A theory that might partially explain Deano's thinking..

The business plan doesn't stack up to the casual observer.
The most obvious gap is the payroll for 2016/17 where we are contracted to pay wages in excess of the loans announced to date by SS.
I was thinking that the chances of selling the high earners is slim to none as they are on fat salaries so they'll stick around and collect over £6million (just for the top ten earners) 

And we don't have a spare £6 million according to Deano's figures. 
So maybe the plan all along was to offload the high earners by subsidising their wages for the contract period and just take a hit? This could be done either for a loan deal or a permanent signing (wherein the club would subsidise the wage until the current contract expiry date is reached) 

In theory, we could do deals where our liability averaged a third to a half of the salary so instead of paying out £6 million for ten overpaid ponces we'd only pay £2 to £3 million for them to play for other clubs - and that would be manageable to see us through to the end of their contracts.

It's revealing that youth coach Jimmy is looking to "field the most experienced team possible when we play Reading". Not the reaction that many fans have been asking for however a shop window is a shop window.

So...

Holdsworth BORROWS £7.5 million to pay the tax bill and get us through to the end of July and then BORROWS another (according to your theory) £6 million simply to pay off some of the players from our wage bill and survive to the end of July 2017.

Brilliant, we would start 2017/18 season in Division 1, with half a squad and £13.5 million in debt!

Hard to see any flaws in that plan.

It's fairly obvious that the new owners have enough money to keep us going until the end of next season at least,  yes that includes covering the high wages. But obviously we will still try to offload those high earners as they're shit and the freed up cash would allow a new manager to bring in the type of players that will progress us

Getting rid of them is good business but for some reason a select few seem to think that the new owners are skint and already need to cut costs and/or asset strip.

The time to worry would have been if they chose to tell the young and upcoming players to find a new club

Sluffy wrote:So...

Holdsworth BORROWS £7.5 million to pay the tax bill and get us through to the end of July and then BORROWS another (according to your theory) £6 million simply to pay off some of the players from our wage bill and survive to the end of July 2017.

Brilliant, we would start 2017/18 season in Division 1, with half a squad and £13,5 million in debt!

Hard to see any flaws in that plan.

 .

To me, the whole takeover business simply doesn't seem to stack up. I'm sure there are things we are not being told.

I've just seen Holdsworth in the Tesco garage in Walkden buying 500 scratch-cards.

Make of that what you will.

I'm not sure if you are referring to me as being one of the select few but if so I refer you to the fact that a charge was registered on the 10th March (the day of the takeover) against ALL freehold and leasehold properties of -

Burnden Leisure Ltd,
Bolton Wanderers Football and Athletic Company Limited (The),
Bolton Whites Hotel Limited,
Bolton Sports Village Limited,

and all leasehold land (as specified) of

Bolton Sporting Ventures Limited,

and redeemable to Blumarble Capital Limited.


Why would the owners do that if they already had sufficient funds themselves?

Boggersbelief wrote:It's fairly obvious that the new owners have enough money to keep us going until the end of next season at least,  yes that includes covering the high wages. But obviously we will still try to offload those high earners as they're shit and the freed up cash would allow a new manager to bring in the type of players that will progress us

Getting rid of them is good business but for some reason a select few seem to think that the new owners are skint and already need to cut costs and/or asset strip.

The time to worry would have been if they chose to tell the young and upcoming players to find a new club

Yes Sir....new managers and players to progress us are all growing on trees...and lined up to come to BWFC.

It's good to see the mods making the effort to make posters and their views feel welcome.

Strange how this seems to have coincided with the site being as dead as our Championship place.

Boggersbelief wrote:It's fairly obvious that the new owners have enough money to keep us going until the end of next season at least,  yes that includes covering the high wages. But obviously we will still try to offload those high earners as they're shit and the freed up cash would allow a new manager to bring in the type of players that will progress us

Getting rid of them is good business but for some reason a select few seem to think that the new owners are skint and already need to cut costs and/or asset strip.

The time to worry would have been if they chose to tell the young and upcoming players to find a new club

Just how much rose is used to tint your glasses boggers? I bet the Chelsea Flower Show wants them back. 

The new owners have as sluffy points out already mortgaged more than half the club's assets and why would they do that if they had cash to hand? 

Seriously, they wouldn't do it unless they're operating on an absolute shoestring budget. Getting rid of the high earners would be good business assuming it can be done. You and several others seem to forget that even if two clubs agree a fee a deal can and often will fall through because the player won't accept the personal terms on offer. We can't force those players to go elsewhere where they're on less money and we can't terminate their contracts without paying them up in full unless they agree to it which they won't. 

Why is it that you seem determined to be the cheerleader for what even a two year old can see is a deal that simply doesn't add up in either the short or long term?

When is it going to penetrate some skulls that we're still deep in the financial toilet and all paying the tax bill did was buy a little bit of time? I also note that we are STILL under embargo just as we were before the takeover and the league is STILL waiting for the books they demanded to see when they imposed it. And I note that the league is so concerned about our club they have demanded to see the ongoing books on a monthly basis for another eighteen months to boot. 

None of this is any indication of a solid deal, just the opposite in fact.

Negative Nancy is back. Rambling on about the same old thing.

#killingthesite

Really Nat? This from the person who predicts we'll get battered in every match and proclaims Her? self to be a Chorley supporter?

#loudmouthedhypocrite

The football league wouldn't have approved a deal that would have seen us back in the financial mire 28 months on. I'm sure I read that they wanted sports shield to prove that they could run the club for at least 5 years

Boggersbelief wrote:The football league wouldn't have approved a deal that would have seen us back in the financial mire 28 months on. I'm sure I read that they wanted sports shield to prove that they could run the club for at least 5 years

Why do you think they want to see the books every month for the next year and a half?

Does that sound like they're happy with Sports Shield's (alleged) plan?

In fairness there must be a plan of sorts - and evidence SS could fulfill it - for the League to approve the deal. What it is exactly I've no idea, I don't think it's quite as bad as the LPP camp but I'm not as certain as Boggers seems to be, somewhere between the two for me. 

We can speculate all day but (as we saw throughout the Eddie reign) we haven't got a clue and probably won't be getting one anytime soon.

All we can hope is the Steering Group get the ST off the ground really soon to help us navigate these choppy waters... 

bwfc1874 wrote:
All we can hope is the Steering Group get the ST off the ground really soon to help us navigate these choppy waters... 

Joking apart we do need a decent ST for when the shit really does hit the fan and there is no one left to pick up the pieces.

That is its only purpose although a vital one.

All this bollocks of buying the club or failing that getting a seat on the board to have a say in how the club is run is just a chance to live the dream for a bunch of wannabe ego's who have lost touch with reality.

That is clearly been shown to be the case with the behaviour of the Steering Committee to date and how they have seemingly pissed off the majority of the initial fans of the ST.

The last tweet from the Steering Group about those actually paying their £10 membership says that only 2,000 of the 6,000 have done so (roughly 7 in every 10 people HAVE NOT!) and that 500 tickets out of I assume 1,000 for the same venue they had last time, are still available for their public meeting the day after tomorrow!

Still once those who are involved in the ST for the wrong reasons start to fall by the wayside the core of a decent number of people will be left to take on the club when they are needed and pass it on to someone willing to invest in its future and move us out of being a bottom feeder club which we will due to necessity under the stewardship of the ST.

The ST's purpose depends on the state of the club. With stable ownership most ST's across Europe are a voice for the fans to the board, that's the purpose I've always backed them having. As you rightly say, should it all go tits up they may need to be there as a rallying point for the fans to pick up the pieces.

I think you're celebrating their failure a bit prematurely if I'm honest, a 1 in 3 pick up rate from a free to a paid service is reasonably strong by any industries standards - Spotify for instance boasts a similar ratio. Let's wait and see who gets elected to the ST and then what they can deliver. They've got about 10 months left of my £10 to do something!

Sluffy wrote:So...

Holdsworth BORROWS £7.5 million to pay the tax bill and get us through to the end of July and then BORROWS another (according to your theory) £6 million simply to pay off some of the players from our wage bill and survive to the end of July 2017.

Brilliant, we would start 2017/18 season in Division 1, with half a squad and £13.5 million in debt!

Not quite, but basically yes. In fact that's one of the better scenarios.

He's borrowed the money for this year but he said the plan was to borrow a further £12.5 million over the next 3 years (£4 mill and a bit per annum on average) to lend to the club. If he can.
So that's £20 million that will need to be paid back with interest including the £7.5 for this year.
Next year our running costs will be around £12 or 13 million again of which at least £7.5 million will be wages of which £6million or so will go to just 10 or 11 players. That's after loads of players leave this summer.

So providing we can survive - basically if we can borrow the money to survive - we'll be shut of most of the high earners apart from Clough and Amos who are contracted for another 2 seasons by the beginning of the 2017/18 season. 

As you point out, at that stage we'll have a massive debt BUT the level of borrowing and subsequent debt can be kept to a minimum by offering to pay part of the wages to offload them.

And we'll still exist.

I thought SS had proved to ED that they had the funds available to take the club on and run it?

In fact, he said they were the only ones to have done so.

But given that they're already borrowing like crazy, how does that stack up?

Presumably, anybody could have done what they have, ie Rock up with a plan which says they've no cash and will have to mortgage the bollocks out of the cub as soon as possible.

So what made them so special?

Could it be that they were the only ones happy to (A) stump up £3m just to look at the books, (B) pay the tax bill and (C) make the crazy old bastard President as part of the deal and agree to pay him a further £15m if the cub survives?

I still can't see what's in it for SS but it's looking increasingly likely to me that ED sold to them because they offered the best deal for him personally.

And all his spiel about putting the club in safe hands is a pie of horse shit.

Breadman wrote:
And all his spiel about putting the club in safe hands is a pie of horse shit.

Think I just had one of them from the £1 bakery in Wigan.

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:So...

Holdsworth BORROWS £7.5 million to pay the tax bill and get us through to the end of July and then BORROWS another (according to your theory) £6 million simply to pay off some of the players from our wage bill and survive to the end of July 2017.

Brilliant, we would start 2017/18 season in Division 1, with half a squad and £13.5 million in debt!

Not quite, but basically yes. In fact that's one of the better scenarios.

He's borrowed the money for this year but he said the plan was to borrow a further £12.5 million over the next 3 years (£4 mill and a bit per annum on average) to lend to the club. If he can.
So that's £20 million that will need to be paid back with interest including the £7.5 for this year.
Next year our running costs will be around £12 or 13 million again of which at least £7.5 million will be wages of which £6million or so will go to just 10 or 11 players. That's after loads of players leave this summer.

So providing we can survive - basically if we can borrow the money to survive - we'll be shut of most of the high earners apart from Clough and Amos who are contracted for another 2 seasons by the beginning of the 2017/18 season. 

As you point out, at that stage we'll have a massive debt BUT the level of borrowing and subsequent debt can be kept to a minimum by offering to pay part of the wages to offload them.

And we'll still exist.

So...

We BORROW £20 million and spend it on surviving until the end of next season having paid off some/most of the players still on high wages and are therefore unable to build a squad to be competitive in Division 1, whilst presumably have interested added to that loan at I would imagine to be a high rate (let us just say 10% for easy reckoning).

Brilliant we would now start 2017/18 season in Division 1 (maybe even Division 2!), with half a squad and £22 million in debt!

What could go possibly wrong then?




Just for reference Bristol City who got promoted as league champions last season made a trading loss that year (after tax) of £13 million, Milton Keynes who came up with them lost £2.5 million and Preston completed the hat trick by making an after tax loss of £1 million.

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