How bad is it, really? (Financial thread)

From article, key point we don't know enough about is the bolded as we know Ineos have reportedly put a lot of money into this part, the situation may well be much better than the article says.

"United’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) position is very tight. Their pre-tax loss over last season’s three-year PSR cycle stands at £312.9million, way above the maximum £105m threshold, although clubs are allowed to add back spending on youth development and infrastructure."

We're also definitely finally selling Sancho end of this season + we can assume some hefty wages will be moved off the books. We need a deep Europa run and to sell Rashford, think that alone will allow us to spend heavily.
 
astracrazy said:
What on earth are you talking about.
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I don't have time, or the inclination, to explain the meaning of the words you seemingly can both read and quote.

Drainy said:
Giving them a lot of fuel, to be fair!
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'If United are not in crisis, it would be necessary to invent such'

To paraphrase a certain cnut.

You're not wrong. It's been a pleasurable decade for the guttersnipe press. I almost hope we start winning again just to spite the feckers, and to reconfigure a few of the heads on our side they've poisoned.
 
rimaldo said:
i’ve been looking at other clubs to move my support to.
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You must diversify this time around. Half and half scarves and kits allow you to support four teams at once (I usually go with the top 4 from the previous year).
 
Crostien said:
It does, chief.

Nothing sells hot copy more than the so-called 'big clubs' embroiled in a supposed scandal.

I'm surprised they haven't got all out on a 'Twenty Years On' crapathon about how Rock Of Gibraltar is the reason the Glazers bought the club. Written by some vengeful 'journalist'.

It's the type of gibberish their subscribers lap up wholesale.
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What the feck are you talking about?
 
But, but, but ...

According to transfer rumours we're going to swap Zirkzee for Vlahovic, Rashford for Osimhen, Højlund for Kane, and Antony for Pele (ok, I made up the last one)

Crisis, what crisis?
 
The financial gùy they had on the overlap fan debate said by his calculations only one club was in danger of breaching the financial rules, with the accounts due for 12/31. Also said they don't play in red.
 
Giggsy13 said:
Given there were only two public bids for United the first time around, I’m certain Ratcliffe is comfortable letting the glazers negotiate with others knowing the financial state of the club is unlikely to draw a lot of interest. Even the Qatari bid the first time wasn’t prepared to go over the top and I doubt they seek to overpay and meet the unreasonable glazer demands the second time around. This should give ratcliffe the leverage he’s probably seeking to negotiate a better deal for the balance of the glazers controlling interest.
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Is there not a chance though he's fine where he is and we'll just continue with this weird owner situation for the next several years?
 
golden_blunder said:
Have you tried Villa? They offer a good package including free 50 inch tv if you switch. My mate switched to them and he’s had no negative downtime so far.
For best deals check out
Www.premiersupportswitching.con
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i’m a little concerned that they lure you in with these low cost packages and freebies, and when it comes time to renew your support, they increase the price wildly and you don’t feel like it’s good value any more.
Traub said:
You must diversify this time around. Half and half scarves and kits allow you to support four teams at once (I usually go with the top 4 from the previous year).
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that usually works well for premiership teams, but imagine if forest somehow won it this year and i wasn’t supporting them? do you think people would be interested in a support subscription service? a bit like fantasy football, you pick the team you want to support that weekend (probably the leader) and then can change the next weekend if they’re no longer first.

there’s also the issue of the champions league. maybe people would also pay for a parallel support model for europe.
 
It’s not great but that is why we are seeing all the cost cutting and raising of season ticket prices etc.

The money spent on player wages is falling and will continue to do so, there is a legacy of really bad transfers/wages that is going to take time to clear but as and when it does it will make a big difference to PSR. The annual PSR costs of likes of Antony, Sancho and Casemiro is and has been huge and I think we will see an end to the 70m plus transfers and 300k a week wages now.

I am sure the losses, though huge will include a lot of costs that fall outside PSR and it is probably being closely managed. The fact we went and got Amorim and in process of signing Pedro Leon shows there must be some leeway still.

We can say whatever we want about INEOS but they get involved in sport to win and they will have ambitious plans. But realistically that can’t happen without the debt being paid off or some sort of big cash injection because so much money needs to be spent on and off the pitch.

Over 400m of the debt has to be refinanced in 2 years and the interest rates will be significantly higher as will the repayments (also all the costs, FX associated with refinancing). So there must be some plan regarding more shares being bought from the Glazers within that timeframe or INEOS are going to be severely restricted about what they can try and achieve.
 
I'm an accountant so I dont need a football journo or podcaster to tell me how bad it is, I can just look at the accounts myself.

There isnt alot of wiggle room. Last years shows the interest payments at 61m, and the wage bill is a disgrace. We did decrease wages in the summer with martial and varane going. But I dont think we will be having a spend up anytime soon.

It will have to be smart deals and getting players off the books.

Rashford and Casemiro would save almost 40m a year.

Best thing we can do is loan and obligation in summer, with payments pushed back into future years.
 
RedFanaticTattooist said:
Seriously, you don't read the reports? Or you don't believe them? There are hundreds on the net, with numbers. Record loss last year, and so on. Yes, we are in really serious financial trouble, thanks to years of reckless spending, bad results, lack of CL football... Yes we're unable to buy players due to the lack of funds, and yes we wouldn't be able to register them due to FFP regulations anyway and yes, we already breached PSR regulations which can result in point deduction as it happened with Everton. Did you know, that according to PSR no PL club can have more than 105 million pounds loss in 3 years, and we have about 300? NO WAY anyone can fix that. This is why i don't understand some fans here. They are discussing high profile players like we had the smallest chance to sign them. Not to mention the poor condition of the stadium, which would cost tons of money to fix. We're in far deeper trouble than the majority of fans think. Just take off your pink glasses, guys.
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Any money spent on the stadium or facilities counts as structural costs which can be offset against the losses under PSR so us being in trouble with PSR doesn't mean we can't invest in the studium. It should actually encourage us to do.
 
PlasticRed said:
I'm an accountant so I dont need a football journo or podcaster to tell me how bad it is, I can just look at the accounts myself.

There isnt alot of wiggle room. Last years shows the interest payments at 61m, and the wage bill is a disgrace. We did decrease wages in the summer with martial and varane going. But I dont think we will be having a spend up anytime soon.

It will have to be smart deals and getting players off the books.

Rashford and Casemiro would save almost 40m a year.

Best thing we can do is loan and obligation in summer, with payments pushed back into future years.
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Not to mention we seem to be actively looking to offload Antony and Eriksen who are eating up a lot of wages relative to their contribution. Seems that INEOS have identified that the wage bill is out of control and we need to establish a stricter wage structure moving forward, we'll see with Amad's new contract what we can expect first teamers to be on going forward.
 
I get the feeling people are too focused on PSR and overlooking the actual financial position of the club. I don't think it's just arbitrary financial regulations and accountancy rules constraining our spending — we are short on actual cash.

We need to get the wage bill back down to reasonable levels and probably limit our transfer spending for a while. But the big question is the future of the stadium.
 
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Crostien said:
The Athletic runs on 'United In Crisis' articles.
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No they dont. The Athletic is a huge publication and their United coverage is only a part of that.
Andy Mitten writes for them which he absolutely would not if they where some gutter rag only writing lies about United.
They present the news about the club, but they dont lie about our situation to keep on the good side of Ineos.
 
Nickelodeon said:
That’s where we’ve been really poor for a very long time. Liverpool are currently asking for 30 million for Ben Doak. There isn’t anyone in our youth or senior team who’s commanding those sort of numbers. Wherever the players ability is marginally attractive to another club, the wages we pay make it a hindrance to sell. I hope the new team can improve this aspect of our business otherwise we’ll fall foul of the PSR.
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Kobbie Mainoo is the same age as Ben Doak. He'd command far more than £30 million if we put him up for sale.
 
Nickelodeon said:
It may require a mad dash in June to get rid of the likes of Rashford. Hopefully, both him and Casemiro leave in January which would certainly help our PSR.
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Selling Casemiro would actually not help our PSR much as his residual value is higher than what we could realistically expect to receive for him. There'd be a significant saving on wages so hopefully that'd almost offset that loss.
 
spiriticon said:
Yes, that why Chelsea sign players on 8 year contracts. They do it so they don't get PSR trouble because the fees and wages are spread out over time.

The downside is that if a player is shit and has a 8-year contract on a good wage, you will almost never be able to get rid of him.
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That practice is no longer effective following rule changes from a couple of years ago
 
Giggsy13 said:
Given there were only two public bids for United the first time around, I’m certain Ratcliffe is comfortable letting the glazers negotiate with others knowing the financial state of the club is unlikely to draw a lot of interest. Even the Qatari bid the first time wasn’t prepared to go over the top and I doubt they seek to overpay and meet the unreasonable glazer demands the second time around. This should give ratcliffe the leverage he’s probably seeking to negotiate a better deal for the balance of the glazers controlling interest.
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Yeah. That statement from Jim is meaningless in terms of the likelihood of him purchasing the rest of the club in the future, to be honest.
 
MaMa given red said:
Kobbie Mainoo is the same age as Ben Doak. He'd command far more than £30 million if we put him up for sale.
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Mainoo is not a good comparison for Doak. Mainoo is an England international and has significantly more PL experience. Elanga is more of a comparison who we sold for 15 million and even he had a better record than Doak. Liverpool got more for Neco Williams from Forest than we did for Elanga.
 
Bright_Eyes said:
Is there not a chance though he's fine where he is and we'll just continue with this weird owner situation for the next several years?
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No chance. This is probably more about legacy than it is about making money for Ratcliffe. He wants all the credit for bringing United back to the top and he’d happily squeeze out the glazers.
 
Posh Red said:
Yeah. That statement from Jim is meaningless in terms of the likelihood of him purchasing the rest of the club in the future, to be honest.
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Absolutely and what advantage does he have from a negotiating standpoint stating publicly he wants all of the club? None whatsoever.
 
Giggsy13 said:
No chance. This is probably more about legacy than it is about making money for Ratcliffe. He wants all the credit for bringing United back to the top and he’d happily squeeze out the glazers.
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If it's not about money though, maybe he doesn't care about fully owning the club and just cares about having control? E.g. the current situation.
 
Adz_99 said:
If Chelsea can spend a billion without breaching P&S then there's no way our poxy £150m summer transfer spend is getting us in trouble.

I suspect winning the Europa to get CL money is very important though. You'd imagine any budgeting was done with that prize money in mind.
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They sell well.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
From article, key point we don't know enough about is the bolded as we know Ineos have reportedly put a lot of money into this part, the situation may well be much better than the article says.

"United’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR) position is very tight. Their pre-tax loss over last season’s three-year PSR cycle stands at £312.9million, way above the maximum £105m threshold, although clubs are allowed to add back spending on youth development and infrastructure."

We're also definitely finally selling Sancho end of this season + we can assume some hefty wages will be moved off the books. We need a deep Europa run and to sell Rashford, think that alone will allow us to spend heavily.
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That just doesn't add up.
 
Sarni said:
Selling Casemiro would actually not help our PSR much as his residual value is higher than what we could realistically expect to receive for him. There'd be a significant saving on wages so hopefully that'd almost offset that loss.
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The wage savings would be huge - with that, we'd only need about a 6m transfer fee this month to break even on him from a PSR perspective.

In the summer, with only one year left on his contract, any transfer fee would be profitable on the margin.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
The wage savings would be huge - with that, we'd only need about a 6m transfer fee this month to break even on him from a PSR perspective.

In the summer, with only one year left on his contract, any transfer fee would be profitable on the margin.
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Don't really know how much he's on. I have presumed about 200k.
 
Lu Tze said:
I strongly suspect a lot of our PSR woes are being briefed out by INEOS to break the idea that we have an infinite budget and can get exploited in every deal.
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Well then don’t share that on the internet! You’re ruining the whole scheme
 
It's not particularly dire and the linked article doesnt suggest it is either. It's just too tight if we want to make any new signings this month.
 
Every club makes mistakes in the market - city have had some awful ones in recent years. We have to live with the fact that some buys will be bad, but at the moment 3 deals in particular seem to have changed the game for us.

Antony at 80m, when Diallo was coming through, was awful
Mount at 50m, with his record and contract situation, was awful.
Casemiro at 60m, given his age and the contract terms it took, was a bad deal.

Thats 190m. plus the huge weekly outgoing on wages of almost a million a week on 3 players. Naturally we can go back through deals and critique them one by one but some were good players that made sense, then it didnt happen under a certain manager or whatever - but every club has a mixed record with signings.

The deals could have made sense, or at least been palatable. For example 40-50m for antony and a more reasonable salary jump. A much better fee for mount given his contract, and casemiro should never have gotten such a long deal. We got fleeced in all 3 and should have walked away from all 3 regardless of what fans were pining for.

These 3 are the ones to learn enormous lessons from: Injury record, age, and price versus risk from a weaker league.
 
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