Oh, What A Lovely Defecit!

[brendywendy]

Oh well, You've heard it, must be true then.

We'll see how it pans out, I don't even care anymore...pointless to complain. I don't think there has ever been a football club in history who have got so much money for player sales in a short space of time and have invested probably not even 5% of it on players. The money we have received for our players has been Championship manger style. I never in a million years saw our club being able to command such high fee's, especially considering the vast majority were picked up for peanuts too. Spending sensibly would be putting in 5/6 million of that ( over the last 3/4 years)on several players on moderate championship wages, however we seem to be incapable of doing that despite these championship freak style player sales.

that's the biggest load of rubbish you're likely to read on here (today).

agreed- yet again doing the accounts using only one column.
what he thinks of as spending sensibly would put the club in the red.
therefore its not sensible,.

[brendywendy]

The thing that is most annoying, is that I could accept complaints about how the club is run, if it actually came from people who knew what the hell they were talking about and didn't just parrot ill-informed, erroneous bullshit.

The players we have sold speak for themselves, the premiership money from TV shouldn't even matter when we've got ridiculous fee's like 7 for gylfi, 6.5 for doyle, 5.5 for kitson, 3.5 hunt, 5 mills, 3 bikey, 2 sonko,etc bla bla bla, even add your 60 million tv money then, plus sell outs on higher ticket prices. You are an RTG you don't except criticisms of the club even when they are fair, you are just a spoon fed goon like RR who will simply take anything and defend the club tooth and nail using the age old " doing a bradford" rubbish as the defence. Like I said though, I've accepted the way we are ran. Thats life.

1 column accounting again.
90/60 million(lol) wasnt TV money. it was all extra moneys associated with 1 season in the prem including 3 years of the old, lower parachute payments.
and it doesnt matter how much money we bring in. if its below what we spend, then there isnt any left to buy stuff with, is there.

[brendywendy]

The facts are we raked in a lot of money during the prem campaign and 40million-ish since in player sales. All this into account we've spent close to sweet FA on the team. That cannot be argued and it doesn't need a mathematician to do so.

Moving on.

try working out what we spent too though, it may help you come to a more accurate picture of our balance sheet

[brendywendy]

How can a wage bill exceed 60 million from TV money, 40 million in player sales + merchandising and sell ours every week in the prem on pretty high season ticket and gate prices. Just how much were we paying average players to make that believable?

its 60 million in total for 1 year, plus parachutes. its not just TV money

and the wage bill was 30 odd million quid, for two years
thats your 60 million gone right there
and the 40 million in player sales has gone to fund players being bought, and payed, and to offset the losses we make on a yearly basis.

i just dont get whats so hard about it tbf.

[brendywendy]

How can a wage bill exceed 60 million from TV money, 40 million in player sales + merchandising and sell ours every week in the prem on pretty high season ticket and gate prices. Just how much were we paying average players to make that believable?

Unfortunately, a wage bill isn't the only form of operating costs that a football club has to deal with.

But its by FAR the highest, of course there are stadium costs, policing, training facilities but these are a fraction of wages. You could probably pay all these with the play-off final gate receipts.

do you have any idea what we have recieved for play off final gate receipts then?
or are you just guessing, and grasping figures from the ether?

[brendywendy]

How can a wage bill exceed 60 million from TV money, 40 million in player sales + merchandising and sell ours every week in the prem on pretty high season ticket and gate prices. Just how much were we paying average players to make that believable?

Already been shown countless times that our Prem wage budget exceeded the £60m we got in TV money.

Try actually looking up some information, rather than making it all up in your tiny mind, you utter retard.

You're the retard, you are making the argument purely about the prem, we came down sold most of our best players for astronomical fee's and still can't buy anyone. c**t.

actualy you are the one who started trying to make the two years of prem money apply to every year since.

[brendywendy]

http://star-reading.org/index.php/download_file/view/165/74/

Interest free 'loan' then given that it makes up most of the 'debt'? Madejski should either be honest with the fans in that he's taking back this 'loan' (which he's received awards for supposedly investing out of 'the goodness of his heart'), and cut this mystery bullshit about a deficit or write it off and keep his awards. The celebrity status he's earned off the back of the club is reward for his 'membership fee' as chairman which he invested.

[brendywendy]

i wonder if i can have a whole page just of my posts......?

[who are ya?]

Who knows

[Hoop Blah]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

[brendywendy]

Who knows

[brendywendy]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

ok, agreed- im guessing maybe Jm wants to balance sheets to look good to prospective buyers

but

(and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle)

the money spent on wgaes and fees for dross is miniscule compared to profits on player sales.
and is also a guaranteed part of the system we employ- ie buy cheap punts, and polish them up all nicely.
stands to reason that a proportion will fail.
and i still dont see our failure rate as being higher than anyone elses, ours just cost less and are therefore less of a failure.

[Ian Royal]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

And that's why no one's calling you a retard, because you have a legitimate point, know what you're talking about and are capable of working out both what's coming in, and what's going out. Without making up massively inaccurate figures or spouting conspiracy bullcrap about SJM embezzeling money out of the club.

[Royal Rother]

Indeed.

[Svlad Cjelli]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

No arguments with any of that - but we're never going to spend money - especially big money - for the sake of it, or as a "declaration of ambition" - which is what a lot of people seem to want.

When e spend money we try to spend it right - on specific, targeted players to supplement what we've got, and on value buys. Not spunking big sums just so that we can be seen to be doing that.

[brendywendy]

whats wrong with you! Thats a terrible post imo.
You say 40 million in means we should spend 20 million. Why?
The 5 million is just a made up figure.
The extra costs are too. The costs just havent come down in line with spending,fully explained in the star article. We have lost 30 million in yearly tv income for starters.not sure why you think its magical in any way.
And the utter tripe at the end is actually libellous.

[Hoop Blah]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

No arguments with any of that - but we're never going to spend money - especially big money - for the sake of it, or as a "declaration of ambition" - which is what a lot of people seem to want.

When e spend money we try to spend it right - on specific, targeted players to supplement what we've got, and on value buys. Not spunking big sums just so that we can be seen to be doing that.

I agree with the sentiment but I don't think anyone is really saying we need to spunk the cash to prove anything, they just want to see some strengthening going on to improve the team immediately as opposed to buying next years departures replacement now.

If we bought a couple of players to improve the side we might not need to sell so many players in the long term.

[Hoop Blah]

but

(and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle)

the money spent on wgaes and fees for dross is miniscule compared to profits on player sales.
and is also a guaranteed part of the system we employ- ie buy cheap punts, and polish them up all nicely.
stands to reason that a proportion will fail.
and i still dont see our failure rate as being higher than anyone elses, ours just cost less and are therefore less of a failure.

I don't want to see us stop investing in youngsters and the odd gamble here and there. Ultimately I'd like, actually expect, the academy to be producing the gambles and improving long term prospects so that we can save our transfer kitty (if any exists) and wages for those players to improve the side and get the best out of the existing squad.

We've not been realistic with a few of our gambles. Signing the likes of Sodje and Bennett for the Premier League was woeful. It's just a case of getting the balance right and not spending too much on those gambles I suppose. Not easy I admit.

[Cypry]

The bottom line is we're making a profit once you add in player sales.

The question, in my mind at least is, should we be ploughing more of that profit into strengthening the playing staff (cost largely = quality, if spent wisely) at the expense of improving the balance sheet and repayment of loans.

I don't think we're miles away from getting that balance right to be honest, but I do think a little more considered investment in the right areas (and less wastage on dross that isn't going to be the next Doyle) might've been fruitful. I think even those who haven't invested at times have admitted that!

I agree with most of that, however, people should really stop perpetuating the myth that we're using money to repay loans - where is the evidence of this?
The accounts quite clearly show that the loans from SJM aren't being cleared, in fact he hasn't even taken the interest that the club owes him recently, and converted a significant chunk of the loans to stock (which effectively means we won't ever need to ever pay them back as he'll be paid back by the sale of the club if or when that happens). As far as I can see the only loans being paid off have been the overdraft (approx. £7M which we didn't have any choice in, the bank pulled it away from us) and some of the commercially obtained loans which we're obliged to clear some of anyway, that's how loans work....

What you have to remember is a basic principal of accounting - whilst we made money in the years since the Premiership, we cannot simply write off debts accrued in the loss making years that preceded that, they stay on the books and effectively pretty much wipe out any of the "profits" from subsequent years. It's all very well totting up player sales and saying "but we've pulled in £40M in the last 3/4 years" but here are the actual figures up until the end of last year from when Reading Holdings was created....


Year Turnover Pre-tax profit
2009/10 32.6 1.4
2008/09 31 3.1
2007/08 57.698 6.706
2006/07 49.909 6.573
2005/06 17.768 -6.465
2004/05 15.118 -4.554
2003/04 15.59 -1.85
2002/03 14.903 -1.616
2001/02 12.915 -2.762
2000/01 10.786 -4.57
1999/00 2.426 -2.569

Total profit/loss -6.607


There you go - that's where the money's going - it's being used to pay off the losses we made each and every year from 1999 to 2006 - in fact up to last year we were still £6M in the red, and that doesn't included the operating loss of £4M (the difference between what we pay out each year and what comes in) - Gylfi's sale was largely used to fill that gap, but that still leaves the £6M debt.
It's worth noting that the figures also show exactly how much the Premiership was worth in terms of turnover - nowhere near some of the ridiculous figures quoted on here....

Before I get pigeon holed as an RTG, I'm not, I'm just a realist - I understand that RFC is run as a business and have a basic grasp of what that means in terms of the figures. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see "where the money's gone" but I'm afraid a few people will always stick their tin hats on and shout "conspiracy" no matter how clear the facts are regarding the clubs finances....

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

whats wrong with you! Thats a terrible post imo.
You say 40 million in means we should spend 20 million. Why?
The 5 million is just a made up figure.
The extra costs are too. The costs just havent come down in line with spending,fully explained in the star article. We have lost 30 million in yearly tv income for starters.not sure why you think its magical in any way.
And the utter tripe at the end is actually libellous.

Post has been reported, never done that before, but felt it needed doing.