ALL issues relating to the bond issue and club finances

[Rood]

It is a bit of a silly article, although he is right that there will be a bit of a shortfall due to less CL money - but the nomoney.com thing sounds like media bollocks to me, an unnamed source as usual

We spent plenty last summer - if people werent content with that then they will never be happy.

SimonAdebesi- I'll respond to your post later, too much in there to give a quick reply to!

 

[Adebesi]

I dont have the figures in front of me but if you take the Ronaldo money into consideration we cant have spent much, if anything, on a net basis, in the last three years. Yes, we have spent some money, and I have been happy with the signings we have made - more so with Young now than I was at the time. But to make out that we should be feeling completely satisfied with our net spend in recent years, or people will never be happy, is bollocks.

If we had reinvested all the Ronaldo money, AND spent the money we have spent in the meantime, then we would be in line with what it was suggested we would be getting (I cant remember the numbers off the top of my head but wasnt it supposed to be £15m net per year or something?) And then we could be satisfied - but even then I dont think I would be saying wow, thank you Mr Glazer, thank you for your kind largesse! Id be saying, good, you are doing what you said you would do, which is the least we should expect really.

And as it is I think much less than that. I think the man is a piece of shit and a parasite who is much luckier to have us than we are to have him.

 

[Rood]

woah there Simon! you are putting words in my mouth here - I refered only to last summer and havent made any comment about net spend etc. and TBH I really cant be arsed to start going back to discussing 'the Ronaldo money' it is has been done to death.

and lets be clear here - I am not asking you to be thankful to the Glazers for anything and I totally agree that he is luckier to have us than we are to have him!

But let me ask you one question - if (and it is still if) we dont win the league this year, do you think it is due to lack of investment in the squad?

 

[Adebesi]

woah there Simon! you are putting words in my mouth here - I refered only to last summer and havent made any comment about net spend etc. and TBH I really cant be arsed to start going back to discussing 'the Ronaldo money' it is has been done to death.

Fair enough, but I was responding to:

We spent plenty last summer - if people werent content with that then they will never be happy.

And I dont think you can look at how happy we are or should be without looking at spending over a longer period.

But let me ask you one question - if (and it is still if) we dont win the league this year, do you think it is due to lack of investment in the squad?

I said above: "I dont think anyone else managing our squad would have got them this far. And I think him managing City, this title would have been over by March."

That kind of answers the question, doesnt it? I think we have a good squad as it goes but I dont think our first XI is strong enough. More specifically, and to cover well trodden ground, we are lightweight in midfield.

Ill answer it directly but probably a little weakly: it is yes and no. I think if we had invested in a really quality midfield ball winner / defensive midfielder, the kind of player who would be a starter in our best XI, we would have been in better shape to win the league. HOWEVER, it would be crass to blame what has happened to us in the last month on Glazer. So it goes back to what I said before: we are where we are because of SAF. Nobody else would have got us this close, unless they had better options in midfield. And if we did have them, we would probably have got over the line in the league, and would have represented ourselves better in Europe and the cups.

 

[2Bullish]

Since the football league began every owner has been in it for the money. Yet, as soon as an owner comes along that is either a lifelong fan or, more recently, a rich person that wants to write off his tax, than we are all appalled by what they are doing.

Make no mistake, if you own a football club, eventually you are in it for the money.

What does this mean. It means, you use your considerable nouse at business (lets face it we will take this as a given because they have made enough to buy a football club the size of Manchester United) to make the club successful. Which means a good manager and the funds to buy the best players because without it, you fail.

What does this mean for a team like Manchester United. It means we have to keep winning because we are the best. We are the best team in the land, we have to win to keep the momentum.

We have done that. The only difference is we were without our first team for most of the season and that, more than anything else will define our season.

Unfortunately for the Glazers is that they are damned if they do or damn......well you get the picture.

The debt will be paid, the game will go one, we will always compete and that's football. It hasn't changed.

Owners will always come and go. The fact is the Glazers are the owners now. IF, we were going into decline because of our ownership I would be worried but we are not. The opposite is true, we are there or there abouts with all the billions that our football philanthropists are throwing at us.

Anyways, back to the share issue. When was the last time we had a philanthropist or Billionaire in charge of Manchester United because I cannot remember. I always thought the owners were in it for the money, how has anything changed?

 

[Rood]

HOWEVER, it would be crass to blame what has happened to us in the last month on Glazer.

Yes well that is more or less what I was getting at by asking you the question. After all you cant blame the late collapse against Everton on lack of spending in the squad and if that hadnt happened would the journalists be writting those articles and would we even be having this conversation?

FWIW we have a pretty similar opinion on the squad - it is strong but we are a team in transition with a lot of future potential, just needs a couple of additions to push on to the next level. The difference seems to be that I believe we have enough cash to make those couple of signings whereas you are not so sure.

I also think you can't underestimate the impact of injuries this year - I agree that we do still have a question mark in midfield but at the end of the day we are without Fletcher, Anderson and Cleverley for almost the whole season (plus all the other injuries). I fully believe if we had the same injury list as City this year then we would be far ahead of them by now.

Anyways, back to the share issue. When was the last time we had a philanthropist or Billionaire in charge of Manchester United because I cannot remember. I always thought the owners were in it for the money, how has anything changed?

I totally agree with the general sentiments of your post and to answer your question, it was not always about the money but it certainly has been since the Edwards family took control in the 1960s

I wrote a blog on our ownership history a couple of years back:
https://www.redcafe.net/f6/business-football-302557/

 

[Ferguson]

If only we had a sugar daddy like Roman to change the manager every season.

If these Arabs have so much money, then why didn't they make the Glazers an offer instead of buying City?

The sugar daddies of this world want to make their own mark on the team, not build upon an already great history that doesn't belong to them. If one did take over United, the first thing they'd do is remake United in their image.

That is what people said the Glazers would do-cheerleaders and pirate ships-and instead all they have done is try to keep the profits coming.

The rise of City and Chelsea are good competition for us and bad for the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal.

Things aren't as bad as some make out.

 

[Nate Dogg]

Talk about bad fecking luck, out of all those Arab billionaires fecking skint Glasers had to come and buy the best football club in the world.

Weren't the Qatari royal family interested, or is that dead in the water now?

 

[Adebesi]

If only we had a sugar daddy like Roman to change the manager every season.

If these Arabs have so much money, then why didn't they make the Glazers an offer instead of buying City?

The sugar daddies of this world want to make their own mark on the team, not build upon an already great history that doesn't belong to them. If one did take over United, the first thing they'd do is remake United in their image.

That is what people said the Glazers would do-cheerleaders and pirate ships-and instead all they have done is try to keep the profits coming.

The rise of City and Chelsea are good competition for us and bad for the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal.

Things aren't as bad as some make out.

What is the difference between an owner with money and an owner with debt? A sugar daddy or a salt daddy, if you will. Do you really think the reason Abramovich changes managers willy nilly is because he has money, and the reason the Glazers dont is because they dont have a pot to piss in? Put another way, if Abramovich had bought United, do you think SAF would have been sacked by now?

Lets wait and see how sensible and loyal the Glazers are to whoever they replace SAF with. A couple of bad results, some discontent among the supporters, any indication that the club is not in safe hands and they will feck whoever it is off, double quick. It is easy to be loyal to a manager who is delivering on the pitch and who the fans love.

 

[Rood]

It is easy to be loyal to a manager who is delivering on the pitch and who the fans love.

Obviously not that easy seeing as Roman sacked Jose!

and Ancelotti was let go just 1 season after winning the double

It is also clear that Roman has a strong say in transfer business, you often get that kind of meddling with the sugar daddies. TBF to the Arabs at City, they dont seem to have interferred too much but who knows what goes on behind scenes

 

[Adebesi]

I also think you can't underestimate the impact of injuries this year - I agree that we do still have a question mark in midfield but at the end of the day we are without Fletcher, Anderson and Cleverley for almost the whole season (plus all the other injuries). I fully believe if we had the same injury list as City this year then we would be far ahead of them by now.

Pogue made an interesting point about how the reason City have less injuries than us is because they have more players in their prime years, rather than young "prospects" (Cleverley / Anderson) or old codgers, though on the whole the latter have not been the real problem for us. Plus the likes of Vidic, who is in his prime, fall outside the scope of this theory. I do think it is interesting though, the idea that this is not all necessarily about luck.

On the whole, while I have to admit there is some validity to what you are saying, I hate blaming our situation on injuries. Everyone has injuries. OK we have lost some key people - and I am thinking of Vidic more than anyone, but if we want to be champions we need to make contingency plans for such eventualities.

As for the midfield injuries, they were mostly predictable.

Fletcher has been out for years now, and SAF knew better than anyone what was going on and how serious it might turn out to be. So he cannot claim surprise.

Anderson: were YOU surprised when he got injured and was ruled out for the rest of the season? I wasnt. So SAF cant have been either.

And Cleverley. Well, he is young, I am not quite clear on how his injury record has been until now, I gather he has had some issues but not to the extent that Anderson has. So maybe we were expecting him to be available. But was it prudent to go into a season with so much responsibility falling on the shoulders of Cleverley? I say nay.

We have had bad luck with injuries but we were underprepared for them.

To tie this all back in, BTW, these are all gripes I have that I accept are not 100% reasonable. I am not calling for an early-Roman, 2 world class players in every position regime here. My issue is that it galls me to see Glazer paying himself and his sons a million each for doing feck all, or massive payments being made to pay off loans that didnt benefit the club at all, when we have a gaping hole in our midfield. It wouldnt be such an issue for me under the PLC.

 

[Adebesi]

Obviously not that easy seeing as Roman sacked Jose!

and Ancelotti was let go just 1 season after winning the double

It is also clear that Roman has a strong say in transfer business, you often get that kind of meddling with the sugar daddies. TBF to the Arabs at City, they dont seem to have interferred too much but who knows what goes on behind scenes

Do you think if Roman had bought us SAF would be gone?

Obviously you cant know, but do you think?

FWIW I do see your point. Roman is a special case, a real, prize wally. And yes, he does interfere and maybe SAF would have walked - or been pushed out. I dont think so though. I think Roman would have been happy with the football we play and the success we have had.

And to reiterate, I dont give the Glazers credit for leaving SAF alone. Why wouldnt they? He is mint, they dont have to interfere, they leave him alone and the money rolls in.

 

[Zen86]

Obviously not that easy seeing as Roman sacked Jose!

and Ancelotti was let go just 1 season after winning the double

It is also clear that Roman has a strong say in transfer business, you often get that kind of meddling with the sugar daddies. TBF to the Arabs at City, they dont seem to have interferred too much but who knows what goes on behind scenes

Mancini's a big enough transfer muppet for them to just sit back and enjoy anyway, he'd buy half of Europe if he could.

 

[Beachryan]

I think the reality of the situation is clear - we aren't going to be able to offer the highest wages in England. Fine, that's nothing new - Chelsea have had higher wage bills than us for the past 6 years. Now we'll be behind both Chelsea and City. I don't think we even want to get into that, it is simply the way it is.

What that means is that we have to create a squad out of players that are not quite the highest-wage earners. We can have exceptions (Rooney) just like other clubs (Arse and RVP) but we need to keep our average wages at a reasonable level.

If you think about the implications of that, for me there are 3 main strategies:
1. Create contracts that are heavily incentivised: Ensure that deals have payouts based on the earnings that success creates. So maybe a player makes £50k a week, but if we win the league that jumps to £60k - someone somewhere needs to ensure the sum of all those incentives is less than what the club actually brings in from winning the league.

2. Pad the squad with low wage earners: We have 25 players in the squad - some of whom won't play more than 10 games in a season. So we need to minimize their impact on the overall wage bill, without sacrificing our ability to compete. For me this is clearly the 'Owen' pay as you play model, and something we could do well to continue. Bringing in Raul on a similar deal, for example, would make a lot of sense - especially if it involves removing Dimi Berbatov's wages from the team. He probably literally makes almost £1m per match at the moment.

3. Buy young and cheap, sell at the peak: We need young players who are willing to come to United for the prestige/ work with Ferge who will look past lower weekly earnings at this stage of their career. We then need to make them better, and, sadly, for the majority of them we need to then ship them out if a good offer comes in. A perfect example is Hernandez (who I hope we keep). We brought him in for peanuts, upped his contract a bit to keep him but if someone offered us real money he should absolutely be sold, and we can go and try to find the new him.

It sucks, and it certainly isn't the way we used to operate in the late 90's - when we had the highest wage bills and had the ability to throw money at players to woo or keep them. But I don't recall many United fans talking about these things when it was just us and Arsenal competing. It's the reality of where we are today, and accordingly that's how the big-wigs are going to run us.

 

[Adebesi]

There is a book by Simon Kuper, Why England Lose, I have banged on about it a million times on here, but it is quite interesting, looking at football from an economist's perspective, like Freakonomics for football. But it looked at the correlation between success and wages, and it is very, very strong. Like, the defining factor in success type strong. Over time, if we dont pay the most wages, if history is to be our guide, the success will dry up.

 

[adam118]

By Mark OgdenLast Updated: 7:55AM BST 08/05/2012
A silver lining to the Glazers’ cloud can be found in the absence of bonus payments this season, while Blackburn will not receive a £2 million one-off bonus as part of Phil Jones’s transfer to United last summer if City go on to win the title.

Surley we would make alot more money had we actually won the league. How is that a silver lining.

 

[Rood]

Surley we would make alot more money had we actually won the league. How is that a silver lining.

It is not actually clear if we would or not - obviously we would get extra cash in prizemoney and next year's CL TV money split if we win, but without knowing what kind of bonus incentives are in the players' contract we cant answer that question.

 

[Rood]

Do you think if Roman had bought us SAF would be gone?

Obviously you cant know, but do you think?

FWIW I do see your point. Roman is a special case, a real, prize wally. And yes, he does interfere and maybe SAF would have walked - or been pushed out. I dont think so though. I think Roman would have been happy with the football we play and the success we have had.

And to reiterate, I dont give the Glazers credit for leaving SAF alone. Why wouldnt they? He is mint, they dont have to interfere, they leave him alone and the money rolls in.

I have no idea what Roman would have done with Fergie but if he can get rid of Jose then I dont see why the same couldnt have happened with SAF.

I think some credit is due as they didnt just leave SAF alone, they actually gave him a lot more power than he had under the PLC - he is now in total control of the football side of the club, whereas he used to have to get permission from a board of directors back in the day on all transfers etc.

 

[Rood]

Pogue made an interesting point about how the reason City have less injuries than us is because they have more players in their prime years, rather than young "prospects" (Cleverley / Anderson) or old codgers, though on the whole the latter have not been the real problem for us. Plus the likes of Vidic, who is in his prime, fall outside the scope of this theory. I do think it is interesting though, the idea that this is not all necessarily about luck.

Interesting, we do seem to have had more than our fair share for a couple of years now. It is worth noting that the club is investing millions in new training and medical facilities at Carrington - perhaps there is a connection.

It is fair to say that some of our injuries were not totally unexpected, but I doubt Fergie thought he would be without all 3 of those midfielders all year. Although each one was an injury worry, surely you would think at least 1, if not 2 out of 3 would be available.

To tie this all back in, BTW, these are all gripes I have that I accept are not 100% reasonable. I am not calling for an early-Roman, 2 world class players in every position regime here. My issue is that it galls me to see Glazer paying himself and his sons a million each for doing feck all, or massive payments being made to pay off loans that didnt benefit the club at all, when we have a gaping hole in our midfield. It wouldnt be such an issue for me under the PLC.

I can totally understand your annoyance with money going out of the club to service debt, I dont like it either and thankfully our annual interest bill seems to be slowly decreasing. However I do not believe that it happens at the expense of investment in our playing squad, IMO we make more than enough cash to service the debt and still have a good transfer budget every season.
We can compete with anyone on transfer fees, our limitations are on the wages side of things, but that is self imposed and our 50% wage/turnover policy predates the Glazers. It is something that UEFA are encouraging all clubs to aim for with FFP.

 

[forevrared]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...the-current-health-of-the-Premier-League.html

I suppose this is a good thing? I really have no clue, though.

 

[Wumminator]

Are the finances not out yet?

 

[Rood]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...the-current-health-of-the-Premier-League.html

I suppose this is a good thing? I really have no clue, though.

Missed this first time round, it basically backs up what I have been saying for a long time - the bottom line profit and loss figures that people always focus on are largely meaningless, the important thing is cashflow and we have shitloads of it!
Yes we have debts and it is a shame that large amounts of money are used to service them, however we make more than enough cash to service our debts and still have plenty left over for transfers etc.

From the article:

"It could even be argued that Manchester United’s £440 million of loans, costing more than £50 million a year in interest to service, have also given rise to fresh incomes. Had the Glazer family not taken over the club in 2005, their 2011-12 commercial incomes of £103.4m – more than the overall revenues of all but five other Premier League clubs – might never have been raised. It should be noted that in the final season before the Glazers’ takeover, United's commercial revenues were £42.487m.

The Glazers certainly scored a public-relations own goal by loading their takeover loans on the club, but their subsequent business decisions have more than made sure they are paid for."​

Are the finances not out yet?

Probably next week

EDIT: actually they are out today, watch this space ...

 

[Hans Moleman]

As usual, https://twitter.com/#!/andersred has all the financial news. Doesn't sound pretty.

 

[gaz1185]

Finances are out now, this is from @andersred on twitter:

Confirmed figures.#MUFC 31st March cash at bank £25.6m (down from £113m year ago), debt £423.3m (down from £484.5m).

Don't need to be Einstein to see net debt at #MUFC has RISEN £26m in last 12 mths despite £71m spent on bond buybacks + interest.

Looks like #MUFC spent close to £4m on bankers' fees relating to a possible IPO.

 

[Transfer United Till I Die]

They're ruining us.

 

[Edmeiste]

that's even more pressure on the Glazers to give us money to spend otherwise the debt will rise even more

 

[Commadus]

3.2.1.... GCHQ.....response

 

[JB7]

So to clarify;

Debt has got higher.
Cash reserves have drastically dropped.

Basically, £70m+ has gone to servicing debts in the last year and the debt has still increased. Unreal.

 

[Transfer United Till I Die]

So to clarify;

Debt has got higher.
Cash reserves have drastically dropped.

Basically, £70m+ has gone to servicing debts in the last year and the debt has still increased. Unreal.

I think that's misleading isn't it? Net debt has increased because of the fall in our cash reserves, but the actual sum owed as debt has also decreased, just not as quickly as the cash reserves. I think that's right?

 

[DanH]

Yes.

We spent some cash reserves on buying back debt but those cash reserves were also used for other things as well.

 

[Transfer United Till I Die]

The debt that we owe and pay interest on has fallen by just over £60m.

 

[DanH]

That's 60million we;d have been paying c8% on. It's an efficient use of cash.

 

[Transfer United Till I Die]

That's 60million we;d have been paying c8% on. It's an efficient use of cash.

I don't disagree mate. It's cut about £5m a year of the interest payments.

Needless to say, we shouldn't have the debt at all.

 

[DanH]

That'd be nice.

 

[londonredmaniac]

That's 60million we;d have been paying c8% on. It's an efficient use of cash.

I can think of more efficient uses of cash personally.

 

[Interval]

Our interest cost is 8%?

 

[londonredmaniac]

Needless to say, we shouldn't have the debt at all.

Indeed. It makes me fecking sick.

 

[Ole's_toe_poke]

So much for Gill's standard "We've got 100million sitting in the bank" excuse.

 

[londonredmaniac]

So much for Gill's standard "We've got 100million sitting in the bank" excuse.

I can't stand the cnut personally.

 

[wr8_utd]

Bearded Genius