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Trust Meeting September 12th

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  • This is a long shot but is anyone aware that there is any sort of database of accounts info for clubs in lg1/2?

    I assume not but it would be quite a helpful reference point.

    I can't figure out how to copy and paste screengrabs from Companies House, otherwise I'd go through a few similar clubs and drop the information in here myself.

    It seems to me that the information would help us make an informed decision.

    For example, AFC Wimbledon for the year ended June 29 '17 had turnover of £4.8m and made a loss of £300k. This was covered by player sale income of £350k*. So a fairly similar position to WWFC.

    *based on my layman's reading.

  • However the ground is currently classified it's not actually parkland or farmland, its the end of an industrial estate. Should we ever vacate, especially if the the ground went in to disrepair, there is no reason why the council wouldn't redesignate its use.

    Out of interest is there anything to state the football club would always get access to the ground (owned by Fall) and that it would be rent free? Who pays for upkeep? And is the club obliged to use AP if there owners feel there's a cheaper option. See SISU for more info.

  • I understand from Dev that if the goalkeeper catches a grouse on the pitch once a year the council can never build on it. It's written down somewhere.

  • @Wendoverman said:
    I understand from Dev that if the goalkeeper catches a grouse on the pitch once a year the council can never build on it. It's written down somewhere.

    I think you can only legally catch grouse between 12th August and 10th December.

  • edited September 2018

    Oh no....that could be the loophole that ends up with Adams PArk under a big Tesco! I cannot remember which game it was so not sure of the dates...at least we've got Yves if Rocky is arrested for out of season grouse handling.

  • @StrongestTeam If a new owner were to take ownership of the club without taking ownership of the stadium, FALL would surely have to charge the club for its use. There would otherwise be little or no income and FALL would struggle to raise sufficient funds to maintain the stadium from other revenue streams. Should that owner decide, for whatever reason, to make changes such that Wycombe Wanderers home games are played elsewhere, there wouldn't be anything fans could do directly to stop them.

    I think moving home ground more than a specified distance from Adams Park, or it may be a specified distance from Wycombe, is something that would require approval by legacy member vote under the current constitution. As someone else has already commented elsewhere, however, if another party takes ownership of the club the current constitution will become defunct and nothing more than a historical document for the archives.

  • FALL don’t currently need to raise funds to maintain the stadium do they ? The football club does ....as evidenced by the FD citing the £250k bill to fix the Frank Adams Stand Roof as one of the reasons he thinks we are heading for unsustainabity....

  • I do wish that people would calm down and stop imagining that Armageddon is just around the corner.
    We’re at a very early stage of conversation with potential investors so let’s wait until more details emerge and get back to supporting the team.

  • If two years of discussions are 'early days' I'll sit back for the next decade before anything happens. Very worried about @DevC if this topic goes cold for a bit. It is what he has trolled this site for so long for.

  • @Right_in_the_Middle said:
    If two years of discussions are 'early days' I'll sit back for the next decade before anything happens. Very worried about @DevC if this topic goes cold for a bit. It is what he has trolled this site for so long for.

    You’re right (in the middle!), clumsy use of words on my part as the speakers did say that they’d been in conversation for two years. What I meant was early stages of the Trust membership being officially informed which will obviously take the negotiations onto a new level.

  • @marlowchair I only come on here to state fact and therefore wish to correct you and hopefully lay one of your 'conspiracy theories' from 1.21pm to rest.

    The names and individual contributions of the Chairboys Funders ("CF") have not, and will not, be declared in "the public record" that you claim to have seen. When the first CF scheme was set up in 2013, it was ruled that Trust (and/or Club) Directors, and their spouses, should NOT become CF members - to avoid any possible conflict of interest. (The same rule also applied earlier this year to CF's 2nd scheme.) Instead they were able to, and did, invest in the Trust's Community Share Scheme.

    That ruling did not prevent any original CF member, or their spouse, subsequently standing for election, becoming a Trust Director and declaring their interest at Board meetings when necessary.

    Alan Cecil
    As Company Secretary to Chairboys Funders Limited.

  • I am a fan of fan ownership, and I like the idea of us being different. I love our history and I count myself lucky to have witnessed some of the best bits of it.

    I wasn't at the meeting but listened. It seemed to me that sincerity was a hallmark of all the speakers whatever their viewpoint. Because of the club we are I suspect that we will be surprised, interested and challenged to think - when the facts about the various parties are revealed. I believe that we will have real, proper and interesting choices then.

    Until then the football is the most important thing - and beating Oxford tomorrow would be joyful.
    A crowd that was behind the team would be glorious.

    I rather hope Gareth and the team have been concentrating on the game. My slight regret is that all I can do to help is to put a game related thread to the top of the list just as soon as I have posted this.

  • Well said Steve.

  • @marlowchair said:

    @Manboobs said:
    Forgive my ignorance but does any Director, board member, shareholder, legacy member and so forth stand to gain financially if new minority or majority shareholders come in? I mean gain in a way that is already known about and above board, for example, if the financial position of the club is above X at year end then Mr/Ms Y will receive a bonus or somesuch.

    In deciding if and when I am asked to vote on anything I will want to know not just what any investor gets from any stake but also what anyone already involved in the club and ground may gain (or lose) financially and in other less tangible areas.

    No stakes or profitable outcomes exist for any directors or associates unless the training ground lease was ever turn up and those three benefactors who own it sold it for a profit which is their right of course but highly unlikely as the TG arrangement works well for the club .

    If financial outcomes from a sale and any bias that may create in decision making is your concern the only people who would “ benefit” per se are the clubs creditors . Around £950k of debt remains according to the FD on Wednesday night of which around £450k is choirboy funders - please correct me if my memory is wrong in detail .

    One or two people make up a large portion of that debt as funders if around £100k each or more. Theoretically if any of those are agitating for repayment or need repayment for any variety of reasons , and had influence on the board , then there could be a bias towards selling the club at board level.

    I don’t know this to be the case , just outlining a response to possibilities. What is fact is that directors ( either elected or appointed) have funds loaned to the club and at least one directors ( I won’t specify if elected or not ) direct family members have significant cash invested as chairboy funders . This is on public record and not speculation.

    I don’t think pressure from
    Creditors or lenders is a pressure creating bias in the decision making but it is possible and deserving of the question being asked manboobs

    Sincere apologies to Alan Cecil as I’ve erroneously labelled chairboy funders as the method creditors who have invested in club in this fashion , it wasn’t intentional,

    Nor was it a conspiracy theory Alan, my post in response to manboobs clearly is supportive of the board in stating none have any financial gain in pushing for a sale .

    The important point hasn’t changed given your response: any individual who has large funds invested in the club ( regardless of which scheme they used to invest and the name of said scheme ) who is a director or spouse or family member of a director could conceivably create a bias for that director to agitate for sale of the club if they required their funds paid out for whatever reason.

    It’s isn’t a conspiracy theory, the question was posed and responce given. Am I wrong l?

  • @AlanCecil said:
    @marlowchair I only come on here to state fact and therefore wish to correct you and hopefully lay one of your 'conspiracy theories' from 1.21pm to rest.

    The names and individual contributions of the Chairboys Funders ("CF") have not, and will not, be declared in "the public record" that you claim to have seen. When the first CF scheme was set up in 2013, it was ruled that Trust (and/or Club) Directors, and their spouses, should NOT become CF members - to avoid any possible conflict of interest. (The same rule also applied earlier this year to CF's 2nd scheme.) Instead they were able to, and did, invest in the Trust's Community Share Scheme.

    That ruling did not prevent any original CF member, or their spouse, subsequently standing for election, becoming a Trust Director and declaring their interest at Board meetings when necessary.

    Alan Cecil
    As Company Secretary to Chairboys Funders Limited.

    Again I appreciate the clarification and apologise for wrongly labelling the chairboy fund scheme as the means current large value investors are currently part of the £950k remaining debt.

    It would be very helpful if the board gave the membership some idea of the make up of who those creditors are that make up the £950k debt before we are asked to make any decisions surely ?

    Especially given the finance meeting where we are invited to ask for more detail on the finances is actually after the AGM as a questioner asked from the floor on Wednesday!

    No one needs to know names but an indication of how many people we owe money to , how many we owe less than £1k to , how many we owe £1-£10k to , how many we owe £10k-50k to , how many we owe £50k-£100k to and how many we owe more than £100k to ?

    You may see it as conspiracy theories but I think it’s rather important should , for example , a director or spouse of director ( elected or unelected ) who has substantial power and influence at the club , was a substantial contributor of over £50k or £100k of that debt ?

    The mere fact the rules were put in place in 2013 to “ avoid any possible conflict of interest” ( your words not mine) suggests that if that is the case currently we have every reason to raise it and ask for some transparency ?

  • I have to think long and hard about this but I guess we can hear the presentation.

  • Alan Cecil - would it be possible to deny the rumour that our chairman is receiving money from Beechdean? It would help squash some of the conspiraracy theories.

  • It might be a slight understatement to say I'm late chiming in on this thread, but there's been some good discussion on what was presented on Wednesday evening.

    What was most concerning was that the top table laid on their sales pitch very thick, very in contradiction to the positive picture they were trying to paint at the previous AGM. The pitch also glossed over the realities of relying on private investment to cover losses incurred by the inevitable increases in expenses due to 'going on a journey' (which may or may not be related to 'chasing the dream').
    Long-standing Gasroomers will no doubt be familiar with the lamenting of the club posting £1m losses season after season under Steve Hayes, with paper-thin assurances that it was his money, WWFC had nothing to worry about.
    I sympathise with the sentiment that should any outsider come in and buy a stake in the club should not assumed to be just like the last person to do so, though the history of football is littered with people coming in and leaving clubs in dire straits. Even those owners held up as perfect examples, such as Jack Hayward and Jack Walker whose commitment to their respective clubs could never be questioned, will only be around for so long. What comes next when the losses can't be funded on favourable terms, the owner/new owner can't do what they want with the ground, or no one is around at all to do so can be catastrophic.

    Also alarm bells started ringing when it was revealed that one of the prospective consortia was one that has owned other 1,000+ businesses. I would imagine that WWFC would not feature very high in a venture capitalist's list of priorities, the last thing we need for a SISU/Coventry type situation to develop.

    Lots of questions still need to be answered and a lot more detail required as to the nitty gritty of the proposals and just what risk WWFC would be opening itself up to.

  • If I were a prospective purchaser of part or whole of WWFC I’d be very happy to attend a meeting of Trust members as last Wednesday & put my case. I’d possibly get a real grilling but you’d expect that. I’d like to see either or both potential purchasers come & introduce themselves & say what their plans are.

  • If I recall correctly @ReadingMarginalista they introduced the 1000+ businesses claim as some sort of major positive. It worried me immensely.

  • Yes, likewise

    How anyone would think that was a positive thing is beyond me

  • I totally agree, we weren’t supposed to know if reps from the buyers were present, but none of them could ever accuse the FD and Chair of not passionately promoting their cause. It was disappointing our leadership presented in such a pre-determined fashion.

    Unfortunately our starry eyed FD gushing about the 1000s of business interests one suitor has only served to highlight how diometrically opposite their model and values is to our current model and values ,

  • "Starry-eyed" should be hyphenated and it's "diametrically".

    If you're going to make ad hominem attacks on a person who works so hard for the good of the club, spelling them correctly makes you look literate even if your bitterness and willingness to judge harshly and partially remain evident.

  • Ridiculous HCblue. When your super “ director of finance” who is charged with upholding governance and standards in representing our club can get basic copy and paste right on important club issued communications and documents, and excercise basic proof reading and checks before publishing them, you can step out of your glass house and play spelling police on here .

    Talk about focusing on the important stuff..

    Seeing as you are taking up the defence today & As you support the FD so strongly, can you enlighten us on his qualifications ? Serious question.

  • edited September 2018

    Gosh

  • @marlowchair said:

    Seeing as you are taking up the defence today & As you support the FD so strongly, can you enlighten us on his qualifications ? Serious question.

    Seems qualified to me. He's been in finance and banking since 1980:

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-burrell-5117101/

  • Interesting isn’t is PP? We can call our players for being hopeless or not up to standard, we can bemoan the basic competency of match officials, with even our own manager saying that unless they are full time they won’t be Uk to standard .

    But criticise or question the work of a director who many agree presented poorly at last weeks meeting, and attract the wrath ...

    Another question then, why does our FD need to parade about on the pitch before warm ups at most away games?

  • @HCblue said:
    "Starry-eyed" should be hyphenated and it's "diametrically".

    If you're going to make ad hominem attacks on a person who works so hard for the good of the club, spelling them correctly makes you look literate even if your bitterness and willingness to judge harshly and partially remain evident.

    poor start to the week

  • @marlowchair I'm not sure I particularly agree with you either

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