The Everton Board Thread (Inc. Bill Kenwright / Blue Union)

[davek]

I'm with Raleigh on this one

Sometimes Dave you seem so determined to have a pop that you can't view this issue in a balanced way

It's an emotive issue I grant you, but Raleigh gave a very balanced, and dare I say fair, overview of the situation and you've just dismissed it out of hand

I dismissed nothing. I stated that the commercial retardation of EFC that was rightly underlined cant be seen in isolation; that it has to be viewed as a part of the same mess that gives us other outstanding grievances.

 

[Moomin]

Then my head would explode.



Not from me. I've never been particularly for or against our board.

But what I mean is that the TV deal is clearly much, much more lucrative this year and there is no excuses for not spending on players.

If our net spend this summer is <£20M then I will be asking serious questions, but for now I'm going to wait and see.

Each new tv deal is a record breaker, but does it really give us an advantage over our competitors? I think you will find the answer is no. It's our own commercial revenues we need to grow. Years ago, the likes of Spurs even though based in London was making the same amount of money from its off the field activities. Them days are long gone, they are on a different level to us off the pitch. On the pitch we are the better team in my eyes.

When they eventually move into the new ground, they will be even further ahead of us commercially.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

That's just a circular argument that gets no one anywhere. There's a quite simple equation here as I see it:

club is upset at constant OOC references - club decides to be frank and detailed in explaining OOC = job done.

But it's not as simple as that is it? As what level of detail will satisfy your curiosity?

 

[davek]

But it's not as simple as that is it? As what level of detail will satisfy your curiosity?

I'd be curious to know two facts relating to EFC's governance:

1/ what is the full itinerary of (you would imagine) a fairly stable number of expenses that can jump wildly around so much over time.
2/ who precisely are the beneficiaries of BCR Sports involvement in EFC shareownership.

 

[SerenityNigh]

I think "We" would just like to have some idea of just what does the club spend 21m a Year on, just a rough idea.

Without being entirely snarky, I would suggest that these expenses are roughly the same as what every other club spends their OOC money on. Honestly I'd like to see the breakdown as well, but I think in the end it will be rather boring. More likely, it would lead to arguments over even smaller matters. I don't have details on all teams (and have been able to find very little so far), but see this on what PL teams spend as OOCs:

MCFC reported "other external charges" of £42,280,000 in 2012/13
MUFC reported "other operating expenses" of £66,983,000 in 2011/12
Arsenal report "Other operating charges" of £61,559,000 in 2012/2013
Spurs report "Other operating costs" of £27,912,000 in 2012/2013
Everton report "Other operating costs" of £21,800,000 in 2012/2013
Norwich City report "Other operating expenses" of £11,221,000 for 2012/2013
Fulham report "Other external charges" of £15,714,820 for 2011/2012*
Also, Chelsea report that in 2011/2012 their "other operating expenses" increased by £19,200,000, but I can't find anything in their report that gives a value for this category as a whole.

*Fulham are the only club I've seen that reports in less than £1,000 denominations

 

[roydo]

I think "We" would just like to have some idea of just what does the club spend 21m a Year on, just a rough idea.

Pretty sure Esk did just that a few pages back. Not the amounts, but the type of things we spend cash on. Was quite a long one.

 

[RaleighBlue]

I'm glad you posted this. It's a perfect example of the hysterical scalded cat response by those seeking to throw a protective cloak around this board of directors and their mismanagement of the club. What's being asked for is a FULL audit to everyone's satisfaction. You're illicitly smuggling in the matter of skulduggery to deflect from that reasonable request. The club employ the auditors (our external auditors are practically internal ones given the Elstone/Deloitte connection...which I find disturbing, tbh) and they will have dialogue on how to present - if they so chose to they could request them to provide a note that refers to what costs are incurred, their key remit is to make sure that in the club's top line financial claims no misstatements are made. That's it. But regardless of that the club can choose to do that if they wish to. Elstone has established the principle of this with his list of examples. They know it's a contentious issue but refuse to deal with it fully. It's their look out if people draw their own conclusions because they have neglected to inform them.

We aren't miles apart, we simply disagree on some minutiae and the method of focus.

I agree the stadium issues have been awful, and have had a negative impact on the club. The OOC issue is one I will sidestep now because we disagree and that won't change until the board decides to be more clear in their accounting. (Transparency is certainly a stick you could use to beat the club with).

I believe that the key to change is to focus on a single front and work towards winning that war. I also believe that the front that the board, and therefore the club, are weakest on is revenues. If we try and point out every grievance we have with the club, there is a decent chance we may be wrong with one or two. Those incorrect assumptions will be pounced upon by a good spin machine which will trivialize all of the legitimate problems. Does that sound familiar? I'm suggesting the tact that we focus on an area that is objectively weak and fight the battle on that front.

The board could 'quiet dissent' by publishing an accounting of the OOC, but that wouldn't help Everton progress. So focus on an area in which the board are clearly not progressing - namely the increase of stable sources of revenues, such as merchandising and sponsorships.

 

[davek]

Without being entirely snarky, I would suggest that these expenses are roughly the same as what every other club spends their OOC money on. Honestly I'd like to see the breakdown as well, but I think in the end it will be rather boring. More likely, it would lead to arguments over even smaller matters. I don't have details on all teams (and have been able to find very little so far), but see this on what PL teams spend as OOCs:
*Fulham are the only club I've seen that reports in less than £1,000 denominations

You must be mistaken there mate. NSNO Chris reckons that degree of detail isn't EVER going to happen. Perhaps you could link him to the evidence?

 

[RaleighBlue]

Yeah I saw that list, but a lot of what he mentioned is covered in other areas of the accounts.

No they'e not.

The OOC are everything that is not Amortisation of Player Registration, Depreciation, and Staff Cost.

 

[SerenityNigh]

You must be mistaken there mate. NSNO Chris reckons that degree of detail isn't EVER going to happen. Perhaps you could link him to the evidence?

I thought @nsno-chris suggested that a line-by-line breakdown would never be released from an auditor. I may have misread what was posted. I've seen auditors break down to the single $1 before, but never on a company with such large revenues.

 

[RaleighBlue]

Im not an accountant mate, but im pretty sure thats not the case.

Section 3 is an overview of all expenses. The following subsections do some breakdown. An example is Depreciation. We spent £829k on Depreciation in total in 2013. Property Depreciation is £254k of that and Other Depreciation is £575k of that. Which add up to £829k and are broken down in Section 4.

 

[davek]

We aren't miles apart, we simply disagree on some minutiae and the method of focus.

I agree the stadium issues have been awful, and have had a negative impact on the club. The OOC issue is one I will sidestep now because we disagree and that won't change until the board decides to be more clear in their accounting. (Transparency is certainly a stick you could use to beat the club with).

I believe that the key to change is to focus on a single front and work towards winning that war. I also believe that the front that the board, and therefore the club, are weakest on is revenues. If we try and point out every grievance we have with the club, there is a decent chance we may be wrong with one or two. Those incorrect assumptions will be pounced upon by a good spin machine which will trivialize all of the legitimate problems. Does that sound familiar? I'm suggesting the tact that we focus on an area that is objectively weak and fight the battle on that front.

The board could 'quiet dissent' by publishing an accounting of the OOC, but that wouldn't help Everton progress. So focus on an area in which the board are clearly not progressing - namely the increase of stable sources of revenues, such as merchandising and sponsorships.

Commercial revenues is and isn't their Achilles heel. Objectively speaking they are pretty hopeless, and that's acknowledged. But they'll always get a free pass on that whilst the stadium issue is not resolved, as that is a key driver not in place for commercial improvement.

As I say: my main point with regard to OOC is that it cant be seen in isolation - and you can see from that point above that everything is interlinked. It's an abstraction to look at commercial failure as a stand alone issue.

 

[davek]

I thought @nsno-chris suggested that a line-by-line breakdown would never be released from an auditor. I may have misread what was posted. I've seen auditors break down to the single $1 before, but never on a company with such large revenues.

His words...

There would be no way on earth, any company would ever publish, in an annual fiscal report, a full breakdown of all transactions for OOC (or any other typoe of misc expenses), it won't happen and it never will.

Obviously anything under £1000 which you say Fulham reveal would come under the description 'full breakdown'. It would for anyone I think.

 

[RaleighBlue]

Commercial revenues is and isn't their Achilles heel. Objectively speaking they are pretty hopeless, and that's acknowledged. But they'll always get a free pass on that whilst the stadium issue is not resolved, as that is a key driver not in place for commercial improvement.

As I say: my main point with regard to OOC is that it cant be seen in isolation - and you can see from that point above that everything is interlinked. It's an abstraction to look at commercial failure as a stand alone issue.

But they shouldn't, which is my point. A stadium is not the reason we have Kitbag (well, it is, but you know what I mean). A stadium is not why we're still with Chang, rather than trying to get a large technology firm or automaker or something similar. A stadium is not why we're partnering with companies like Power8 rather than serious players.

A stadium is not the be all end all reason behind our revenue failures. It's certainly an aspect of them, but if we could reasonably raise our revenues through merchandising and sponsorship, then we could buy a new stadium. Money makes money, and I believe a good commercial department could find the seed money to push us forward. It wouldn't take much....£30 million right?

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Obviously anything under £1000 which you say Fulham reveal would come under the description 'full breakdown'. It would for anyone I think.

You're misconstruing the difference between the denomination used in the total provided and an actual breakdown of costs.