I believe the club when they say the debt remains stagnant, but to believe that a 25-30 million pound overdraft is sitting there untouched is seriously far fetched even by their standards. The overdraft allowed us to accrue losses of about 5million per year (otherwise how would we cover the loss?), the bank called it in and it was paid back within 18 months.
I believe the comments regarding administration come from a manager who was with us over 10 years ago. Not only is that period a very long time ago now, but saying administration was a ‘possibility’ whilst your assets massively outweighed your liabilities is like talking about the possibility of getting a bird pregnant whilst wearing an extra strength durex condom… highly unlikely to happen.
I disagree that an extra 20million with mediocre performances would see us go under, as there are far smaller clubs with bigger debts and smaller revenue and they aren’t all going to the wall. But the fundamental difference in what I have been suggesting is that we would have numerous contingency plans to cover us IF things didn’t go to plan.
Documents at Companies House show that certain debts were paid and new loans taken out recently. I believe these longer term loans were used to pay however much the overdraft needed to be reduced by. I think that where the stagnant comment stems.
The £5m loss isn't really a true reflection of our finances either. Without selling assets, players and properties, we would actually lose close to £15m a season/year.
The Arteta firesale was because all the other fixed assets had been sold and the club couldn't afford a massive headline loss as everybody we owe would have sheet the bed. Don't forget we didn't buy a proper player for three seasons and It's about four since we actually had a net spend.
There are smaller clubs with bigger debts, no doubt. The crucial thing is who the monies are owed to. Most owe to thier owner. Somebody will never liquidate a business that owes them money if they own it.
We arent in that boat.
