Just some thoughts
£130m plus commercial opportunities ? Sounds a lot, and to us (club or fans) it is.
Had a quick look at a couple of the "smaller" or yoyo clubs and the feel i get from their published accounts( Norwich, Burnley etc) is all obviously complete guess work
TV probably around 115m
match income £6m
Commercial income £12m
other income 5M
total £138m
Against that
They were spending on huge total wages say £80m, plus maybe 25m or 30m on player purchase. Then there is the overheads and direct cots probably £5m upwards. £115m
"free" £23m
2021 Otium financials showed SISU owed 21m. Say we get promoted next season that will (assuming nothing taken out or funds put in by owners) have grown by £2.2m per season to over £25m
It almost could pay them off.
Thing is you get increased funds from a promotion run yes but the premier league money is not front loaded you get it through the season or at the end of it. So that implies a big initial investment with money to be recouped - doesn't sound like our owners to me.
SISU cannot take dividends until the distributable reserves are positive (ie accumulated profits) presently the reserves are £93m negative offset by £65m preference shares
obviously going to depend on what is spent on wages and players but to compete those sums are not insignificant.
Players are not going to sign unless they get premier league wages and a 2 or 3 year contract. It of course builds potential problems for premier league failure. Will the parachute money cover the additional wages, loss of value, loss of income? Probably given the way our club is run. Will it allow them to milk the investment possibly but depends on the wages the club is locked in to, not all expensive players can be moved on after relegation
It is by no means certain that a visit to the Premier League will fund us for years, (knowing our luck the reform of parachute payments will hit us first
).
It would seriously improve our annual finances to be able to compete at the top of the Championship league though, if properly managed after relegation. That management must begin as soon as we get promoted so that there is a proper plan to deal with premier league failure. If we succeed and stay up well that's even better.
All that said of course the team, club and fans should aim for the highest position they can each and every season. Accepting bouncing around the Championship is not an option. I think if we are to achieve promotion it will be on the back of several seasons of continued building, very much doubt it will be on the back of owner investment as we are currently set up.
As for selling current players and SISU taking proceeds my guess would be that they would be looking to take approx £2m from the first major sale and then review from there on any subsequent sales. That way they can say to their investors the debt is not growing and they can take some actual funds from their investment.
all guesswork and conjecture i agree
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