[Archived] Our Debt

[OJRovers]

The accounts do pose more questions than answers, I know a few people feel there is stuff missing, because on the face of it they dont seem too different to previous years' how this has been done I don't know.

[den]

sportingintel sportingintelligence

Any #brfc fan got any clue how your club could make a LOSS on player trading of £13.8m in the year to 30 June 2011? #Baffled

sportingintel sportingintelligence

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@dhughes07 @BabakGolriz Yes. But how much, for two buys and two loans? Somewhere north of £8m I fear..

sportingintel sportingintelligence

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@BabakGolriz Surely 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011, there were just two buys (Rochina, Formica) and two loans (RSC + JJ)?

sportingintel sportingintelligence

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@BabakGolriz It MUST include agents' fees, and I'm afraid there is one truly shocking conclusion to be made .

[DE.]

Think Harris needs to have a word with Miker.

[Miker]

Because once against it proves their actions and not consistent with their words. Mind you, you are spot on, that in itself isn't shocking in any way! I'm more shocked that some people are still trying to suggest everything is fine.

I have never suggested everything is fine. I have maintained that running a Premier League club is not an easy task financially. The accounts show that. They also show why Jerome Anderson was sent packing. The 13m spent on transfers is too high for 3 loan signings, 2 young players and 1 player on a free. I am wondering if the value included the payment of any installments from previous transfer dealings.

If you look at the accounts for previous 2 seasons though, without player sales, our loss in 2009/2010 would have been 12m and 2008/2009 would have been over 20m.

We spent roughly 10m on transfers in both those seasons. And who did we buy? Was it any better?

Re: putting their own money in, refer to the section on UEFA Fair Play.

[cn174]

I have never suggested everything is fine. I have maintained that running a Premier League club is not an easy task financially. The accounts show that. They also show why Jerome Anderson was sent packing. The 13m spent on transfers is too high for 3 loan signings, 2 young players and 1 player on a free. I am wondering if the value included the payment of any installments from previous transfer dealings.

If you look at the accounts for previous 2 seasons though, without player sales, our loss in 2009/2010 would have been 12m and 2008/2009 would have been over 20m.

We spent roughly 10m on transfers in both those seasons. And who did we buy? Was it any better?

Re: putting their own money in, refer to the section on UEFA Fair Play.

The punishment for not adhering to the fair play thingy is that you might not be allowed to play in Uefa Cup or Champions League, so I very much doubt it is going to be a worry for us in the near future!!

[Miker]

There's nothing particularly sinister in them. Confirms that the owners put in £10m and have taken on the interest free £4m debt previously owed to the Trust.

Looking forward the bank were probably worried that the club would go mad in January, and they wanted to make sure the owners were putting another £10m in to balance the books again.(Or sell players first)

No mention of size of Barclays facility. Although the bank is monitoring it closely to stop the club stretching too far - a good thing for us.

This post is worth quoting as well. The accounts show that the owners did put in 10m?

[budha]

Wasn't the agent fees for roughly same period announced at £4,6M? If that's mainly contributed to player trading, that still leaves a few million quid unaccounted for?

Edit: those agent fees included our summer trading too, so I guess it can't be even that much. A million or two more unaccounted for..

[Miker]

Think Harris needs to have a word with Miker.

Why? I don't disagree with him.

I hate agents with a passion and the fact that they can earn such ridiculous amounts for doing nothing makes my blood boil.

I hate the fact that clubs have to pay exorbitant fees and wages to players who don't deserve it.

I hate the fact that football has become a Corporate play thing for a bunch of greedy, money-grubbing arseholes who can exploit it with ease.

Venky's aren't a cause of it though. They're not even a symptom. They simply have to negotiate their way through the ###### up world of the Premier League, by their own choosing. Let them get on with it.

[aletheia]

Why? I don't disagree with him.

I hate agents with a passion and the fact that they can earn such ridiculous amounts for doing nothing makes my blood boil.

I hate the fact that clubs have to pay exorbitant fees and wages to players who don't deserve it.

I hate the fact that football has become a Corporate play thing for a bunch of greedy, money-grubbing arseholes who can exploit it with ease.

Venky's aren't a cause of it though. They're not even a symptom. They simply have to negotiate their way through the ###### up world of the Premier League, by their own choosing. Let them get on with it.

Yes indeed Miker. And it may be possible to view the Venkys as naives abroad caught in the cesspit that is PL football.

As I said on another post elsewhere, the paradigm of PL soccer that began with SKY has hit this club in its extremes: once for the good with a benign benefactor who lifted us up and now with incompetents who have laid us low.

Is there another model of us to pursue?

[John]

Glad Becks or Ronaldinho never joined in the end, their wages would have put an extra strain on our already brittle finances.

[Bobby G]

Do you really think the "offer" even reached them?

[Stuart]

The accounts show that. They also show why Jerome Anderson was sent packing. The 13m spent on transfers is too high for 3 loan signings, 2 young players and 1 player on a free. I am wondering if the value included the payment of any installments from previous transfer dealings.

This is what worries me the most. Agencies are an incestuous business so once the money has gone out of football, we've now idea whose pocket it ends up in. Is there anywhere where the breakdown of payments to agents for each club is published?

As far as I understand it, the manager's agent and (former?) advisor to Venkys took a big wedge on the Rochina deal, well over the actual fee paid to Barca.

It may be perfectly legal but how this arrangement can be acceptable to Scudamore et al, or even FIFA, I don't know. The transfer windows are a restriction of trade but are still enforced, why not rules capping agency fees.

I feel like we have been shafted and everyone simply laughs and slags us off as bad fans. I hope this happens at someone else's club very soon.

I've asked this question before but do we know definitely that Agent A is no longer advising Venkys?

[den]

It may be perfectly legal but how this arrangement can be acceptable to Scudamore et al, or even FIFA, I don't know.

It's acceptable to some of our own fans Jisty.

[DE.]

Why? I don't disagree with him.

I hate agents with a passion and the fact that they can earn such ridiculous amounts for doing nothing makes my blood boil.

I hate the fact that clubs have to pay exorbitant fees and wages to players who don't deserve it.

I hate the fact that football has become a Corporate play thing for a bunch of greedy, money-grubbing arseholes who can exploit it with ease.

Venky's aren't a cause of it though. They're not even a symptom. They simply have to negotiate their way through the ###### up world of the Premier League, by their own choosing. Let them get on with it.

Was only joking bro, I hate it all too.

[Pete1981]

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 1: Internal financial forecasts show "significant" funding needed between now and June 2013 to remain a going concern, and that's....

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 2: ... over and above the "current facilities"; which are made up of a) bank od; and owners' loans. And the precise amount of ...

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 3: ... significant extra funding needed "will be dependent of the net proceeds of any player trading + availability of bank fclities"

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 4: The ultimate parent company (Venkys in India) has confirmed is had the necessary money and will provide, for minmum 12 mnths...

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 5: ... but realistically it looks like Plan A is player sales and bank OD as first-choice options to fund club for now. Hope I'm wrong

[Mercer]

IMO, Rovers are financially up the creek without a paddle.

Questions are being asked about the net loss on player trading of some £14m. Two possible drivers, given limited trading, are a huge loan fee for JJ (there has been lots of speculation about how costly that deal was) and the Formica deal where some posters on this MB have speculated about costs of way above £3.5m, even approaching £10m !!! In the fullness of time, we just might get at the exact truth !!!

[John]

When are these abolsute cretins (the Rao family) going to come out and speak about their intentions - have they paid Barclays yet? Their behaviour, plus lies, are the lowest of the low and Desai should be the main target now.

[Stuart]

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 1: Internal financial forecasts show "significant" funding needed between now and June 2013 to remain a going concern, and that's....

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 2: ... over and above the "current facilities"; which are made up of a) bank od; and owners' loans. And the precise amount of ...

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 3: ... significant extra funding needed "will be dependent of the net proceeds of any player trading + availability of bank fclities"

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 4: The ultimate parent company (Venkys in India) has confirmed is had the necessary money and will provide, for minmum 12 mnths...

sportingintel sportingintelligence

#brfc 5: ... but realistically it looks like Plan A is player sales and bank OD as first-choice options to fund club for now. Hope I'm wrong

So basically, it sounds like they are using the model employed by The Trust but with worse results, including...

Increased borrowing...

Increased spend on agents...

Reliance on cheap/novice manager...

Limited footballing nouse at board level...

Failure to maximise potential income from sales... (players leaving for free and low release fee clauses)

These people are successful business people, right?

[PAFELL]

When are these abolsute cretins (the Rao family) going to come out and speak about their intentions - have they paid Barclays yet? Their behaviour, plus lies, are the lowest of the low and Desai should be the main target now.

We are between a rock and a hard place. We have no buyer for the club. Until there is a buyer, we are stuck with them.

[Miker]

This is what worries me the most. Agencies are an incestuous business so once the money has gone out of football, we've now idea whose pocket it ends up in. Is there anywhere where the breakdown of payments to agents for each club is published?

As far as I understand it, the manager's agent and (former?) advisor to Venkys took a big wedge on the Rochina deal, well over the actual fee paid to Barca.

It may be perfectly legal but how this arrangement can be acceptable to Scudamore et al, or even FIFA, I don't know. The transfer windows are a restriction of trade but are still enforced, why not rules capping agency fees.

I feel like we have been shafted and everyone simply laughs and slags us off as bad fans. I hope this happens at someone else's club very soon.

I've asked this question before but do we know definitely that Agent A is no longer advising Venkys?

Re: Rochina, JA didn't pocket the money, supposedly it was a different agent, according to Nick Harris

Re: high agent fees, it's not a new problem. Does it actually matter in the end? They paid 400k to Barca, and 1.6m to the agent. They got a young player with huge potential for a total of 2m. Even if for 5m, it would still be a good deal. Whether they had to pay the club, the agent or the player to make that happen is irrelevant. It's not an issue that concerns me. What concerns me is whether we're overpaying for players or not and whether we can fund them.

Re: JA. Why would you keep him on in an advising capacity if he's cost you more money than you expected to pay? The owners get absolutely nothing from relegation, it would be as much a disaster for them as it would be for us and the town (in varying degrees, of course).

Re: being shafted. It IS happening at other clubs. Have you looked at the loss and debt figures for other clubs? They are way worse than ours. Any of the clubs around us making player purchases are receiving huge loss figures and wracking up huge debts. The difference is we're facing relegation. Have you seen Bolton's loss and debt figures though for the season before?

[Stuart]

Re: Rochina, JA didn't pocket the money, supposedly it was a different agent, according to Nick Harris

Re: high agent fees, it's not a new problem. Does it actually matter in the end? They paid 400k to Barca, and 1.6m to the agent. They got a young player with huge potential for a total of 2m. Even if for 5m, it would still be a good deal. Whether they had to pay the club, the agent or the player to make that happen is irrelevant. It's not an issue that concerns me. What concerns me is whether we're overpaying for players or not and whether we can fund them.

Re: JA. Why would you keep him on in an advising capacity if he's cost you more money than you expected to pay? The owners get absolutely nothing from relegation, it would be as much a disaster for them as it would be for us and the town (in varying degrees, of course).

Re: being shafted. It IS happening at other clubs. Have you looked at the loss and debt figures for other clubs? They are way worse than ours. Any of the clubs around us making player purchases are receiving huge loss figures and wracking up huge debts. The difference is we're facing relegation. Have you seen Bolton's loss and debt figures though for the season before?

Ah, a different agent, okay. Which one?

Unless you are an agent, of course it matters that money is disappearing out of football. If Rochina was worth 400k, why should we pay £2m? Don't say agents are helping because it's these same agents that are creating this type of market, and it's inflating fees (and by association wages) almost as much as a team like Man City.

We are having to take out loans which might cost the club it's future, and a few blokes with 'contacts' in the game are getting rich off the back of our plight. It STINKS! Agents are supposed to protect the best interests of the player/s but they have gone way too far and are now protecting their own best interests. Regular allegations of unsettling players, having them look for moves just so they can have a pay day, for instance.

Why would I keep JA on? I wouldn't but I don't know why Venkys might, that's why I'm asking if he's still involved here. No-one has said, for definite, that he isn't. Venky's have done a lot of things that I wouldn't have expected so I wouldn't be overly surprised if he's still helping out. For the reasons you have typed yourself, above. Although I don't agree with them, I can see how others might look at it in a positive light.

Venkys don't act in any way shape or form like owners who care the least bit about (or even realise the consequences of) relegation.

And I don't know how many times it has been mentioned, but it's a lot, Bolton's debt is not owed to a cold institution like a bank, it's owed to a fan. Fair enough, once he "moves on" they may have problems but I'd rather be in their position right now than ours. I don't think there are many PL clubs in a worse financial position than us - i.e. ones which don't have large fan bases, or political backing, or moneybags benefactors supporting them.

[den]

Re: Rochina, JA didn't pocket the money, supposedly it was a different agent, according to Nick Harris

JA admitted that he was paid £1.6m on talksport.

[Lathund]

Ah, a different agent, okay. Which one?

Manuel Salamanca Ferrer

[Stuart]

Manuel Salamanca Ferrer

Thanks Lathund. The opening line of that link nicely backs up my point and my earlier incestuous comment...

"Blackburn manager Steve Kean's representative, Jerome Anderson, has been marginalised from Rovers' affairs, partly because of a £1.65million agent's fee paid to an associate of his on the purchase of a player who cost the club just €450,000."

[BRFCfor83]

Blackburn owners Venky's have given assurances that they will continue to fund the club next season, regardless of which division Rovers find themselves in.

Full story: Lancashire Telegraph

THEY WILL CONTINUE TO FUND!!! I havent seen any of THEIR money put into the club yet!!