6.7 million profit

[Plymouth_Royal]

Nope. selling S.h1te and Doyle isnt going to be a problem and i think we could get 8 million combined for the two. On top of that I think we could get 4 mill for matejovsky (although i would like to see him stay) and 3 million for harper. Not only would selling our better players generate more money but getting them off the wage bill to help balance the books too, so it may be that selling doyle and shunt would just be enough anyway. Plus, we have a manager who isnt scared to play the younger members of the team that now have a good amount of league experience under their belts.

One thing that baffles me though is that if we have 11 million to balance up then why are we offering gunnarsson (34) a new contract? we already have cisse, matejovsky, harper, karacan,tabb, sigurdsson and davies in the middle. Maybe this is a clever ploy by the club to generate interest in some of our players and start our new era.

[Royal Rother]

The phrase "we need £11m to balance the books" is not one, it seems, that has come from the club.

It would be a pointless thing for the club to come out with in isolation because, without context, it would be meaningless and that is not really their style.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

we have generated £45m of income in profits, player sales and parachute payments. Yes, as Ian mentions we have made losses,

erm

business 101 for you sir.

I was referring to the previous seasons as mentioned by Ian - businesses which have made losses cannot always expect to recover all of those losses when times get better, especially given the rather odd way football is structured. But it doesn't really matter anyway. We can say/suggest/do what we want, it won't change the way JM thinks.

I don't have a problem with frugality. It's just that it's kinda hard to accept that on the one hand the club is constantly asking fans to spend quite high percentages of their annual income on season tickets yet on the other tell us how hard up they are. Whilst not on a direct collision course, the latter certainly doesn't do much to encourage the former.

[Royal Rother]

That's illogical.

Would you feel better if the club was making huge profits yet "constantly asking fans to spend quite high percentages of their annual income on season tickets".

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

That's illogical.

Would you feel better if the club was making huge profits yet "constantly asking fans to spend quite high percentages of their annual income on season tickets".

Not quite what I meant.

What I was trying to say is that it would surely be better for the club to adopt a more positive stance and whip up enthusiasm and interest by suggesting exciting things to come (irrespective of whether that turns out to be the case). The proof point will be the number of extra season tickets we sell between now and the begining of the season. Throw in a number of interesting signings (accepting that it's inevitable well lose some as well) and tickets are much more likely to be sold than just shipping players out and showing no real desire to replace them and improved what we have.

[rabidbee]

To be fair,whenever they've done that in the past, and exciting things have failed to materialise, they've been lambasted for it.

I suspect that the parachute payments are off-setting the cost of players' wages, which might still be high from the Premiership era, or might not have been fully covered by revenue before promotion. So, that means that the club have decided to limit our indebtedness, rather than spend yet more on credit, and have told Rodgers to generate his own transfer kitty. Seems fair to me, especially as most people seem to accept that Hunt and Doyler are as good as off. Of course, f the players that leave also happened to be our highest earners, and especially if they were on long contracts, that might free up a significant amount of money, either for new players' wages or perhaps for transfer fees.

I think that people often forget that, for a club of our size, the wages are always a more significant drain on our resources than the transfer fees. As Dirkers likes to point, £20K per week is more than a £1m a year, and that doesn't take into account other payments, such as bonuses. That might be the top end of our wage-scale, but never-the-less, even if our average wage is £5-8K p/w (figures plucked from my head, admittedly), when you add in bonuses and other payments it wouldn't be hard for our full wage bill to top 8 figures each year. And that's only the cost of the playing staff.

[Royal Rother]

Personally speaking, even if we sell Doyle, Shunt and Matejovsky and buy no-one I think I'll still be looking forward to the coming season more than last.

I can't wait to see how Henry and Church get on for starters. Add In Pearce, Karacan, Federici / Hamer, who are very likely to be regular starters, plus Robson-Kanu, Davies, Sigurdsson, Kelly, Bozanic and Mooney who one can assume will (at the least) get some time on/off the bench plus the excitement of a young manager who likes to play football on the grass, then I think we could be in for some enjoyable times.

Ask me again at the end of September...

[MeMeMe]

Some quotes....
"Royals’ new boss has been told he must wheel and deal in the transfer market and I understand the 36-year-old has to sell players up to the value of £11million to balance the books."

"Doyle, who is recovering from a calf injury, is Reading’s most prized asset. The striker has a £6.5million get-out-clause in his contract and Everton and Aston Villa are thought to be leading the chase.
Everton are also keen on Hunt and may be tempted to make a joint bid for the Republic of Ireland internationals"

"Andre Bikey could also be sold for around £2.5million with French outfit Marseille monitoring the situation"

and then Coppels words in his last interview........
"the club have made a lot of money this year"

Do I have to spell it out ?.... It's not all about the money.....is it !?

[leww_rfc]

Some quotes....
"Royals’ new boss has been told he must wheel and deal in the transfer market and I understand the 36-year-old has to sell players up to the value of £11million to balance the books."

"Doyle, who is recovering from a calf injury, is Reading’s most prized asset. The striker has a £6.5million get-out-clause in his contract and Everton and Aston Villa are thought to be leading the chase.
Everton are also keen on Hunt and may be tempted to make a joint bid for the Republic of Ireland internationals"

"Andre Bikey could also be sold for around £2.5million with French outfit Marseille monitoring the situation"

and then Coppels words in his last interview........
"the club have made a lot of money this year"

Do I have to spell it out ?.... It's not all about the money.....is it !?

i dont want Bikey to go on his day he's the best centre back in the division!

[Sun Tzu]

businesses which have made losses cannot always expect to recover all of those losses when times get better, especially given the rather odd way football is structured.

How does that work then ?

Does the money fairy just take those losses away ?

A loss made in one year is still there on the books, I'm sure businesses globally would love to find that a loss in one year doesn;t follow them into the next year.

At some point the accumulated losses have to be dealt with. For most football clubs that involves going into administration.

[Ian Royal]

The problem is on an off day he's a total liability.

[Royal Rother]

Indeed. I do try hard not to be patronising but the naivety about business and especially accounting is a never ending source of fascination to me on here.

[Ian Royal]

Into our debts. Into infrastructure. Into increased transfer spending. Into increased wage budgets.

It's not complex. 2 years of £6m profit, does not offset 15 years at £2-5m loss each year.

TROFLansfeROFL spending!

So Spending in the two prem seasons of ~£4.3m and ~£5m isn't an increase on ~£1.5m, ~£1.2m & ~£1.2m then.

That's some strange maths you do.

[Ian Royal]

businesses which have made losses cannot always expect to recover all of those losses when times get better, especially given the rather odd way football is structured.

How does that work then ?

Does the money fairy just take those losses away ?

A loss made in one year is still there on the books, I'm sure businesses globally would love to find that a loss in one year doesn;t follow them into the next year.

At some point the accumulated losses have to be dealt with. For most football clubs that involves going into administration.

Indeed. I saw it suggested that debts and spending on Infrastructure are one and teh same thing.

Clearly I was unaware that debts don't carry over from season to season and cover additional spending on your infrastructure.

No wonder the country is going to the dogs if this thread demonstrates the general financial understanding of the country. I consider myself to be financially pretty ignorant. But I look like some sort of genius when compared to many on here.

[rabidbee]

Indeed. I do try hard not to be patronising but the naivety about business and especially accounting is a never ending source of fascination to me on here.

I don't see why, given the level of general ignorance displayed on all other subjects.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

Indeed. I saw it suggested that debts and spending on Infrastructure are one and teh same thing.

Clearly I was unaware that debts don't carry over from season to season and cover additional spending on your infrastructure.

Not what I said. I said that the spending on the infrastructure is already included in the accounts when they are published. Or is this wrong?

No wonder the country is going to the dogs if this thread demonstrates the general financial understanding of the country. I consider myself to be financially pretty ignorant. But I look like some sort of genius when compared to many on here.

Silly me, eh? You're right - we should just leave everything to the so-called financial experts, as they seem to have made a great job of things recently...

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

I think that people often forget that, for a club of our size, the wages are always a more significant drain on our resources than the transfer fees. As Dirkers likes to point, £20K per week is more than a £1m a year, and that doesn't take into account other payments, such as bonuses. That might be the top end of our wage-scale, but never-the-less, even if our average wage is £5-8K p/w (figures plucked from my head, admittedly), when you add in bonuses and other payments it wouldn't be hard for our full wage bill to top 8 figures each year. And that's only the cost of the playing staff.

It would be truly fascinating to see just how our wage bill is broken down, because I think your average for player wage is probably there or there abouts - wonder how this compares to the rest of the Championship.Wasn't there a report on wages done fairly recently?

[Dirk Gently]

The recent Virgin Money Survey didn't go into specifics on wages below the PL.

But it did show that the average wage in the PL earns about £21,000 a week, or £1.1m a year, with the highest paid players earning up to £130,000 a week, almost £7m a year. That's an average figure, for all players.

And the recent Deloitte survey shows that the average PL wage bill between 2007 - 2008 is £59.8 M

Club        Total wage costs (£'000s)     Percentage increase
 
Chelsea            £172,096                              30%
Man United       £121,080                              31%
Arsenal             £101,302                             13%
Liverpool           £90,438                              17%
Newcastle          £74,562                              31%
PL average        £59,800                              23%

The latest comparative figures for salaries between divisions is from 2006 and gives the below figures :

League                                 Average Salary (2006)                     % of PL figure
PL                       £13,000 /week               £676,000 / year                100%
CCC                    £3,764 / week               £195,750                             29%
L1                       £1,304 / week               £67,850                              10%
L2                       £954 / week                  £49,600                               7.3%


and

AVERAGE BASIC WAGE BY PLAYING POSITION
                   Prem          Champ.     League 1   League 2
Goalkeeper  £533,000    £179,500    £53,500    £45,900
Defender     £653,000    £167,000    £61,000    £44,400
Midfielder   £754,000    £185,950    £79,000     £46,800
Forward      £806,000    £292,900    £75,000    £67,900
Overall       £676,000     £195,750    £67,850    £49,600


NB - these figures exclude bonuses and other benefits, which potentially increase the numbers by 60%!

Assuming the differential between divisions is still constant (if anything it make have increased with the recent TV deal) it should be easy enough to work out the latest average, as below..

The key figure is that average wages in the Championship are only 29% of those in the PL - 29% of the average current average PL wage bill of £59.8 M is £17.3 M. Scary numbers, and from that it's not hard to see that our wage bill might easily top £10M.

[West Stand Man]

Indeed. I do try hard not to be patronising but the naivety about business and especially accounting is a never ending source of fascination to me on here.

It goes some way to explaining the current financial meltdown. It seems that most people can't run their own finances properly, so what chance that they understand the nation's (or RFC's) finances!

[Royal Rother]

DG, I assume that should have read...

The key figure is that average wages in the Championship are only 29% of those in the PL