Stadium rent

[Mally]

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?

This is exactly the sort of thing I mean about focussing on the rent and Kassam. I know this thread is about the rent but the point about a good cup run and the revenue this could genrate is about reducing the clubs debts and improving its cash flow. The rent is about 12% of the club's expenses and agreed by most to be at a fair level. Forget the rent and Kassam. After all it was just about the only expense that was fixed and totally forecastable every season. Where does the other £2million go every year - that's the real question.

As for the deferring of expenses this is exactly what a strugling business needs when things get really tough. Of course you need a long term plan to reduce costs but keeping the ship afloat is all about cash flow as any accountant will tell you.

[Mally]

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.

Unfortunately I don't share your imagination. The easiest thing in the world for WPL to have done over the past few months would have been to state that they weren't collecting their interest payments if that were true. I haven't seen or heard anything to suggest that this is the case though.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Forget the rent and Kassam.

&quotForget a major expense that is more than the club can currently afford&quot.

Obviously the rent is important, cannot be forgotten and won't be forgotten if Thomas is doing his job (and I've no reason to think he isn't).

A cup run - of course it would be good but it can scarcely be relied upon and I believe I'm right in saying that it's good practice to budget on the basis that no income from Cup runs is assumed.

I concur strongly with Kernow Yellow's previous contribution.

[Ascension Ox]

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.

Forget the level of debt, think of current cashflow, that's far more important.

£100k is no drop in the ocean.

Let's hope we can get through to Round 2 (£20k prize money if we do incidentally and hope for a more lucrative tie thereafter.

[Snake]

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?

That’s a good question..

In essence, if we do pocket £100k|| from a cup run how much of that will be spent on new players and how much will go back into WPL’s pocket to pay off their debt, or even their interest on their debt (which must be running at somewhere around £300k a year now)?

[scooter]

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.

Unfortunately I don't share your imagination. The easiest thing in the world for WPL to have done over the past few months would have been to state that they weren't collecting their interest payments if that were true. I haven't seen or heard anything to suggest that this is the case though.

The speed with which the season ticket and pre season money has disappeared suggests that WPL have been less accomodating than FK in this regard.

[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.

Unfortunately I don't share your imagination. The easiest thing in the world for WPL to have done over the past few months would have been to state that they weren't collecting their interest payments if that were true. I haven't seen or heard anything to suggest that this is the case though.

If OUFC's debt to WPL is increasing, then surely WPL are not 'collecting' in any real sense the interest payments. Or at least not the full amount. They are being rolled up into further debt. Or have I misunderstood the situation?

[Mally]

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?

That’s a good question..

In essence, if we do pocket £100k|| from a cup run how much of that will be spent on new players and how much will go back into WPL’s pocket to pay off their debt, or even their interest on their debt (which must be running at somewhere around £300k a year now)?

Hopefully all of it will go towards the expenses of running the club and thereby reduce any additional debt being run up.

The football club is in a precarious financial state and any talk of spending additional revenue on new players would be foolhardy (unless directly linked to generating revenue). When you are running a business that is £4 million in debt losing £500,000 a year and has a serious cash flow problem the last thing you should be doing is increasing expenditure.

In the short term Kelvin Thomas needs to:

1. Cut expenditure across the club's operations
2. Continue to find innovative ways to increase income.
3. Pray that we have a good cup run to bring in more income
4. Continue to negotiate with creditors to ease cash flow
5. Persuade his employers (if not the case already) that they should not take any interst payments from the club for some time to come.

In the medium term he should also consider purchasing the rights to stadium advertising and concourse catering from the stadium company as surely the club themselves with their goodwill can generate more revenue from both of these than the average of the last 2 seasons' income.

As for the rent an imaginative restructuring of the licence might be worth a try along the lines of linking the payments to attendance but I doubt Kassam would go for it.

[Baboo]

[quote=&quotMally
The football club is in a precarious financial state and any talk of spending additional revenue on new players would be foolhardy (unless directly linked to generating revenue).

In the short term Kelvin Thomas needs to:

1. Cut expenditure across the club's operations

[/quote]

Sensible stuff.

I would still like to know why we gave Evans a contract until January.
How many minutes has he played for us - cost per mintue anyone?
Stupid decisions like these must not be allowed to happen again.
He did not even make the bench of 7 yesterday ffs.

[Pe├▒a Oxford United]

Forget the level of debt, think of current cashflow, that's far more important

Why do you say so?

I mean I can think of situations where that would be true and situations where it would not be true, so I'm interested as to why you would specifically say so in the present situation.

[Snake]

I doubt you'll get a proper response to that question.

I mean, what do you know about business?

[Snake]

Well, I imagine they're not 'collecting' anything at the moment, quite the opposite in fact, but your point is a crucial one, imo.

Unfortunately I don't share your imagination. The easiest thing in the world for WPL to have done over the past few months would have been to state that they weren't collecting their interest payments if that were true. I haven't seen or heard anything to suggest that this is the case though.

The speed with which the season ticket and pre season money has disappeared suggests that WPL have been less accomodating than FK in this regard.

But it hasn’t disappeared, because even at our non-League level of day-to-day spending it’s almost inconceivable we’ve got through that amount of revenue by October.

For lots of our supporters the “financial problems

[Geoff]

Would the £20k be aswell as the £12.5k from Saturday or instead of?

[slappy]

I would suspect that this season's season ticket money got partly used paying off debts from last season.

[Ascension Ox]

As well as...