The only way to stop bad things happening is to imply that something bad is happening then refusing to state why you've suggested this. Well known fact.
We do know that Powell has constantly praised Solly in public (see Covered End above), in the media and has stated that Solly would not be leaving in emphatic terms.
Wouldn't be the first time a players been sold after a Managers said that stuff would it?
SoundAsa€, Powell is not openly saying that. I have made my opinion on what I have heard and just thought I would pass it on.
Well if he's not openly saying that Red, then how do you know he's saying it at all...he must have said it to someone and that someone is now putting it about (especially that he doesn't think Solly can cut it in The Championship)......not sure CP would be too enamoured with that would he? Nah....I think your 'source' has got his wires crossed.
Of course Powell wouldn't be happy. I just passed on what I was told to put some light on the situation. Also why would I make it up?
When we got 1mil from cardiff for Mark Hudson I thought at the time it was a very good bit of business. If Solly goes I suspect it will be 'undisclosed' and we may never know how much, or where the money ends up. However if the transfer (if it happens) is fully out in the open, and we feel that the deal is very good for Charlton, then we have to accept it. My prediction is undisclosed, and the money is used to pay outstanding bills.
When we got 1mil from cardiff for Mark Hudson I thought at the time it was a very good bit of business. If Solly goes I suspect it will be 'undisclosed' and we may never know how much, or where the money ends up. However if the transfer (if it happens) is fully out in the open, and we feel that the deal is very good for Charlton, then we have to accept it. My prediction is undisclosed, and the money is used to pay outstanding bills.
In 1999/2000 we sold Danny Mills and the money meant that the rest of the team could stay together and that proved wise - and we got promoted at the end of that season.
We should bear in mind that the Mysterons ran up a massive loss last year - something around £4-5m and I'm assuming that a loss will be projected for this year.
Solly will go - it's just when and what the deal is, in the meantime we have Wilson and Jordan Cousins coming through and Andy Hughes can do a job, so we have several options at right-back already at the club and if the in-coming cash stabilises the accounts and gives CP some room in the transfer market or allows him to strengthen the squad with a few timely loans here and there then that's all well and good. Ultimately what matters is what we do with the money and whether it's used positively.
We should bear in mind that the Mysterons ran up a massive loss last year - something around £4-5m and I'm assuming that a loss will be projected for this year.
Dunno if anyone else has noticed but if this Baldock-Solly swap deal happens it's two players who don't want to leave their respective clubs. Just a bit odd
We should bear in mind that the Mysterons ran up a massive loss last year - something around £4-5m and I'm assuming that a loss will be projected for this year.
How else would we have made a profit? RM said we were losing that every year we spent in that league.
We should bear in mind that the Mysterons ran up a massive loss last year - something around £4-5m and I'm assuming that a loss will be projected for this year.
I could be wrong but I believe Richard Murray mentioned it at one of the supporters meetings and this figure was then put in the public domain. Henry will confirm or deny, I suspect. I believe at the same meeting RM suggested that break-even would be possible in the Champ, but that was before the TV money was -disgracefully - reduced by 1m and also always depended on the projected size and quality of the squad.
- The audit firm changed even though the audit fee remain unchanged - usually when assessing a company this would be a potential 'red flag' (or maybe 'red and white' in Charlton's case) but this is presumably just a relationship issue pertaining to the new owners;
- Turnover fell by nearly 10% from 2009/10 (the first season in League One), due mainly to lower matchday revenues (average attendances fell by virtually the same degree, although in 2010/11 the club did have a big payday at White Hart Lane as a partial offset);
- Unlike Premiership clubs (for whom TV revenue is usually the key contributor to revenues), 59% of the club’s revenues are generated on matchdays, with TV revenues at just over £1m (not so bad, thanks to appearing on TV more often than most League One clubs);
- The operating loss remained high at £6.1m, although continued cost-cutting saw it reduced by 45% from 2009/10;
- During the initial transfer of control in Aug 2010, Murray agreed to provide £3m in working capital to the club, but this was amended to £1.5m following the CAFC deal in late-Dec – the view (if you believe it) that Murray saved the club from administration but in return insisted upon full control, rests upon this key provision;
- Profit on disposal of players was £2.8m (mainly from Jenkinson, Bailey and Richardson, but also a sell-on fee related to Darren Bent) - it should be noted that this is not equivalent to the cash transfer fees received because in some cases (eg. Bailey) the fees the club itself paid to acquire them were not yet fully amortised on the balance sheet;
- Virtually by definition given the operating losses, the accounts have only been prepared on a ‘going concern’ basis subject to the ongoing support of the club’s bankers and CAFC;
- Total wages/salaries were £6.8m, down from £9.3m the previous season despite total staff numbers only falling from 133 to 121 - given that 59 of the 121 are on the non-playing side, if one assumes that these are paid a total of £1.5m (average: £25k pa, skewed by a couple of well-paid execs eg. Kavanagh) then the 62 playing staff are paid a total of £5.3m (average: £85k pa). This sounds relatively well-controlled by typical football standards, although it must include a myriad of relatively junior staff for example on the training and Academy side, as well as several younger poorly-paid pros. It has previously been implied that Racon/Semedo/Youga were being paid in the region of £1m total, thus leaving £4.3m unexplained. In turn, if one takes Powell (or Parkinson) plus say their six most senior staff (eg. Matthew, Dyer, etc.), and twenty further first-team squad players, then this implies these 26 were paid on average approx £125k pa each (total: £3.3m). This still leaves £1m to pay the remaining 33 playing staff (average: £30k pa) – this seems a reasonable way of assessing how it might have broken down;
- The best paid director earned £121k during the year - it is not clear who this is but one can have a very good guess;
- During the year, £1.46m was added to intangible fixed assets as ‘players registrations’ (akin to transfer fees) - this instinctively feels ‘high’ but it certainly includes any fees paid for Benson and Wright-Phillips, whilst the transfers of Stephens and Green were announced just prior to year-end. Furthermore, the undisclosed fee paid for Wiggins may also have slipped into the same accounting fiscal year as it was announced on 1st July. Either way it again emphasises how the key Jenkinson sale allowed for substantial squad investment for no net cash outlay;
- £2.6m is owed by the club to Baton whilst there remains £8.5m of loans to ex-directors (including Murray), of which £7m is interest-free and repayable only upon promotion to the Premier League (the remaining aforementioned £1.5m is working capital provided by Murray, and appears to be repayable upon promotion to the Championship) - the Baton debt appears to be a form of financing of the ongoing operational deficits, of a type which anyone who has studied football club accounts will be familiar with. What we don’t know unfortunately is who is funding Baton, why and how (although I did make some suggestions in an earlier blog). Obviously this is the key question. Meanwhile there is something quite extraordinary in my view about the club owing money to ex-directors who are effectively now mere individual fans – talk about having all the pain and none of the glory in recent seasons.
- The club still has outstanding bank loans of £6.8m, of which £1.1m is due within one year - it will be interesting to see if this tranche got paid as it came due or restructured in some way;
- The club could still receive a further £4.5m of transfer fees if certain goals are met eg. Appearances, international caps etc. - presumably these particularly apply for Jenkinson and Shelvey, but who knows how likely they are to be received?;
- The club ‘accelerated’ the payment of £1.6m in transfer fees due by discounting them with a financial institution - as has become apparent in various high-profile club administration cases, transfer fees are typically paid in instalments over time, not in an upfront lump sum. The risk for the club in these ‘acceleration’ deals (ie. borrowing against future fees) is the failure of the buying club to make good on its debts, but if the counterparty was the likes of Arsenal or Liverpool, then one can sleep fairly easily at night, and indeed they were paid;
- Between 30 Jun 2011 and the signing of the accounts, transfer fees of £330k were received and £466k were paid - the transfer fee received must largely have related to Rob Elliot, whilst those paid would have included the likes of Haynes, Morrison, Hamer, Smith and (as above) possibly Wiggins. Again some smart rejigging of the playing squad for little net cash outlay - I wonder what role Jimenez played in selling Elliot to his former employer?;
- Murray personally guaranteed the £840k bank overdraft at 30 Jun 2011 - this was slightly curious given it would now have been six months since Baton was 90% acquired. In other words why would the overdraft be guaranteed solely by him, rather than Baton (of which he only owns 10%)?
From the Baton accounts:
- The Baton accounts consolidate those of its subsidiaries, including the club (as above);
- The ‘group’ has £53m of tax losses to carry forward against future trading profits - it’s fair to say the club won’t be helping to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit any time soon via its corporation tax payments;
- Baton did indeed pay just £1 for the club (or £151 to be precise, if you include ‘Charlton Athletic Holdings Ltd’, its other subsidiary) – the net assets of the club at the time were £9.1m but given the scale of the ongoing cashflow deficits and the fact that most of the assets of the club were tied up in the ‘illiquid’ stadium, the equity of the club was indeed functionally worthless;
- Baton has been financed by £3m of share capital since inception -as above, £2.6m of this was injected into the club during the year (and is thus owed back). Again what is not a matter of public record is how this is being financed and by whom.
So there you have it. In short, whilst no-one could reasonably complain about the way the new owners have approached their task (or indeed the results thereof), the fact remains that at 30 Jun 2011 at least, the club was still loss-making and owed nearly £7m to the bank.
In the meantime those deficits (and those debts as they come due) are being financed via a company which is in turn 90% owned by an offshore company rather shrouded in mystery.
One might argue that on-pitch matters have given the club it’s heart and soul back (and they would have a point, infact 91 of them) but this fact still leaves me slightly uneasy, even if it is a sign of the footballing times.
There was a story a month or so a go that said west ham were interested in Solly. And then there was a story saying we were interested in Baldock. Now people are connecting the dots.
Obviously can't say. If Solly is sold it will be Powells decision. I hope this puts the conspiracy theories to bed on this one.
This is your comment that i find objectionable. You imply that AFKA and those that agreed with his remarks are conspiracy theorists, when in fact no 'conspiracy' was even suggested, simply the likelihood of an unpleasant economic reality.
Murray personally guaranteed the £840k bank overdraft at 30 Jun 2011 - this was slightly curious given it would now have been six months since Baton was 90% acquired. In other words why would the overdraft be guaranteed solely by him, rather than Baton (of which he only owns 10%)?
I would presume that the bank insisted on this - the danger being that if Baton went into receivership that they would lose their money. Or maybe Murray agreed to it in order to get better rates, who knows...
There was a story a month or so a go that said west ham were interested in Solly. And then there was a story saying we were interested in Baldock. Now people are connecting the dots.
Murray personally guaranteed the £840k bank overdraft at 30 Jun 2011 - this was slightly curious given it would now have been six months since Baton was 90% acquired. In other words why would the overdraft be guaranteed solely by him, rather than Baton (of which he only owns 10%)?
I still find that very strange.
I don't think you are the only person named Richard to think that
Comments
Well if he's not openly saying that Red, then how do you know he's saying it at all...he must have said it to someone and that someone is now putting it about (especially that he doesn't think Solly can cut it in The Championship)......not sure CP would be too enamoured with that would he?
Nah....I think your 'source' has got his wires crossed.
Of course Powell wouldn't be happy. I just passed on what I was told to put some light on the situation. Also why would I make it up?
now where's that brick wall I can bang my head on for a bit?
However if the transfer (if it happens) is fully out in the open, and we feel that the deal is very good for Charlton, then we have to accept it.
My prediction is undisclosed, and the money is used to pay outstanding bills.
We should bear in mind that the Mysterons ran up a massive loss last year - something around £4-5m and I'm assuming that a loss will be projected for this year.
Solly will go - it's just when and what the deal is, in the meantime we have Wilson and Jordan Cousins coming through and Andy Hughes can do a job, so we have several options at right-back already at the club and if the in-coming cash stabilises the accounts and gives CP some room in the transfer market or allows him to strengthen the squad with a few timely loans here and there then that's all well and good. Ultimately what matters is what we do with the money and whether it's used positively.
Sorry to harp on but remind me how we know this?
That was the loss that was budgeted for IIRC - I think it was in the infamous Chris Powell at Bromley Addicks thread.
From the club’s accounts:
- The audit firm changed even though the audit fee remain unchanged - usually when assessing a company this would be a potential 'red flag' (or maybe 'red and white' in Charlton's case) but this is presumably just a relationship issue pertaining to the new owners;
- Turnover fell by nearly 10% from 2009/10 (the first season in League One), due mainly to lower matchday revenues (average attendances fell by virtually the same degree, although in 2010/11 the club did have a big payday at White Hart Lane as a partial offset);
- Unlike Premiership clubs (for whom TV revenue is usually the key contributor to revenues), 59% of the club’s revenues are generated on matchdays, with TV revenues at just over £1m (not so bad, thanks to appearing on TV more often than most League One clubs);
- The operating loss remained high at £6.1m, although continued cost-cutting saw it reduced by 45% from 2009/10;
- During the initial transfer of control in Aug 2010, Murray agreed to provide £3m in working capital to the club, but this was amended to £1.5m following the CAFC deal in late-Dec – the view (if you believe it) that Murray saved the club from administration but in return insisted upon full control, rests upon this key provision;
- Profit on disposal of players was £2.8m (mainly from Jenkinson, Bailey and Richardson, but also a sell-on fee related to Darren Bent) - it should be noted that this is not equivalent to the cash transfer fees received because in some cases (eg. Bailey) the fees the club itself paid to acquire them were not yet fully amortised on the balance sheet;
- Virtually by definition given the operating losses, the accounts have only been prepared on a ‘going concern’ basis subject to the ongoing support of the club’s bankers and CAFC;
- Total wages/salaries were £6.8m, down from £9.3m the previous season despite total staff numbers only falling from 133 to 121 - given that 59 of the 121 are on the non-playing side, if one assumes that these are paid a total of £1.5m (average: £25k pa, skewed by a couple of well-paid execs eg. Kavanagh) then the 62 playing staff are paid a total of £5.3m (average: £85k pa). This sounds relatively well-controlled by typical football standards, although it must include a myriad of relatively junior staff for example on the training and Academy side, as well as several younger poorly-paid pros. It has previously been implied that Racon/Semedo/Youga were being paid in the region of £1m total, thus leaving £4.3m unexplained. In turn, if one takes Powell (or Parkinson) plus say their six most senior staff (eg. Matthew, Dyer, etc.), and twenty further first-team squad players, then this implies these 26 were paid on average approx £125k pa each (total: £3.3m). This still leaves £1m to pay the remaining 33 playing staff (average: £30k pa) – this seems a reasonable way of assessing how it might have broken down;
- The best paid director earned £121k during the year - it is not clear who this is but one can have a very good guess;
- During the year, £1.46m was added to intangible fixed assets as ‘players registrations’ (akin to transfer fees) - this instinctively feels ‘high’ but it certainly includes any fees paid for Benson and Wright-Phillips, whilst the transfers of Stephens and Green were announced just prior to year-end. Furthermore, the undisclosed fee paid for Wiggins may also have slipped into the same accounting fiscal year as it was announced on 1st July. Either way it again emphasises how the key Jenkinson sale allowed for substantial squad investment for no net cash outlay;
- £2.6m is owed by the club to Baton whilst there remains £8.5m of loans to ex-directors (including Murray), of which £7m is interest-free and repayable only upon promotion to the Premier League (the remaining aforementioned £1.5m is working capital provided by Murray, and appears to be repayable upon promotion to the Championship) - the Baton debt appears to be a form of financing of the ongoing operational deficits, of a type which anyone who has studied football club accounts will be familiar with. What we don’t know unfortunately is who is funding Baton, why and how (although I did make some suggestions in an earlier blog). Obviously this is the key question. Meanwhile there is something quite extraordinary in my view about the club owing money to ex-directors who are effectively now mere individual fans – talk about having all the pain and none of the glory in recent seasons.
- The club still has outstanding bank loans of £6.8m, of which £1.1m is due within one year - it will be interesting to see if this tranche got paid as it came due or restructured in some way;
- The club could still receive a further £4.5m of transfer fees if certain goals are met eg. Appearances, international caps etc. - presumably these particularly apply for Jenkinson and Shelvey, but who knows how likely they are to be received?;
- The club ‘accelerated’ the payment of £1.6m in transfer fees due by discounting them with a financial institution - as has become apparent in various high-profile club administration cases, transfer fees are typically paid in instalments over time, not in an upfront lump sum. The risk for the club in these ‘acceleration’ deals (ie. borrowing against future fees) is the failure of the buying club to make good on its debts, but if the counterparty was the likes of Arsenal or Liverpool, then one can sleep fairly easily at night, and indeed they were paid;
- Between 30 Jun 2011 and the signing of the accounts, transfer fees of £330k were received and £466k were paid - the transfer fee received must largely have related to Rob Elliot, whilst those paid would have included the likes of Haynes, Morrison, Hamer, Smith and (as above) possibly Wiggins. Again some smart rejigging of the playing squad for little net cash outlay - I wonder what role Jimenez played in selling Elliot to his former employer?;
- Murray personally guaranteed the £840k bank overdraft at 30 Jun 2011 - this was slightly curious given it would now have been six months since Baton was 90% acquired. In other words why would the overdraft be guaranteed solely by him, rather than Baton (of which he only owns 10%)?
From the Baton accounts:
- The Baton accounts consolidate those of its subsidiaries, including the club (as above);
- The ‘group’ has £53m of tax losses to carry forward against future trading profits - it’s fair to say the club won’t be helping to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit any time soon via its corporation tax payments;
- Baton did indeed pay just £1 for the club (or £151 to be precise, if you include ‘Charlton Athletic Holdings Ltd’, its other subsidiary) – the net assets of the club at the time were £9.1m but given the scale of the ongoing cashflow deficits and the fact that most of the assets of the club were tied up in the ‘illiquid’ stadium, the equity of the club was indeed functionally worthless;
- Baton has been financed by £3m of share capital since inception -as above, £2.6m of this was injected into the club during the year (and is thus owed back). Again what is not a matter of public record is how this is being financed and by whom.
So there you have it. In short, whilst no-one could reasonably complain about the way the new owners have approached their task (or indeed the results thereof), the fact remains that at 30 Jun 2011 at least, the club was still loss-making and owed nearly £7m to the bank.
In the meantime those deficits (and those debts as they come due) are being financed via a company which is in turn 90% owned by an offshore company rather shrouded in mystery.
One might argue that on-pitch matters have given the club it’s heart and soul back (and they would have a point, infact 91 of them) but this fact still leaves me slightly uneasy, even if it is a sign of the footballing times.
There was a story a month or so a go that said west ham were interested in Solly. And then there was a story saying we were interested in Baldock. Now people are connecting the dots.
I still find that very strange.
I would presume that the bank insisted on this - the danger being that if Baton went into receivership that they would lose their money. Or maybe Murray agreed to it in order to get better rates, who knows...
Charlton...........Solly..............West Ham.................Baldock...........£1,5000,000..........swap.