,
12:15 Fri Mar 9
Re: Company Accounts
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Basically the club needs to be smarter about its spending and smarter about its young player recruitment.
The common factor must be the Sullivan influence. If we cannot get the current owners to sell it would at least help if somehow Sullivan stepped completely away from player recruitment [ at all levels whether youngsters or established PL level ] and someone was put in place with full autonomy.
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Hermit Road
12:03 Fri Mar 9
Re: Company Accounts
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I won't argue with your wages point. Fucking ludicrous thay we have so many earning more than Tom Daley in Haringey.
Though the extra wages are accounted for in the extra (non TV) income generated as allowed by FFP.
When I think of investment I also think about the really important things like the training facilities and youth set up. That's all done on a shoestring despite making a massive profit.
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stewie griffin
11:48 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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That's probably fair enough, hermit SON, but is also partly why the two points aren't mutually exclusive. Hernandez, for example, only 16 million, not a huge amount in today's market so your net spend looks low - but he's earning £145k per week, £7.5m a year, millions in signing on fees, agent fees, on bonuses etc etc. It all adds up, and not only do we not earn enough to support that kind of outlay but we're banned from increasing our wage bill by too much, so it prevents you from buying anyone else anyway.
The strategy is just beyond shit
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Hermit Road
11:42 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Our net spend over the past two years has been 26 million pound.
I agree that we spend appallingly mostly in the wrong places with no clear strategy, but I disagree that we have invested enough. We haven’t. 13 million per year over two years buys you what we’ve got which is not much. If we invested more the three years prior to that, so be it, but it’s the last two years of under investment which is having a serious impact on the team now.
Put another way, the relative high spend of 5 to 3 years ago culminated in a very respectable top half finish. The low net spend of the past two years may see us relegated.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
11:34 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Well put. I don't think G&S are particularly ill-intentioned owners. Probably rather the reverse in the grand scheme of thihgs, certainly in Gold's case. They are massively out of their depth on footballing matters, though, and Sullivan's inept performance as de facto Director of Football is the best example of that.
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stewie griffin
11:20 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Fwiw, I agree with V as well. We're 10th biggest net spenders over 5 years, and were top 6 before this season.
The issues are twofold - firstly that income generated by sales was, until recently, appallingly low. That's what happens when you employ someone like allardyce with no thought to the future - it's just constant outlay with nothing coming back. It dramatically reduces your manouevrability in the market.
Second, but no less significant, is our wage structure, or lack thereof. At the start of this season we had 14 (FOURTEEN) players on our books earning more than, or the same as, Dele Alli. He may have become more famous for diving this year, but for the last two seasons he's been one of the most coveted young players in Europe and played a major role in his club finishing second in the league two years running. We had FOURTEEN players earning more. For What, for fucks sake? There is some encouragement in that we've got rid if two in Fonte and Ayew but our wage bill has been astronomical for a long period relative to our status.
Id question their competence- in fact I wouldn't question it, they're absolutely fucking useless- but I think the lack of investment talk is a little harsh. It's just investment in all the wrong places, in all the wrong ways.
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Crassus
10:17 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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The point we were discussing earlier was that the general commerciality was being bolsterred by the 'football' side of things
Not unreasonable to expect that the commercials would fund the football element, so we were probing around why that may be
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
10:00 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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'Very few good ones lately', that should say.
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SurfaceAgentX2Zero
9:59 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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To be fair, all clubs piss money away on shit signings. Our problem is that, the fat French midget aside, we have made very few recently.
I find myself agreeing with Alex V. Possibly for the first time ever.
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Trevor B
9:36 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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No, it's not high.
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Alex V
9:33 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Trevor B 9:27 Thu Mar 8
It is a boring point I have to keep making, but investment in the playing squad for example really is relatively high. For me the issue is getting value for the investment. All are agreed now I think that the football side of things has simply been abysmally run - needs to change.
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Alex V
9:29 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Sir Alf 6:55 Thu Mar 8
Not clear what you mean by 'more investment'. If it's squandering more fees and wages on mercenary names, I'm out. If it's improving the facilities and expertise within the club to guide and improve academy graduates and incoming signings, then that's the investment we need.
It's hard to put a timeframe on progress. It's more important that progress is made day on day, year on year. And it depends what the competition does too. If we stop treading water or going backwards that will be good enough for me.
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Trevor B
9:27 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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And as that business is successful then the club must be invested in. One of those things seems to be happening, whilst the other isn't.
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Alex V
9:26 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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>>> You miss the thrust of this. The football side is being scrificed for the benefit of the business side - to use your terminology
The two are intrinsically linked these days. To hope to compete a club must be a successful business.
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Westside
6:56 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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The Football Club only accounts (company number 66516) are now available free of charge at Companies House.
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Sir Alf
6:55 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Alex - its encouraging that we are very healthy from a financial point of view and Messrs S&G are also very encouraged by this. If you looked at the accounts without context ( promises, the move, emotions etc.) as you say you would conclude that financially things are in decent shape especially compared to how things were a few years back. Puzzling in that sense that Mike Ashley has been getting a much, much harder time from NUFC supporters and the media over the years. Either West Ham supporters are a bunch of lily livered apologists or the actions of S&G are only now being revealed as opposed to their rhetoric and propaganda which has kept the fans at bay ( marketing and bulls**t is the new opium of the masses)..
Would also agree if and its a big if, a mega sized IF in fact, Sullivan is telling the truth about the change in recruitment strategy and he really will step out of his DoF role and we invest properly ( assuming we will never invest at the top end ), its possible we could improve the squad in terms of quality and depth. The Spurs model seems to be the one? Would like to see there gross and net spends over the last 10 years. I know they have balanced the books but at the same time they have been investing in more expensive players consistently for a quite a few years too . It has taken them a long while to get where they are and even then they started from a better position squad quality wise than where we are.
In summary, if everything went well I will need to be 80 - 90 years old to see the fruits of this progress. So like my Grandad and Dad I will have let my kids and grandkids know my dream of winning the title and they can hope to see it in their life times :-( All this assumes West Ham United still exist and not West Ham Olympic or West Ham London.
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Prometheus50
5:50 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Westside
"As for loan flexibility, I would have thought an agreed bank overdraft would give the most flexibility, at the lowest cost, rather than a pay day loan? "
Yes I don't get the logic then of essentially rolling a payday loan forward although to me it does signal a short term interest in the club by the Board/owners and I certainly do not buy the suggestion that the Board do so because of their Wing Chau "we haver a good business relationship with them"
If the proceeds from player sales is repaying last years loan, and they then take out a new payday loan, either there is something very wrong with the cash flow at the club which is being masked by the sort of loan that no respectable lender (sic) would grant, or they have a really short term outlook for the club so are running an odd financial structure despite the TV revenue which really should be covering the bills
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Crassus
5:49 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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Trev
yeah, good point, I raised that pre accounts in defence of their loan arrangements to the club
Why would they have done that Prom/W'Side - any idea?
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Westside
5:49 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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One side of the shareholder loans that most may not have thought about is that when/if they sell the club, any creditors would have to be paid back before any % of the profit from the sale goes to the LDCC. I'm actually surprised that they have taken back any of the principal.
No, they only have to pay back a percentage of any share sale worth more than £125 million. The amount of outstanding loans won't affect/dilute this on a£ for £ basis.
http://www.cityam.com/246554/revealed-west-ham-owners-free-cash-olympic-stadium-deal
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Westside
5:35 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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The short term payday loans will be/already are covered by player sales
The pay day loans at May 2017 £30 million, were repaid in full in July 2017.
They took out another £25 million for this season, to be repaid in July 2018.
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Trevor B
5:32 Thu Mar 8
Re: Company Accounts
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One side of the shareholder loans that most may not have thought about is that when/if they sell the club, any creditors would have to be paid back before any % of the profit from the sale goes to the LDCC. I'm actually surprised that they have taken back any of the principal.
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