Financial Results

[Modric THFC]

Your post implies Redknapp negotiated wage deals, rather than Levy, which is not the case.

Also you could just as easily say that our net transfer spend is down significantly for the last 2 seasons because Cheat$ki fluked their way to the CL title and took away our hard earned CL place.

Interesting to see that going into EL instead of CL cost us £31m in prize money and gate receipts according to Mr Swiss Ramble; I'm sure some know-all was on here the other day saying that it was only worth about £10m difference and wasn't such a big deal.

You cant deny that under Redknapp we started signing 'bargain' players with low transfer fees who ended up being paid huge wages.
We brought in the likes of Cudicini, Chimbonda, Friedel, Gallas, Parker, Pienaar and Adebayor

 

[milo]

You cant deny that under Redknapp we started signing 'bargain' players with low transfer fees who ended up being paid huge wages.
We brought in the likes of Cudicini, Chimbonda, Friedel, Gallas, Parker, Pienaar and Adebayor

And you can't deny that we were still only had around the sixth highest Premier League wage bill when he left and a fair chunk of the wage bill was down to players bought under the previous regimes that we couldn't shift (Bentley, Gomes, Jenas...)

 

[joey55]

You cant deny that under Redknapp we started signing 'bargain' players with low transfer fees who ended up being paid huge wages.
We brought in the likes of Cudicini, Chimbonda, Friedel, Gallas, Parker, Pienaar and Adebayor

How do you know their wages? The real reason for the increase is down to the fact the players and club progressed. When Modric signed his new deal, do you think he asked for an extra few grand a week? Of course he didn't, he'd have had a massive increase. The same would have been true for the likes of Bale (twice), Sandro and Walker etc. But you even so, we over achieved compared to our rivals given our wages bill, so just be thankful for Redknapp for doing it on the cheap. Imagine if Wenger had to manager with our net spend on transfers and wages over the past 4 years. They'd probably be mid table.

 

[metalgear]

cor... levy's and avb doing really well to compete with our neighbours

 

[Skinhead in a Suit]

cor... levy's and avb doing really well to compete with our neighbours

This.

 

[ArcspacE]

You cant deny that under Redknapp we started signing 'bargain' players with low transfer fees who ended up being paid huge wages.
We brought in the likes of Cudicini, Chimbonda, Friedel, Gallas, Parker, Pienaar and Adebayor

Agreed. Our official wage totals for 2009/10 were around 60m?

Next season went up to 90m+

 

[milo]

Agreed. Our official wage totals for 2009/10 were around 60m?

Next season went up to 90m+

And what were our rivals? There is hyper-inflation in Premier League footballers wages, you can only make a meaningful assessment of an increase when you compare it to the market as a whole.

 

[ArcspacE]

And what were our rivals? There is hyper-inflation in Premier League footballers wages, you can only make a meaningful assessment of an increase when you compare it to the market as a whole.

Wages should be related to turnover - not our 'rivals' - If Utd raked in 300m profit every year they can probably afford to pay astronomical wages so comparing ourselves to them would be pointless

But just to entertain your Telegraph link

In the period between 09/10 - 10/11

Spurs increased wage totals by 25m
Arsenal - 14m
Liverpool - 13m
Aston Villa - 3m
Everton - 4m
Chelsea - 16m


I have excluded Utd and City for obvious reasons but here are their figures

City - 41m
Utd - 20m



You do know what clause 'Arry allegedly wanted in his new contract 'demands' last year right?

 

[milo]

You are cherry picking data to fit your argument, Arcy.

There was an increase ons real terms during that period but we only went from the 9th highest wage bill in the league to the 6th.

If we want to retain our best players and attract players that will improve the first team the wage bill will inevitably increase because there are many rivals out there willing to pay more.

 

[ArcspacE]

I'm not cherry-picking data - it is straight from your link (I can also use my old one but you will discredit it)

Yes, an increase was needed for some of our top players, undoubtedly - but the argument here is centered around the considerable increase which was a factual occurrence.

(At this point last year Arry was exonerated from any responsibility for this due to all this being allegedly CL bonuses and pedaled around until it became the 'truth'. This year however it seems this wasn't the case so perhaps there were other factors involved.)

 

[Spursalot]

I can't blame harry for buying players and increasing our wage budget within our means to try and make the club more competitive. I don't see whats to blame. He saw players that he thought would improve us and we bought them. Our wages were always going to rise if the money was there to be spent.

Would people prefer us to have stored that money up in the bank account?


It's laughable really, when you consider how desperate people are now for AVB to make the same kind of impact on our wage budget signing a few top class players.

 

[Libero]

We can free up a bit of cash by getting rid of a few players this summer:

Gomes - 45K
Bentley - 55K
Hudd - 30k
Parker - 60K
Friedel - 40K
Cudicini - 25K
Adebayor - 100K

They are made up figures but probably aren't too far off. Thats 350K a week right there of the wage bill potentially.

We would obviously need to sign some replacements but we'd probably only need one goalie (maybe 2), midfielder and striker. Could probably get all of that for less than 200K a week I'd say.

I wouldn't think we will have any GK being signed. Jordan Archer will probably be number 3 to Friedel and Lloris. The key to those wages coming down and giving us room for signings will be getting rid of Adebayor and the likes of Bentley/Gomes. Someone else mentioned Falque but I wouldn't see why we would sell him and he isn't going to be pulling much anywhere.

Not sure why our wages have stayed as high as during the CL season unless that was the clause rather than a season long bonus. I can't really blame Redknapp for that because I would be pretty sure that Levy takes care of all wage negotiations.

 

[ArcspacE]

I can't blame harry for buying players and increasing our wage budget within our means to try and make the club more competitive. I don't see whats to blame. He saw players that he thought would improve us and we bought them. Our wages were always going to rise if the money was there to be spent.

Would people prefer us to have stored that money up in the bank account?

Or - we could have identified superior players on lower wages outside the MotD DVD

Or - spent it on 1 good player instead of 3 dying cloggers

Won't even go into the agents / sell-on clause part here



Back on topic - why weren't the Modric / VdV sales included in this report?

 

[Spursalot]

VDV and Modric were sold in the 2012-13 season.

 

[ArcspacE]

The key to those wages coming down and giving us room for signings will be getting rid of Adebayor and the likes of Bentley/Gomes.

Why are you willing to let Ade go after one poor season? He's younger than Defoe and offers substantially more as an outlet -plus he's the closest we've come to replacing Berba 7 years later

 

[DMac]

You can't really tell what we have to spend without the Cash Flow Statement.

I'm not an accountant, but to me it looks like we basically took in 32 million in cash in 2012 and 48 million in 2011, the amortization and depreciation makes it look like we are making a loss, but we've already payed for the players we bought with the money we had at the time. So the money left our bank account in the past but we don't have a picture of what money we generated and spent in those years.

Sorry if I'm being confusing, maybe someone will have to give me an accounting lesson but just as an example - lets say we bought a player for 20 million 3 years ago, on a 4 year contract. That means an amortization of 5 million would show up in the profit and loss sheet this year. But this year's profit and loss sheet doesn't show the revenues and expenses from 3 years ago, so it could well be the case that we generated the cash in that year from profit to spend it on a player, which now affects the profit and loss account in a way that makes it look like a loss but where we are actually still putting money in the bank.

So people who are looking at this and saying we don't have money to spend are incorrect imo, unless we are investing our money in areas other than purchasing players which we obviously are.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Interesting. My assumptions on us having a lot of money left unspent were based on less than stable foundations. Although as DMac helpfully points out above, the accounts don't fully explain our transfer transactions over the last few years.

 

[joey55]

Would people prefer us to have stored that money up in the bank account?

Or - we could have identified superior players on lower wages outside the MotD DVD

Or - spent it on 1 good player instead of 3 dying cloggers

Won't even go into the agents / sell-on clause part here



Back on topic - why weren't the Modric / VdV sales included in this report?

Look who we signed during the period between in which the wages jumped £30 million. If you think Sandro, VDV, Pienaar and Gallas added £30 million to the wage bill you are insane. People will desperately try and inflate their wages in order to blame Harry, but even then they'd still only be able to account for around £12 million.

The wage increase has to be explained by new deals being struck and clauses being activated in existing contracts based on us qualifying for the CL. A £30 million jump in a single season is not down to the 4 senior players we signed, 3 of which proved successful and the 2 we've sold, we profited on.

 

[GGyid]

You can't really tell what we have to spend without the Cash Flow Statement.

I'm not an accountant, but to me it looks like we basically took in 32 million in cash in 2012 and 48 million in 2011, the amortization and depreciation makes it look like we are making a loss, but we've already payed for the players we bought with the money we had at the time. So the money left our bank account in the past but we don't have a picture of what money we generated and spent in those years.

Sorry if I'm being confusing, maybe someone will have to give me an accounting lesson but just as an example - lets say we bought a player for 20 million 3 years ago, on a 4 year contract. That means an amortization of 5 million would show up in the profit and loss sheet this year. But this year's profit and loss sheet doesn't show the revenues and expenses from 3 years ago, so it could well be the case that we generated the cash in that year from profit to spend it on a player, which now affects the profit and loss account in a way that makes it look like a loss but where we are actually still putting money in the bank.

So people who are looking at this and saying we don't have money to spend are incorrect imo, unless we are investing our money in areas other than purchasing players which we obviously are.

what we don't know are the payment terms, some transfers in and out are paid in instalments, which affects cash flow and negotiations on price.

 

[Bullet]

1) Wages are negotiated by Levy and others, NOT the coach/manager.

2) You can't look at one 12 month period and draw sound conclusions - you don't see the full picture, as DMac has alluded to.

3) It's a funny old game football - you can make huge losses, be £80m in debt, on the brink of bankruptcy and some Oligarch swans in and buys you and invests a billion, so sound financial arguments can also be spurious.