The Debt.

[a1]

Indeed. Further, it seems crazy that we've seemingly been allowing the debt to accrue, almost uncontrollably with a life of its own, since 2008.

And why do the losses rise significantly from 2007-2010, then we seem to get a handle on them a little (it all seems very f*cking relative when a little contains figures of £-22m and £-26m) in 2011/12 and then start careering away again this year, with a staggering (breathtaking? I don't even think there are the words...) loss of £34.5m.

Now, I absolutely know that there is a pretty savage cost-cutting exercise happening at Chez Reebok, quite apart from the football side of things, but how in the hell do you run a business in such a manner and still receive in excess of £400k in remuneration? I think its pretty superfluous to point to the wage cut Gartside himself has taken, when we're cutting back on tea bags and stationary, only to pay the man ultimately responsible for the mess a still frankly staggering sum.

hopefully wigan getting shut after 4 months saved us some redundancy money.

[Lord Kangana]

He was employed by Wigan aswell? Bloody hell, he gets about doesn't he?

[a1]

he was, til rosler took over.

gartside is as responsible for us being were we are now as he was when he got eddie d. to get us out the shit last time.

david sheepshanks or whoever at wherever get similar money.

he's on the board , board members usually pull in big 'wages' , unless theyre doing that thing where , say, steve jobs pays himself £1 a year , but gets first dibs on free shares next time they have a bond issue or whatever to jip the taxman.

come to think of it, maybe philly g is where he is coz he's the next largest shareholder ?

[Worthy4England]

Interesting that the slashing of the wage bill, under the previous manager, which was often cited for the plight he was in, didn't actually occur. But seems to be occurring now.

This also shows why some of the alleged Premiership level squad needed moving on.

erm, have you not seen the graph at the bottom, where the wage bill starts decreasing from 2011 onwards? I know this is going to be a difficult discussion, but I'm sure you're fully aware that contracts given out under one manager still have to be honoured under another. Its very clear from that graph that economies were already being planned upon and acted upon in order for there to be a drop during the previous managers reign. Otherwise, there would have been a lag, and the amount would only have started dropping this year or next. Or am I to believe that people really think you can just sack football players on the spot?

Which Contracts are you referring to, that weren't re-signed by Coyle? I think they must all be "Player A" and you're making it up...

July 2010 - Petrov - Contract until 2012- Coyle Signing, Blake - Contract until 2011 - Coyle signing
Aug 2010 - Klasnic - two year deal (2012) - Coyle signing from loan.
Nov 2010 - LCY - Coyle re-sign.
Mar 2011 - Bogdan - Contract extension - 2014 - Coyle Re-sign
July 2011 - Eagles and Mears - Contracts until 2014 - Coyle signings
Jul 2011 - Pratley - 4 years - 2015 - Coyle Signing
Aug 2011 - N'gog - 3 years - Aug 2014 - Coyle fcuk-up
Jan 2012 - Sordell - 3.5 years - Jun 2015 - Coyle fcuk-up
May 18 2012 - SKD - Contract extension - 2013 - Coyle Re-sign
May 2012 - Ricketts - 2 years - 2014 - Coyle Re-sign
May 2012 - Released - Steinsson, Robinson, Blake, Savies, Gardner, Klasnic, Connolly, Obadeyi, Rhys Bennett, Fazlic, Eckersley, Reo-Coker (not releaseed but activated Contract clause)
July 2012 - Knight - Contract extension - 2014 - Coyle Re-sign

The only long termers from the previous Manager were Mark Davies - who got 4.5 years from Megson from 2009 (expired June 2013 - extended 4 years by DF)

[thebish]

i'm sure LK will provide a list...

[Lord Kangana]

Well, LK will merely reiterate what the graph show. That the slowdown started in 2011. And the list will start with Elmander.

And Jaaskelainen. Und so weiter.

And of course, if we're falling into the trap of merely looking at managers dates as concrete and immovable, one wouldn't help but notice that Dougie Freedman has managed to accrue 1/2 the debt Coyle managed in 1/3rd the time. This is, of course, if we're looking at things in such simple terms.

[Lord Kangana]

May 2012 - Released - Steinsson, Robinson, Blake, Savies, Gardner, Klasnic, Connolly, Obadeyi, Rhys Bennett, Fazlic, Eckersley, Reo-Coker (not releaseed but activated Contract clause)
)

I'm not sure how players signed by a previous manager, and then released circa 30 months into the roughly 34 months tenure fall outside the argument I've put forward. Wasn't Matt Taylor (one of our highest earners) also sold by Coyle?

[Relentless09]

Well, LK will merely reiterate what the graph show. That the slowdown started in 2011. And the list will start with Elmander.

And Jaaskelainen. Und so weiter.

And of course, if we're falling into the trap of merely looking at managers dates as concrete and immovable, one wouldn't help but notice that Dougie Freedman has managed to accrue 1/2 the debt Coyle managed in 1/3rd the time. This is, of course, if we're looking at things in such simple terms.

Correct me if I'm wrong but do the parachute payments decrease every season ? Maybe that's a reason why the debt seems to have risen along with other factors such as paying off Coyle and his staff. However as you say those figures are in simple terms, there's a whole list of reasons why the debt is getting larger under Dougie.

[Lord Kangana]

I was merely being facetious.

[Leyther]

Right, cards on the table I'm thick - and totally lost by this debt business. And sorry for the rather long post.

Does anybody with a working knowledge of how finance works at this level fancy explaining a few things for financial incompetents like myself.

1. If we don't have the money to pay people like the players and the management and the likes of Gartside - which clearly we don't - the money still gets 'transferred' to their bank accounts as a monthly wage and this then just piles up onto the already huge debt?? So money just gets 'magicked up' and called debt??

2. I presume the club will be servicing the debt? In other words paying off at least some of the interest on the debt? Does that money just get magicked up as well and transferred to the person who has the debt registered against them (and therefore turned into proper money in their bank account)?

3. So in theory Gartside can be receiving his salary as 'real' spendable money, in his bank account from the magic debt pot? And Eddie Davies could be receiving a substantial amount of money from interest payments on the debt as real money from the magic debt pot? Along with the rest of the employees of the club...

4. Surely a debt of that size against a club that clearly has no means to pay it off ever is not the club's problem but that of the person who is owed the money. Worst case scenario is liquidation[*], play for a few seasons as Wolton Banderers at Gigg Lane and start again. When Portsmouth were faced with liquidation didn't the judge say there was little point going down that path because the only way to generate any money to pay of any debt is by playing games and generating revenue. And is that case different because they had several creditors whereas we appear to only have one (big one).

[*]Apologies for being flippant - I do appreciate that there are many people who work at the Wanderers who would be unceremoniously laid off as a result.

[thebish]

Correct me if I'm wrong but do the parachute payments decrease every season ? Maybe that's a reason why the debt seems to have risen along with other factors such as paying off Coyle and his staff. However as you say those figures are in simple terms, there's a whole list of reasons why the debt is getting larger under Dougie.

indeed there are...

parachute payments plummeted
broadcasting revenue slashed
gate receipts savaged
sponsorship and advertising income brutally murdered

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

The accounts are for last season, so the lower year 3 parachute payment has not hit yet. Next year's accounts are going to be pretty ugly too.

[Worthy4England]

Well, LK will merely reiterate what the graph show. That the slowdown started in 2011. And the list will start with Elmander.

And Jaaskelainen. Und so weiter.

And of course, if we're falling into the trap of merely looking at managers dates as concrete and immovable, one wouldn't help but notice that Dougie Freedman has managed to accrue 1/2 the debt Coyle managed in 1/3rd the time. This is, of course, if we're looking at things in such simple terms.

When we move players on, we stop paying them. At the end of 30 Jun 2012, the wage bill had dropped by £1.4m. The large drop is after the 2012 date. So people we moved out since

Elmander went in the previous Accounts (May 2011), Taylor went at the start of that Accounting period (July 2011) - so both of those should have been pretty much accounted for during the period (reporting year is 30 Jun). Cahill went in the Jan and Jussi went in the July 2012 (so wouldn't be in those figures).

Either way Coyle didn't reduce the wage bill anything like (if I recall correctly) you predicted (by half?).

Coyle was a shyster, stealing a living.

Thank fcuk your not my Accountant.

[Lord Kangana]

Oh, I've no argument about Coyle. I do however, reiterate that the slowdown in expenditure was begun during his tenure. In the same way that income is decreasing under Dougie making our situation look parlous, equally TV income increased under Coyle, but no great amount was added to the wage bill, indeed several high earners were cast off. None were replaced by equally high earners. This isn't an endorsement of transfer policy, though, in case anyone wishes to confuse it with such.

Other than that, why is it that losses overall in 2011/12 were lower than the years immediately preceding and following them?

I also found it illuminating to toggle through the various years of transfers on this site. It may even suggest that the slow down started at the fag end of Megson's reign. though I don;t believe that culturally the club was fully prepared for what it actuall had to do...

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/bolto ... _2010.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you go through the various years from 2007 to date, you'll see a fairly consistent downward trend from about late 2009/early 2010 onwards. there may be an odd exception, but thats in the main.

And to answer you 50% question, I think i was referring to transfer expenditure, which i stand by. If I said it.

[Worthy4England]

I guess that's where we disagree. I see a small slowdown in expenditure on salaries under Coyle, and a huge tail-off the season after he departed. So did it start under Coyle - yes, marginally. The decrease in income under Dougie, is largely down to factors outside his control, such as decreasing parachute payments and reduced TV revenue by dint of us no longer being in the Prem.

The increase in TV income would have occurred with or without Coyle.

2009/10

£14.6m equal share
£6.3m facilities fee (based on number of appearances on TV)
£5.6m merit fee (based on where you finish in the table)
£10.1m equal share overseas


2010/2011 the £42m we got was made up of

£13.8m equal share
£5.8m facility fees
£5.3m merit payment
£17.9m (equal share) Overseas payments

For 2011/12 (the year we got relegated), we got:

£13.7m equal share
£5.7m facilities fees
£2.2m merit payment
£18.7m equal share (overseas)

So the amount that Coyle could influence - that based on appearances and merit placings decreased over time, but we got a better overseas deal during the course of his tenure....

[a1]

he'll keep taking his ten million a year interest payments , then when he's got his £150m+ back , he'll zero it out.

it's not cost him nowt.

businessmen generally dont run a loss making business for years and years, if it were costing him loads, he'dve wound them up just to save him money.

[Worthy4England]

Anyway, shouldn't worry, Chelsea have just reported a loss nearly as big as ours...(but not quite)...

[scotty]

he'll keep taking his ten million a year interest payments , then when he's got his £150m+ back , he'll zero it out.

No he won't. If you read the accounts interest payable to Moonshine has reduced to 0% with effect from 1 July 2013.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

he'll keep taking his ten million a year interest payments , then when he's got his £150m+ back , he'll zero it out.

No he won't. If you read the accounts interest payable to Moonshine has reduced to 0% with effect from 1 July 2013.

Are there any arrangement fees or compulsory PPI though?

[a1]

only about 14 mill of it is owed to other people, and eddie d. wud have to wait 10 years for his money if he wanted it back tomorrow. as someone previously said, its like owing money to your mam.

#champ15ons