Stadium rent

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Did they actually run such a story that expressed that view or did they run a story in which one of the parties involved in the situation expressed that view?

[Isaac]

Seeing as we don't know the terms of this rent &quotholiday&quot, it's probably a bit early to start applauding Kassam for his generosity or using it as proof as he has the best interests of the club at heart. Holiday makes it sound like it's free, but I'd bet there are charges, interest and a host of other problems attached. Now obviously, it's not the fault of Kassam (not directly at least) that the club can't afford the rent but the history of the man suggests he'll still be making money out of it.

As for your bone of contention with the Oxford Mail, it was an interview with Nick Merry, who bleated about the rent increases. I've no sympathy with the club here as they signed the lease after all. However, what the Oxford Mail does or doesn't print (and I still don't see any real evidence for this dubious motive) had no impact on how disastrously badly Kassam ran the football club did it?

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Do we actually know that the club has &quotnever&quot paid the rent on time? It may be true or may not, but it's not a claim I'd previously heard.

[Snake]

Do we actuaslly know that the club has &quotnever&quot paid the rent on time? It may be true or may be not, but it's not a claim I'd previously heard.

What we do know is that this item below is in the licence, so it doesn’t make any financial sense to pay before the rent is 21 days late. That’s just normal business practice isn’t it?

“Para 3.3 – Interest at the rate of 3% per year over the base lending rate from time to time of HSBC plc on any money due under this Agreement which remains unpaid from the date 21 days after when such money first becomes due.

[Baboo]

......... had no impact on how disastrously badly Kassam ran the football club did it?

This got me thinking - when was the last time any regime ran our football club in a way that was not disastrously bad?

[YF Dan]

Having started this, I may as well add to it. My view is that Kassam did much wrong for the club, and is far from blameless.

However, having seen what I've seen on this forum, I'm not of the opinion the rent is too high.

I think it's disaster we have to pay rent, but I'm not sure that's Kassam's fault.

(In fact, you could argue that it was in the interest of any party looking to make a buck or two out of the club to separate club from ground. After all, any future owner of the ground now will be able to charge rent to the club in the future, and is thus guaranteed some sort of return on their investment. Just a thought.

I think Nick, Ian and Jim have been far from blameless in their running of the club. I've never seen anything that vaguely resembles sensible budgeting for a non-league club that doesn't own its own ground. I was talking to a member of staff prior to Lewes - ie when the stories of debt were coming to light - who was staggered at the luxurious hotel the team stayed in for the Barrow match.

NM loved the team, loved being a part of the team, loved be the chairman who could treat his players, loved to be able to share joke with them on the playing field, loved being able to chat tactics with Jim. All of which is great if you are in the Championship or above. But we're not and may not ever be again.

We needed a bit of business sense to go with the dreams, we didn't get it. Our debts may be massive now but if we'd raised a few more grand a week, and saved a few more grand a week from the moment WPL took over, they'd be a lot smaller and we'd be a lot less in the shit.

[Mally]

Having started this, I may as well add to it. My view is that Kassam did much wrong for the club, and is far from blameless.

However, having seen what I've seen on this forum, I'm not of the opinion the rent is too high.

I think it's disaster we have to pay rent, but I'm not sure that's Kassam's fault.

(In fact, you could argue that it was in the interest of any party looking to make a buck or two out of the club to separate club from ground. After all, any future owner of the ground now will be able to charge rent to the club in the future, and is thus guaranteed some sort of return on their investment. Just a thought.

I think Nick, Ian and Jim have been far from blameless in their running of the club. I've never seen anything that vaguely resembles sensible budgeting for a non-league club that doesn't own its own ground. I was talking to a member of staff prior to Lewes - ie when the stories OF DEBT were coming to light - who was staggered at the luxurious hotel the team stayed in for the Barrow match.

NM loved the team, loved being a part of the team, loved be the chairman who could treat his players, loved to be able to share joke with them on the playing field, loved being able to chat tactics with Jim. All of which is great if you are in the Championship or above. But we're not and may not ever be again.

We needed a bit of business sense to go with the dreams, we didn't get it. Our debts may be massive now but if we'd raised a few more grand a week, and saved a few more grand a week from the moment WPL took over, they'd be a lot smaller and we'd be a lot less in the shit.

Sounds about right to me. On the positive side the early activity from Kelvin Thomas looks good. For example:

- Far better communication with the fans and public in general.
- Negotiation with Kassam on the rent
- A lot of creative marketing activity around ticketing (rather than just focussing on hospitality and boxes). Oxford Mail inserts promoting todays game, Lucky 7 tickets (one of Snake's better ideas from the past), reduced prices

Hopefully there's other stuff going on to control costs on the playing side and more creative thinking to come.

One big question that remains for me is what have WPL done about their interest payments. It would be nice to think that they weren't compounding the situation by collecting what must be over £250,000 per year. It wouldn't cost them £250,000 as they will be paying tax on the interest at 40%.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

I'm not of the opinion the rent is too high

I'm of the opinion that it is. It probably wasn't, but what was affordable for a club in the higher division with some money behind it and the clear intention of buying ths stadium is not affordable where none of those apply.

It is of course not at all unusual for contracts to be renegotiated when circumstances change.

I think it's disaster we have to pay rent, but I'm not sure that's Kassam's fault

I think it's hard to entirely detach him from that situation.

In fact, you could argue that it was in the interest of any party looking to make a buck or two out of the club to separate club from ground

Yes you could, and that's the problem. One of the things that should have been understood from football's experiences over the past generation is that when the ground and the club are separately owned, that spells real danger for all sorts of potential reasons.

I seem to remember that one of the things Cox wanted to do (and possibly Kassam as well, I'll not claim total recall on this subject) after the stadium-construction disaster was to sell the Manor before the new ground was secured. They weren't allowed to do so and a good thing too - more than good. But I think we all assumed, in re: the move to MF, that the stadium when completed (or 'completed') would belong to the club and would be an asset to it. I mean it was supposed to be. Currently, it's very much the opposite - it's a luxury a non-league club simply can't afford.

[Snake]

“it's a luxury a non-league club simply can't afford.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

[quote=&quotSnake&quot]“it's a luxury a non-league club simply can't afford.

[Dr Bob]

Perhaps not directly related to the most recent contributions, but......

There has been much said on Radio Oxford, and elsewhere, about the financial importance of a decent cup run. But is that so we can bring in one or two more players and have the opportunity to do things that 'take the club forward', or is it likely that any extra revenues generated will simply go into keeping up with stadium rents? Maybe I missed it, but what exactly was agreed between Thomas and Kassam about costs - and are we simply storing up further problem outgoings for future quarters if outgoings are just being deferred?

[Kernow Yellow]

Perhaps not directly related to the most recent contributions, but......

There has been much said on Radio Oxford, and elsewhere, about the financial importance of a decent cup run. But is that so we can bring in one or two more players and have the opportunity to do things that 'take the club forward', or is it likely that any extra revenues generated will simply go into keeping up with stadium rents? Maybe I missed it, but what exactly was agreed between Thomas and Kassam about costs - and are we simply storing up further problem outgoings for future quarters if outgoings are just being deferred?

Exactly. It seems to me that we need to draw (and beat) successively Leeds, Leicester, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, all away, for our financial problems to be much improved by a Cup run. One decent tie resulting in glorious defeat will be a drop in the ocean as far as our debts are concerned.

[Ascension Ox]

Perhaps not directly related to the most recent contributions, but......

There has been much said on Radio Oxford, and elsewhere, about the financial importance of a decent cup run. But is that so we can bring in one or two more players and have the opportunity to do things that 'take the club forward', or is it likely that any extra revenues generated will simply go into keeping up with stadium rents? Maybe I missed it, but what exactly was agreed between Thomas and Kassam about costs - and are we simply storing up further problem outgoings for future quarters if outgoings are just being deferred?

Exactly. It seems to me that we need to draw (and beat) successively Leeds, Leicester, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, all away, for our financial problems to be much improved by a Cup run. One decent tie resulting in glorious defeat will be a drop in the ocean as far as our debts are concerned.

Sorry, don't agree.

One full house (or say 10,000 ||) || TV money could generate £100,000 || gross. Not to be sniffed at.

[Kernow Yellow]

One big question that remains for me is what have WPL done about their interest payments. It would be nice to think that they weren't compounding the situation by collecting what must be over £250,000 per year. It wouldn't cost them £250,000 as they will be paying tax on the interest at 40%.

Well, I imagine they're not 'collecting' anything at the moment, quite the opposite in fact, but your point is a crucial one, imo. As long as our caring, passionate owners charge us interest on money they've misspent on our behalf, we're going to be pretty fucked. This is, after all, basically how Maxwell stiffed us almost twenty years ago - a situation we've been struggling to recover from ever since.

And if the club was going to be run as profligately as Merry and co have managed, then I don't think the situation would be much different if we (they) owned the stadium as well.

As far as the separation between club and stadium is concerned, Kassam's big mistake was to stand up in front of several hundred Oxford fans and say, on the record, that it would not be in the best interests of the club to sell it separately from the stadium and therefore he would not countenance such a move. Because by then doing exactly that, he demonstarted that his care for the wellbeing of OUFC had completely ceased.

Having said that, it was WPL who bought the club without the ground, and agreed the conditions for doing so, so Merry's very public bleating about the rent was pretty pathetic. As evidenced by the fact that he was replaced as Chairman very shortly after doing so.

[Kernow Yellow]

Perhaps not directly related to the most recent contributions, but......

There has been much said on Radio Oxford, and elsewhere, about the financial importance of a decent cup run. But is that so we can bring in one or two more players and have the opportunity to do things that 'take the club forward', or is it likely that any extra revenues generated will simply go into keeping up with stadium rents? Maybe I missed it, but what exactly was agreed between Thomas and Kassam about costs - and are we simply storing up further problem outgoings for future quarters if outgoings are just being deferred?

Exactly. It seems to me that we need to draw (and beat) successively Leeds, Leicester, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal, all away, for our financial problems to be much improved by a Cup run. One decent tie resulting in glorious defeat will be a drop in the ocean as far as our debts are concerned.

Sorry, don't agree.

One full house (or say 10,000 ||) || TV money could generate £100,000 || gross. Not to be sniffed at.

Of course it's not to be sniffed at. But it's a drop in the ocean compared to our total debts, or indeed compared to the level at which the debt is rising each year.