League 1 Finances - plenty to peruse here | Vital Football

League 1 Finances - plenty to peruse here

Well Charlton look like they'll be saying hello to the wall pretty soon.
 
some details further down about league two clubs 2016/2017. luton and colchester have huge loans. he also posted about our playzone mortgage being officially paid off.
 
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The Luton figures made me smile sardonically. Standard defence from a number of their fans regarding finances is that they have earned their money from developing players and selling them on at a profit. Well no, not really, they've been massively bank rolled.
 
hulloutpost said:
The Luton figures made me smile sardonically. Standard defence from a number of their fans regarding finances is that they have earned their money from developing players and selling them on at a profit. Well no, not really, they've been massively bank rolled.
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What have Colchester been up to? I thought the £19m loan figure might be related to the building of their new stadium, but apparently not so - that has been open 10 years and cost £14m, £10m of which was paid for by the council and the rest by grants. That is a big debt to service on 3,000 gates.

Much harder to guess why Luton have £27m, though.
 
Am I the only one thinking cheats...

Also it would appear some clubs just never do learn. The amount of debt from loans is laughable on the gates the clubs are getting. No doubt football fans will rally round again when the buckets are out again asking for help.
 
Impartiality said:
Am I the only one thinking cheats...

Also it would appear some clubs just never do learn. The amount of debt from loans is laughable on the gates the clubs are getting. No doubt football fans will rally round again when the buckets are out again asking for help.
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If Lincoln did something like that I'm afraid I wouldn't. Not a second time.
 
It really frustrates me that the Football League cannot sit down and put in a genuine financial fair play charter that robustly stands up to those that would test the legal boundaries or try and find technicalities to get round them; all backed up by swingeing penalties i.e. auto. relegation to whatever tier of football would accept the offenders for the first offence. This should be done with let's say five year advance warning to allow clubs to get their houses in order then WHAM no mercy. In the long term this would make the game so much more sustainable, a fairer playing field and stop/reduce the amount of cash that the revolting chancers take out of the game for doing very little.
 
It's a difficult situation for clubs, I think. The fans demand success and the only way to accumulate is to speculate, and the cost of professional football has rocketed in recent years.

Football is very much in the players' favour since Bosman, and that has bloated wages and attracted hangers-on in the form of agents. There is nothing to be done about that other than fundamentally rewrite European employment law. That is not going to happen.

The widening gaps caused by the Premiership, TV deals and oil money owners are also to blame. Football clubs just don't get lucky these days and find themselves in the top division (Wimbledon) - it takes a hell of a lot of cash to get there and costs a hell of a lot more to stay.

Manchester United paying £80m for a player most definitely does have a knock-on effect all the way down the leagues, and on a sliding scale it is the same for every division below - and that's where the problem lies.

Teams like Luton, Coventry and Bolton have high expectations based on recent history, and that informs the way they operate.

At the other end of the scale there are clubs like Morecambe who simply would not survive without resorting to 'novel' accounting - loopholes in company law allow that to a certain extent - and they do so to stay afloat in the hope a savior will arrive in the future.

You cannot have a long-term vision when your nose is pressed against the wall, you deal with what is in front of you.

Lincoln City are the perfect example of how broken football is - we have an average 8,000 gate and have won silverware, and still can't properly break even in League 2. That's the climate of football at this moment.

The only way this would change is a return to a time when players didn't hold sway, when TV money wasn't so crazy, when states didn't hang their brand on football and when players weren't as venerated.

But I would never begrudge anyone who wanted a pay rise, and I'd never begrudge a team wanting to do better than it did last season.
 
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graemetheexile said:
It's a difficult situation for clubs, I think. The fans demand success and the only way to accumulate is to speculate, and the cost of professional football has rocketed in recent years.

Football is very much in the players' favour since Bosman, and that has bloated wages and attracted hangers-on in the form of agents. There is nothing to be done about that other than fundamentally rewrite European employment law. That is not going to happen.

The widening gaps caused by the Premiership, TV deals and oil money owners are also to blame. Football clubs just don't get lucky these days and find themselves in the top division (Wimbledon) - it takes a hell of a lot of cash to get there and costs a hell of a lot more to stay.

Manchester United paying £80m for a player most definitely does have a knock-on effect all the way down the leagues, and on a sliding scale it is the same for every division below - and that's where the problem lies.

Teams like Luton, Coventry and Bolton have high expectations based on recent history, and that informs the way they operate.

At the other end of the scale there are clubs like Morecambe who simply would not survive without resorting to 'novel' accounting - loopholes in company law allow that to a certain extent - and they do so to stay afloat in the hope a savior will arrive on a white horse in the future.

You cannot have a long-term vision when your nose is pressed against the wall, you deal with what is in front of you.

Lincoln City are the perfect example of how broken football is - we have an average 8,000 gate and have won silverware, and still can't properly break even in League 2. That's the climate of football at this moment.

The only way this would change is a return to a time when players didn't hold sway, when TV money wasn't so crazy, when states didn't hang their brand on football and when players weren't as venerated.

But I would never begrudge anyone who wanted a pay rise, and I'd never begrudge a team wanting to to better than it did last season.
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Therein lie the problems. Football is no longer a national sport. It is now a complicated global business with too many people acting as parasites that have a vested interest in feeding off the sums of money swilling about.
 
I suspect that the Northampton Town figure is arbitrary. What happened to the mi££ions given them by Northants Council?
 
Also notice that Portsmouth have a zero loan figure. Did they not wipe out over £100 million of debt including many millions owed to taxpayers?

And yes totally puzzling what's going on at Colchester...hard to see them ever being able to repay any of it, let alone all of it.
And very galling that clubs can run into gigantic debt like Luton have and take a promotion place away from a financially sound club
 
Maybe if a club overspends by say 50% it could lose 50% of points won. If u stay within your means u keep all of your pts...
Etc.
THAT would sort things out very rapidly.
 
Incidentally, where i live (in wales) the Welsh Premier Lge clubs have to pass financial rules each season or they are demoted.
This has happened to Bangor City this season. They have been demoted for being financially unsound...costing them not just their WPL place but also entry into Europa League and a loss of around £half million UEFA funds. Oh and the owner is a certain crook,Stephen Vaughan, who killed Chester a few seasons back....
 
buckielugger said:
Incidentally, where i live (in wales) the Welsh Premier Lge clubs have to pass financial rules each season or they are demoted.
This has happened to Bangor City this season. They have been demoted for being financially unsound...costing them not just their WPL place but also entry into Europa League and a loss of around £half million UEFA funds. Oh and the owner is a certain crook,Stephen Vaughan, who killed Chester a few seasons back....
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GTF is very unhappy about it on twitter. I wish we had some sort of proper financial regulations. If clubs can’t afford to compete at a level they shouldn’t be allowed to; surely eventually it would even out and settle down? Debt honestly baffles me, how is it okay for a football club to be in such deep debt and continue to operate normally and sign players,
 
buckielugger said:
Incidentally, where i live (in wales) the Welsh Premier Lge clubs have to pass financial rules each season or they are demoted.
This has happened to Bangor City this season. They have been demoted for being financially unsound...costing them not just their WPL place but also entry into Europa League and a loss of around £half million UEFA funds. Oh and the owner is a certain crook,Stephen Vaughan, who killed Chester a few seasons back....
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I'd wondered where that crooked scumbag had got to - everything he touches turns to dust, King Midas in reverse. Makes 'the Scottish Gentleman' look a model of probity.
 
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