Embargos, HMRC Payment defaults, non payment of wages, the usual under Dai Wrongge

[Snowflake Royal]

Safe to say the Academy is paying its way this season.

We wouldn't have a side without it.

[tmesis]

Safe to say the Academy is paying its way this season.

We wouldn't have a side without it.

£5 million would get us 19 players on £5000 a week.

The whole academy system seems to have pretty much been engineered to make it impossible for clubs without premier league wealth to be able to afford it, while also making it impossible for smaller clubs to be adequately compensated when bigger clubs poach their better younger players.

[Orion1871]

It's a shame it's taken this for Dai to start using the Academy in the way it's supposed to be used.

If he was a sensible owner, the Academy would have been paying its way several times over the last few years, and the club would be on a much better footing right now.

[WestYorksRoyal]

It's a shame it's taken this for Dai to start using the Academy in the way it's supposed to be used.

If he was a sensible owner, the Academy would have been paying its way several times over the last few years, and the club would be on a much better footing right now.

Had he been a sensible owner mixed with the spending power we saw, we'd probably be Brighton.

[Armadillo Roadkill]

The person who told him how to run a football club doesn't make any money from academy players, only by inflated transfer prices for his clients.

[Brogue]

Safe to say the Academy is paying its way this season.

We wouldn't have a side without it.

£5 million would get us 19 players on £5000 a week.

The whole academy system seems to have pretty much been engineered to make it impossible for clubs without premier league wealth to be able to afford it, while also making it impossible for smaller clubs to be adequately compensated when bigger clubs poach their better younger players.

But it also generates transfer revenue. Olise we got 8 million for. We sold some guy to Southampton at the start of the season for over a million. Holmes has just gone for 500k. abbey we don’t know yet. Plus if the club was run properly we would have got decent fees for Richards and loader. Probably in the region of 2.5 mill each. In the last three years the academy has bought in about 10 million quid into the coffers but it could easily have been say 15 million plus over the last 5 years. That’s 3million a year in transfer revenue over the last 5 years. Which only leaves the academy costing 2 million a year. Then add the money saved in not having to pay transfer fees for all the current academy products in the first team. Then factor in the wages saved as the academy products will be on less than a player signed. It can pay for itself if managed properly.

[Orion1871]

Safe to say the Academy is paying its way this season.

We wouldn't have a side without it.

£5 million would get us 19 players on £5000 a week.

The whole academy system seems to have pretty much been engineered to make it impossible for clubs without premier league wealth to be able to afford it, while also making it impossible for smaller clubs to be adequately compensated when bigger clubs poach their better younger players.

But it also generates transfer revenue. Olise we got 8 million for. We sold some guy to Southampton at the start of the season for over a million. Holmes has just gone for 500k. abbey we don’t know yet. Plus if the club was run properly we would have got decent fees for Richards and loader. Probably in the region of 2.5 mill each. In the last three years the academy has bought in about 10 million quid into the coffers but it could easily have been say 15 million plus over the last 5 years. That’s 3million a year in transfer revenue over the last 5 years. Which only leaves the academy costing 2 million a year. Then add the money saved in not having to pay transfer fees for all the current academy products in the first team. Then factor in the wages saved as the academy products will be on less than a player signed. It can pay for itself if managed properly.

Definitely. I read the other day that the estimated worth of Olise was £15m when we sold him.

[Snowflake Royal]

Safe to say the Academy is paying its way this season.

We wouldn't have a side without it.

£5 million would get us 19 players on £5000 a week.

The whole academy system seems to have pretty much been engineered to make it impossible for clubs without premier league wealth to be able to afford it, while also making it impossible for smaller clubs to be adequately compensated when bigger clubs poach their better younger players.

But it also generates transfer revenue. Olise we got 8 million for. We sold some guy to Southampton at the start of the season for over a million. Holmes has just gone for 500k. abbey we don’t know yet. Plus if the club was run properly we would have got decent fees for Richards and loader. Probably in the region of 2.5 mill each. In the last three years the academy has bought in about 10 million quid into the coffers but it could easily have been say 15 million plus over the last 5 years. That’s 3million a year in transfer revenue over the last 5 years. Which only leaves the academy costing 2 million a year. Then add the money saved in not having to pay transfer fees for all the current academy products in the first team. Then factor in the wages saved as the academy products will be on less than a player signed. It can pay for itself if managed properly.

Yes exactly this.

Even if you exclude players who didn’t spend very long in our academy and graduated to the first teams years ago, we've got in the region of 100 starts out of it in just this half season.

You look at Holmes, who has played something like 120 - 140 games for us, and compare him to our signings for young centrebacks (Ilori, Blackett etc) and you're looking at a cost of £2m - £3m in transfer fee, plus almost certainly 10% - 20% more in wages over his time here.

The community links it creates are very valuable too in terms of support. I expect it has some scouting value in building relationships and spotting lower league talent when you have an U21 side in the trophy and from sending young players out on loan.

Clearly a Cat 1 Academy is unsustainable in L2 and for long at L1.

But we've got hundreds and hundreds of appearances out of Academy players in the last 15 years, and that's with ignoring too many of the talented players it produced.

[blythspartan]

I have seen a couple of tweets saying that Abbey has been told that if he doesn’t agree to a move the wages won’t be paid this month. That’s oxf*rd terrible to do that to a young player, if true.

[Schmeichel the dog]

I have seen a couple of tweets saying that Abbey has been told that if he doesn’t agree to a move the wages won’t be paid this month. That’s oxf*rd terrible to do that to a young player, if true.

Despicable (if true) but yet another example of how far we seem to have fallen as a club. Sad as it is to say I wouldn’t begrudge any young player the opportunity to continue their development elsewhere. Without any concrete signs of new ownership on the horizon we’re not in a position to offer any player a vision of a future at this club. So thanks once again Mr Dai. And when you do finally leave please take your mate Kia Joorabchian with you. I note that his company (Sport Invest UK Ltd) represent Nelson Abbey, and for that matter Tyler Bindon, so I fully expect Bindon’s sale before Dai and his cronies finally leave the building………

[tmesis]

Clearly a Cat 1 Academy is unsustainable in L2 and for long at L1.
.

This is the crucial part though. We are in League One, and might be in League Two next year.

If (and this is admittedly a 'back of a fag packet' calculation) it's costing £5 million a year, then can we really afford to have the first 8500 or so fans through the door just paying for the academy? Add on the rent, and it could leave us with a zero playing budget for next season.

If someone does buy us, then especially if we are in League Two next year, that owner has to make some very difficult choices about expenditure at the club. Even now, averaging 12000, we can't balance the books or put out a good team, in a league where most clubs have a significantly lower income.

[Brogue]

Clearly a Cat 1 Academy is unsustainable in L2 and for long at L1.
.

This is the crucial part though. We are in League One, and might be in League Two next year.

If (and this is admittedly a 'back of a fag packet' calculation) it's costing £5 million a year, then can we really afford to have the first 8500 or so fans through the door just paying for the academy? Add on the rent, and it could leave us with a zero playing budget for next season.

If someone does buy us, then especially if we are in League Two next year, that owner has to make some very difficult choices about expenditure at the club. Even now, averaging 12000, we can't balance the books or put out a good team, in a league where most clubs have a significantly lower income.

Academy cost are not included in ffp fortunately. so we could continue with it is if the new owner funds it out of their own pocket. But agreed unless we have someone willing to do that, there is no way we can keep cat 1 in league 2

[Rax]

I have seen a couple of tweets saying that Abbey has been told that if he doesn’t agree to a move the wages won’t be paid this month. That’s oxf*rd terrible to do that to a young player, if true.

Despicable (if true) but yet another example of how far we seem to have fallen as a club. Sad as it is to say I wouldn’t begrudge any young player the opportunity to continue their development elsewhere. Without any concrete signs of new ownership on the horizon we’re not in a position to offer any player a vision of a future at this club. So thanks once again Mr Dai. And when you do finally leave please take your mate Kia Joorabchian with you. I note that his company (Sport Invest UK Ltd) represent Nelson Abbey, and for that matter Tyler Bindon, so I fully expect Bindon’s sale before Dai and his cronies finally leave the building………

Kia is a cancer to football - his form goes way back to the Wet Sham Tevez debacle.

[Clyde1998]

The football league profit rules don't care about cashflow. They care about accounting losses. and other people on here are talking about accounting losses they dont understand in teh accounts. Football accounts have three big outgoings, salaries, contract ammortisations, and losses on disposal of players sold. I.e. you sell a player for less than what his contract is valued for in the books. So its perfectly valid to discuss how much ejaria is costing the accounts.

In terms of cashflow now, why are we so screwed? Probably because our revenue is extremely small now.

In 21-22 in the championship we had matchday income of £3m and tv money of £6m with average attendance of 14249. So £9m in total. And some player sales.
This season we will have maybe average attandance of 10k, so maybe matchday revenue of £1.8m and Tv money of £1.5m. We're not looking at much more than £3m in revenue.

Back end of last season Bowen kept saying we are out of the water now in terms of FFP rules, we'd had out deductions. People even said allowable losses are higher in League 1 because owners can do certain things.

Its probably quite likely that Bowen went and offered some decent deals to attract Knibbs, Smith, Savage. Button. We've been run unsustainably before, we are probably doing so this year too. The fact the club runs out of money each month is pretty strong evidence that our monthly wage bill is in excess of our income.

You've missed commercial revenue (sponsorship, merchandising, etc.) from your estimates. The 2021-22 accounts showed £4.6m in commercial revenue, in addition to £3.6m of matchday and £8.4m in broadcasting revenues. The club had total revenues of £16.9m that season.

Charlton in 2021-22, probably the most comparable club to us in League One, received £2m from broadcasting, £4.9m from matchday and £1.8m from commercial revenue, plus £1m from 'other' revenue; they received a total of £9.8m in revenue that season. Their categories aren't directly comparable to ours, for example they count advertising revenue as matchday and streaming revenue as commercial, whereas I believe we count them as commercial and broadcasting respectively.

Realistically, the club will receive somewhere between £8m and £10m in revenue this season:

1. On matchday revenues, the £3,643,777 the club received in 2021-22 divided by the (claimed) average attendance of 14,249 is £255.72 per average fan. Using that average for 10,000 fans would be £2,557,216 per season (keep in mind ticket prices increased this season).
2. Looking at the impact on commercial revenues after relegation, it appears most clubs see basically no impact on this income stream in the season following relegation - even if we say it's down 20%, that's £3.7m.
3. Let's use the £2m in broadcasting revenue Charlton received in 2021-22.
4. Overall that's £8.3m in total revenue, before considering the impact of player sales.

Gwl's estimate of £3m income was so low it was obviously wrong without any maths required.

Our average attendance is also over 12,000 currently. 2000 higher than his estimate.

Proper civil service maths going on there.

Christ knows what would have to happen for our revenue to drop to £3m whilst being a professional club in the top five leagues and playing at the Madejski. Even during the Covid season, we managed £4m from commercial and matchday income alone - and we only had three(?) matches at home with a maximum capacity of 2,000 and the season ticket retainers.

Our average attendance is higher, as you say. The figures above are trying to be a vaguely realistic bad scenario for this season to show we'll probably have at least £8m in revenue this season.

[Webster750]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

Not sure on his record before but it certainly seems to have come out of the blue. I can't see anyone else reporting this from a quick search either. Encouraging, but not hanging my hat on it yet.

[Winston Biscuit]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

Not sure on his record before but it certainly seems to have come out of the blue. I can't see anyone else reporting this from a quick search either. Encouraging, but not hanging my hat on it yet.

Storey referenced his name on Talksport a few months back as someone he was up against in trying to buy us

[Clyde1998]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

Not sure on his record before but it certainly seems to have come out of the blue. I can't see anyone else reporting this from a quick search either. Encouraging, but not hanging my hat on it yet.

Indeed. If it happens he seems to have the potential to be a fantastic owner - based in the UK, clearly has money (which would hopefully allow debts to be cleared), a football supporter (has a season ticket at Aston Villa).

I won't accept it will happen until it actually does though.

[NathStPaul]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

Don't trust a word Anthony Smith says. He just enjoys the Twitter interactions.

[tmesis]

Anthony Smith @smudgersport - 19:41

Hearing Gymshark's Ben Francis is on the verge of becoming the sole #readingfc owner. Name has been mentioned for a while in connection with William Storey and Genevra consortium, and I'm told a deal is almost done.

Yes please!

Not sure on his record before but it certainly seems to have come out of the blue. I can't see anyone else reporting this from a quick search either. Encouraging, but not hanging my hat on it yet.

Indeed. If it happens he seems to have the potential to be a fantastic owner - based in the UK, clearly has money (which would hopefully allow debts to be cleared), a football supporter (has a season ticket at Aston Villa).

I won't accept it will happen until it actually does though.

It does seem a bit odd that an Aston Villa season ticket holder would buy us, from a football fan point of view, but maybe no less odd than a businessman buying us from a business point of view.

It does all seem an unexpectedly rapid turnaround.