The Debt.

[Izual_Rebirth]

Why would anyone buy the club now when they can wait until we're in admin and buy us on the cheap?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Why would anyone buy the club now when they can wait until we're in admin and buy us on the cheap?

We'll find if that's a relevant question within the next fortnight.

[BWFC_Insane]

The money went up considerably since. When we were there most sides made a loss. Now most can make profit with the new TV deal.

Can. Bet they don't. As has been noted several times, whenever the TV money jumps, so does the wage bill in the following season or two.

Actually most do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32931345" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Hang on, we got f*cking parachute payments. What good did it do us?

Just because other teams get them doesn't mean they'll A) Spend it wisely on the right players B) Not have already f*cked themselves over mortgaging their their souls before they ever considered relegation.

Yeh but, we got parachute payments and appointed Freedman - that takes a particular form of business numptydom to do that. Especially when compounded with the subsequent appointment of Lennon, multiplied by the prior appointment of Coyle, who to be fair, if he hadn't been appointed then we wouldn't have got any parachute payments at all, so fair play to him...

[BWFC_Insane]

Hang on, we got f*cking parachute payments. What good did it do us?

Just because other teams get them doesn't mean they'll A) Spend it wisely on the right players B) Not have already f*cked themselves over mortgaging their their souls before they ever considered relegation.

There isn't a guarantee but as the payments are increasing it only makes the gap harder to bridge.

There is a fairly strong correlation between wages spending and league position. Apart from when Coyle is manager obviously....

[Lord Kangana]

Indeed. Just look at QPR.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

The money went up considerably since. When we were there most sides made a loss. Now most can make profit with the new TV deal.

Can. Bet they don't. As has been noted several times, whenever the TV money jumps, so does the wage bill in the following season or two.

Actually most do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32931345" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Actually most don't, according to your own source. A quote from the second paragraph of that:

the clubs made pre-tax profits of £187m, the first since 1999.

The turnover goes up, the profit doesn't. Because within two seasons of the tv deal going up, all the new player contracts do too.

But y'know, we'll see in the fullness of time. I'm tired of arguing this shit. Believe what you like.

[bwfcnottingham]

All the directors of BWFC are culpable for getting us into this horrible position

Just to put some context ...HMRC state this about being a DIRECTOR

You must:

try to make the company a success, using your skills, experience and judgement
follow the company’s rules, shown in its articles of association
make decisions for the benefit of the company, not yourself
tell other shareholders if you might personally benefit from a transaction the company makes
keep company records and report changes to Companies House and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
make sure the company’s accounts are a ‘true and fair view’ of the business’ finances
file a Company Tax Return and pay Corporation Tax


You can hire other people to manage some of these things day-to-day (eg an accountant) but you’re still legally responsible for your company’s records, accounts and performance

You may be personally liable for your company’s business liabilities and be fined, prosecuted or disqualified as a company director if you don’t follow the rules

If we go into administration or are wound up by HMRC disqualify the lot of 'em

Glad I got that off my chest

BTW : I used to post as Nottingham_Blancs but virginmedia's email upgrade seems to bounce password reset email from the Wanderer, so I have re-registered

[BWFC_Insane]

The money went up considerably since. When we were there most sides made a loss. Now most can make profit with the new TV deal.

Can. Bet they don't. As has been noted several times, whenever the TV money jumps, so does the wage bill in the following season or two.

Actually most do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32931345" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Actually most don't, according to your own source. A quote from the second paragraph of that:

the clubs made pre-tax profits of £187m, the first since 1999.

The turnover goes up, the profit doesn't. Because within two seasons of the tv deal going up, all the new player contracts do too.

But y'know, we'll see in the fullness of time. I'm tired of arguing this shit. Believe what you like.

Point is since the new TV deal 19 out of 20 made an operating profit. What may or may not happen beyond that is speculation. But the fair play rules have a say as well, as the article points out.

It is clear that currently it is very likely that you can run a premiership team profitably. Whereas for a long time before that it wasn't very likely. Despite previous TV revenue increases. This is a relatively unique situation in recent history.

Any investor looking to buy a championship club is no doubt looking at that.

In addition the premiership status provides potential knock on marketing benefits for any other business interests.

[Enoch]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

[BWFC_Insane]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

[thebish]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

aye - and one day, football will eat itself...

[Enoch]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

aye - and one day, football will eat itself...

Aye, and there'll never no more be no more boom and bust.

[LeverEnd]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

aye - and one day, football will eat itself...

Well pop still hasn't despite the gloomy predictions of that man with the dreadlocks and his friends.

[Hoboh]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

aye - and one day, football will eat itself...

Well pop still hasn't despite the gloomy predictions of that man with the dreadlocks and his friends.

The sugar tax might kill coke, although I admit to not seeing the attraction shoving white powder up ones nose!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Can't wait 'til the TV money starts to shrink.

People have been saying that since the premiership started!

aye - and one day, football will eat itself...

Well pop still hasn't despite the gloomy predictions of that man with the dreadlocks and his friends.

The sugar tax might kill coke, although I admit to not seeing the attraction shoving white powder up ones nose!

Ok, I'm confused... wtf are you all on about???

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

The money went up considerably since. When we were there most sides made a loss. Now most can make profit with the new TV deal.

Can. Bet they don't. As has been noted several times, whenever the TV money jumps, so does the wage bill in the following season or two.

Actually most do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32931345" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Actually most don't, according to your own source. A quote from the second paragraph of that:

the clubs made pre-tax profits of £187m, the first since 1999.

The turnover goes up, the profit doesn't. Because within two seasons of the tv deal going up, all the new player contracts do too.

But y'know, we'll see in the fullness of time. I'm tired of arguing this shit. Believe what you like.

Point is since the new TV deal 19 out of 20 made an operating profit. What may or may not happen beyond that is speculation.

<sigh> Speculating is all some people seem to do around here. In my case this is speculation informed by history, which again and again has proven that when money comes into football, it goes into players' pockets. I've been a football journalist for the thick end of two decades and I've seen this cycle again and again and again as contracts are renegotiated over the two or three years of the deal's lifetime. Messi gets £800,000 so Kompany gets £600,000 so Mangala gets £400,000 so Fazio gets £150,000 and you end up with the next-generation Matt f*cking Mills on £50,000. I believe they used to call it trickle-down economics. Except that it doesn't trickle down: in the same report, Championship clubs show a 105% ratio of wages to turnover and a not entirely unrelated combined pre-tax loss of £247m.

True, the new Premier League TV deal is significantly bigger, so there's more money to waste, but it would not surprise me at all if for the season of 2016/17 there are fewer clubs operating at a profit than a loss. Even digging a little deeper into the numbers for 2013/14 (repeat: the first season this millennium in which the Premier League clubs have aggregated a profit - just think about that for a minute) almost half of the £187m profit was the £80m Spurs banked for Bale. Sunderland lost £17m. Despite selling Lallana, Shaw and Chambers Southampton would have made a £9m loss had the owner not written off £38m of debt.

And what's most worrying of all is that partly because of the natural delay in individual renegotiations, the player contracts end up running after the TV deals do. Before the end of this decade we'll know whether BT has outmuscled Sky or will quietly retreat from the killing fields. Did someone say ITV:Digital?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

<sigh> Speculating is all some people seem to do around here. In my case this is speculation informed by history, which again and again has proven that when money comes into football, it goes into players' pockets. I've been a football journalist for the thick end of two decades and I've seen this cycle again and again and again as contracts are renegotiated over the two or three years of the deal's lifetime. Messi gets £800,000 so Kompany gets £600,000 so Mangala gets £400,000 so Fazio gets £150,000 and you end up with the next-generation Matt f*cking Mills on £50,000. I believe they used to call it trickle-down economics. Except that it doesn't trickle down: in the same report, Championship clubs show a 105% ratio of wages to turnover and a not entirely unrelated combined pre-tax loss of £247m.

True, the new Premier League TV deal is significantly bigger, so there's more money to waste, but it would not surprise me at all if for the season of 2016/17 there are fewer clubs operating at a profit than a loss. Even digging a little deeper into the numbers for 2013/14 (repeat: the first season this millennium in which the Premier League clubs have aggregated a profit - just think about that for a minute) almost half of the £187m profit was the £80m Spurs banked for Bale. Sunderland lost £17m. Despite selling Lallana, Shaw and Chambers Southampton would have made a £9m loss had the owner not written off £38m of debt.

And what's most worrying of all is that partly because of the natural delay in individual renegotiations, the player contracts end up running after the TV deals do. Before the end of this decade we'll know whether BT has outmuscled Sky or will quietly retreat from the killing fields. Did someone say ITV:Digital?

I'll try hard not to speculate, instead I shall ask you questions. (Here goes:) [1] given all that you've written above ^ do you think it's a reasonable assumption to make that football (as a business) in its present format is unsustainable? [2] and that as the stakes rise due to the infall of larger amounts of money being matched and outdone by an even larger amount of spend, that someone somewhere will get very badly 'burnt'? [3] and that possibly, just possibly, it might be us? And finally [4], where on a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being an impossibility through to 10 being almost dead certainty) do you think the chances of Bolton Wanderers being liquidated (yes, liquidated, not just in administration) lie?

[BWFC_Insane]

The turnover goes up, the profit doesn't. Because within two seasons of the tv deal going up, all the new player contracts do too.

But y'know, we'll see in the fullness of time. I'm tired of arguing this shit. Believe what you like.

Point is since the new TV deal 19 out of 20 made an operating profit. What may or may not happen beyond that is speculation. [/quote]<sigh> Speculating is all some people seem to do around here. In my case this is speculation informed by history, which again and again has proven that when money comes into football, it goes into players' pockets. I've been a football journalist for the thick end of two decades and I've seen this cycle again and again and again as contracts are renegotiated over the two or three years of the deal's lifetime. Messi gets £800,000 so Kompany gets £600,000 so Mangala gets £400,000 so Fazio gets £150,000 and you end up with the next-generation Matt f*cking Mills on £50,000. I believe they used to call it trickle-down economics. Except that it doesn't trickle down: in the same report, Championship clubs show a 105% ratio of wages to turnover and a not entirely unrelated combined pre-tax loss of £247m.

True, the new Premier League TV deal is significantly bigger, so there's more money to waste, but it would not surprise me at all if for the season of 2016/17 there are fewer clubs operating at a profit than a loss. Even digging a little deeper into the numbers for 2013/14 (repeat: the first season this millennium in which the Premier League clubs have aggregated a profit - just think about that for a minute) almost half of the £187m profit was the £80m Spurs banked for Bale. Sunderland lost £17m. Despite selling Lallana, Shaw and Chambers Southampton would have made a £9m loss had the owner not written off £38m of debt.

And what's most worrying of all is that partly because of the natural delay in individual renegotiations, the player contracts end up running after the TV deals do. Before the end of this decade we'll know whether BT has outmuscled Sky or will quietly retreat from the killing fields. Did someone say ITV:Digital?[/quote]

The difference, possibly, now being the influence of fair play for the biggest clubs. It stops the wages becoming astronomical at the top end and the filter down effect therefore may be significantly reduced this time.

I agree that up to this point there has been no profit in a top flight club. But the latest TV deal seems to have changed that significantly. As you say wage inflation may erode that BUT the influence of FFP in tandem may keep that somewhat under control.

My point was simply that as it stands an investor looks at the premiership and sees that if they had a premiership club and managed it well, there is a potential right now to turn a profit. In addition to other benefits financial and otherwise.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'll try hard not to speculate, instead I shall ask you questions. (Here goes:) [1] given all that you've written above ^ do you think it's a reasonable assumption to make that football (as a business) in its present format is unsustainable? [2] and that as the stakes rise due to the infall of larger amounts of money being matched and outdone by an even larger amount of spend, that someone somewhere will get very badly 'burnt'? [3] and that possibly, just possibly, it might be us? And finally [4], where on a scale of 0-10 (with 0 being an impossibility through to 10 being almost dead certainty) do you think the chances of Bolton Wanderers being liquidated (yes, liquidated, not just in administration) lie?

1. Define "football". The Premier League is only sustainable with a continued high level of investment from broadcast rights, which now forms easily the majority of clubs' income. Being so undiversified might worry many potential investors. It'd horrify Warren Buffet. Outside the Premier League, English football is terrifyingly overstretched, especially the Championship clubs, who as noted lost a quarter of a billion in 2013/14.
2. Yes. Football clubs aren't alone in being massively exposed - many individuals and companies are in heaps of debt, as a result of the last 20 years' historically low interest rates scooping out all savings and encouraging borrowing - but football clubs seem particularly vulnerable as they have enormous overheads and unguaranteed revenue streams. They're also vulnerable to being run by idiots, well-meaning or otherwise.
3. Yes, it might be us. There's no point denying it. We're in a bad position - bottom of the world's most indebted division.
4. I wouldn't want to put a number on it. Suffice it to say that I think it could happen, although it is unlikely to. To me, we've got too many tangible assets, primarily land (Euxton, Lostock, Macron), to be liquidated for want of a few tens of millions. But in my opinion it is entirely possible that we may have to completely recalibrate our expectations and live within our means to cut the running costs. That may mean many people losing their jobs, not least many of the current first-team squad.