How safe is our club now?

[Roo1976]

Just thinking out aloud,but is the financial structure of our club on a sound footing?

 

Read a post the other day on this forum about how alarming Lander shares have dropped.

 

Given that our chairman dosent seem to be prominant as a figure head in the fans eyes are we heading for another financial melt down?

 

Could this also coincide with the lack of activity in the transfer market to the point of not buying at least 1 marquee signing thus far,and time is running out, or do we have faith in what we have?

[stevegrant]

The club doesn't spend more than it earns, therefore as long as Premier League football is retained and the broadcasting deals continue to pay out silly sums of money, the club is absolutely fine. We are not reliant on the owner putting money in.

[Batman]

The club doesn't spend more than it earns, therefore as long as Premier League football is retained and the broadcasting deals continue to pay out silly sums of money, the club is absolutely fine. We are not reliant on the owner putting money in.

 

If we went down, would that mean we would have been fine, relatively speaking?

 

I see stoke have spent a bit. Just cannot see us doing that had we went down

[S-Clarke]

I'd love to hear our owner’s plans for the future, just something, anything. It feels as if we're just floating through days with no actual idea what our plan is or what our achievable goals are. If us supporters are unsure, you can bet the players are as well.

[verlaine1979]

Have we seen any post-takeover financial results yet? If money was taken out of the club to service the debt used to acquire it, what would be the first indication other than a line-item in the annual accounts?

[ericb]

If we went down, would that mean we would have been fine, relatively speaking?

 

I see stoke have spent a bit. Just cannot see us doing that had we went down

 

There were serious cost cutting measures looked into as part of "disaster planning" if we'd have gone down last season. The non playing staff would've seen a large amount of redundancies, a lot of "sole traders" would've seen their contracts ended.

 

Also a decent chunk of the playing staff would've had release clauses triggered (or pay cuts if they stayed).

 

Financially we'd have been ok, but the club would've looked very different the other side of it.

[Greenridge]

Every club in a similar position would have been doing exactly the same.

[stevegrant]

If we went down, would that mean we would have been fine, relatively speaking?

 

I see stoke have spent a bit. Just cannot see us doing that had we went down

Impossible to tell without us actually being in the situation, every club is different. Stoke have Peter Coates who has always been happy to plough money in himself, and recently-relegated clubs do get a lot more leeway now under the new EFL FFP regulations, so that's probably a factor in their spending.

 

Our wage bill is big, but I would expect we still put salary reduction clauses in most players' contracts as a matter of good practice, and I guess we'd also be looking to sell a number of players - some who want to leave, others who perhaps don't - to generate funds to either plug gaps or to enable us to recruit players more suitable for the Championship.

 

The wage bill is almost certainly why we're now seemingly in a "one-in, one-out" scenario, it's the long-term cost of players over the duration of their contracts that is the big issue, not the short-term ability to find money for a transfer fee.

[pluto]

If you look at the recent financial end of year results they showed the club was totally debt free.

 

Moving on to the current situation, i image we are right on the limit, when it comes to financial fair play and the wages bracket.

 

When the club was up for sale, we were told it would be only sold in its best interests. But that didnt happen because it was sold to someone who seemingly doesnt have any commercial partners to improve on the status under Liebherr.

 

There is no sponsorship on training wear or even the stadium, which should all be covered if possible in 2018.

 

Commercial sponsorship can be used under FFP to improve the wages criteria.

 

In China right now the whole expenditure on players and buying clubs has been stopped because they realise it wont help improve their national game.

[vectraman]

I'd love to hear our owner’s plans for the future, just something, anything. It feels as if we're just floating through days with no actual idea what our plan is or what our achievable goals are. If us supporters are unsure, you can bet the players are as well.

 

No chance I would imagine of any future plans/expectations.

Being pragmatic, no fan is going to want to hear “consolidating our Premier league status”. For I believe that is the realistic truth.

Top 6 will never happen - the amount of money required to overhaul our average squad, and then compete would be impossible for Saints to achieve. FFP would be the obstacle, even if an incredibly wealthy, money no object new owner came in.

 

As things are, we need to be self sufficient. The new owner won’t put money in, so sadly I think staying up is our aim, and not spending money we don’t have. It’d be a boring and soul destroying speech from Kruger methinks....

 

To a certain extent, I’d think most level headed fans can see this is the future, although we don’t want to admit it!

Say we signed a new striker for 25 million, and we finished 12th in the league as opposed to 14th...we’d get 2 million extra prize money for our large outlay. It wouldn’t make financial sense, and I don’t think out new owner is chasing any dreams other than cost neutral survival....

That’s my take on our future anyway...

[Depressed of Shirley]

No chance I would imagine of any future plans/expectations.

Being pragmatic, no fan is going to want to hear “consolidating our Premier league status”. For I believe that is the realistic truth.

Top 6 will never happen - the amount of money required to overhaul our average squad, and then compete would be impossible for Saints to achieve. FFP would be the obstacle, even if an incredibly wealthy, money no object new owner came in.

 

As things are, we need to be self sufficient. The new owner won’t put money in, so sadly I think staying up is our aim, and not spending money we don’t have. It’d be a boring and soul destroying speech from Kruger methinks....

 

To a certain extent, I’d think most level headed fans can see this is the future, although we don’t want to admit it!

Say we signed a new striker for 25 million, and we finished 12th in the league as opposed to 14th...we’d get 2 million extra prize money for our large outlay. It wouldn’t make financial sense, and I don’t think out new owner is chasing any dreams other than cost neutral survival....

That’s my take on our future anyway...

 

I think this is probably it. It is also the situation for just about everyone outside the current big six clubs, and the worry for me is that a lot of them don't have 3 top earners out on loan with clubs that are at best paying only 50% of their wages, so we are on the back foot again.

[Roo1976]

No chance I would imagine of any future plans/expectations.

Being pragmatic, no fan is going to want to hear “consolidating our Premier league status”. For I believe that is the realistic truth.

Top 6 will never happen - the amount of money required to overhaul our average squad, and then compete would be impossible for Saints to achieve. FFP would be the obstacle, even if an incredibly wealthy, money no object new owner came in.

 

As things are, we need to be self sufficient. The new owner won’t put money in, so sadly I think staying up is our aim, and not spending money we don’t have. It’d be a boring and soul destroying speech from Kruger methinks....

 

To a certain extent, I’d think most level headed fans can see this is the future, although we don’t want to admit it!

Say we signed a new striker for 25 million, and we finished 12th in the league as opposed to 14th...we’d get 2 million extra prize money for our large outlay. It wouldn’t make financial sense, and I don’t think out new owner is chasing any dreams other than cost neutral survival....

That’s my take on our future anyway...

 

I like reading your point and i suppose your correct in saying a further 2 places up the league would only give us a 2 million in prize money,so just consolidating our status in the league is our goal?...

 

You know id take that most seasons and last season i thought thats it were done for ,but still the need to bring in as yet( still open transfer window)a new striker, i think we as fans see the need to bolster this as far back as when

 

Pelle left and as yet still to be filled. Alot of opinion seems to be in favour of homegrown i.e Gallagher which i have to say i dont know if hes going to make it. Again ppl on here seem to think hes ready to be the new Harry Kane for us ,in which

 

case he will go in the next couple of seasons on so we fall further down the league instead of trying to better ourselves..........oh what do i know eh? im just a frustrated fan like most of us.