Wage budget

[mozo]

3 minutes ago, Ian M said:

Sell multiple players? Conway and Pring the prime candidates in 10 months time. So exciting.

"We balance the books, we balance the boooks, we're Bristol City, we balance the books!"

"We're shit, but we're in the black..."

All together now...

[Ian M]

1 hour ago, mozo said:

"We balance the books, we balance the boooks, we're Bristol City, we balance the books!"

"We're shit, but we're in the black..."

All together now...

Maybe our away kit will be black to match our new club identity?

[mozo]

Just now, Ian M said:

Maybe our away kit will be black to match our new club identity?

I've got a black City shirt somewhere. I should dig it out!

[Mr Popodopolous]

2 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Based on teams in the Championship season / accounts ending summer 2022, then yes, Kid is right…we had the 8th highest turnover (blue sorted highest to lowest)

(red is losses)

 

Just as effing well, only Cardiff and Fulham made a bigger loss!

Although weirdly the Cardiff City Holdings shows losses about £4m lower..perhaps some Group Transaction that computed out. 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Cidre Monita]

It seems confusing what is real income and internal cross-charging that inflates turnover of a holding company but impacts very ittle  the bottom line as the costs/income/cross charging are just moved around. It just makes the club look like it has a greater turnover but it still loses substantial money as a football club. 

The football club earns, and these are all slightly variable year to year the following, but from last accounts

Premier League solidarity income £5 M

Football League Pool £3.5 M

Season Ticket sales £ 3 M approx

Match day tickets £2.0 m

Broadcasting revenue £0.5M (rounded up)

Other commercial £ 1.0 M

Other football-related income £1.0 m

All in it is about £18M. Nowhere near one of the highest in the league, though certainly not the lowest. 

Then you have the wage bill, which City do not split between playing and non-playing like a few clubs do, which was up around £28M in 2021 and is somewhere now down to lower £20 M's. The playing wage bill is under £20M according to Sl on Radio B. But add the football club wage bill to that of the stadium company (another £6M), and ouch, it is huge, around £30M. Far higher than comparable clubs. Meaning that our cost base is far too high for the the combined businesses, and the actual money spent on the players who perform on the pitch , well it is far from the wage bill often quoted in the media.  

So it is easy to see where the financial holes are, and that is before you buy players, or now, sell them, to fill those £15M a year holes.

The holding company has the stadium company, and that charges for services, as with all internal cross charges, you can decide where you want the money to appear, and rugby is barely adding much to that turnover number, the concerts will create some new income streams though. So to go from £18m of clearly defined income, to the £28M quoted, well that is not rugby or pop concerts, which may cover £3 maybe 4 M. The rest is fugazi. Is it not the case that  If the stadium company sells a ticket, for example, it will count as turnover of the stadium company, they then take their fee for manging the event, and pass on the net  "sale" to the football club. The football club then count that net payment as  their turnover. So you inflate turnover of the combined group. Though the costs are still there, between the stadium and football club,  so it has no impact on the combined bottom line, it just inflates the turnover of the holding company. You are selling to yourself. 

BCFC has the challenge to increase turnover, the use of the holding company to manage the stadium (Ashton Gate Ltd) obscures those numbers when looking externally (though you can argue makes the stadium operation easier to manage for dual use)  but the pure football club is far from one of the highest turnover clubs in the league and the non playing cost base far too high. The club could also never fund through turnover the stadium development or the HPC. It simply does not generate that level of income. But it carries huge debt for them both. 

This is the harsh reality , and the disparity with the elite clubs today, where £400m income is seen more often very stark. A championship club makes no financial sense , and without the financial support of people like Sl, should really not exisit. Even after all of the wage bill reductions, we are as a business still paying out too much money, far too much. 

The EFL and FA really screwed up when the Prem league broke away. The horse bolted, and no one will ever repair or change that balance of income distribution that is getting worse and wider by the year. Add in the academy player farming, loan fees for clubs to pay to them to develop their players, the abuse of the loan market generally, the list goes on. Bottom line, Championship clubs make no financial sense and the league is broken with an absurd payment for falure for the relegated sides. So, Scott being sold and no attempt to replace or reinfoce at that time, is indeed ,questionable, but any Championship club needs to make £15m a year from player sales just to stand still. It cannot carry on like that. 

Though we seem to have gone cold turkey rather fast !

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

For FFP purposes we use the BCFC Holdings which has both a higher revenue but also higher costs.

Pushing £30m in 2021-22 wasn't it or £29m..events have their own costs to stage however. Its a bit of a dilemma.

Agree with most of what you say @Psychopomp and then you also get clubs who inflate the market such as Stoke by which I mean..

Do you know their Cash Losses in 2021-22? £30-35m.

Let that sink in..£30-35m cash burnt through. Was it a season of fanfare? Well no, midtable! Championship midtable!

Also have a suspicion about their Commercial Revenue growing during Covid and years of non return to the PL...

You are right, the Championship is a money pit. Most Championship clubs seem to require some level of ownwr input annually just to remain solvent. It's mental.

We might be a bit better with BCFC Holdings based on the 2022 accounts in FFP terms but there isn't much in it.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Mr Popodopolous]

Was wrong on Stoke.

£39m to finish midtable at this level!!  In a non-Covid year. 

[Davefevs]

@Psychopomp

Thanks for the informative post above.

If we take the two companies in the Holding Comp - BCFC and AG

• BCFC claims £16,648,738 turnover
• AG claims £17,456,032 turnover
• Total £34,473,160

But Holdings only claim £29,675,160.

What is the gap of £4,798,000?  Is that the “dual-counting”?  Or is that Bears revenue (£4,887,201) that can’t be attributed to Football “operations”?

[Monkeh]

If wage budget is more then 80% of turnover then it rightly had to be reduced 

[Davefevs]

15 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

If wage budget is more then 80% of turnover then it rightly had to be reduced 

Why? (If you are happy to support losses within FFP limits)

If SL has changed tack, then explain to us why.

[mozo]

18 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Why? (If you are happy to support losses within FFP limits)

If SL has changed tack, then explain to us why.

He shall henceforth be known as...

Break Even Stephen...

[Monkeh]

21 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Why? (If you are happy to support losses within FFP limits)

If SL has changed tack, then explain to us why.

He's looking for new investment/buyer, to make us more attractive he will want to reduce overheads, plus he's probably sick of pumping in cash with little return

[Shauntaylor85]

Back to the top of the thread…..I really feel we need to move on Williams by the end of the window. I’m sure there would be some suitors and he is one of the remaining high earners. We need better. 

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, Monkeh said:

He's looking for new investment/buyer, to make us more attractive he will want to reduce overheads, plus he's probably sick of pumping in cash with little return

I agree that’s the likely reason.

Bloody explain that to us, rather than us have to guess.  And don’t tell us something different like “what football makes it can use”, because I reckon we are in for a £10m profit this season, so why isn’t that available.

 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, Shauntaylor85 said:

Back to the top of the thread…..I really feel we need to move on Williams by the end of the window. I’m sure there would be some suitors and he is one of the remaining high earners. We need better. 

Let’s just say he’s on £18k p.w (signed in boom time).

Who is gonna buy him?

What transfer fee are they gonna pay?

How much of his wages might we need to contribute for the remaining term if his contract for him to sign elsewhere?

…and haven’t we left it too late, in reality?

[Shauntaylor85]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Let’s just say he’s on £18k p.w (signed in boom time).

Who is gonna buy him?

What transfer fee are they gonna pay?

How much of his wages might we need to contribute for the remaining term if his contract for him to sign elsewhere?

…and haven’t we left it too late, in reality?

We know how swiftly things can happen in the window! Look at Cole Palmer to Chelsea. It’s a reactive day as per our Afobe signing a few years ago. We could contribute towards wages to free up resource. The crazy thing about all of this is FFP wise we don’t need to trade anyone but clearly it is the SL way moving forward. Just be nice to hear the club being open around this new approach. Plus we don’t need fees clearly, it’s wage reductions. I’m sure a few clubs would be interested. QPR for example. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Shauntaylor85

[Eddie Hitler]

1 minute ago, Davefevs said:

I agree that’s the likely reason.

Bloody explain that to us, rather than us have to guess.  And don’t tell us something different like “what football makes it can use”, because I reckon we are in for a £10m profit this season, so why isn’t that available.

 

 

Yes.

The lack of consistency must make it very hard for existing and prospective senior staff to deal with.

I understand that FFP brings its own constraints, and that these were made clear to NP prior to accepting the three year contract, but not allowing the spending of the windfall £25m surplus is applying an artificial constraint to the manager beyond FFP.

Such didn't happen under GJ or the MA/LJ double headed regime where spending everything possible was the de facto policy.

Whether that is favouritism, simple inconsistency, or an exit strategy is then the question.

[Bristol Oil Services]

18 hours ago, Simon bristol said:

Cant agree,, every transfer is a risk, especially given our record, but signings from abroad just increase the risk because we dont know how they settle… kodjia was a star, fam was decent, and so was elliasson, but weve made a number of non uk signings over the last few years and a lot of them have been hopeless, with at least one established international who wanted to leave cause he was home sick.

I was referring to coaches/managers, not players. Mind, a coach/manager from overseas wouldn't be buying Harry Cornick or Mark Sykes. Or George Tanner. He'd be bringing in talent from elsewhere (but not on our current budget, of course). There are stats that demonstrate non Uk/Irish head coaches/managers win more points per game in English football  (including lower leagues) than home grown ones. It's a fact! The numbers have been crunched, Brit managers are overrated, and dopey club owners plough on regardless appointing less able but familiar looking/sounding blokes to do a statistically poorer job.

"But that's because Jose was at Chelsea, Pep at Man City, Klopp at Liverpool" you're thinking. "It's not comparing like-for-like." It's the same in the lower leagues. The stats from 92/3 over three decades in the Football League reveal that Brit/Irish managers average 1.36 points per game, whilst overseas managers average 1.49, a six point difference over 46 games.

 

Is Steve Lansdown even aware of this data?

 

[mozo]

20 minutes ago, Monkeh said:

He's looking for new investment/buyer, to make us more attractive he will want to reduce overheads, plus he's probably sick of pumping in cash with little return

 

16 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree that’s the likely reason.

Bloody explain that to us, rather than us have to guess.  And don’t tell us something different like “what football makes it can use”, because I reckon we are in for a £10m profit this season, so why isn’t that available.

 

And if that is the case, my next question is how close does Break Even Stephen think we are to investment/a buyer?

Because we've been on the market for 2 years. Are we going to be stuck in purgatory for another 2 years? Or 5 years?

It's not just managing fan expectations in the here and now. This could be a long term status quo, and if BES goes long enough without addressing the situation it won't be long before we're in bedsheets territory 

[Bristol Rob]

I am still confused as to why people expect SL to want to continue lumping untold sums of money towards wages.

It does strike me as being one of those arguments where people are quite happy to spend someone else's cash without any thought as to what it actually means.

It could be that SL has a buyer who has said, "If you can reduce running costs by x% over the next 18 months we've got a deal/partnership", it could be SL thinking... "Well, we've tried everything else and maybe the players will respond better to million pound promotion bonuses" or it could be he has looked at what some other clubs pay in wages and wants us to be similar.

He hasn't had value for money, that's undeniable.

[Mr Popodopolous]

6 minutes ago, mozo said:

 

And if that is the case, my next question is how close does Break Even Stephen think we are to investment/a buyer?

Because we've been on the market for 2 years. Are we going to be stuck in purgatory for another 2 years? Or 5 years?

It's not just managing fan expectations in the here and now. This could be a long term status quo, and if BES goes long enough without addressing the situation it won't be long before we're in bedsheets territory 

I would say looking at the last 2 seasons a club hamstrung by FFP isn't especially enticing.

We will now be well clear but in a year's time even more so as the £28.5m pre tax loss finally disappears from view, the legacy loss falls off, the headroom increases further. TV money is set to rise next year too.

If any time feels optimum it could be summer 2024.

There is also a rule whereby if FFP losses fall below the Lower limit over a given period then Future Financial Information is less stringent- another possible selling point? New owners do inherit the existing position.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Ian M]

1 minute ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I would say looking at the last 2 seasons a club hamstrung by FFP isn't especially enticing.

We will now be well clear but in a year's time even more so as the £28.5m pre tax loss finally disappears from view, the legacy loss falls off, the headroom increases further. TV money is set to rise next year too.

If any time feels optimum it could be summer 2024.

There is also a rule whereby if FFP losses fall below the Lower limit over a given period then Future Financial Information is less stringent- another possible selling point? New owners do inherit the existing position.

I mean, you could always just tell a buyer this. 
We are unlikely to sell the club today so a last minute splurge in this window is kinda out the question.

Sell the club this season and the new owners would have a good amount of time to get processes lined up within the club ahead of next Summer's transfer window (Making sure they have the management team they want in place, ensuring recruitment is operating as they wish etc)

 

[frenchred]

7 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

I am still confused as to why people expect SL to want to continue lumping untold sums of money towards wages.

It does strike me as being one of those arguments where people are quite happy to spend someone else's cash without any thought as to what it actually means.

It could be that SL has a buyer who has said, "If you can reduce running costs by x% over the next 18 months we've got a deal/partnership", it could be SL thinking... "Well, we've tried everything else and maybe the players will respond better to million pound promotion bonuses" or it could be he has looked at what some other clubs pay in wages and wants us to be similar.

He hasn't had value for money, that's undeniable.

He hadn't had value for money but the main reason for this is his piss poor football knowledge and who to appoint in critical positions.

The debt we carry is down to him!

It's his club remember (he told us this when he used to speak to us) so he should go on paying for it

[Simon bristol]

29 minutes ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I was referring to coaches/managers, not players. Mind, a coach/manager from overseas wouldn't be buying Harry Cornick or Mark Sykes. Or George Tanner. He'd be bringing in talent from elsewhere (but not on our current budget, of course). There are stats that demonstrate non Uk/Irish head coaches/managers win more points per game in English football  (including lower leagues) than home grown ones. It's a fact! The numbers have been crunched, Brit managers are overrated, and dopey club owners plough on regardless appointing less able but familiar looking/sounding blokes to do a statistically poorer job.

"But that's because Jose was at Chelsea, Pep at Man City, Klopp at Liverpool" you're thinking. "It's not comparing like-for-like." It's the same in the lower leagues. The stats from 92/3 over three decades in the Football League reveal that Brit/Irish managers average 1.36 points per game, whilst overseas managers average 1.49, a six point difference over 46 games.

 

Is Steve Lansdown even aware of this data?

 

Thats really interesting,, ive never heard of this before!?

[ExiledAjax]

48 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I agree that’s the likely reason.

Bloody explain that to us, rather than us have to guess.  And don’t tell us something different like “what football makes it can use”, because I reckon we are in for a £10m profit this season, so why isn’t that available.

My other rationale for not spending that £10m (let's assume it's the correct figure) is that we don't think we're going to sell another Semenyo or Scott in the next 3 years. We're assuming that whilst 23/24 will be +£10m, 24/25 and 25/26 will be back to the -£20m losses were all used to.

In that scenario, and under current rules, don't we need that £10m profit on the books in order to avoid being very close to a point deduction in 25/26?

If this is the case then:

a) they should explain it;

b) it's incredibly cautious (to the point of insanity some would say); and

c) try and reduce that reliance on selling a £10m - £25m player every year or two!

This is what worried me when SL said "if you can sell a £25m player every year you build the nest egg". When you're a mid table Championship club it's not a sustainable long term plan, no matter how good your academy is or how much of a monopoly you have over talented 15 year olds from Guernsey, you're not going to sell a £25m player every bloody season!

[Cidre Monita]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

@Psychopomp

Thanks for the informative post above.

If we take the two companies in the Holding Comp - BCFC and AG

• BCFC claims £16,648,738 turnover
• AG claims £17,456,032 turnover
• Total £34,473,160

But Holdings only claim £29,675,160.

What is the gap of £4,798,000?  Is that the “dual-counting”?  Or is that Bears revenue (£4,887,201) that can’t be attributed to Football “operations”?

It is very hard to understand with only summary accounts available. The football club income streams are quite clear, and you can see the same at other clubs, the tv, solidarity payments etc. Where it is less clear, is how the stadium co arrives at that turnover. There are ticket sales, hospitality, bars, weddings, concerts etc etc. The food and beverage/hospitality numbers will have grown substantially after the stadium rebuild, that would run into millions, with football and rugby, a rough guesstimate would be £7/8M based on the number of games/people and other clubs' numbers. To get to £17m though, would require something else. There are recharges between related parties, that is for sure, that is seen in both accounts, but there is no indication on what basis they are made. Internal cross charges as such. The rugby club will pay a rental to the stadium company. That will form some of the income. Does the football club pay an element of ground use to the stadium company? Without knowledge of how they operate the stadium between the sporting clubs, it is hard to say (and may explain the disparity) . Only that there are some grey areas that make the overall turnover less than black and white. The holding does benefit as such from the rugby rental and usage (and beer drinking- though a % back to them would be due ?), few other clubs have that operational income. So there are some areas where we have a turnover advantage. The non parachute payment clubs, like Preston, Swansea, Brum etc have a turnover in the 17 to 20 M area. 

Turnover is all well and good, but if the cost of achieving it is disproportionally high (efficiency) then you are not making the progress you desire or expected. 

 

[Davefevs]

2 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

My other rationale for not spending that £10m (let's assume it's the correct figure) is that we don't think we're going to sell another Semenyo or Scott in the next 3 years. We're assuming that whilst 23/24 will be +£10m, 24/25 and 25/26 will be back to the -£20m losses were all used to.

In that scenario, and under current rules, don't we need that £10m profit on the books in order to avoid being very close to a point deduction in 25/26?

If this is the case then:

a) they should explain it;

b) it's incredibly cautious (to the point of insanity some would say); and

c) try and reduce that reliance on selling a £10m - £25m player every year or two!

This is what worried me when SL said "if you can sell a £25m player every year you build the nest egg". When you're a mid table Championship club it's not a sustainable long term plan, no matter how good your academy is or how much of a monopoly you have over talented 15 year olds from Guernsey, you're not going to sell a £25m player every bloody season!

FWIW at our current wage levels and amortisation costs I no longer think £20m losses will be the norm.

Plus, at £20m, there are ffp allowances - Womens, Depreciation, Academy etc, that brings you into line.

I’m actually all for sustainability, whether that be Mozo’s Breakeven Steven, or somewhere in the £13m loss region.  But you can’t do that overnight.  Well in fact you can, but you ought to communicate the change.  At least to your manager

[Bristol Rob]

5 minutes ago, ExiledAjax said:

My other rationale for not spending that £10m (let's assume it's the correct figure) is that we don't think we're going to sell another Semenyo or Scott in the next 3 years. We're assuming that whilst 23/24 will be +£10m, 24/25 and 25/26 will be back to the -£20m losses were all used to.

In that scenario, and under current rules, don't we need that £10m profit on the books in order to avoid being very close to a point deduction in 25/26?

If this is the case then:

a) they should explain it;

b) it's incredibly cautious (to the point of insanity some would say); and

c) try and reduce that reliance on selling a £10m - £25m player every year or two!

This is what worried me when SL said "if you can sell a £25m player every year you build the nest egg". When you're a mid table Championship club it's not a sustainable long term plan, no matter how good your academy is or how much of a monopoly you have over talented 15 year olds from Guernsey, you're not going to sell a £25m player every bloody season!

Or it could be that we have prospects coming through that we don't want to sell, and this new approach could mean that we could pay a younger player a salary that a senior pro might expect to put off any speculative buyers.

[Davefevs]

1 minute ago, Psychopomp said:

It is very hard to understand with only summary accounts available. The football club income streams are quite clear, and you can see the same at other clubs, the tv, solidarity payments etc. Where it is less clear, is how the stadium co arrives at that turnover. There are ticket sales, hospitality, bars, weddings, concerts etc etc. The food and beverage/hospitality numbers will have grown substantially after the stadium rebuild, that would run into millions, with football and rugby, a rough guesstimate would be £7/8M based on the number of games/people and other clubs' numbers. To get to £17m though, would require something else. There are recharges between related parties, that is for sure, that is seen in both accounts, but there is no indication on what basis they are made. Internal cross charges as such. The rugby club will pay a rental to the stadium company. That will form some of the income. Does the football club pay an element of ground use to the stadium company? Without knowledge of how they operate the stadium between the sporting clubs, it is hard to say (and may explain the disparity) . Only that there are some grey areas that make the overall turnover less than black and white. The holding does benefit as such from the rugby rental and usage (and beer drinking- though a % back to them would be due ?), few other clubs have that operational income. So there are some areas where we have a turnover advantage. The non parachute payment clubs, like Preston, Swansea, Brum etc have a turnover in the 17 to 20 M area. 

Turnover is all well and good, but if the cost of achieving it is disproportionally high (efficiency) then you are not making the progress you desire or expected. 

 

Thanks again.

I think your final sentence is something I’ve regularly said…it costs us far too much to make every £1 of income.  Football (Nige et all) have done their bit imho.

22/23’s accounts are gonna shine a better light on that imho.

[Ian M]

48 minutes ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I was referring to coaches/managers, not players. Mind, a coach/manager from overseas wouldn't be buying Harry Cornick or Mark Sykes. Or George Tanner. He'd be bringing in talent from elsewhere (but not on our current budget, of course). There are stats that demonstrate non Uk/Irish head coaches/managers win more points per game in English football  (including lower leagues) than home grown ones. It's a fact! The numbers have been crunched, Brit managers are overrated, and dopey club owners plough on regardless appointing less able but familiar looking/sounding blokes to do a statistically poorer job.

"But that's because Jose was at Chelsea, Pep at Man City, Klopp at Liverpool" you're thinking. "It's not comparing like-for-like." It's the same in the lower leagues. The stats from 92/3 over three decades in the Football League reveal that Brit/Irish managers average 1.36 points per game, whilst overseas managers average 1.49, a six point difference over 46 games.

 

Is Steve Lansdown even aware of this data?

 

One thing I'd counter there is that even at lower league level, it's generally the more affluent clubs at any level that have brought in a foreign coach. The paupers at the bottom of the table are the clubs employing the "honest pro" managers that then aren't skilled enough to supplant their budgetary restrictions.