Dave. I took that advice ten minutes into my job 12 years ago. Been muddling through on a guess ever since! Nobody's noticed yet!D
In fairness to UIR, LFC's accounts are very complex and require very careful interrogation and interpretation. They are very far from the BS and P&L of the average corner shop. There is far more information in the notes and comments to the accounts than in the bald figures themselves. The big talking point (so far) is the one-hit write-off. Why has it been presented and handled in this way. To answer that question you will probably have to refer back to FSG and how they wish to handle their accounts. However it does appear to offer the possibility of a major investment in the near future.
Lol, I know Dave. I regard myself as completely thick in this area to be honest. At that level at least. What I don't understand is why everything they are doing suggests a direction away from Anfield yet they keep on spouting the parallel development message. If the fairy tale H&G stadium is a dead duck surely after all these years so too is doing anything at the existing site. Would it do harm to announce they've made the choice? Actual question.
No frank we can still build on Stanley Park but the council want an upgrade of the surrounding areas included in any ground refurbishment or new ground and rightly so. Which means the need for outside investment and government approval and funding to for example open a disused railway line close to the ground. Lots of red tape and complexities to get through yet.
In terms of pure cost then a refurb of Anfield would be the cheapest but would still probably require some council assistance. If they build a new stadium then it is likely that a substantial proportion of the cost would have to be met by the organisation that got the naming rights. It would be more attractive if the organisation did not have to include Anfield in the title. However the club would still be landed with negotiating some form of deal with the council regarding both the new and the existing site - hence parallel development. IF they have somebody interested (close to signing) then some announcement would settle some nerves.
They say they favour the original H&G plans (permission granted etc) I know the council wanted any plan to at SP to progress but I can't remember was that because of what they had planned for the existing site or what they had planned around the Stanley park development?
Do you remember the rows of empty terraced houses around the ground that LFC purchased dave,well a couple of weeks ago Liverpool City council paid for the demolition of a load of them due to health and safety reasons. The feeling is if the City council are spending their funds on the demolition of properties owned by LFC something's going on behind the scenes with regards to the move/refurb. Not to sure meself dave,i reckon FSG need to show some real commitment to our club after the lies of H&G,FSG's outlay(not including their purchase cost)has been very little when you compare income and expenditure so far.
There 'was' a proposed tram link(but John Prescott knocked Liverpool's bid for a tram system back),then theres the Merseyrail/national rail thing with the reopening of a disused line and connecting it to the main line. Building new houses on the site of our existing ground with shops,medical centre etc. i think FSG prefer the refurb route because theres less headaches and cost for them compared to new build.
If I were FSG then I'd move very cautiously at the moment. The profitability is there and confirmed in the figures. However, to maximise the opportunity will soon require some substantial sums of investment with a long term return profile.
On the cost front of a new build then I can see them looking to cover the major part with naming rights and other associated arrangements. Take a look at the US experience of new sports stadia and you'll find that nearly all of the operations are franchised out and the stadium itself linked with other developments. I have often wondered if a joint venture with Aintree Racecourse could be a starter.
For all my doom & gloom predictions on another thread (moving teams across the country etc) I actually like Yanks & their models, tying multiple ventures together. Reason? They've pretty much covered every idea screw up with their own sports already; & generally (couple of exceptions with "soccer") now know how to do it right. As we know with previous yanks there's always some get it wrong but the entire Boston deal & everything tied to it looks good. Ramble over.....
The vast majority of US sports 'Franchises' find funding for new stadiums etc and the commercial companies line up to bid for the naming rights. When i lived in Houston a few yrs back the Houston Dynamo MLS team was formed and played their first few seasons at Robertson Stadium(a uni campus sports facility)but now 6/7 yrs down the line Houston City council have found a site and given permission and part funding for a brand new stadium because they see it will bring finance to the city and that benefits both club and local economy. The American way is different from our way.
[video=youtube;w441AglVuew]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w441AglVuew[/video] Doesn't this smack of the White Album?
This data is almost a year old aswell so in reality your financial postion is probably alot better than these accounts show, which actually aren't too bad anyway when you look into the figures. You are correct about including both sales and purchases for the period, however the profit or loss on the sale of a player would hit the profit and loss immediately whereas the purchase of a player ( whether paid by installments or not ) will only eefect the profit over a specified period of time (as UIR correctly pointed out ) All in all I think your figures look pretty promising for you. When you bring European football into it next year aswell as the cup runs etc you've had in the current financial year I'd expect you to easily report a profit next year. Your commercial income has also increased alot as you would have epxected under the Americans - I'd expect the next reported accounts to show an big increase in this area again
Newcastle fan here - I've got to say I'm surprised at the BBC headline which makes it sound really bad "Liverpool make 49m loss". When you look at the figures they're decent, there's 43m which were one-off fees so the general loss is more like 7m. As for the Warrior deal I'm not sure how much more this brings in (£25m take away whatever you had been getting previously) but presumably brings you up to about level. As for transfers and deals I would assume there's a loss there, i always find it odd when people say things like "we sold Torres and Babel for 60m then bought Carroll and Suarez for 60m so broke even". You sell for 60m and are doing well to have 50m+ hit your accounts. Same goes for buying players, you may pay £60m to their clubs but then agents fees, signing on fees, etc... But all-in-all not bad. It's good to see this really, Newcastle broke even this year (not including transfers we lost £4m but including transfers we made £7m - roughly) and it would be nice to see more clubs in the top flight breaking even or *shock horror* actually making a profit and looking sustainable.
