Finances
Took a look at the financial slides presented at the AGM. Would be interested to hear what was said from those at the meeting because still all looks a bit perilous to me.
As i read the numbers , FALL and WWFC together made a profit of £76k last season/year after charging depreciation of £121k. So broadly operating cash generated of £197k. So far so good. However that includes profit on the playoff run (not disclosed as far as I can say but match day income up £300k, so reasonable to estimate profit on play offs at say £200k) and player sales of £540k. Neither play off or player sales can be relied on year on year, so eliminating them would leave cash generated before playoffs and player sales of approximately minus £500k. Gates this season dont really seem to have had a Wembley bounce, so that looks like our baseline for this season.
thats quite a big number. Cant think of any significant player sales money this season , maybe something from J ibe breaking through into the Liverpool team?? Looking forward reasonable chance of a pay day from Ingram and Pierre but otherwise that cupboard is starting to look a little bare.
In addition to operating cash we will have cash income from the share scheme (but unclear how much that can sustainably raise) but continue to have to make debt repayments to hayes and in a couple of years the "Chairboy funders". Hard to see this element being much better than cash neutral.
While progress has clearly been made, still looking concerning for the future.
Comments
At the meeting the finance chap recognised that there was still a long way to go, but, as he put it, "we are not out of the woods by a long way, but now we know the path out" (or something like that).
The point he made all evening was that now they knew where the money was going and how much was going out , they had control and ALL debts were now being paid on time every month.
They also know that more revenue needs to come in and that is being addressed, one small example was using money from the share scheme to fix the big screen so they can now sell advertising on it.
Scowen and PCH made a combined £540k? That's not too bad, given one's now playing back in League 2 and the other looks like he'll probably be back here next season.
Shows how important it is we sign O'Nien on a long-term contact sharpish.