They are not brilliant but I think we will average over 20,000 by the end of the season
+ Visit Cardiff FC for Latest News, Transfer Gossip, Fixtures and Match Results |
They are not brilliant but I think we will average over 20,000 by the end of the season
The last time we went up to the Prem our gates/support had built up over a number of seasons where we had been getting closer each year and having the FA and Carling cup runs as well. Whereas now this has all happened very quickly after a three year period of failure/relegation, cost cutting and dire football. Therefore in my opinion to achieve a 21% increase in gates in the last twelve months is a major achievement and should be celebrated. Everybody would like to see the ground full every week like last time, although even then it was only the last five or six home games where attendances 'took off'. I think that people who continually go on about the attendances being poor (or dreadful) and the quality of play like 'hoof ball', when it isnt, could actually be doing the club a disservice and putting off 'floating' fans from coming along.
If anyone wants to read Keith's commentary on the accounts now - before he posts them on here - they are up on the Trust website.
http://www.ccfctrust.org/?p=5045
Very clear and informative as always, and to me at least mildly encouraging. Small steps... but still steps in the right direction.
They are the figures for just the football club company , which exclude certain transactions impacting on the club.
The company to look at to get the true overall position is Cardiff City Football Club (Holdings) Limited - Company number 4044254. The 2017 audited accounts for Holdings (for some unknown reason) on the public register as of first thing this morning , but might be there now. My commentary on the accounts is based on that company.
Let's be honest, you think someone who says they don't like Neil Warnock's haircut is doing the club a disservice .
Not sure where you get your 21% increase in attendances figure from either, this site
http://www.worldfootball.net/attenda...p-2016-2017/1/
has us averaging 16,564 last season and 18,886 this time around - I make an increase of 2,322 on a gate of 16,564 to be under 15%
I haven't downloaded the club's accounts for years (the last set I have is 2011). So my questions for Keith are:
1) Has the club's overall level of debt ever been larger?
2) Has the club ever made bigger losses than the £21.3 million in 2016/17?
3) Whatever happened to the debt to equity conversions that the club publicly claimed were going to happen in 2016?
https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...tement-120216/
The writer knows no such thing. In this thread, dml1954 claims "only a few years ago the debt stood at over £135 million." Is he right? To be honest, I have no idea, although I do recall reading a previous figure of around £120 million at one stage.
As regards question two, I'd be surprised if CCFC has ever lost more than £21.3 million in a season before, although I don't know how much the club spent getting to the Premier League in 2012/13. I have a feeling that the losses for that year might have been on a par, if not a little higher than 2016/17.
I believe the loss for 2015/16 was 8.7m, so with 21.1m for 2016/17 we'd only be allowed about 10m loss for 17/18, assuming the 3-yr period is 15-18, to stay within the 39m limit.
If that's the case then we are in for some belt-tightening even if we go up, bearing in mind that most of the EPL income goes straight out on players' wages and fees etc. Sunderland have managed to end up with huge debts after a good spell in the PL. Just as well we've got a manager who can get results without breaking the bank. Re-signing is the best news we could have hoped for, I'd say.
QPR have been fined 50m and lost their appeal. They should have negotiated instead of appealing. Bournemouth were fined 8m but won't have to pay it until they are relegated. We have to be realistic.
The club have done well, it's such a shame that people won't come in and watch. Gate money is so important in the EFL. Makes you wonder just what we have to do to fill the stadium, though the answer is clear as we saw at the Man City game. Get promoted and they'll come, not so much to support CCFC as to watch PL football.
After April 8th they'll have to pay a lot more for their season tickets that's for sure.
Club is trying hard, pat on the back for all concerned, including of course Mr T! But - please - let's see that debt conversion completed quickly, as promised!
Dave
Following your post , I have had a quick look back as far as the year ended 31 May 2012. The loss that year was £13m.
From then until May 2017 , the losses have been £30.4m 2013 (I seem to recall that figure included promotion bonuses of around £8m) , £12m in 2014 , a profit of £3.9m in 2015 (this was distorted by the need to apply a new accounting requirement which improved profits by around £13m) , a loss of £8.7m in 2016 and now a loss of £21.1m in 2017.
As for Vincent Tan debt write-offs or debt to equity swaps , there were none prior to the year ended 31 May 2015. In that year there was a debt write=off of £13m , followed by a further write-off of £10m in 2016.
The first debt to equity swap was in 2016/17 and was £8m. In June 2017 (i.e. after the May 2017 accounts year end) , there was a further debt to equity swap of £12.7m
The net liabilities (total liabilities less total assets) total as at 31 May 2017 was £80.8m. It has never been higher to my knowledge. I think the far higher figures people are quoting are the gross debts of the club (i.e. before offsetting the value of assets). For example , in the year to 31 May 2014 , there were gross debts of £157.2m (higher than the £151.9m as at 31 May 2017) , but there were assets of £91.4m to set off against this , taking the net liabilities down to £65.8m.
Keith
1) I supported the club for almost 40 years. I have a large number of friends and a couple of family members who still support the club. Therefore, somewhat unsurprisingly, the club's fortunes are still of interest to me and are a regular topic of conversation whenever I'm with my friends and family.
2) I've been to four City games this season (and four last season).
3) I don't especially care about the club's accounts, but I'm interested in them for sure. As somebody who used to attend company AGM's and frequent meetings with senior club officials, during which the club's finances were discussed on a regular basis, it would be a bit odd if I wasn't interested - especially as acceptance of Tan's re-brand for financial reasons was what drove a wedge between me and the club in the first place.
4) I've posted a bit this week for the first time in a long while as I'm currently on annual leave but spending a lot of time at home working on my computer, so posting is giving me a bit of a break. You can relax, though - you're unlikely to be reading anything from me for a bit after tomorrow.
5) Please don't take offence, but I need to ask - why do my posts concern you so? That just seems a little bit weird.
Cheers Keith, appreciated.
It would be good if someone who has all the necessary figures could draw up a definitive but simple list of losses/profits over, say, the last ten or fifteen years, together with the levels of the club's debt at each year end. I did something similar for this board around 2009, but than was on my old computer and I don't still have the document on file. I think a simple record of losses and overall debts for each season would give those of us who are interested a clearer picture of the state of the club's finances.
As time goes by, so does costs , every business would see larger debts , turnovers, its the nature of the beast and the market place were in , hugely dictated by inflated transfer fee's , wages and agent fees , the club has not raised the season ticket price significantly in recent years ,which is a great gesture .
We either want to be part of this race to the top or not if we do it comes with debt unless fans decide to attend in bigger numbers ?
In my opinion Tan has not ignored the promised and has gradually moved values from debt to equity ,'I'm guessing there is a good reason for not transferring the lot to equity in one go , what I do know he's been a loyal owner , and funded our club to keep us at the standards were at now .
the audited accounts are backward looking and don't really tell the whole picture. life on mars has alluded to it, but where you have rising costs and debt, as long as this can be financed then the business can trade as a going concern. There are other factors at play, such as longer term revenue growth.
now VT strikes me as a successful businessman, he knows what he is doing. He made some mistakes at the outset but I reckon he has learnt from them. His aim is to make us profitable and at that point, when EBITDA is positive and we are generating cash, there will be inherent worth and economic value in the club (stadium + players + future cash flows). at that point he will offload - perhaps next season or the season after if we do secure promotion. The club will be worth quite a bit to a long term investor who doesn't have VC multiples of money values.
It's a pretty poor one to be honest, but at least you didn't compare the football club to an ex-girlfriend I suppose.
You claim my posts don't concern you, yet you seem very keen to analyse them and question them. Don't you think people would consider that odd? I would call it a bit strange, anyway.
Incidentally, regarding your desperate analogy, in fact I haven't asked to see the accounts of a football club I hate. Firstly, if I wanted a copy of the club's accounts I could simply download one. Doing so is a piece of piss. I've done it many times in the past. Secondly, I don't hate Cardiff City.
All I've done is ask a mate (who is knowledgeable about such matters) a couple of questions that I will no doubt be asked myself at some point during the next couple of weeks.
Seems to be a bit of an obsession here with the headline figures.
Accounts can often be totally misleading and hide a multitude of things.
Even then it's extremely complicated. Keith's explanation and also his comparison with City vs Bristol, Birmingham and Villa needs to be taken as a whole.
Unfortunately that takes a hell of a lot more thought and many many more words than is suitable for a messageboard and no disrespect meant but at least 90% of people still won't understand it, despite the excellent job Keith has done, because it really isn't a simple thing to understand.
One thing that is clear is we've been technically bankrupt for the best part of 30 years, maybe longer, and still are.
For the first time we have an owner who can actually cover the debt.
We aren't necessarily secure as one simple change of mind from Tan and we are back up shit creek.
Same goes for most other Championship clubs and many in the other divisions of the football pyramid too.