Club accounts

[TJHValiant]

Just now, valefan16 said:

Big numbers, has to also be noted these figures only cover until June 2023 so dont include this season's figures at all do they?

That’s the grimmest bit. Last season was actually fairly successful in terms of gates etc. God knows what the money has gone on because it wasn’t on a top class squad. 

[Fosse69]

Peterborough are only £5 million more in debt than we are, but guess what? If they get to the champ they will pay that off while ours will increase or worse in LG2. 
 
It pays to spend money on a good squad. 

They produce a lot more players than we do. They make a lot more out of player sales than we do. £70M over the last 20 years. Debt can be on infrastructure, borrowing money to buy players is a risky business. Staying in the Champ is not easy, only Ipswich are safe in their first season back. Nor is staying in L1 easy either.

Sent from my SM-A715F using onevalefan mobile app

[MBE]

2 hours ago, MowingMyLorneStreet said:

The average number of employees has gone UP by 79, it hasn't gone From 79 to 319.

We do have a lot more employees than other similarly sized clubs though

Put this into context.... Shrew bury Town employed in 2022 166 staff and 182 in 2023.

Crazy, absolutely crazy.

[PV1973]

7 minutes ago, MBE said:

Put this into context.... Shrew bury Town employed in 2022 166 staff and 182 in 2023.

Crazy, absolutely crazy.

Maybe the fact we have a bigger matchday corporate operation is why 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know I’m just guessing. 

[TJHValiant]

2 minutes ago, PV1973 said:

Maybe the fact we have a bigger matchday corporate operation is why 🤷‍♂️ I don’t know I’m just guessing. 

We do, but that’s all pointless if the corporate operation does not make more money. 

[rob1983]

What the hell have we spent that money on? Certainly, it isn't players. Leaking money.

[TJHValiant]

7 minutes ago, rob1983 said:

What the hell have we spent that money on? Certainly, it isn't players. Leaking money.

It has to question how the club is run. Smurfwaite was a horrible man, yet I don’t think the club racked up these sort of debts under him. 
 

Certainly the rubbish football under his ownership was a cheaper form of rubbish football for similar outcomes so far…

[robf]

8 minutes ago, rob1983 said:

What the hell have we spent that money on? Certainly, it isn't players.

Or toilets 

[JoeB2]

This is just modern football. Nearly every single club loses money, every season, and has to be subsidised by an owner.

3.4m is a larger loss than what most of the other clubs saw who finished in the bottom half of League 1 in 22/23.

The league was effectively split in two with 3M+ loss finishing top half and <3M loss finishing bottom half - bar us and Oxford, who lost 6m.

Its clear that mistakes have been made, but it’s also clear that even if we’d been more efficient with spending we are likely to have lost £2m just staying in the division.

I think it’s daft to understate that not many folk would be happy losing 3m just to keep Port Vale in League 1 - whilst wrongs need to be righted we’re still very lucky that Carol is effectively spending her kid’s inheritance covering our losses.

[TJHValiant]

1 minute ago, JoeB2 said:

This is just modern football. Nearly every single club loses money, every season, and has to be subsidised by an owner.

3.4m is a larger loss than what most of the other clubs saw who finished in the bottom half of League 1 in 22/23.

The league was effectively split in two with 3M+ loss finishing top half and <3M loss finishing bottom half - bar us and Oxford, who lost 6m.

Its clear that mistakes have been made, but it’s also clear that even if we’d been more efficient with spending we are likely to have lost £2m just staying in the division.

I think it’s daft to understate that not many folk would be happy losing 3m just to keep Port Vale in League 1 - whilst wrongs need to be righted we’re still very lucky that Carol is effectively spending her kid’s inheritance covering our losses.

Actually a large proportion of the losses are interests on loans owed to her as I see it. So Carol’s kids will never starve with Vale around. 

[JoeB2]

3 minutes ago, TJHValiant said:

Actually a large proportion of the losses are interests on loans owed to her as I see it. So Carol’s kids will never starve with Vale around. 

Where does it say that?

[TJHValiant]

3 minutes ago, JoeB2 said:

Where does it say that?

Look at the loans taken out, then look at the interest. They are against the club, not personal expenditure by Carol. 

[JoeB2]

I very nearly put a thread on yesterday after looking through League 1 and Championship accounts.

The blunt reality is you largely need to be losing £4m+ to compete at the top end of League 1 - only Plymouth are an outlier and in real danger of an immediate return. 7 of the top 8 lost at least £4m in 22/23 with far larger turnover than us, which really illustrates the discrepancy in wage budget. Posh and Pompey each spent around £8m on wages last season - neither went up. Ipswich spent nearly £13m on wages alone.

You need to be losing £15m to then just stay in the Championship, spending £20-30m on wages alone. If we ever fluked it, we’re back down within 2 seasons. 

You get the very odd exception, but clubs who don’t lose £15m a year in the Championship come down - Wycombe, Blackpool, and Rotherham being the most obvious examples.

There is absolutely no doubt that the club has horrendously spent in the last 18 months, and 3.4m is hefty loss to finish 18th (around the second or third highest of teams who finished in the bottom half), but we cannot take for granted that Carol is effectively happy to write off millions per annum to keep PVFC afloat. Only one club didn’t lose money in 22/23 and that was Cheltenham, who are likely down this year. Burton didn’t lose much, and are in danger of the drop this year. Same for Shrewsbury. Otherwise, it’s losses of 1m+

I’ve been very vocal in my critical of decision-making, but I’m finding some of the stick Carol is getting absolutely ludicrous. Her intentions are good and she’s probably our best option of having an owner who is happy to plug the financial gap that the system demands of owners without having ulterior motives. 

[JoeB2]

Notes I made on the other clubs last season from what I can find:

Plymouth lost 3.2

Ipswich 20

Weds 7.2

Barnsley 4

Bolton 6.9

Posh 7.7

Derby 10.6

Pompey 8.3

Wycombe 3

Charlton 6.9

Lincoln 2.6

Shrewsbury 0.2

Fleetwood 1.7

Exeter 

Burton 0.4

Cheltenham +0.4

Rovers

Vale 3.4

Oxford 6

Cambridge 0.3 

Dons 2.2

Morecambe 1.3

Accrington 0.8

FGR 1.4

 

[JoeB2]

There’s obviously been a litany of mistakes, but if we do survive, Carol is going to have to spend 1-2m again next year just to keep the club with a fighting chance of survival. The only way we break thiscycle is through large player sales, which through Lawrie, Mills, and probably Dipepa we seem to be attempting.

If she wished to make a concerted effort at the playoffs, she’s likely going to have to lose £5m per annum, and then likely come straight back down unless she finds £15m to lose the year after.

Again - her decision-making has been poor and I genuinely believe she needs to hand over the executive decision making to someone else, but we’re genuinely lucky to have a local owner (who can’t and won’t do us any real damage) quite happy to effectively send millions into a black hole just to bounce around Leagues 1 and 2.