Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
I read that too.
le arse in the financial wringer
- Thread starter Spursex
- Start date
I read that too.
Spursex
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Mace took the contract on the basis of managing the works/contractors - I'd be amazed if the contractors weren't held to liabilities for not meeting agreed spec's/time lines.
Spursex
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Whilst I know there were contingency planning, I suspect nothing was modeled on the basis we now find ourselves in.
We know that a further £100 mill was advanced for the project finance; as the project finance will be replaced by long term financing within the next 2-3 years, it's far from a significant issues, but will increase finance costs by probably around £18-22 mill over the next 3-4 years.
I'm expecting a cost hit on our P&L of between £40-50 million in next years accounts (2019/20).
That would have a cash impact on our total transfer budget next summer of between £3-15 million depending on our run in the CL and a reflection of stadium higher costs of the order of £12-20 mill that I am expecting to see.
It will delay Year 1 new stadium full year revenues by one year - not the disaster that some thinks it might have had - but it's speculation until we see the numbers.
muttley
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What's to say that Mace didn't have penalty clauses with THFC, but there are penalties between the contractors and Mace? Perhaps contractor penalties only flow back as far as Mace and they collect the money. After all, their year-end of 31 Dec was impacted by the delays and they may not have some revenue recognition based on completion until this financial year.
Spursex
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Mace managed the project and the contractors, the contracts would have been between THFC and the contractors.
Ultimately, I really don't see it as a defining inflection point for our finances at all, in reality as I said above it may affect our player budgets next summer as we look to conserve cash payments, but even then, it's unlikely to be a significant hit considering I'm expecting to see revenues in the region of 374-400 mill - and 450 -450 -470 mill in 2019/20 (CL projection included in that and revs from new stadium operations).
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Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
Given how prudent the club is financially a projection of reduced revenue may have influenced player spend. When things are tight the first saving is the Labour force.
Spursex
Alert Team
It could have done, but given that all the evidence we can see or hear suggests that it was Poch who made the decision not to acquire.
I guess we'll only really know come the summer.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
It's an extraordinary decision to make by Poch if true. He has been coy as to his reasons . If the kitty was too small to buy the quality he wanted he would be right to wait probably.
Time and time again he has said he would only buy if the quality improved the team. If the money is not sufficient to buy an improvement on what we have then that could be the reason. 25 mil on Grealish seemed our limit and it wasn't enough apparently. Would he have improved us ?.....in my opinion yes, but we didn't meet the asking price or we were unlucky Villa got a new owner.
Levy knew the stadium would be late probably before the Summer window and defo the Jan window. The actual date is still not known . Caution may have been prudent ref spending money on players. The only real target being top 4 and do able with no signings.
Spursex
Alert Team
"Levy knew the stadium would be late probably before the Summer window and defo the Jan window"....
He didn't know before the summer window. You'd be right to ask how do I know that?
I know one of the directors of one of the major contractors, and until the issue(s) around the critical safety systems in respect of the cabling came to light - he was constantly telling me that he believed it would meet it's deadines - although the finishing would take months after the opening to complete.
As for the rest, we speculate; but the view that improved 'quality' players cost us more than we were prepared to pay seems reasonable - but may not reflect the whole story.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
Window closed August 9th I think . 3 weeks before September. Keeping in mind Levy seems to deal last minute. So Levy had no indication of delays 3 weeks before September ? The end of the window is pertinent here because of our late dealing history.
D
Departed
Guest
When dd they find out the safety systems weren't up to regs? That must have shocked the shit out of everyone when the magnitude of the problem became apparent. Who would have ever thought a contractor could naff things up to that degree?
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
See the Stadium thread, I just posted on there. I delivered electrical connectors on 20 th July. The fitters were waiting at the stadium, the box contained hundreds if not thousands of them. This is 3 weeks or so off the closure of the transfer window on August 9 th. Electrical works were held up at that point due to no connectors. It was an emergency same day delivery.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
Like I said, what if the sparkies were Spam or Arse supporters.....Sabotage.
Spursex
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Connectors aren't critical high cost components - from my friends contracting business he tells me that they're order today, get delivered tomorrow and are readily avaiable from around 600 stockists within the London area - so can't see this as being material?
Spursex
Alert Team
Mace informed The Tottenham board of wiring issues in their progress meeting on the 13th August (after the window had closed):
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...m-apologise-fans-refund-details-stadium-delay
(It seems clear to me that even after this meeting, the extent of the problem(s) weren't fully realised by Mace or the club):
“Yesterday the club received a report from [the contractor] Mace which highlighted the extent of the issues with critical safety systems,” Spurs said in a statement. “As a result, a decision was taken to defer the opening of the stadium and to move two further games to Wembley.
Tottenham are forced back to Wembley by safety concerns at home
“Delays are common, certainly for builds of this size and complexity, however we are hugely frustrated that this has occurred with these systems at such a late stage. Whilst we would have been able to mitigate other areas, we simply cannot compromise safety.”
Spurs claim they brought forward their announcement of the delay because of the safety concerns but their initial announcement – while apologising to the NFL who will also see fixtures moved to Wembley – failed to clarify the process by which football fans would be able to claim refunds on tickets purchased for the new stadium.
“We should like to apologise to supporters for this delay,” the club added. “We are acutely aware of the disappointment this may cause supporters and shall now look to ensure that we minimise any inconvenience.”
Speaking after a meeting with club officials, Martin Cloake, the co-chair of the TST said: “We want the club to be as transparent as possible and talk to us as early as possible. We are in discussion with the club on the pricing of cup games, the mechanism by which money will be refunded and the possible outcome for Champions League games. These discussions are ongoing.”
The games that have been moved are Liverpool on 15 September and Cardiff on 6 October. Saturday’s match against Fulham had already been moved to Wembley. An NFL game between Seattle Seahawks and Oakland Raiders will also move to the national stadium. The location of their Champions League and any Carabao Cup matches are unconfirmed so far.
Tottenham may open their stadium against Manchester City on 28 October. On that day Wembley is already booked for another NFL fixture.
Nick Real Deal
Vital Football Legend
I collected from an electrical component firm in Northampton and delivered to Edmunsen Electrical near the stadium. It was what we call a screamer , the guy at the desk sighed with relief when I turned up. Why source them from so far away if the are readily available ? I think they were for the giant screens.
So 4 days After the window closes the problem is reported, that's tight and who knows the truth. This was the official notification, there may have been doubts before then . We got the impression of frantic work going on with thousands of contractors on site getting in each other's way. They were possibly behind schedule and desperately trying to get their work done.
Spursex
Alert Team
The biggest problem with Contractors (of all sizes) is that most work off a small capital base and ease cashflow problems by playing the supplier credit game i.e. as one source hits it's limit, they jump to the next and so on and so on.
On projects were I've been the client, I've seen sites where the contractors could go 100 yards up the road and get all they need, but can't as they've reached their credit limit and end up waiting half the day for supplies to come from 50 miles away!
As you've seen margins at the big contractors are wafer-thin and the purchasing can be a critical component in keeping costs down..
Seriously, this is just one scenario; preferred component suppler status is another red herring which can cause chaos in the supply chain...etc etc etc
Want I do know is this; the board were only informed of the delay that week - I know one of our senior peolple and he has confirmed that to be the case; I see no conspiracy of silence here.
One of the biggest gripes on these types of projects is the differing trades fighting each other for access to work area's or being asked to do second / third fixes when the other trades haven't done their bit and so on and so on - big sites are like semi-organised chaos.
It's the single biggest issues that you'll hear contractors moan about it;s almost a SIP to do so, in the expectation that if someone holds tehir hands up and says 'yep, it's my fault' - you can start claiming extra's - where the profit in the job normally is.
