OUFC Accounts 2012

[Hog]

Do you mean Ben Bloody Futcher?

[Brahma Bull]

BB what are OxVox views on this, at this rate we are going to be back in the position that we were when Kassam took over, albeit with no asset like the Manor and 2 divisions lower. These are awful figures, owners who run up such debts are irresponsible and don’t deserve the support of the supporters group especially as we’re lacking a coherent strategy on the pitch – half the players seem to be off in the summer with no word on what is happening to management team and no prospect of promotion.

Hi. Thanks to John for highlighting they were out, our own OxVox alert did come up but I didn't get to see the full set until last night. Hope GY didn't mind me quoting his post elsewhere? I agreed with it so used it to put on our forum too.

Our view, the OxVox one first. We said at our most recent AGM we are very concerned about results on and off the pitch this season and its always worrying to see a big loss in the accounts. We can't say we are surprised as despite the claims of some, we continue to ask him the tough questions. He told us at the start of the season (August 2012) that a big loss was expected in the next published accounts. We reported than and published that in our notes.

Whilst it's reassuring that WPL are willing to cover the debt as soft loans, NO-ONE or club owner will want to see sustained big losses. There were exceptional items of expenditure in those accounts, which wouldn't be repeated as Lenagan has stated. The additional injury money and stupid short term loan deals for example.

So where from here? Well moving forward we will continue to work closely with Ian Lenagan and will not stop asking the tough questions from the committee, the membership and the wider fanbase. Ian has outlined a clear plan for the future, which has been relayed in our meetings, in the media and at fans forums.

Next season we need to see this showing results off and on the pitch. We want to see a successful season next year and a club living as close to within its means as possible. This is the stated vision of Ian and his sons. It has to happen. Worth noting that we are meeting Ian next month and we will be asking further updates on his plans on everything from the team, staff recruitment, training ground, finances etc and the accounts. Drop me a PM if you would like me to raise anything on your behalf, if you wish us to do so.

Some further personal views....

WPL have overseen £4m of debt as they bought the club for that solitary pound and took on £2m of Kassam's debt. My other grave concern is that the debt will increase, remember these accounts for 2012, we expect the debt to rise further when the 2013 accounts come out (no need to bookmark that no one wants to take any delight from that potential scenario) - we've spent more money on loans and covering injuries, the club decided not to cash in on early birds etc. We expect that to rise before it gets better and strides made to bring it down.

Positives moving forward, however small, is the decision to scrap the Early Bird, season tickets will have to pay a higher rate than those quick fix offers. We will need a sponsor sharpish (any clues?), we are building a better commercial and marketing offering, we should reap the rewards (one of my biggest gripes) of using our Youth Players (I am banking on Marsh, Crocombe and O'Dowda becomming matchday squad players) - that will help keep the wage bill under better control.

On to my final point, the £6m-£7m, whatever it really is. If and when Ian decides he has had enough (and he made it clear what the financial decisions would be for that to happen - another £1m loss!), he won't be getting his money back. He will have to write-it off realistically and accept a compromise from anyone interested in taking us on our next 'journey'.

We may yet have to swallow some more pain, Wilder is still under contract and it'll cost to wave au'revoir to him.

[Brahma Bull]

One other thing that did jump out was the increase in Admin Expenses. After deducting the £150k relating to the youth set up, then the increase is almost £200k which is an increase of around 20%. I would be interested in what this is made up of and is a question I would like to know the answer too.

Something which the 2012 accounts won't show but the 2013 will, is the saving in wages of Mr T.

[A-Ro]

melange of meddling madness

Top notch sir.

Makes note.

[slappy]

I thought the club always had to fund the youth development in order to get the matched league/FA funding. So is it really a new cost?

The extra money re Dean Whitehead also ties up a loose end. I'd thought the &quotprofit on player sales&quot in 2010 would have been higher with the transfer fee / sell on percentage, so perhaps some was delayed until a number of appearances had been made. There were vague rumours of the club borrowing money on the back of this anticipated sell on fee.

[ty cobb]

Thanks BB.

Must say I was a bit concerned by Marks comments in the OM which I have copied below, I would seriously question whether the most important thing is that losses continue to be underwritten, the most important thing is stopping those losses. You seem confident that IL recognises that he will not get his money back if he sells, that seems quite an optimistic (although true!) statement. There are very few examples of owners letting go and writing the money they are owed off. The money IL is losing is money that Oxford will be burderned with if he ever comes to sell, if he doesn't think he will get it back, why not write it off now so we can be clear on that?

Fair play to him though for not charging interest on the money owed. To be honest I don't really mind if he spends lots on Oxford provided we don't end up with the bill for the bad decisions made - at the moment we are, he would benefit from any succesful investment (in terms of going up the divisions and being a club with higher crowds and worth more) it is only right he should lose any investment made where things don't work out rather than the club be stuck with the debt as it is at the moment.

We are essentially hanstrung by not owning the stadium I think, movement needs to be made here and I look forward to hearing about the hard work OxVox have been doing on this.

Mark Sennett, chairman of supporters’ group OxVox, said: “Obviously we have concerns about the club making any loss, especially a substantial one like this, but the most important thing is the Lenagans are committed to underwriting these losses.

“Looking to the future, we want to see the club succeeding on the pitch and eradicating these losses.

“Supporters want to see a successful team but they also want a club that’s financially viable.

[Brahma Bull]

We are essentially hanstrung by not owning the stadium I think, movement needs to be made here and I look forward to hearing about the hard work OxVox have been doing on this.

We hope to be in a position to start making some comment on this in the coming week(s). Appreciate that you and others are keen to see what we've been upto on this and we just need to sort a few things out before we make a statement.

[YF Dan]

Don't read anything into the use of &quotbackhanders&quot, I used it as a generic term to cover all the bits of transfer payments that we non-football-industry types don't understand.

I don't know of anything illegal, I'm sure we're above board.

[Brahma Bull]

[quote=&quotty cobb&quot]Thanks BB.

Must say I was a bit concerned by Marks comments in the OM which I have copied below, I would seriously question whether the most important thing is that losses continue to be underwritten, the most important thing is stopping those losses. You seem confident that IL recognises that he will not get his money back if he sells, that seems quite an optimistic (although true!) statement. There are very few examples of owners letting go and writing the money they are owed off. The money IL is losing is money that Oxford will be burderned with if he ever comes to sell, if he doesn't think he will get it back, why not write it off now so we can be clear on that?

Mark Sennett, chairman of supporters’ group OxVox, said: “Obviously we have concerns about the club making any loss, especially a substantial one like this, but the most important thing is the Lenagans are committed to underwriting these losses.

“Looking to the future, we want to see the club succeeding on the pitch and eradicating these losses.

“Supporters want to see a successful team but they also want a club that’s financially viable.

[dr ceri]

These results are just awful. No wonder KT was sacked.

As others have said this is completely unsustainable, and I see one or a combination of these scenarios happening:

* IL puts a strict spending limit on a new manager. Seeing us operate purely within budget for the foreseeable future. The choice of manager here is crucial, as not everyone can do this as we’ve seen in the past… The threat of relegation as the squad is severely trimmed to do this might rear its ugly head.

* IL will not get a buyer who will cough up a quid ||£6million to cover the debts. Not without any assets to speak of. Which on the one hand makes us in a nightmarish situation compared to when this last happened in the late nineties. But then…. Because we have no assets, what’s IL going to do exactly? Pull the plug? He loses all his money. Accept a lower offer? He loses some of his money but if he’s already stemmed the losses (no matter what the result to our league position) then what’s point in that?

* I think he will sit and wait to see what comes up. That can only be either an investor/partner willing to do a deal that includes the stadco/hotel/land etc or a number of Dean Whiteheads/Joey Beauchamps to help pay the debt off. I wouldn’t lose any sleep on the latter though….we just don’t seem to attract the talent at youth anymore, unsurprisingly seeing how far down the pyramid we are.

* I can see us getting into the revolving door of managers again. An inspired coach who gets us a promotion (or 2) on a meagre budget is IL’s other big hope. The club would be a better prospect, particularly for a foreign investor, if we were in the Championship of course. But as we well know, that kind of strategy can just as likely see you hurtling out of the league as flying up it.

Just what has the strategy been at OUFC for the last decade? The biggest hurdle to success and stability for me is that lack of real estate/stadium asset. When the Minchery Farm move originally happened, that was the opportunity to create a set up that could have seen the club at the centre of a number of revenue sources, benefiting from the various deals in place that at the very least secured our future. But we know what happened there. The separation of club from stadium co was, in hindsight, the biggest mistake/error/fracture that has ever happened to OUFC. We all missed it at the time, or rather wanted to miss the consequences at the time when it happened. Many wanted to give Kassam the benefit of the doubt, or not criticise FOUL due to the amazing efforts they put in in keeping us alive. But it was the gravest error that could see us go under once and for all at some time in the future.

Cheery soul, ain’t I?

[slappy]

Why are we losing so much money? Here's a guess:

We've used 33 players this season.

Last season, we used 38.

Oh, and the season before, we used 32.

Oh, guess what, the season before, we used 32 as well.

Everytime we sign someone, it costs. For every John Grant, Lee Fowler, Ashley Cain, Marcus Kelly, Ryan Doble, Leigh Franks, Ryan Burge, Richie Barker, John Franks, Danny Philliskirk x2, Christian Montano, Conor Ripley, Dean Morgan, Mehdi Korrouche, Lewis Guy, Mark Wilson, Sean McGinty, Lewis Montrose, Josh Parker, Daniel Boeteng, etc we've paid unneccessary wages, appearance fees, unneccessary costs, petrol, agents fees, signing on fees, backhanders, expenses, accommodation etc etc. Have we ever once really been in danger of not putting a team out? Have we ever really needed an emergency signing?

I appreciate the chairman can say &quotno&quot and should have done on 20|| occasions listed above. But Wilder cannot be exonerated from blame. He has abused our chairman's faith, and in return provided him with three successive seasons of mediocrity, and saddled us with a mountain of debt. Even now, despite providing a budget of £1m a year over what we can afford as a club, he still gets told every Saturday to open his wallet.

I still genuinely believe the promotion winning team - with minor tweaks and a show of faith from the manager - would have been far more successful than the melange of meddling madness we've had since.

The old &quotwe use too many players&quot argument.
Which actually turns out to be below average for the league according to the official site.

[YF Dan]

Slappy, please, which one of those players added anything to us as a club?

Even if we forget the squad numbers, it's fair to say that all of them were money wasted.

----

PS. 85-86 22 players used.
95-96 24 players used.

[Radley Rambler]

Slappy, please, which one of those players added anything to us as a club?

Even if we forget the squad numbers, it's fair to say that all of them were money wasted.

----

PS. 85-86 22 players used.
95-96 24 players used.

And indeed, the top 5 teams in terms of players used this season in league 2 currently reside in the bottom six. Barnet have used 48 players!

[Kernow Yellow]

You also missed Justin Richards, who came in on loan before signing. And a couple of goalkeepers.

Slappy's point still stands though - despite severe injury problems this season we have used fewer than the average number of players for the league. A very small proportion of Dan's list relates to this season, and of those that do Josh Parker has contributed significantly (in terms of appearances at least), and Montrose might well have done had he not also got injured.

Now I appreciate that the losses we are discussing relate to LAST season, and it was last season that we had the highest number of loanees, despite not having a particularly bad run of injuries. But let's not pretend that this issue hasn't been addressed, as it obviously has been (as IL said it would be at the start of the season). Whether the accounts for the current season will look any better (or less bad) remains to be seen - on the pitch performances haven't improved from running a smaller squad though.

[Joey's Toe]

IL puts a strict spending limit on a new manager. Seeing us operate purely within budget for the foreseeable future. The choice of manager here is crucial, as not everyone can do this as we’ve seen in the past…

Wasn't that the idea with Wilder? Appoint a manager with a track record of doing well with limited funds. Except - guess what - managers will always ask for more money. It's like the MOD always asking for more money to spend on weapons - it's just a fact of life. The point is that not all chairmen give managers more money to spend the good ones tell the managers to work with the budget they've got.

That, my friends, is what IL needs to do now. Who knows, perhaps we'd see some of the young players getting game time rather than being shipped out on loan. Fine, they might fail - but as we've already explroed on this thread, the same is true of many (most?) of the loanees. Thinking back, many of our home-grown players of the 90s often got a run due to established players being injured.

The separation of club from stadium co was, in hindsight, the biggest mistake/error/fracture that has ever happened to OUFC. We all missed it at the time

Speak for yourself, chap. There were plenty of us who said that it was Ka$$am's greatest treason - promising one week to never selll the club without the ground and then doing just that. We shouldv'e been chaining ourselves to his hotels' railings in protest (I even vaguely remember suggesting such at the Other Place), but too many people &quotmissed it&quot as you did. Still, it does allow me to use those wonderful four words: I told you so.