What a mess this club is.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Jack's statue will be worth a few bob.

Edited November 17, 2021 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[Ulrich]

42 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

What we selling next time?

The Riverside would make a great Tescos 👍

[Gav]

1 hour ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

Then if that's the general consensus Gav we are beaten as a supporter base..we might as well call it a day.

We are comatose,a Zombie Club,kept on life support,no hope.That's not the Rovers I grew up with and it's bloody well not a situation I can accept.

Football goes in cycles SG, this club will rise again, we need to plod along until these inept owners get bored and sod off back under the rock. 

Hang in there, our time will come. 

[JacknOry]

19 hours ago, FortressEwood said:

Former ST holder. Now boycotting.

 

Say no more.

Not biting - just another example of you not accepting others opinions - the very thing you have come on here attacking everyone else for (with little evidence of course).

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Well if we hadn't sold the training ground to the owners we would have been breach of FFP rules and face penalties. 

 

Does you accept this @roversfan99that FFP is the reason why we didn't spend this past summer? 

Nope, not at all.

Just to go back, my request was for a degree of flexibility in the budget for renewal of contracts and a couple of million on a striker following the sale of Armstrong. Lets not lose focus of the fact that you had similar requests, hence your daily suggestions of Healey, NIsbet etc, so I am not sure why you are suddenly so keen to go against that

But our accounts run from July 1st through to June 30th. This training ground transaction was reported (this article seems to be what Rich Sharpe believes has happened or indeed the reasoning rather than anything official but I will take it as fact) as something done at the end of June to avoid potential FFP implications, at the end of the last accounting year.

My request came after the Armstrong sale which as the article states was after June 30th, putting it in the next financial year ending in June 2022. Any signings/signing on fees as suggested by myself at the time would also fall into this accounting year to which we had only just begun. Therefore any issues regarding FFP relating to last year, which were subsequently overcome anyway, had absolutely no relation to what I was suggesting. I repeatedly did point out that any signings would have been in the new accounting year, but you never directly responded to that.

In fact the article implicitly states that the Armstrong fee will give us some flexibility underneath the FFP threshold this year, so it actually backs me up that we could spend a bit in the summer if we had chosen too:

"With the sale of Armstrong going through in August, for an initial £15m plus add-ons, to Southampton, that will give Rovers even more room to breathe moving forward, with that included in the accounts to the year June 30 2022."

All of this is prior to the additional issues that I raised regarding not being able to judge based solely from the accounts how much of any losses were eligible for FFP regulations, and how renewals of contracts would likely be financially beneficial for us in the long term, tying into what was mentioned in the article about making profits on player sales as a more sustainable way of moving the club forward.

 

[DeeCee]

I would have been a 2. But moved away just after the play off win.

If I'd I've stayed in the area I would have been a 3. But with attending certain games 🤦‍♀️

[Upside Down]

The fact they had to sell the training ground to avoid falling foul of FFP shows that the owners have invested absolutely nothing into the club. The money they supposedly put in is only to cover losses and is the bear minimum that they can get away with. Even this money is in the form of debt so they aren't really giving anything to the club.

 

Unless the big news is going to be that the club is up for sale then nothing is going to change. 

 

It's both hilarious and tragic when people come out with "where would we be without Venkys?" 

My response is that we'd probably be 7th in the Premier League rather than 7th in the Championship. 

[tomphil]

3 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

What we selling next time?

Academy site then Ewood, then end up paying about 2 mill a year to lease them back.

It'll be ok though it's all just still owned by the same lot really......

[Upside Down]

5 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Academy site then Ewood, then end up paying about 2 mill a year to lease them back.

It'll be ok though it's all just still owned by the same lot really......

 

Nothing to see here.....

[47er]

3 hours ago, Gav said:

Football goes in cycles SG, this club will rise again, we need to plod along until these inept owners get bored and sod off back under the rock. 

Hang in there, our time will come. 

I personally am going to have to struggle very hard to hang in there that long!

[JHRover]

I'd rather be on 20 points now and own Brockhall than be on 26 with it out of the clubs ownership and set to lose most of our decent players for nothing because we can't renew their contracts.

Bit easier to make up 6 points than it is to get hold of a setup like Brockhall.

I'll come back to my question again which still hasn't been answered properly. Why is it that we are in a position whereby we are having to sell valuable fixed assets to avoid FFP sanctions despite having billionaire owners whilst pretty much everyone else in this division can manage their finances without breaching FFP and without selling training grounds?

Nothing has changed has it? The club is as much of a financial basket case run by charlatans and incompetents as it was 10 years ago.

According to the 'experts' in the media - and I use that term loosely because I think most of these people just regurgitate what Waggott tells them - the Brockhall sale was required to avoid sanctions.

So hold on, are we really supposed to believe that a sale of Adam Armstrong for £15 million was barely worth even half of the shortfall we had to make up to avoid a sanction? Seriously? Our finances were in such a hideous state this summer that the £10 million(ish) cash we got for Armstrong was still leaving us £16 million short of what we needed to avoid sanctions?

So a shortfall of £26 million needed to be plugged? This a club that limited transfer spending to relatively small fees over the previous 3-4 windows since the purchase of Gallagher in 2019?

How on earth can that happen? It is either gross mismanagement or something sinister going on because I refuse to accept that we can be so far off the scale in return for a Championship relegation scrap and a squad with very little transfer value.

It might be acceptable had we now got a squad filled up with valuable established players on hefty contracts with value in them but that is a long way from being the case.

Edited November 17, 2021 by JHRover

[Miker]

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

The fact they had to sell the training ground to avoid falling foul of FFP shows that the owners have invested absolutely nothing into the club. The money they supposedly put in is only to cover losses and is the bear minimum that they can get away with. Even this money is in the form of debt so they aren't really giving anything to the club.

Do you understand how FFP actually works?

[HowieFive0]

38 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I'd rather be on 20 points now and own Brockhall than be on 26 with it out of the clubs ownership and set to lose most of our decent players for nothing because we can't renew their contracts.

Bit easier to make up 6 points than it is to get hold of a setup like Brockhall.

I'll come back to my question again which still hasn't been answered properly. Why is it that we are in a position whereby we are having to sell valuable fixed assets to avoid FFP sanctions despite having billionaire owners whilst pretty much everyone else in this division can manage their finances without breaching FFP and without selling training grounds?

Nothing has changed has it? The club is as much of a financial basket case run by charlatans and incompetents as it was 10 years ago.

According to the 'experts' in the media - and I use that term loosely because I think most of these people just regurgitate what Waggott tells them - the Brockhall sale was required to avoid sanctions.

So hold on, are we really supposed to believe that a sale of Adam Armstrong for £15 million was barely worth even half of the shortfall we had to make up to avoid a sanction? Seriously? Our finances were in such a hideous state this summer that the £10 million(ish) cash we got for Armstrong was still leaving us £16 million short of what we needed to avoid sanctions?

So a shortfall of £26 million needed to be plugged? This a club that limited transfer spending to relatively small fees over the previous 3-4 windows since the purchase of Gallagher in 2019?

How on earth can that happen? It is either gross mismanagement or something sinister going on because I refuse to accept that we can be so far off the scale in return for a Championship relegation scrap and a squad with very little transfer value.

It might be acceptable had we now got a squad filled up with valuable established players on hefty contracts with value in them but that is a long way from being the case.

Reading the article JH sounds to me  like the full 16 M wasnt required to clear FFP?. Sharpe says it gaves us 'headroom' which to me sounds it was more than enough to clear it and more.  Sounds like they may have banked a bit for another rainy in the future!! !

Also Armstrong sale came too late and will be used in the next financial year ?

Totally agree with you  though financially we are a mess !

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, Upside Down said:

The fact they had to sell the training ground to avoid falling foul of FFP shows that the owners have invested absolutely nothing into the club. The money they supposedly put in is only to cover losses and is the bear minimum that they can get away with. Even this money is in the form of debt so they aren't really giving anything to the club.

Sorry, this part is absolute rubbish.

Of course they're putting money into the Club. Our wage bill alone far outstrips our income. Who do you think pays Ayala £30 k p.w.? Gallagher £20k p.w? Poveda £10k p.w. (apparently) to sit on the bench?

Balaji might not have turned up with £16m in crisp £20 notes in a wheelbarrow at the point the accounting exercise with the STC took place but unless you start hearing stories that players haven't been paid for months you can be sure the money has come into the Club at some point.

They have also backed the Club up to the limit they are able to under the current FFP rules. Will these rules change in future and would they be able to put more in in future if they wished? Who knows?

[roversfan99]

Irrelevant to the point but there is no way that Ayala can be on 30k. Poveda 10k contribution seems beyond unlikely too.

Backing the club and covering self inflicted losses after they happen is not the same either.

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, JHRover said:

I'll come back to my question again which still hasn't been answered properly. Why is it that we are in a position whereby we are having to sell valuable fixed assets to avoid FFP sanctions despite having billionaire owners whilst pretty much everyone else in this division can manage their finances without breaching FFP and without selling training grounds?

Probably because the managers of those Clubs haven't run such bloated squads for years and/or have traded sensibly to stay within FFP as opposed to stockpiling more and more players without ever having to sell anyone.

Couple of key points here. To all intents and purposes Brockhall is still under Club ownership. If the owners wanted to cash in on it at any point they could just have sold it to an external party at any point before anyway.

Secondly the Armstrong money didn't come in in time for the latest round of FFP calculations hence the need for the accounting exercise.

I don't deny it has been gross mismanagement (by imo Waggott and Mowbray) and a lack of oversight by the owners that led us to this stage in the first place.

[RevidgeBlue]

5 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Irrelevant to the point but there is no way that Ayala can be on 30k. Poveda 10k contribution seems beyond unlikely too.

Backing the club and covering self inflicted losses after they happen is not the same either.

You have heard of FFP right?

[RevidgeBlue]

59 minutes ago, HowieFive0 said:

Reading the article JH sounds to me  like the full 16 M wasnt required to clear FFP?. Sharpe says it gaves us 'headroom' which to me sounds it was more than enough to clear it and more.  Sounds like they may have banked a bit for another rainy in the future!! !

Also Armstrong sale came too late and will be used in the next financial year ?

Totally agree with you  though financially we are a mess !

Agree with all of that.

[den]

53 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Sorry, this part is absolute rubbish.

Of course they're putting money into the Club. 

They are, you’re right. Tens of tens of millions, probably a hundred million+.

I still don’t understand why.  Why would anyone do that, yet do nothing apart from barely keep it afloat?

Maybe they are madly in love with Blackburn Rovers Football Club and get a lot out of owning it.  But then you wonder why they stand and watch everything about it going down the pan.

Its got me beat.

Edited November 18, 2021 by den

[roversfan99]

33 minutes ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Probably because the managers of those Clubs haven't run such bloated squads for years and/or have traded sensibly to stay within FFP as opposed to stockpiling more and more players without ever having to sell anyone.

Couple of key points here. To all intents and purposes Brockhall is still under Club ownership. If the owners wanted to cash in on it at any point they could just have sold it to an external party at any point before anyway.

Secondly the Armstrong money didn't come in in time for the latest round of FFP calculations hence the need for the accounting exercise.

I don't deny it has been gross mismanagement (by imo Waggott and Mowbray) and a lack of oversight by the owners that led us to this stage in the first place.

In regards to your nonsensical backwards argument that any potential FFP breach is down to the manager. Somehow you blame him as if hes the irresponsible one for merely spending the budget given to him by the owners!

@Gav pointed out earlier that we have already been in embargo due to failure to fall under regulations well before Mowbray and Waggott rocked up. Venkys are the common denominator. Apologies if I have missed a response but what would you say to that.

I also mentioned a metaphor that if you lent me money then ended up getting your house repossessed as a result. Would you kick yourself or blame me for accepting your kind gesture?

I get that you may have heard some confidential gossip/whispers but it may well be clouding your judgement. "A lack of oversight" is such a passive, piss poor attempt to try and avoid giving the very same owners who give the money in the first place any blame.

[RevidgeBlue]

6 hours ago, 1864roverite said:

No they didn’t but to be fair I also didn’t mention it either (strategy based decision)!

The issue of communication is very high on my agenda in talks with the club and if I am honest they agree entirely that it is nothing short of awful for a number of years. I was assured that it is a priority for the club to greatly improve communication with supporters and I am keen to see just how their intentions make out in the coming weeks 

Speaking entirely personally, whilst it would be nice,  communication with the fans would be someway down my list of priorities behind things like bringing in a decent Manager, CEO and Coaching Staff, renovating the stadium, replacing the pitch in full and upgrading the training facilities at Brockhall to state of the art standard where necessary.

After eleven tough years we now need actions not words. I don't want to hear mealy mouthed platitudes about how wonderful I am as a supporter and how I can contact them any time with suggestions then nothing changes. Conversely to use an extreme example to prove a point I  wouldn't give two hoots if we all woke up one morning to discover the Riverside Stand had been replaced with a shiny new date of the art facility and no- one had known the first thing about it. **

**I'm not aware of any such plans BTW it was a hypothetical example.

[Miker]

1 hour ago, den said:

They are, you’re right. Tens of tens of millions, probably a hundred million+.

I still don’t understand why.  Why would anyone do that, yet do nothing apart from barely keep it afloat?

Maybe they are madly in love with Blackburn Rovers Football Club and get a lot out of owning it.  But then you wonder why they stand and watch everything about it going down the pan.

Its got me beat.

They’re not just barely keeping it afloat though are they? They’re literally spending up to the limit that FFP allows.

[RevidgeBlue]

1 hour ago, den said:

They are, you’re right. Tens of tens of millions, probably a hundred million+.

I still don’t understand why.  Why would anyone do that, yet do nothing apart from barely keep it afloat?

Maybe they are madly in love with Blackburn Rovers Football Club and get a lot out of owning it.  But then you wonder why they stand and watch everything about it going down the pan.

Its got me beat.

You and me both den.

It's obviously completely incomprehensible to a normal person how you can lose £20 or £30m p.a. without batting an eyelid.

Even if they can afford it however you'd think they'd get far more pride and enjoyment out of it had they taken a much closer interest and kept a much tighter rein on things over the years and they'd lost rather less money on us and  we had been somewhat more successful.

Maybe they've come to that realisation? I think however after 11 years everyone's reaction will be "I'll believe it when I see it".

And rightly so.

[Upside Down]

6 hours ago, Miker said:

Do you understand how FFP actually works?

 

6 hours ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Sorry, this part is absolute rubbish.

Of course they're putting money into the Club. Our wage bill alone far outstrips our income. Who do you think pays Ayala £30 k p.w.? Gallagher £20k p.w? Poveda £10k p.w. (apparently) to sit on the bench?

Balaji might not have turned up with £16m in crisp £20 notes in a wheelbarrow at the point the accounting exercise with the STC took place but unless you start hearing stories that players haven't been paid for months you can be sure the money has come into the Club at some point.

They have also backed the Club up to the limit they are able to under the current FFP rules. Will these rules change in future and would they be able to put more in in future if they wished? Who knows?

 

 

But the club owes them well over 100 million. I genuinely am intrigued by this and would like it if someone could explain how that works. 

My take on it is that all they have done is offset the losses the club has made by the way of loans. However I could be wrong about that so if someone could set me straight on the way all of this works I would much appreciate it.

 

Even if they are covering the losses there does not seem to be much actual investment. It has been mentioned before that the stadium and training facilities are in dire need of attention. We are short of at least 5 decent players and although I think a lot of the venom directed towards Tony Mowbray is completely over the top, I don't think he's the man to take Rovers on to promotion and ultimately a permanent spot in the Premier League.

 

Regarding FFP, there are ways around that. We have seen it done by Man City, PSG and you can guarantee we will see it from Newcastle in the coming years. Selling assets like the training ground or stadium to yourself is one of those, so you can't say they don't know about that sort of stuff. It would take some desire and some effort to do that though. Kind of like the desire and effort they put in to pass the "fit and proper" requirements.

 

I think I can safely say we all want to see Rovers doing well. I don't think that will happen under the current ownership.

[arbitro]

4 hours ago, Miker said:

They’re not just barely keeping it afloat though are they? They’re literally spending up to the limit that FFP allows.

The owners should get interim financial reports during each year but still allow us to spend up to 187% of our income on wages.

I really don't understand why some think Venkys are exempt from the P & S fiasco.