Onerous contracts are those that are not expected to pay back what they have cost the club (i.e. players signed for the first team who no longer play any part in the matchday squad), and the £30m includes provisions for those, but also for promotion bonuses if you read the phrasing of the sentence (I'd assume Rafa himself will have negotiated a sweet deal for sticking around and getting us promoted).
It's the only time I remember seeing it mentioned in NUFC's accounts so I assume it is a one off and shouldn't be on our profit and loss in the current financial year? We should be back nearer the £80m mark on wages I'd imagine. Who are these players likely to be? transferleague.co.uk list the following players as having left in that season: Ben Pollock Free Andros Townsend £13,000,000 Fabricio Coloccini Free Papiss Cissé £2,500,000 Georginio Wijnaldum £25,000,000 Steven Taylor Free Elias Fritjof Sørensen Undisclosed Daryl Janmaat £7,500,000 Gaël Bigirimana Undisclosed Moussa Sissoko £30,000,000 Cheick Tioté £500,000 You'd imagine we had to pay off most of Coloccini's contract but even at £80k per week and one year left on the deal we are only talking £4m. I doubt we were subsidising the sales/wages of many of the other players on that list so there is something else going on with that £30m. To me, if you read that sentence it suggests the bonuses aren't included in the £30m onerous wages. Edit: Must include some of these being paid off: Daryl Murphy £2,000,000 Emmanuel Rivière Undisclosed Siem de Jong £4,000,000 Grant Hanley £3,500,000 Lubomir Satka Free Vurnon Anita Free Yoan Gouffran Free Florian Thauvin £10,000,000 Kevin Mbabu Undisclosed Haris Vuckic £450,000 Tim Krul Free
Talking of bonuses, this article at the start of the season suggests the players are going to share £11m for finishing 10th.
Basically - We had a **** year. Assuming that there hasn't been some degree of creative accounting. Says to me that the PR machine are getting ready to argue that there is no money and that Rafa will have to make do with scraps once again.
That would be the conspiracy angle. It looks as though there genuinely is very little money. Or rather was. The reality is the club are putting a positive spin on it saying it was a huge financial risk, but one they and Rafa were proved correct in taking. I think Rafa guaranteed them promotion and they bought it. Charnley states that we are now financially stable again too so I don't think its too dramatic and we've recovered somewhat. I think we will spend this summer still. I just think we had to be careful last summer. It just won't be silly like people have suggested. I said 70m after sales, that might have been a little ambitious. Certainly people can get any three figure numbers out their head. There is no amount of creative accounting can turn those accounts into something positive. I think us mere mortals don't really understand football finances all that well as not a single person predicted anything quite so bad. The standout thing for me is just how bad relegation is now.
Don’t think we can say until we see the actual accounts. As an example were the transfers of Wijnaldum and Sissoko treated as revenue in 2017 or divided over the years when the actual payments received. Also how are the values of the players assessed for the asset value on the balance sheet. Would agree that it is very unlikely that the figures are particularly good but the way the player values and their subsequent sales are treated in the books can make a big difference to the P/L.
I don't think its just this years accounts that will tell us that. If you start to creative account you have to pay the piper at some stage. You can move things into different years all you like, at some stage it has to be caught up. So say these things have been taken as pain in this particular year. In a years time your accounts will show this. People read way too much into these things. Its why a change of ownership is required. The fans will never accept what the club say, negative or positive. They think everything has an angle for Mike's own benefit. There is no reality where, even if there has been some massaging of the figures, we actually had a good year. We've had a terrible year financially, which is simply in line what all clubs say about relegation. You can't spunk 80m-90m in a season on transfers, get relegated and everything works out ok because you sell a few players for good money. These accounts fully vindicate our approach in the last two windows. Anyone who thinks otherwise is basically advocating Ashley and co taking huge risks with the clubs future.
True. At the end of the day it all comes down to how much cash you have available to fund the business. Presumably there are standard accounting methods for how you treat player purchases, player depreciation and player sales. Would be nice to know what those are. And how you would possibly fit purchase of a player like Riviere into that scheme!
I'm sure I read somewhere yesterday that the figures take no account of stage payments for transfers only the payments that came in during that financial year
That would be correct. If Wijnaldum as well as Sissoko were sold on staggered payments then it's good news this year as there will be a minimum of £11m added to revenue this season and, with the 'every penny' policy, that will give Rafa more to build his squad with.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/44171269 Ok, so it's not a quote but it's a statement released by the club to make sure that all Toon fans can expect a huge reduction in our summer transfer budget.
://www.themag.co.uk/2018/05/failure-newcastle-united-commercial-revenue-mike-ashley-shown-football-finance-expert/ Less commercial revenue than Leeds!?
I believe a key part to draw out of the report "Not only is Newcastle United commercial income lower than £28m that Ashley inherited, but they have fallen way behind rivals, e.g. gap to #THFC has grown from £11m to £58m in that time." In answer to the "we don't pay interest on the debt" comments.some Ashley fan boys may make.
He’s not rich enough, we are not doing well commercially but otherwise we are well run. To think otherwise is daft. I know it’s unpopular but we are just a promoted club fighting to stay in the division.
Of course he's ****, most fans accept that. But, then there are the apologists who think the rest of us are idiots. To be fair though, he defied the history of the club and orchestrated two relegations followed by trophy winning seasons.....the likes of Watt, Seymour's, McKeags, Hall's, Shepherd have been left in his wake.
Dude, we owe the fat bastard £144 MILLION!!! How the **** are we "well run"??!! We cannot be sold to would-be investors because of a catastrophically high debt that not only cripples our progress in terms of a takeover, but also completely cripples us financially and commercially because it's "better than repaying debt", like he's some sort of ****ing hero!! We have NO youth players, bang average training facilities and have sold off land to stop a stadium expansion. We survived this long because of a ludicrously loyal fanbase and stayed up because our manager is way above those that employ him. We have a ****ing secretary as the Chief Exec and have had casino owners, Joe Kinnear and Dennis Wise in various positions of power. If this is "well run", then I'm a southern fried piece of mackem chicken.
Struggle to believe you mean this but also struggling to believe anyone would run a wum attempt this long. As Lord J said we are more in debt now than when he first got here but he refuses to properly manage the Club. We don’t have a “real” CEO as that would cost money and/or would strive to run the Club effectively and efficiently both from a footballing perspective and from a commercial perspective. The facilities have not been kept up to date and this impacts upon the footballing side. He monopolises the commercial side to benefit SD but to the very real detriment of the Club. He may give Rafa “every penny generated” but does nothing to maximise the “pennies” generated in the first place. You can hardly call the Club well run. Yes he has ensured we didn’t go belly up following Shepherd’s extravaganza but that in itself is not running the Club well, it’s doing the absolute minimum to protect his asset; just like he does when we are relegated when his gamble at doing everything on the bare minimum fails. We are a newly promoted Club but that is all down to him in the first place.
What was the debt when he took over? What is the debt now? I’m pretty sure the escalation has massively slowed down.
