Finances 21/22

[Davefevs]

@Mr Popodopolousnot sure if you noticed the date the accounts were signed?

27th October.

Same day as the Fans Forum!

[Pezo]

4 hours ago, Harry said:

FFP-wise, I think this is the situation:

Usually it’s a 3 year period, but with covid, they are allowing a 4 year period, with the 19/20 and 20/21 period placed together and averaged. 
 

So for 18/19 we made a profit of £11m

For 19/20 we lost £10m

For 20/21 we lost £38.4m

Average for those 2 is therefore £24.2 loss

21/22 we lost £28.5m

So for the 3 year average, we are at a total loss of £28.5 + £24.2 - £11 = £41.7

So that’s £41.7m losses against a limit of £39m, which obviously puts us over, but we don’t yet know how much we are allowed to deduct from this for the covid losses being allowed. 
As long as this is more than £2.7m then we are inside the FFP. 

Interesting, I didn't realise they had moved to a 4y period. 

If they move back to a 3 year period what does that do for next season? I make it an average of £33.45 for this and last season  and that means we need to be less than £-6m next season - might be possible with deductions and the big expenses (Kalas,Wells) on new contracts or off the books.

[GrahamC]

21 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Plus Baker, assuming we're still paying him until next June.

We have option of 1 year extension on O'Leary and Vyner - likely to do so, based on current form.

Same option with Semenyo which we'll obviously take up, if only to flog him to the highest bidder asap.

Think there's plenty of the reserve team also ooc - Morton, Owura Edwards, Wiles-Richards, Casa-Grande, James Taylor, Araoye, Owers, Kadji, Taylor-Clarke, yer man Palmer-Houlden. 1 year options on Morton and Edwards - can't imagine we'll take up either.   

Pearson to find replacements for tuppence ha'penny whilst trying to keep us safe from relegation in the most competitive league in the world. 

Morton’s gone, not officially Tim, in all but in name. Sam Pearson is another, too.

Think Pearson’s press conference pre Watford was really interesting about our situation but because it came after the Lincoln shambles it didn’t get widely reported.

Paraphrasing, he said our previous transfer policy was “scattergun” (a word several of us had used on here previously), that we had failed to get value for money & that recruitment was the most important part of the job.

I think last summer’s recruitment was the way forward, we clearly identified Sykes, Naismith & Wilson as out of contract players who could improve us & moved in relatively quickly.

My hunch is O’Leary & Vyner aside none of the first team squad ones out of contract are going to get offers anything like their current deals & that a fair few won’t get an offer at all.

It will free up a lot of wages but you’re right, the challenge of replacing over 50% of the squad with replacements on less than half their money is bloody tricky.

[Merrick's Marvels]

11 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

My hunch is O’Leary & Vyner aside none of the first team squad ones out of contract are going to get offers anything like their current deals & that a fair few won’t get an offer at all.

Kalas and Wells the only ones I'd be having a conversation with. Not sure either will agree to the sort of wages we're likely to be offering, though. 

[GrahamC]

4 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Kalas and Wells the only ones I'd be having a conversation with. Not sure either will agree to the sort of wages we're likely to be offering, though. 

Me too & in Kalas’ case even that would only be if he was available for at least 50% of our remaining games now.

If they both say no, we move on without bothering to negotiate, because in those circumstances we are removing a huge chunk from our wage bill.

[Harry]

1 hour ago, Rob k said:

So we’re still paying big wages then - that makes those 5 players on an average of 9k and I’m certain Tanner won’t be on anywhere near that 

Exactly. 
Nor Atkinson. 
King also not likely to have come in near that average. 
Similarly Klose as an OOC player like likely wouldn’t have demanded that sort of average. 
Leaves James as a very handsomely paid player, doesn’t it. 
I think when we see next years accounts, you’ll find we’ve spent equally as large a wage on Naismith too. 

[Davefevs]

43 minutes ago, Pezo said:

Interesting, I didn't realise they had moved to a 4y period. 

If they move back to a 3 year period what does that do for next season? I make it an average of £33.45 for this and last season  and that means we need to be less than £-6m next season - might be possible with deductions and the big expenses (Kalas,Wells) on new contracts or off the books.

Only 4 years during cycles affected by covid seasons.

If we ignore the fact that FFP rules might change, then we would be back to 3 year cycles for end of next season (2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24)

[Davefevs]

11 minutes ago, Harry said:

Exactly. 
Nor Atkinson. 
King also not likely to have come in near that average. 
Similarly Klose as an OOC player like likely wouldn’t have demanded that sort of average. 
Leaves James as a very handsomely paid player, doesn’t it. 
I think when we see next years accounts, you’ll find we’ve spent equally as large a wage on Naismith too. 

When we see the BCFC Ltd accounts we can get a better idea of who is taking up the wages and how much of that £30.325m is football.  Probably £24-25m of it.  There are 90 players included in the £24-25m wage bill too, but of course many of them are Academy players on low wage and Women’s players.

 

[GrahamC]

3 hours ago, Harry said:

The Naismith addition wouldn’t be on these accounts. That’ll be on next years. 
On this years accounts, the player additions totalling contracts of £2.3m would be James, King, Atkinson, Tanner & Klose. 
On next years accounts, player contract wise, the only biggies we really have coming off is O’Dowda & Palmer. With Naismith, Wilson, Sykes & Bajic being added (plus anything in Jan?)

We’re still gonna be paying the big Ashton contracts into next years accounts too (Kalas, Bentley, Wells, Dasilva, Martin), so it’s still not gonna be pretty until the following year. 

Wouldn’t that £2.3m sum not also have included Nathan Baker’s “new” contract?
Having been on the original released list we then changed our mind & offered him 2 more years.

Plus Simpson & Weimann’s (quite a contrast in relative success rate!) contract renewals, possibly included too?

[Mr Popodopolous]

3 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

It’s no surprise at all that we are okay from an FFP point. If we weren’t then we would have sold more in the summer. 

To 2021-22 but what about to this season??

This has always been my concern.

Just now, GrahamC said:

Wouldn’t that £2.3m sum not also have included Nathan Baker’s “new” contract?
Having been on the original released list we then changed our mind & offered him 2 more years.

Plus Simpson & Weimann’s (quite a contrast in relative success rate!) contract renewals, possibly included too?

Depends on signing on fee or agents fee for free transfers of course.

[Mr Popodopolous]

In terms of revenue lost I would argue £15-6m in the 2 Covid years. Question is should this be gross or net of cost savings as lockdown will have entailed some.

The big one is transfer add-backs. Contrary to some analysis I fear that our accounts will be among the worse end.

[Davefevs]

34 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Wouldn’t that £2.3m sum not also have included Nathan Baker’s “new” contract?
Having been on the original released list we then changed our mind & offered him 2 more years.

Plus Simpson & Weimann’s (quite a contrast in relative success rate!) contract renewals, possibly included too?

The £2.261m is transfer fees / signing on fees, so £1.6m and £0.3m transfer fees for Atkinson and Tanner respectively plus signing on fees for them and anyone else.  So yes could be any or all of Weimann, Baker, Klose, King and James as well as Tanner and Atkinson too.

Here are the notes from last year’s BCFC accounts:

So just shy of £300k might be attributed to signing on fees.

I will we can challenge the myth / view of the type of OOC players we are signing getting huge signing on fees like during boom time!  And might be in lieu of wages to keep within structure?

[And Its Smith]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

To 2021-22 but what about to this season??

This has always been my concern.

Depends on signing on fee or agents fee for free transfers of course.

If we sell Scott then we will be fine. He’s going in the summer nailed on 

[Mr Popodopolous]

28 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

If we sell Scott then we will be fine. He’s going in the summer nailed on 

By May 31st 2023?

That is when our accounts run until. There are probably 3 options.

1) Extend the reporting period (which also extends costs- but also perhaps some events revenue).

2) Apply to the Football League to put a transfer after May back into this season? Is that allowable? Who knows. Mel Morris claimed it was..

3) Put a sale of Scott and or others in Projections to 2022-23, then the benefit might fall into this season rather than next.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

Still a bit difficult to fathom just how we lost as much as we did...Operating Costs of £60m once wages, non cash expenses all factored??

Plus of course a rise in Interest payable. Still though:

*Revenue a net rise of £10-11m (once we include furlough).

*Wage bill down £5m

*What was amortisation and impairment- down £4-5m?

*Transfer profit down £5m

*Depreciation up yes- but excluded from FFP.

Surely our pre tax losses are £4-5m too high for the net swing for and against? Granted the interest rise and cost of staging events will have a factor?

Edited November 18, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[And Its Smith]

12 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

By 31st May 2023?

That is when our accounts run until. There are probably 3 options.

1) Extend the reporting period (which also extends costs- but also perhaps some events revenue).

2) Apply to the Football League to put a transfer after May back into this season? Is that allowable? Who knows. Mel Morris claimed it was..

3) Put a sale of Scott and or others in Projections to 2022-23, then the benefit might fall into this season rather than next.

I’m not sure why you are worried. Gould doesn’t seem worried and he seems very competent. If there was any danger then we would sell in Jan. If we don’t sell in Jan then it will be fine.  

[Mr Popodopolous]

8 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

I’m not sure why you are worried. Gould doesn’t seem worried and he seems very competent. If there was any danger then we would sell in Jan. If we don’t sell in Jan then it will be fine.  

I'm not so worried but am stating a fact.

Because our accounts run until May 31st 2023 as it stands- fact.

If we sell after that point- can you put together a case to include it in the season of 2022-23 and the reporting period that ends May 31st 2023?

A deadline is a deadline no? In theory there may be ways but it's not guaranteed.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[And Its Smith]

6 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I'm not so worried but am stating a fact.

Because our accounts run until May 31st 2023 as it stands- fact.

If we sell after that point- can you put together a case to include it in the season of 2022-23 and the reporting period that ends May 31st 2023?

A deadline is a deadline no? In theory there may be ways but it's not guaranteed.

You said you were concerned about this season. I’m saying I can’t see the need to be concerned as they will sell someone in January if they have too 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 minute ago, And Its Smith said:

You said you were concerned about this season. I’m saying I can’t see the need to be concerned as they will sell someone in January if they have too 

Well yes and no- I think there is a strong chance we will exceed limits to this season as it stands to this season.

In theory we have until end of May next year to put it right. Fixed asset 'sales' as we all know are no longer an option- the smaller the gap to fill, the easier to put right.

I'm now less worried about in-season deductions.

Scott sale January and 6 to 18 month loan back??

Edited November 17, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

Cards on the table though, I don't see how our player transfer profit add-back argument stacks up, I really don't.

Realistically surely we need to make £15-20m worth of profit on disposal of players by end of May 2023?

Edited November 18, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Curr Avon]

7 hours ago, Bristol Rob said:

In my head, I sang that to the tune of 12 days of Christmas.

So thanks for that. That'll be stuck in my head for the rest of the evening. 

A Scott Partridge in a pear tree would be losing the younger viewers Rob.

[Davefevs]

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

By May 31st 2023?

That is when our accounts run until. There are probably 3 options.

1) Extend the reporting period (which also extends costs- but also perhaps some events revenue).

2) Apply to the Football League to put a transfer after May back into this season? Is that allowable? Who knows. Mel Morris claimed it was..

3) Put a sale of Scott and or others in Projections to 2022-23, then the benefit might fall into this season rather than next.

That’s where the covid revenue allowances and add-backs come in…they fill the projected “gap” over and above £39m.

We cannot put a player sale into the wrong period, nor would be project something unlikely to happen.  Kelly being sold in May was not the norm.

1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Still a bit difficult to fathom just how we lost as much as we did...Operating Costs of £60m once wages, non cash expenses all factored??

Plus of course a rise in Interest payable. Still though:

*Revenue a net rise of £10-11m (once we include furlough).

*Wage bill down £5m

*What was amortisation and impairment- down £4-5m?

*Transfer profit down £5m

*Depreciation up yes- but excluded from FFP.

Surely our pre tax losses are £4-5m too high for the net swing for and against? Granted the interest rise and cost of staging events will have a factor?

Yep, £57m of costs shows we need to be more efficient.

Wage bill for this season will be lower than just reported for last season, but not tonnes, O’Dowda and Palmer off the books as the high earners.  Some of Moore’s wages saved.

Amortisation will come down a couple of million.  No more impairments.  So that’s probably £3m better off.

Little bit of transfer profit on McAllister and Szmodics.  Little bit of money for Semenyo and Diedhiou from the WC.

Currently averaging 20k crowds at home in the league too.  So hopefully a bit of revenue uplift.

 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

That’s where the covid revenue allowances and add-backs come in…they fill the projected “gap” over and above £39m.

A fair summary of Covid add-baxks using typical lost revenue and costs, for 2019-20 and 2020-21 would  come in at £15-16m (so £7.5-8m) for that and £2.5m for last season.

It eats into it somewhat but not enough. I also think that the added depreciation suggests that perhaps our allowables now are £5.5-6m per season rather than £5m in 2019-20 and 2020-21!

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

We cannot put a player sale into the wrong period, nor would be project something unlikely to happen.  Kelly being sold in May was not the norm.

Agreed- just outlining theoretical possibilities even if that was moot ultimately.

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Yep, £57m of costs shows we need to be more efficient.

Wage bill for this season will be lower than just reported for last season, but not tonnes, O’Dowda and Palmer off the books as the high earners.  Some of Moore’s wages saved.

Amortisation will come down a couple of million.  No more impairments.  So that’s probably £3m better off.

Little bit of transfer profit on McAllister and Szmodics.  Little bit of money for Semenyo and Diedhiou from the WC.

Currently averaging 20k crowds at home in the league too.  So hopefully a bit of revenue uplift.

Interest payments falling would help but putting on a lot of events...costs. Not the sole factors of course but it costs.

Palmer- £1.3m per year was mentioned?

O'Dowda- £15k per week? Guessing.

Cundy- £5k per week? Again guessing.

Moore might have been you who suggested it, Shrewsbury paying £8k per week?

What would Bakinson have been on- £5-10k per week?

£59-64k per week cost saving wages wise.

£2-3m in amortisation and impairment savings

On the flipside- Bajic, Wilson, Sykes, Naismith- all joined on a free, but none joined for free. I took a stab in the dark at an £8k per week average wage but maybe lower. £6k x 4 average? £1.2-1.6m added back to the wage savings?

Remember too the £2.5m in Covid allowance for last season is no longer applied for this- bit of revenue uplift but still a hole. Could easily be an 8-figure one on face value even if I add £5-6m in extra revenue losses to the standard £5m x 2 for 2019-20 and 2020-21.

PS- there was a transfer profit yes as you say but there was also one last season albeit small. Will the net difference to date differ so much from that of last season? All helps of course...

Edited November 18, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

Forgot to add, the above post all IMO of course! Contains a bit of guesswork too.

[tin]

7 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

If we sell Scott then we will be fine. He’s going in the summer nailed on 

And if/when Webster, Kelly or Brownhill are sold on, that will help as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them makes a big move in the summer. 

[BigAl&Toby]

13 hours ago, BTRFTG said:

And there are still those out there who talk of SL's 'Cash Cow'.

@BTRFTG that’ll be me?

Yep. Even now he has his hands on her teats. Pulling hard. Very hard.

Look beyond the accounts young man. Look beyond Winterstoke Road. There be his ultimate cash cow…..

Ask yourself this old wise one. Who has been the absolute constant in this mess?

Why the **** would anyone with any common sense stick at it?

And yes. Lovely facilities now. I enjoyed using the Airblade. Football though? Absolutely the same old rubbish……

 

[Carey 6]

1 hour ago, tin said:

And if/when Webster, Kelly or Brownhill are sold on, that will help as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them makes a big move in the summer. 

I would be. We’ve been saying this for the last 4 transfer windows haven’t we?

I think the best chance we have is Bournemouth going down and someone moving for Kelly, even then Bournemouths negotiating point will be weaker with him only having a year left & having just been relegated.

Also depends if we have a straight sell on clause or a sell on percentage of profit. Can you see him going for much more than the £13m we sold him for?

Dwight McNeil was relegated with Burnley last season, was 22 years old, had 3 years to run on his contract and went for £20m. 

[And Its Smith]

34 minutes ago, Carey 6 said:

I would be. We’ve been saying this for the last 4 transfer windows haven’t we?

I think the best chance we have is Bournemouth going down and someone moving for Kelly, even then Bournemouths negotiating point will be weaker with him only having a year left & having just been relegated.

Also depends if we have a straight sell on clause or a sell on percentage of profit. Can you see him going for much more than the £13m we sold him for?

Dwight McNeil was relegated with Burnley last season, was 22 years old, had 3 years to run on his contract and went for £20m. 

Lloyd Kelly a lot better than Dwight McNeil. If Kelly left he would go to a good club. Will be an England player in the next 2 years 

[Carey 6]

17 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Lloyd Kelly a lot better than Dwight McNeil. If Kelly left he would go to a good club. Will be an England player in the next 2 years 

Perhaps, obvious link is Eddie Howe’s Newcastle but I still don’t think the fee would be massive, granted you do seem to get a sort of tax on English players though.

Maxwell Cornet & Emmanuel Dennis looked quite good for Burnley & Watford respectively last season & I don’t think the two of them went for much more than 20m each either. 

[Rob k]

8 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

A fair summary of Covid add-baxks using typical lost revenue and costs, for 2019-20 and 2020-21 would  come in at £15-16m (so £7.5-8m) for that and £2.5m for last season.

It eats into it somewhat but not enough. I also think that the added depreciation suggests that perhaps our allowables now are £5.5-6m per season rather than £5m in 2019-20 and 2020-21!

Agreed- just outlining theoretical possibilities even if that was moot ultimately.

Interest payments falling would help but putting on a lot of events...costs. Not the sole factors of course but it costs.

Palmer- £1.3m per year was mentioned?

O'Dowda- £15k per week? Guessing.

Cundy- £5k per week? Again guessing.

Moore might have been you who suggested it, Shrewsbury paying £8k per week?

What would Bakinson have been on- £5-10k per week?

£59-64k per week cost saving wages wise.

£2-3m in amortisation and impairment savings

On the flipside- Bajic, Wilson, Sykes, Naismith- all joined on a free, but none joined for free. I took a stab in the dark at an £8k per week average wage but maybe lower. £6k x 4 average? £1.2-1.6m added back to the wage savings?

Remember too the £2.5m in Covid allowance for last season is no longer applied for this- bit of revenue uplift but still a hole. Could easily be an 8-figure one on face value even if I add £5-6m in extra revenue losses to the standard £5m x 2 for 2019-20 and 2020-21.

PS- there was a transfer profit yes as you say but there was also one last season albeit small. Will the net difference to date differ so much from that of last season? All helps of course...

I think Naismith will be on nearer 14k a week and Wilson will be higher than 8k too. Purely as other clubs wanted them