ACL Shoot themselves in the foot & The Fans in the Head (16 Viewers)

[James Smith]

So let's get this right your with CJ on this debate yes?

And I'll ask you here again why when you were so keen to hold Doncaster up as a shining beacon in the other thread can you not choose between A or B?

 

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[procdoc]

In fact Gendel you NEVER post a reasonable explanation for your continued pro- sisu agenda. Maybe you wanted to text the subs or thought ken Delieu being in the dugout were good ideas? You continue to belittle anyone who offers a different and quite frankly more reasonable opinion than you. That makes you a complete sad case. You are a poor excuse for a Cov fan, if you are really one that is

 

[Grendel]

And I'll ask you here again why when you were so keen to hold Doncaster up as a shining beacon in the other thread can you not choose between A or B?

I am keen to illustrate all other clubs in council owned stadia have a better deal than us. These include;

Doncaster
Ipswich
Hull
Brighton
Nottingham Forest

All pay significantly less rent and all benefit from better income streams.

 

[James Smith]

I am keen to illustrate all other clubs in council owned stadia have a better deal than us. These include;

Doncaster
Ipswich
Hull
Brighton
Nottingham Forest

All pay significantly less rent and all benefit from better income streams.

Right, so in that case it shouldn't be too hard to just answer the question, Scenario A or Scenario B.

 

[Grendel]

In fact Gendel you NEVER post a reasonable explanation for your continued pro- sisu agenda. Maybe you wanted to text the subs or thought ken Delieu being in the dugout were good ideas? You continue to belittle anyone who offers a different and quite frankly more reasonable opinion than you. That makes you a complete sad case. You are a poor excuse for a Cov fan, if you are really one that is

I have no pro sisu agenda. I have a pro football club agenda. Despite a lot of rhetoric I currently see no alternatives. Regardless of owners the club has been ripped off by our community unfriendly council.

I love the way anyone who dares to support the club is labelled a troll.

Only in coventry......

 

[Grendel]

Right, so in that case it shouldn't be too hard to just answer the question, Scenario A or Scenario B.

What scenario? What are you on about?

 

[James Smith]

What scenario? What are you on about?

This one here.

They wanted to charge them £300,000 a year. Doncaster F C said get stuffed. Then the said we will pay that if you give us the management company and 100% revenues for everything.<br />
<br />
The community caring council obliged.

I've now looked this up in a bit more detail and there is a very big difference between Doncaster Rovers and ourselves. You're right about at least one thing however there is a figure of £300,000 that comes into play. So the Keepmoat stadium was built as a community stadium and there was as there is in Coventry, a management company looking after the stadium. So their company called "Stadium Management Company" was losing approximately £300k a year compared to ACL which is financially in reasonably good shape and would be generating profits if all the surplus wasn't reinvested in the stadium. Just to be clear that would have shown up on the council accounts as a £0.3m loss. So Doncaster Rovers offered to run the stadium and take over the increased lease (now 99 years) for £100k per year.

The major difference between them and us is that ACL isn't showing up on the council books as a loss. Yes the council took over the mortgage but I suspect at financially better rates than the money would have got sitting in the bank. So each month and PWKH please feel free to step in and correct me, ACL makes the mortgage payment to the council not the Yorkshire Bank. This is I think for much less interest than the YB were charging but the council still get more return on their money than they would have done had it been sitting in the bank. As a result of all this ACL were able to drop the annual rent for our club to only £485k.

So when you say

The community caring council obliged

you are being more than a bit economical with the truth. The council were staring at financial hole of nearly a third of a million in their books each year and I can't see the non football supporting council tax payers being too happy about that. So you can imagine that they were keen to remove this drain on council finances and as a result offloading a long lease made sense.

So lets look at the numbers:

Scenario A - The council keep the lease/freehold.

A 99 year lease costing £300,000 the council per year amounts to £29,700,000 or a nearly £30 million total loss.

Scenario B - The council sell the lease/freehold.

A 99 year lease generating £100,000 for the council per year amounts to £9,900,000 or a nearly £10 million total profit.

I realise that these are very simplistic calculations and things like depreciation and inflation etc. will come into play but it illustrates the point.

Which scenario would you pick if you were a councillor in Doncaster then Grendel?

 

[procdoc]

You're wasting your time James, you won't get a reasonable answer out of Grendel. He makes out he knows more than everyone else but he never puts anything that makes a clear and consise point, just try's to bully and belittle anyone that questions his 'wisdom'. He's a nothing more than a cyber bully

 

[Samo]

I have no pro sisu agenda. I have a pro football club agenda. Despite a lot of rhetoric I currently see no alternatives. Regardless of owners the club has been ripped off by our community unfriendly council.

I love the way anyone who dares to support the club is labelled a troll.

Only in coventry......

That's the very heart of it Grendel, by backing SISU you are certainly NOT supporting the club!

 

[procdoc]

Grendel basically has a pro- Grendel agenda. Disagree at your own peril! Cyber bully, that's all he is

 

[Grendel]

This one here.

But I think you are missing the point. Doncaster FC recently agreed to this on their terms. Prior to this since being at the ground they have paid nothing. They decided to take the management company on - they could have continued to pay nothing.

Ipswich Town were taken to court by the council who then agreed an out of court arrangement of £30,000 a year.

Hull City were supposed to pay £500,000 a year and have on average paid £53,000 a year. They even seem to charge the council for using office space.

Brighton -- do they get the ground free for some reason (BSB will know but this seems the answer)

Forest pay a nominal rent

Regarding scenarios -- which council owned stadium offers the football club the worst deal -- us or any of the above?

 

[Grendel]

You're wasting your time James, you won't get a reasonable answer out of Grendel. He makes out he knows more than everyone else but he never puts anything that makes a clear and consise point, just try's to bully and belittle anyone that questions his 'wisdom'. He's a nothing more than a cyber bully

So when you said regarding the OP it is the most uninformed bull you had ever read on here thats a clear and concise point and a reasonable answer?

 

[James Smith]

But I think you are missing the point. Doncaster FC recently agreed to this on their terms. Prior to this since being at the ground they have paid nothing. They decided to take the management company on - they could have continued to pay nothing.

Ipswich Town were taken to court by the council who then agreed an out of court arrangement of £30,000 a year.

Hull City were supposed to pay £500,000 a year and have on average paid £53,000 a year. They even seem to charge the council for using office space.

Brighton -- do they get the ground free for some reason (BSB will know but this seems the answer)

Forest pay a nominal rent

Regarding scenarios -- which council owned stadium offers the football club the worst deal -- us or any of the above?

So you can't answer the question or do you not understand it? I'll try and make it a bit simpler for you but this may take a few minutes, sorry.

 

[procdoc]

So when you said regarding the OP it is the most uninformed bull you had ever read on here thats a clear and concise point and a reasonable answer?

I gave my short opinion on the OP. if I wanted to type an essay disputing his points made I could. You were the one that called me out in this thread when my post didn't concern you. It's quite apparent that a majority of people on here get riled by your constant belittling. You never offer a reasonable argument, just pretend you're more intelligent than everyone else with your 'wit'. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit yet it's all you rely on, says more about you than me

 

[Grendel]

So you can't answer the question or do you not understand it? I'll try and make it a bit simpler for you but this may take a few minutes, sorry.

I fully understand it. You are trying to argue as the management company was losing money it was a smart move by their council.

This, however, is not the full picture is it. For 4 years the football club played for virtually no money. This wasn't a clever move by the council it was an agreement that they were forced to do as Doncaster claimed to be looking for an alternate ground. They took the lot on as they believed this would enable them to make money.

The club forced the issue.

So that is your answer.

Now answer this. Name one council owned stadium that offers a worse arrangement to its football club than we have.

 

[Grendel]

I gave my short opinion on the OP. if I wanted to type an essay disputing his points made I could. You were the one that called me out in this thread when my post didn't concern you. It's quite apparent that a majority of people on here get riled by your constant belittling. You never offer a reasonable argument, just pretend you're more intelligent than everyone else with your 'wit'. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit yet it's all you rely on, says more about you than me

Right so you can offer a "short opinion" - basically it's bull - yet you accuse me of not having a reasonable argument.

So I'll say your argument is bull -- is that reasonable?

 

[James Smith]

I fully understand it. You are trying to argue as the management company was losing money it was a smart move by their council.

This, however, is not the full picture is it. For 4 years the football club played for virtually no money. This wasn't a clever move by the council it was an agreement that they were forced to do as Doncaster claimed to be looking for an alternate ground. They took the lot on as they believed this would enable them to make money.

The club forced the issue.

So that is your answer.

Now answer this. Name one council owned stadium that offers a worse arrangement to its football club than we have.

Sadly it was a one letter answer kind of question it was either 'A' or 'B' I was after.

So as answering that is clearly not going to happen, do you know what rent were the council asking for before Rovers took on the stadium management?

 

[Samo]

Calm down girls

 

[grego_gee]

SISU have been trying to negotiate a fair rent since they have been here.
Lets just say
£1.2m is ok for the prem
£0.8m is ok for championship
£0.4m is ok for L1

SISU have been here since 2007
5 seasons in the championship paying £1.2m when £0.8 was ok, £0.4m overpaid per season
1 season in L1 paying £0.8m when £0.4m was ok another £0.4m overpaid
so for 6 years they have overpaid by 0.4m, that's 2.4m overpaid

Yes I think it was time to pull the plug!
ACL can still negotiate a rent they just don't have a gun to point any more!

imp:

 

[procdoc]

Right so you can offer a "short opinion" - basically it's bull - yet you accuse me of not having a reasonable argument.

So I'll say your argument is bull -- is that reasonable?

This is the last I'll say on this. The amount of times you've dismissed people on here with one sentence answers far surpasses nearly everyone else'a. You always resort to sarcasm and trying to put other posters down. I don't actually disagree with everything you say such as your recent Tim Fisher thread. Surely you can see why posters get so riled with you? You constantly try and talk down to people, including me. Anyway have nice bank holiday and I'm sure we both hope for 3 points tomorrow, apologies for saying you're not a real Cov fan, just got caught up in the moment! I'm sure we will be disagreeing soon again but until then PUSB

 

[Sky Blues]

But I think you are missing the point. Doncaster FC recently agreed to this on their terms. Prior to this since being at the ground they have paid nothing. They decided to take the management company on - they could have continued to pay nothing.

Ipswich Town were taken to court by the council who then agreed an out of court arrangement of £30,000 a year.

Hull City were supposed to pay £500,000 a year and have on average paid £53,000 a year. They even seem to charge the council for using office space.

Brighton -- do they get the ground free for some reason (BSB will know but this seems the answer)

Forest pay a nominal rent

Regarding scenarios -- which council owned stadium offers the football club the worst deal -- us or any of the above?

Doncaster's stadium is paid for. The Ricoh still has ~£14million left to be paid off on it. The council also put £10million of equity into it. And Higgs bought Cov's share of ACL for around £6million. Do you think CCFC should be given the stadium for free and these other organisations should take a £30million hit?

 

[Grendel]

Sadly it was a one letter answer kind of question it was either 'A' or 'B' I was after.

So as answering that is clearly not going to happen, do you know what rent were the council asking for before Rovers took on the stadium management?

The original concept was to pay £300,000 but this never happened and a nominal fee whatever that is was charged. Also the club did I am 99% certain always have rights to F and B revenues.

You seem to like the words "shining beacon" - I actually mentioned Doncaster only as a response to your post referring to the club -- they are just one of many examples.

 

[Grendel]

Doncaster's stadium is paid for. The Ricoh still has ~£14million left to be paid off on it. The council also put £10million of equity into it. And Higgs bought Cov's share of ACL for around £6million. Do you think CCFC should be given the stadium for free and these other organisations should take a £30million hit?

No but I believe the £14 million that is the outstanding mortgage should be offered to the club on the same terms as ACL are paying. We have already paid over £10 million in rent and have had nothing back from it.

I am not against the club having a long lease and not ownership but receiving all revenues including non football related revenues.

ACL as an entity has to ultimately be part of an umbrella company under the control of the football club.

 

[Grendel]

This is the last I'll say on this. The amount of times you've dismissed people on here with one sentence answers far surpasses nearly everyone else'a. You always resort to sarcasm and trying to put other posters down. I don't actually disagree with everything you say such as your recent Tim Fisher thread. Surely you can see why posters get so riled with you? You constantly try and talk down to people, including me. Anyway have nice bank holiday and I'm sure we both hope for 3 points tomorrow, apologies for saying you're not a real Cov fan, just got caught up in the moment! I'm sure we will be disagreeing soon again but until then PUSB

Fair response.

 

[Grendel]

Doncaster's stadium is paid for.

It cost £32 million - who paid for it?

 

[hill83]

I gave my short opinion on the OP. if I wanted to type an essay disputing his points made I could. You were the one that called me out in this thread when my post didn't concern you. It's quite apparent that a majority of people on here get riled by your constant belittling. You never offer a reasonable argument, just pretend you're more intelligent than everyone else with your 'wit'. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit yet it's all you rely on, says more about you than me

Don't say that someone called you out.
That gets misconstrued as the offer of a fight in a pub car park around these parts.

 

[Spencer]

This is the last I'll say on this. The amount of times you've dismissed people on here with one sentence answers far surpasses nearly everyone else'a. You always resort to sarcasm and trying to put other posters down. I don't actually disagree with everything you say such as your recent Tim Fisher thread. Surely you can see why posters get so riled with you? You constantly try and talk down to people, including me. Anyway have nice bank holiday and I'm sure we both hope for 3 points tomorrow, apologies for saying you're not a real Cov fan, just got caught up in the moment! I'm sure we will be disagreeing soon again but until then PUSB

I've just read this thread and it seems to me that Grendel offers reasoned arguments for his opinion. Fair enough, it doesn't accord with yours, but that doesn't make it unreasoned.

If anything, it strikes me that your only argument is based around, "SISU is bad."

If I was a sarcastic man I could have great fun with your arguments - but as you say sarcasm is the lowest form if wit!

 

[Sky Blues]

No but I believe the £14 million that is the outstanding mortgage should be offered to the club on the same terms as ACL are paying. We have already paid over £10 million in rent and have had nothing back from it.

I am not against the club having a long lease and not ownership but receiving all revenues including non football related revenues.

ACL as an entity has to ultimately be part of an umbrella company under the control of the football club.

Some of the rent CCFC already paid helped pay off the original loan which was £21million, so the principal is £7million lower than it would have been if the club had taken it on at the start and that's not counting the interest. By my quick calculations a £14million loan @ 2% interest for 30 years will come to about £22.4million or almost £750,000 a year. If the club is responsible for it all it will also have to look after the sinking fund for major repairs (at a guess maybe about £250,000 a year?), but it would get the full benefit of income streams. So what would be crucial is how much that could bring in. From what ACL have achieved it appears it might make a small profit for the club and would increase the club's turnover. More development of the site could bring greater income streams but it needs someone prepared to put in the investment to generate those extra revenue streams.

 

[James Smith]

Sadly it was a one letter answer kind of question it was either 'A' or 'B' I was after.

So as answering that is clearly not going to happen, do you know what rent were the council asking for before Rovers took on the stadium management?

I've found out it was £1m apparently in 2011 which they were paying. Then they did as you say have a drop but having read the council scrutiny document I don't think this was due to determined efforts to move elsewhere.

From page 6 of that report

13. It is clear from the financial analysis that none of the Stadium’s main users (the Rovers, the Dons, the Belles and the Athletics) pay the true costs of their usage. The Rovers currently pay £281k per year (to the SMC). They agreed a temporary deal whereby they paid over £700k more per year, but kept the perimeter advertising and match day car parking income. The Rovers were able to end the agreement and they did so in May 2011.

I can't find anything on the web that points to your argument here

But I think you are missing the point. [Read the rest here http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threa...ns-in-the-Head?p=413235&viewfull=1#post413235].

(My Bolding & Underlining & Colouring)

Can you help me with any evidence of this to back your claim up?

In fact further down on page 6

18. It should be noted that there should be no criticism of any of the stadium users in relation to the financial position that the SMC faces. The users have almost always paid what has been agreed with them in a timely manner and it certainly not their fault that the stadium is running as a loss.

So then they looked at selling the stadium but that was seen as unattractive given they would in most cases get less back than they paid.

So on page 20 they considered the option of letting the management company continue

20. Even with a well run SMC it appears certain that losses of £200k - £300k per year will continue to be incurred. In addition significant amounts of officer time are spent on what in reality is not core Council business. However, if no other options can be agreed and implemented then this continuation of the SMC remains on option. This would require the Council to budget for the annual losses.

The document then goes on to say that the probable best case is to offer a long lease to Rovers but that they're going to explore the other options just in case.

26. The Rovers could also have full use of the facilities at all times that they hadn’t contracted for other users such as the Rugby League, the Belles etc. and other events and not be restricted to their current limited days. The Council would seek a longer term lease that was agreed to protect the interests of the other Stadium users and to enhance the community benefits and uses of the Stadium. To this end the Rovers and the Athletics Club have produced lists of community activities that they would enshrine in new lease arrangements.

Really haven't found anything that says they didn't pay their contractually agreed to rent. They were paying rent that owing to the expense of running the SMC never made a positive impact on the Council books but that is not the same as saying that they didn't pay their rent. They did get refused the chance to use the pitch before a Championship match in 2011 but I don't know how that was sorted out. The scheduled users of the pitch, the rugby club had said they didn't have a problem with it. Can you provide any evidence of this refusal to pay rent please.

 

[James Smith]

The original concept was to pay £300,000 but this never happened and a nominal fee whatever that is was charged. Also the club did I am 99% certain always have rights to F and B revenues.

You seem to like the words "shining beacon" - I actually mentioned Doncaster only as a response to your post referring to the club -- they are just one of many examples.

Yes you're correct I was responding to someone else who mentioned the Doncaster stadium.

So are you saying to have a successful league 1 club we must also have a string of hotels and leisure facilities?

Well I'm looking to book myself into Doncasters luxury complex and I cant seem to find it. Any ideas?

I assume you know what happened at Doncaster regarding the ground and the management company do you?

Well yes actually I do now have the full picture which you can read above in my earlier post. Can you please provide evidence to back your claims regarding Doncaster Rovers and the Keepmoat stadium.

 

[Sky Blues]

James, I've summarised the Donaster situation before on a post (4th one down on this page):

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/24428-Thanks-Doncaster/page4

It is an interesting example to pick because I suspect the Keepmoat might be costing Doncaster Rovers far more than ACL's last offer to Sisu on the rent.

 

[James Smith]

Ipswich Town were taken to court by the council who then agreed an out of court arrangement of £30,000 a year.

Okay so we move on to Ipswich and their rent dispute, they were paying just £15k before the dispute kicked off. This was re-assessed (by an independent assessor) to circa £111,500 and backdated to 2004 which is I believe what the club objected to and then refused to pay the backdated rent. There isn't any suggestion that I can find that they refused to pay the council the increased rent (which went up 743% by the way), just the backdated rent amounting to some £650,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-15266223


They settled it with the council and agreed to pay the back rent.

Instead of four years that was initially proposed there will now be six years to pay the owed money back.

The Leader of the local authority said....

"Our annual spending is over £100m and £650,000 is an awful lot of money for us.

"There was no way we could back down on that but we obviously wanted to do the best we could for the club.

"They are a huge asset for the town and we've always wanted to work with them as well as we can.

"We are happy. It seems a sensible compromise. We're getting the money we're owed but are not putting any undue pressure on the club."

Well ACL tried not putting any undue pressure on the club and it got them nowhere.

By the way they have an owner - Marcus Evans - on the Sunday Times Rich List too.

Do you have any evidence for the claim that their rent is only £30,000 as I can only find evidence that they're paying the increased rent and it hasn't been reduced.

 

[Flying Fokker]

James, good stuff here.

Can you now research Grendel's parallel universe and see if he is right? : )

 

[James Smith]

James, I've summarised the Donaster situation before on a post (4th one down on this page):


It is an interesting example to pick because I suspect the Keepmoat might be costing Doncaster Rovers far more than ACL's last offer to Sisu on the rent.

Oh boy could I have saved myself a lot of work, thanks for posting that. I wouldn't be surprised about the costs of the running the Keepmoat and would love to know the answer. I'm not sure I think Rovers deliberately put them over a barrel, but that events conspired against the council which meant Rovers as a main tenant were in a very good position to be considered to take on the lease.

a. Purchasing the Stadium would be unattractive to anyone other than existing users given that it is loss making and is encumbered by the agreements/guarantees given to the main users and the relatively low rentals/charges that the main users pay.

They were still paying their rent to the SMC before getting their longer lease etc. It's just that the SMC was costing the council money, not making the council anything which was the original idea. Don't think the ACL situation is similar in that despite Tim Fisher saying otherwise ACL isn't about to go bust without CCFC (says PWKH) and doesn't cost the council.

 

[James Smith]

James, good stuff here.

Can you now research Grendel's parallel universe and see if he is right? : )

I'll need to see what evidence he has for the current claims first.

Hull City next, although I do need to get some sleep at some point.