Exactly that. Making WWFC a 'sustainable Championship club' is pie in the sky as we all know. What is happening now is (IMHO) the result of one man's unrealistic dream.
Couhig hasn’t put any of his own money in, despite his claims to the contrary.
Since he came into the club, via a Glazer style loan, the club has been living off its multi-million championship revenue stream and the sales of Uche and Fred.
Threatening the club that “he will pull the money” is yet another lie in a continuous field of lies.
You can guess how the 3m loss is going to be funded for this season (and beyond), now that the cash reserves from the championship season have run out…. “External funding”.
The same “external funding” mentioned tonight to fund infrastructure improvements. In other words, a bank loan.
Which will saddle the club with huge debt.
To be clear, Couhig is NOT funding the club, and fans need to understand that. Furthermore, he needs to be called out on it and his threats.
The best thing that can happen is the club is put up for sale, and hope for better owners.
No one should give him abuse. If you don't like it then the guy is usually open enough to engage with. I have on a couple of occasions emailed him and got prompt replies.
I don't know on what basis anyone has the right to abuse him. Nothing was underhand. Nothing was surprising. We rightly criticise Derby fans for allowing their owners to overspend whilst cheering along. Well we all cheered when Vokes signed, when Scowen signed, when Mawson signed. So anyone who thinks shouting profanities about that too, they are probably the same people who abused him on FB for not splashing cash in the summer on a variety of players. We are all complicit and need to make peace with our situation one way or another. You want to vent, vent at the trust for not being tougher. Vent, don't abuse.
And also to Rob. This is our club, our DNA, our family. We will get defensive when we hear something we don't like. Don't take this is a slight. We will be here long after you have gone, even if we are cheering on our team down The Rye.
Cool, clear, pragmatic and reasonable heads needed folks, not anger and abuse. Storms and problems are part of life (and I know that so well at present from where I find I am in the snap of a finger in health terms). Positivity is king even under the stress of significant change. COYB.
Maybe that would have been less disingenuous & perhaps more fan friendly in so far as many feel they have been taken in/duped. It would also have forced the hand of the old guard much sooner & perhaps allowed some new thoughts into the Trust
I was on zoom tonight for the whole meeting. However, not sure whether it was my internet or the sound from the meeting or a bit of both but cannot say I heard everything clearly. What I can say is that I did not hear RC threaten to pull the plug.
That said he effectively owns 75% of the club we all know that will most likely determine our immediate direction of travel
Regarding actual money put in, didn't he say he's already contributed 750K, and is about to put in another 750K to make a total of £1.5M. The trust have only contributed £100K, so far less than they 25% stake we own.
@TheAndyGrahamFanClub I didn’t say he “should be” abused. I am just imagining that the mood in the ground on future matchdays might not feel as welcoming to him as the mood from those ‘honeymoon’ matchdays gone by, given some of the feelings displayed tonight. And I’m imagining that he won’t take too well to a less positive reception. It could all unravel very quickly. You said the other day we need to remember we’re actually a League One mid-table club. I was saying the other day that we’re actually, historically, more of an Isthmian League club...
What I'm struggling to get my head around is that we all seem to have gone along with the being sustainable running thing.... and all unaware that we are losing 3million a year.
How has this been missed? I thought we publish annually our books?
And also cant we look it up for free on companies House website?
I feel as though we need an independent group to have a voice. I don't want to completely throw RC or the Trust under the bus, but it feels as though an independent fan group would be ideal for having a collective perspective that is heard. Would WWISC work along these lines?
Note: Even better if that group knows how to work a Zoom call.
I was one of many who couldn’t get on Zoom tonight. I’m picking up that Couhig became aggressive on being pressed on questions. Interested to know what “ rattled his cage “ because clearly it won’t come out in the watered down synopsis being produced by the Trust board to appease the members.
I joined the zoom meeting at 6.55 and was admitted in after a couple of minutes. Straightforward.
The tech set up was extremely poor and amateurish and that is down to the Trust, not the club. This was a Trust meeting and they could have planned the zoom capacity, lighting and microphones much better. That poor tech set up, especially the problems with sound made hearing the thrust of argument a lot more difficult.
The trust presented slides that showed (from memory)
a £3m profit from the year in the championship
a £3m loss from the year afterwards
a £3m loss budgeted for this year
further ground improvements of perhaps £2-3m planned. If total loss was c.£5m in the near term then the trust would have to find £1.25m to pay 25% of the spending and this was impossible. Rob would fund all of the spend in exchange for 15% of the club equity plus a 50 year lease on the stadium at £20k per year. The trust had agreed to this and any vote tonight would be indicative only.
Rob had injected £750k recently and the trust had put in £100k. Rob was putting in another £750k next week.
Derby had paid us £400k in settlement and we had paid £100k to our lawyers who had advised that we accept the offer and settle.
in my view the Trust simply cannot sustain 25% of the spend required at an ambitious league one club and this is the crux of tonight’s meeting. Rob’s proposal seems fair to me in terms of valuing the 15% equity to be surrendered.
Holding a significant equity stake comes with significant responsibility and the Trust has never raised sufficient money to play its 25% financial stake in the future…nor could it.
Thanks for the summary, @Forest_Blue. My concern is that there has never been transparency over how much of a loss we are running at. If the ambition was to be sustainable, it is quite possible the Trust could come up with 25% of any shortfall. The plan was never to come up with 25% of multiple millions of pounds spent on benchwarmers. It feels as though we had been put in a position where we cannot "protect the quarter", but there were other approaches available.
I guess we need a catchy slogan for the inevitable 10%. "Protect the badge"? "Protect the collar"?
@Forest_Blue - the issue I have, knowing that we have a 25% commitment, is that WWFC should NOT have been running losses of £6m! It goes against the fundamentals (and articles) of the Trust and the Trust Directors are personally liable for their actions in not keeping the WWFC spending in responsible limits. We shouldn't have to be finding 1.25m - because we shouldn't have overspent - especially with £3m profits from the previous year. We are being bullied, like we were by the borrowing in Steve Hayes era. If the Coughigs overspent, they should pay the piper. We should NOT go below the 25% shareholding IMHO.
I've started reading the Debenture / Registration of Charge - if they pull the plug, it wont be as straightforward as they might think. They may have lent money to WWFC, which doesn't have the assets to repay, but also doesn't own the ground.
All very messy, when the Trust and the Coughigs should have been a lot less reckless. :(
Excellent summary. In effect the Trust board has valued the 15% stake at 1.25m which values the football club at £8.3M. Given that FALL will retain ownership of the ground that doesn't actually sound so bad - I feared we would be asked to relinquish a level of ownership of Adams Park.
I think the deal that has been agreed by the board is actually quite fair.
Where the huge worry klaxon honks though is the bombshell we are losing £3M a season under the current model AND just about to invest massively in stands, roads and the pitch. This is what really worries me. We got promoted with the likes of Samuel and Bloomfield and a bunch of other teams’ cast offs. Spending on expensive squads doesn’t guarantee anything and is completely bonkers if you’re building a model of sustainability .
Tonight’s meeting was an absolute shower with dozens of members unable to participate, amateur meeting control on Zoom, poor audio and video, but the real issue was the lack of interest in the vote. The board members couldn’t see the online votes to start with then couldn’t agree on how many had been cast, then ended the meeting with Zoom callers complaining that votes hadn’t been counted.
In case anyone is in any doubt about it RC himself confirmed, in answer to a question from the floor, that come the day he/his inheritors sell the football club then the Trust would have to sell it's share at the agreed valuation. On that day the Trust will own 0% of the football club. That's a direct consequence of the decision to sell 75% to him originally. Nothing about today affects that - it only affects what % the Trust would still own and hence how much money they get for it.
Knowing what I know now around the extent of the losses, I actually feel very uncomfortable about some of the huge salaries we have on our books.
As hard as it may be, we need to move some of them off the books ASAP to bring us down to a more sustainable footing. I mean it’s great watching Mawson play, but not at the risk of the future of my club.
Gareth has done an excellent job in the past of finding players with excellent character who haven’t been rated by other managers - this is the model I feel we need to move back to.
Spot on mate. I think if most of us knew the options, we would have preferred sustainability without Vokes, Mawson and the like, even if it meant the battle was at the bottom end of L1 instead of the top.
As a Trust member I have to take some responsibility here. How did I not know that we were losing £3M a year? Because I believed the Trust board and Rob to be committed to financial prudence and deluded myself in thinking that we had that.
To be fair as soon as I heard plans to expand the ground and build roads I knew were were done for as a Trust as there was no way we could find 25% of any major capital injection. I just naively didn’t think we’d go down for not being able to find capital to pay off huge debt run up in day to day management within a few years.
After having a Twitter convo with Pete during the time the decision was made to stop publishing contract lengths for players, I warned him that I felt they were coming to the end of the honeymoon period with the supporters and largely had garnered good favour with the majority when he had mentioned he’d been dealing with criticism from day one at the club.
Comments
Exactly that. Making WWFC a 'sustainable Championship club' is pie in the sky as we all know. What is happening now is (IMHO) the result of one man's unrealistic dream.
Couhig hasn’t put any of his own money in, despite his claims to the contrary.
Since he came into the club, via a Glazer style loan, the club has been living off its multi-million championship revenue stream and the sales of Uche and Fred.
Threatening the club that “he will pull the money” is yet another lie in a continuous field of lies.
You can guess how the 3m loss is going to be funded for this season (and beyond), now that the cash reserves from the championship season have run out…. “External funding”.
The same “external funding” mentioned tonight to fund infrastructure improvements. In other words, a bank loan.
Which will saddle the club with huge debt.
To be clear, Couhig is NOT funding the club, and fans need to understand that. Furthermore, he needs to be called out on it and his threats.
The best thing that can happen is the club is put up for sale, and hope for better owners.
Interesting thoughts, but RC is ALSO under no obligation to throw money at an access road, a new stand, a new pitch etc.
No one should give him abuse. If you don't like it then the guy is usually open enough to engage with. I have on a couple of occasions emailed him and got prompt replies.
I don't know on what basis anyone has the right to abuse him. Nothing was underhand. Nothing was surprising. We rightly criticise Derby fans for allowing their owners to overspend whilst cheering along. Well we all cheered when Vokes signed, when Scowen signed, when Mawson signed. So anyone who thinks shouting profanities about that too, they are probably the same people who abused him on FB for not splashing cash in the summer on a variety of players. We are all complicit and need to make peace with our situation one way or another. You want to vent, vent at the trust for not being tougher. Vent, don't abuse.
And also to Rob. This is our club, our DNA, our family. We will get defensive when we hear something we don't like. Don't take this is a slight. We will be here long after you have gone, even if we are cheering on our team down The Rye.
Cool, clear, pragmatic and reasonable heads needed folks, not anger and abuse. Storms and problems are part of life (and I know that so well at present from where I find I am in the snap of a finger in health terms). Positivity is king even under the stress of significant change. COYB.
Maybe that would have been less disingenuous & perhaps more fan friendly in so far as many feel they have been taken in/duped. It would also have forced the hand of the old guard much sooner & perhaps allowed some new thoughts into the Trust
I was on zoom tonight for the whole meeting. However, not sure whether it was my internet or the sound from the meeting or a bit of both but cannot say I heard everything clearly. What I can say is that I did not hear RC threaten to pull the plug.
That said he effectively owns 75% of the club we all know that will most likely determine our immediate direction of travel
Regarding actual money put in, didn't he say he's already contributed 750K, and is about to put in another 750K to make a total of £1.5M. The trust have only contributed £100K, so far less than they 25% stake we own.
He did indeed say that during the Q&A when complaining about the exchange rate going from $0.90 to $1.10 to the £.
@TheAndyGrahamFanClub I didn’t say he “should be” abused. I am just imagining that the mood in the ground on future matchdays might not feel as welcoming to him as the mood from those ‘honeymoon’ matchdays gone by, given some of the feelings displayed tonight. And I’m imagining that he won’t take too well to a less positive reception. It could all unravel very quickly. You said the other day we need to remember we’re actually a League One mid-table club. I was saying the other day that we’re actually, historically, more of an Isthmian League club...
What I'm struggling to get my head around is that we all seem to have gone along with the being sustainable running thing.... and all unaware that we are losing 3million a year.
How has this been missed? I thought we publish annually our books?
And also cant we look it up for free on companies House website?
I feel as though we need an independent group to have a voice. I don't want to completely throw RC or the Trust under the bus, but it feels as though an independent fan group would be ideal for having a collective perspective that is heard. Would WWISC work along these lines?
Note: Even better if that group knows how to work a Zoom call.
I was one of many who couldn’t get on Zoom tonight. I’m picking up that Couhig became aggressive on being pressed on questions. Interested to know what “ rattled his cage “ because clearly it won’t come out in the watered down synopsis being produced by the Trust board to appease the members.
I'd be very keen on this
I don’t know as we couldn’t hear the questions. That question caused RC to interrupt so we never got a summary.
The football club, together with the Trust and FALL do indeed have to publish annual accounts. Here you go ...
FALL https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07884604
Trust https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05190371
WWFC https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05132509
I joined the zoom meeting at 6.55 and was admitted in after a couple of minutes. Straightforward.
The tech set up was extremely poor and amateurish and that is down to the Trust, not the club. This was a Trust meeting and they could have planned the zoom capacity, lighting and microphones much better. That poor tech set up, especially the problems with sound made hearing the thrust of argument a lot more difficult.
The trust presented slides that showed (from memory)
a £3m profit from the year in the championship
a £3m loss from the year afterwards
a £3m loss budgeted for this year
further ground improvements of perhaps £2-3m planned. If total loss was c.£5m in the near term then the trust would have to find £1.25m to pay 25% of the spending and this was impossible. Rob would fund all of the spend in exchange for 15% of the club equity plus a 50 year lease on the stadium at £20k per year. The trust had agreed to this and any vote tonight would be indicative only.
Rob had injected £750k recently and the trust had put in £100k. Rob was putting in another £750k next week.
Derby had paid us £400k in settlement and we had paid £100k to our lawyers who had advised that we accept the offer and settle.
in my view the Trust simply cannot sustain 25% of the spend required at an ambitious league one club and this is the crux of tonight’s meeting. Rob’s proposal seems fair to me in terms of valuing the 15% equity to be surrendered.
Holding a significant equity stake comes with significant responsibility and the Trust has never raised sufficient money to play its 25% financial stake in the future…nor could it.
All things considered, this has been a make or break day.
Not sure on which side I sit, but either side is not very comfortable
Thanks for the summary, @Forest_Blue. My concern is that there has never been transparency over how much of a loss we are running at. If the ambition was to be sustainable, it is quite possible the Trust could come up with 25% of any shortfall. The plan was never to come up with 25% of multiple millions of pounds spent on benchwarmers. It feels as though we had been put in a position where we cannot "protect the quarter", but there were other approaches available.
I guess we need a catchy slogan for the inevitable 10%. "Protect the badge"? "Protect the collar"?
@Forest_Blue - the issue I have, knowing that we have a 25% commitment, is that WWFC should NOT have been running losses of £6m! It goes against the fundamentals (and articles) of the Trust and the Trust Directors are personally liable for their actions in not keeping the WWFC spending in responsible limits. We shouldn't have to be finding 1.25m - because we shouldn't have overspent - especially with £3m profits from the previous year. We are being bullied, like we were by the borrowing in Steve Hayes era. If the Coughigs overspent, they should pay the piper. We should NOT go below the 25% shareholding IMHO.
I've started reading the Debenture / Registration of Charge - if they pull the plug, it wont be as straightforward as they might think. They may have lent money to WWFC, which doesn't have the assets to repay, but also doesn't own the ground.
All very messy, when the Trust and the Coughigs should have been a lot less reckless. :(
Excellent summary. In effect the Trust board has valued the 15% stake at 1.25m which values the football club at £8.3M. Given that FALL will retain ownership of the ground that doesn't actually sound so bad - I feared we would be asked to relinquish a level of ownership of Adams Park.
I think the deal that has been agreed by the board is actually quite fair.
Where the huge worry klaxon honks though is the bombshell we are losing £3M a season under the current model AND just about to invest massively in stands, roads and the pitch. This is what really worries me. We got promoted with the likes of Samuel and Bloomfield and a bunch of other teams’ cast offs. Spending on expensive squads doesn’t guarantee anything and is completely bonkers if you’re building a model of sustainability .
Tonight’s meeting was an absolute shower with dozens of members unable to participate, amateur meeting control on Zoom, poor audio and video, but the real issue was the lack of interest in the vote. The board members couldn’t see the online votes to start with then couldn’t agree on how many had been cast, then ended the meeting with Zoom callers complaining that votes hadn’t been counted.
In case anyone is in any doubt about it RC himself confirmed, in answer to a question from the floor, that come the day he/his inheritors sell the football club then the Trust would have to sell it's share at the agreed valuation. On that day the Trust will own 0% of the football club. That's a direct consequence of the decision to sell 75% to him originally. Nothing about today affects that - it only affects what % the Trust would still own and hence how much money they get for it.
Knowing what I know now around the extent of the losses, I actually feel very uncomfortable about some of the huge salaries we have on our books.
As hard as it may be, we need to move some of them off the books ASAP to bring us down to a more sustainable footing. I mean it’s great watching Mawson play, but not at the risk of the future of my club.
Gareth has done an excellent job in the past of finding players with excellent character who haven’t been rated by other managers - this is the model I feel we need to move back to.
Didn’t say for a minute you did, apologies if it came across like that.
I was expressing to the wider audience largely on FB who usually feel that they have paid their money so can shout what they like.
Spot on mate. I think if most of us knew the options, we would have preferred sustainability without Vokes, Mawson and the like, even if it meant the battle was at the bottom end of L1 instead of the top.
I can’t see Ainsworth hanging around too much longer if I’m honest.
I'm afraid the situation is too dire to take any pleasure in writing an 'I told you so all along'-type post.
Excellent summary - thank you.
As a Trust member I have to take some responsibility here. How did I not know that we were losing £3M a year? Because I believed the Trust board and Rob to be committed to financial prudence and deluded myself in thinking that we had that.
To be fair as soon as I heard plans to expand the ground and build roads I knew were were done for as a Trust as there was no way we could find 25% of any major capital injection. I just naively didn’t think we’d go down for not being able to find capital to pay off huge debt run up in day to day management within a few years.
After having a Twitter convo with Pete during the time the decision was made to stop publishing contract lengths for players, I warned him that I felt they were coming to the end of the honeymoon period with the supporters and largely had garnered good favour with the majority when he had mentioned he’d been dealing with criticism from day one at the club.
I didn’t think I would be this correct.