagues are now). Scouting and recruitment will need to be very clever. The parachute system will now completely destroy the Championship as owners (maybe like our or Stoke) cannot simply try to compete with them with cash inputs. The whole concept of the Championship is flawed, and the Prem with parachute payments and the ability to sign any talents they want with no squad size constraints (youth) makes a mockery of it all. So this is going to be a very tough period for us and many fellow sides and for some fans they have had enough of the nonsense. Not sure how this plays out, certainly not well if the structure of football is not changed. No wonder the idea of a regulator worries the Prem, and so it should. If you look at the Championship, you really can start to question what is the point. 

I know it won't be lost on you that Stoke were also in receipt of parachute payments - they had an awful attempt at bouncing back, few clubs have made such a hash of trying to get back up there, they seem to have got themselves in a good place now though in terms of performance. To be in their position is pretty bad, although some teams that went up didn't spend much less than Stoke on succesful attempts. Stoke's owner is the highest salaried company director in the country with about £0.5bn p/a so it's not that they can't afford it - I know what you're getting at though, is the lack of income makes FFP the challenge.

3 hours ago, City1970 said:

Thanks for the update, I didn’t realise McCarthy had personal loss to deal with, I’m sorry for that.

what I do remember, is that I was at that Preston game.

If I can’t remember the facts, it’s time for me to leave this forum.

almost completely irrelevant to say now but we were promoted at easter, lost 4/6 and did implode in a way.

fwiw I took the original point about Goater as tongue in cheek - it would be like selling a player to Newcastle on their way down, infintiley "bigger" club. We'll never be in a position to say no to everyone - what we did do was reinvest in Akinbiyi, and Anderson, and Thorpe, and other strikers. It seems we've struggled to buy more than 1 decent striker at a time since then!

[A Horse With No Name]

2 hours ago, CyderInACan said:

I’d imagine he was just finally glad to get here. Weren’t we after him for about 5 or 6 years and by the time we finally got our man he was far from the player we’d originally (Tony) targeted. 

Sounds a bit like Nahki Wells.

[Davefevs]

45 minutes ago, Always Believesham said:

This bugged me, in the back of my mind thought the ST donations were 5k - link shows 5,434 bcfc.co.uk/news/fans-third-shirt-out-for-delivery/

Suspect a lot of “donations” were from non-adult tickets like my sons….whose name I still can’t find on his shirt!

[Ivorguy]

It isn’t just that City’s losses are unsustainable but that football itself outside Premier League is fast becoming unsustainable too.  Wages do not reflect quality, entertainment or much really. 
We shall need, imo, to look at new ways of paying players, eg

1. based on appearances

2. based on results

We may need to think about part time contracts.  John Atyeo wasn’t bad on that answer!!

We need to up our scouting in the non leagues.  There are real gems there and a good few who would welcome a part time contract

[View from the Dolman]

8 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Has AG been back operating as a general commercial venue as it did pre-covid? Has the stadium been hosting stuff like that vegan roadshow thing again?

There has certainly been some of the corporate/conference type events happening - Business West, UK Careers Fair, Bristol Live Apprenticeship Awards etc - so they have at least returned to some extent if not 100% of pre-Covid levels. 

[Olé]

7 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Had a FM from Kieran.

Thanks for sharing this @Davefevs - based on the huge number of staff reported in our accounts and the commercial income typically achieved (outside Covid) at the redeveloped Ashton Gate (3rd best in the division) I'm going to suggest our ratio is not at the 0.725 Kieran uses but a bit better than at most clubs. At 0.6 our players average weekly wage is not 16k but 13k, at 0.5 (extreme but then we have got 560 odd staff) the average falls to £11k. £16k sounds too high to me.

Incidentally, @petehintonwas involved so can tell me if I've got this wrong, but the admin staff kept off furlough to then help the Community Trust outreach during Covid (delivering meals etc) in a year the business itself is losing £40m - that is the measure of the club and it's commitment to the local area. I know many people gave their time for free but let's not forget that an organisation anticipating this bombscare of a financial results still put its hand in its pocket to help others.

[Phileas Fogg]

8 hours ago, !james said:

https://dcfcfans.uk/topic/38870-bristol-city-next-to-fail-p-and-s/#comments

Crikey @Mr Popodopolousgets about! Why on earth does every Derby fan on there hate him?! 

Probably seen as a bit busy if signing up to their forum to discuss their own financial issues I imagine. 

[Bris Red]

9 hours ago, bcfc01 said:

Lifelong fan ? 

 

Sorry to pick on these two (could of been a load of others), but it always amuses me that people announce that they aren't supporters anymore as if it matters to anyone except themselves. Just devalues their contribution on this site.

Bit like flouncing off the forum with a long post on why they've left - who the **** gives a shit ?

Just go.

 

Well you clearly give a shit because you replied you absolute bellend 

[Bris Red]

20 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Probably seen as a bit busy if signing up to their forum to discuss their own financial issues I imagine. 

It is a bit odd isn’t it. I mean fair play to @Mr Popodopolous as he has divulged into great detail on here about our financial situation and has gone to depths that many average fans couldn’t.

It just begs the question of where does he find the time to then go into great depths about another football clubs accounts aswell. Got to admire his dedication to the subjects i suppose!

[Phileas Fogg]

3 minutes ago, bris red said:

It is a bit odd isn’t it. I mean fair play to @Mr Popodopolous as he has divulged into great detail on here about our financial situation and has gone to depths that many average fans couldn’t.

It just begs the question of where does he find the time to then go into great depths about another football clubs accounts aswell. Got to admire his dedication to the subjects i suppose!

Yeah I don’t think we’d like it too much if we were in Derby’s situation and had a fan of a rival club explaining the intricacies of it in enormous detail.

As you say - I also admire the dedication but I can see why that would be seen as a bit irritating.

[Super]

Pretty sure we can list 38m in wasted signings in the past 3 years.

[oldstandrobin]

20 hours ago, myol'man said:

Paying players too much to come here, if the South West in general and Bristol in particular is such a sh!t hole that we have to offer players over the odds to come here then **** um, forget the Premier League dream, buy promising players from lower leagues, take the hit of relegation and begin the ten year cycle again. 

 

its what we do best !!!

[Waconda]

9 hours ago, Lrrr said:

Thing is I've only known us to pay a fee for one player to come into the academy, we don't pinch players from academies of lower levels then us so what added benefit would moving up a category serve us in that regard? Our recruitment for academy is to either look at players released from other academies or those of amateur clubs, the two examples of players who joined City aged 16+ lately where we've done this are Francois and Scott, no higher level of academy required you just need to be smart with who you bring in. Players either need to be good enough for the 1st team or they need to be able to be loaned out as U23's football isn't a system that will help the players whether its playing in Cat 1 or Cat 2. The number of Cat 1 and 2 academy players on loan in the football league shows this. The other key point people are talking about City changing their academy structure atm, the crop of Bell, Pearson, Conway, Benarous, Low, Towler etc they're the first group of players to be produced since EPPP was introduced, ie the first batch to go through the system completely under EPPP and its produced a batch of 4 or 5 players who could be 1st team players and a system where we've recruited others who could be. Yet we're talking about spending millions more to change that system where we're only just now seeing results? Personally I think we'll see more cat 1 clubs who don't have premier league money drop down to cat 2 or maybe even 3 in the next 5 or so years.

We do "pinch" players from other Academies of similar and lower levels than us though.

Not sure where you heard we don't.

[Fontaineofallknowledge]

8 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Thanks for this, didn't know that about taking the mean of ffp losses for those two years so that's reassuring!

 

fevs can you please share your workings on how we've knocked £12m off the cost base this year please, I'm really struggling to get there once you reflect the new signings made?

 

thanks

[Elruliri]

13 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

He who laughs last probably didn’t get the joke.

"Alright Dave"

[NcnsBcfc]

12 hours ago, City1970 said:

Thanks for the update, I didn’t realise McCarthy had personal loss to deal with, I’m sorry for that.

what I do remember, is that I was at that Preston game.

If I can’t remember the facts, it’s time for me to leave this forum.

You must remember Mccarthy goal and subsequent celebration then?

I think the stands are still shaking....

[The Humble Realist]

On the derby forum they mention a strategic report referring to downing and simpson assisting holden whilst he was 'interim manager'  Is this true ?

 

If so are we rewriting history?

Edited December 29, 2021 by The Humble Realist

[City1970]

7 minutes ago, NcnsBcfc said:

You must remember Mccarthy goal and subsequent celebration then?

I think the stands are still shaking....

I remember a cock up with the Preston keeper and his defence and McCarthy stroked the ball in, but we conceded almost straight away. 
I also remember it was crazy with City supporters in fancy dress in the crappy stand on the side.

[Fordy62]

@Davefevs - when referring to the 3 year rolling period for FFP, I’m right in thinking that the horror show of 17/18 (26m loss) drops off to be replaced by this years figures. 

Im sure it’s already covered in this thread somewhere, but how much of the 38m loss is given leeway by covid allowances? I.e. what is the figure going onto our accounts to replace 17/18 26m loss going to be?

Naturally I realise the problem then come the year after with the 10m profit year dropping off!

[Olé]

17 minutes ago, The Humble Realist said:

On the derby forum they mention a strategic report referring to downing and simpson assisting holden whilst he was 'interim manager'  Is this true ?

 

If so are we rewriting history?

Yes.

I assume Derby fans are desperately digging around to find something we've done wrong so they can point the finger at anyone but their own rampant mismanagement and cheating.

[BigAl&Toby]

10 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I'm not as down on SL as you, there have been ups and downs and I doubt he'll see us slide into administration or insolvency but certainly a good point about that fixed charge.

That £70m loan, indeed secured against the ground and everything else. Have a few concerns about that loan. First noticed it last season.

I’ve had the “privilege” of spending time with holders of fixed charges, and of enforcing them.

If you have one then you’re in a relatively secure position. And in the Messiah’s position?

He’s the lender. He’s created the mirage of a football/rugby/basketball club alongside a venue that hosts anything and everything from Covid vaccinations to the Killers.

He seems to have willingly overseen a loss making business lurch from loss to loss. He oversaw the appointment of people who were frankly inept, and out of their depth.

Compare that to the way he must’ve seemingly developed HL. From getting excited over spreadsheets and investments in his bedroom to a shiny glass office where there were once railway sidings.

Chalk and cheese. 

And why? Does he want to be the modern day equivalent of the philanthropic John James? Or is his more Merchant Venturers? Or is he hell bent on making us proud.

One thing is for certain. Whatever he’s done, doing or will do Steve, Mrs Steve and Steve Jnr won’t be stood amongst the faithful at the next away game.

Neither will they be out of pocket. Wonder how the value of Ashton Vale is doing these days…….

[The Humble Realist]

15 minutes ago, Olé said:

Yes.

I assume Derby fans are desperately digging around to find something we've done wrong so they can point the finger at anyone but their own rampant mismanagement and cheating.

I dont really see what it has to do with FFP, I'm more surprised /confused why we would say holden was interim manager when he wasnt ? What does anyone have to gain by that?