Latest BWFC Accounts - Year ended 30th June, 2020

I (and Natasha) go a long way back with Bruce Rioja, he was one of the old originals on the BBC 606 forum, that jumped ship to set up Bolton Banter and then a few years later followed myself (and Monty) to TW.

He is quite an interesting and articulate chap but he also has a dark side to him at times too.

I thought it was somewhat of a strange question he asked of you in that it implied some knowledge in asking the question but that same knowledge should also really have led him to the answer you gave him, without the need for him to ask it in the first place?

Anyway at least he was civil about it and has continued to be since.

The reason I post today is really draw your attention to this throw away line from Iles from one of his articles today - I thought you may find it to be a bit curious like I have -

"Wanderers have developed a mobile ‘performance app’ to help players stay fully informed during the League One campaign.

In what is a first for the club, players are to be given software on mobile devices which will help to monitor personal fitness, mental wellbeing, diet, individual performance analysis and timekeeping.

The program has been developed by technical performance director Chris Markham alongside software contacts in the boardroom and will be rolled out in the coming days at weeks at Lostock".

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It's not the app that particularly interests me - they are quite common, it is more the mention of "software contacts in the boardroom" whatever that may mean - or who it may refer to?

Hahaha!

Just read Worthy's reply to you - getting his Appleton and his Aldridge confused...

...yeah right!

Why would he think the Administrator appointed by Fildraw (Paul Appleton) have been an existing creditor of the club owed over £140k to him before he took on the role!!!

He wouldn't, he's clearly just telling porkies.

I just don't get why people just can't put their hand up and be honest and simply admit to making a mistake on social media???

You'd expect better from an accountant...




I very much doubt Mr Aldridge in his role at the club would gladly take a chance on not being paid £140k plus, when he knew exactly to the penny what the finances were!

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People like that are ruthless not soft in the head, he knew he was going to be paid and I very much suspect when the Administrator (Mr Appleton) publishes his list of unsecured creditors settled, that Mr Aldridge name  (PJSL Ltd) won't be on it (the account being settled in full in advance of then).

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Thought the following might be of interest to you Bob - it is KA's explanation of the 'offer' he received to buy the club following our promotion back to the Championship.

It's a whole lot different than the story 'H' has swallowed!

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The link also confirms (if not in actual title) the Aldridge was the acting clubs CEO and had been since Holdsworth 'disappeared' and all but certainly from his arrival and Holdsworth having the CEO title removed from him.

Sluffy wrote:Thought the following might be of interest to you Bob - it is KA's explanation of the 'offer' he received to buy the club following our promotion back to the Championship.

It's a whole lot different than the story 'H' has swallowed!

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The link also confirms (if not in actual title) the Aldridge was the acting clubs CEO and had been since Holdsworth 'disappeared' and all but certainly from his arrival and Holdsworth having the CEO title removed from him.

Thanks Sluffy. Sorry for the delay in responding.

Sluffy wrote:Hahaha!

Just read Worthy's reply to you - getting his Appleton and his Aldridge confused...

...yeah right!

Why would he think the Administrator appointed by Fildraw (Paul Appleton) have been an existing creditor of the club owed over £140k to him before he took on the role!!!

He wouldn't, he's clearly just telling porkies.

I just don't get why people just can't put their hand up and be honest and simply admit to making a mistake on social media???

You'd expect better from an accountant...




I very much doubt Mr Aldridge in his role at the club would gladly take a chance on not being paid £140k plus, when he knew exactly to the penny what the finances were!

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People like that are ruthless not soft in the head, he knew he was going to be paid and I very much suspect when the Administrator (Mr Appleton) publishes his list of unsecured creditors settled, that Mr Aldridge name  (PJSL Ltd) won't be on it (the account being settled in full in advance of then).

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Worthy isn't an accountant, Sluffy, but he appears to have passed himself off on TW as some sort of finance expert. Its clear though that his knowledge is rather limited and his ability to rationalise might best be described as of the 'clutching at straws' variety. 

How come though that no-one else noticed that Pjsl (Paul Aldridge's business)was owed £169.8K, the Athos Group (Lee Anderson) £45K and Inner Circle Sports and Media (ICSM) £60K when the Administrators were appointed in 2019.

The fact that all these remained on the books or unpaid is highly significant. Its also notable that there was no mention of the outstanding £60K in the 2017 audited accounts. It must have been on the Burnden Leisure books at that time because KA disposed of his interest in ICSM in January 2018 and it never received any of the £525K consultancy fees referred to in the audited accounts or any fees whatsoever, according to its new owners. Neither did it have any money owed to it.

The task of figuring out how FV came to the sum of £28.5m for the tangible and intangible assets remains outstanding. I'm not sure it can be done with much certainty because there seem to be a few unknowns but its a big figure and FV owed more than that at the last count. There are  bound to be a lot of Administration costs and fees wrapped up in it all and one might think that was one of many reasons why Eddie Davies did all he could do to try to avoid it.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Worthy isn't an accountant, Sluffy, but he appears to have passed himself off on TW as some sort of finance expert. Its clear though that his knowledge is rather limited and his ability to rationalise might best be described as of the 'clutching at straws' variety. 

How come though that no-one else noticed that Pjsl (Paul Aldridge's business)was owed £169.8K, the Athos Group (Lee Anderson) £45K and Inner Circle Sports and Media (ICSM) £60K when the Administrators were appointed in 2019.

The fact that all these remained on the books or unpaid is highly significant. Its also notable that there was no mention of the outstanding £60K in the 2017 audited accounts. It must have been on the Burnden Leisure books at that time because KA disposed of his interest in ICSM in January 2018 and it never received any of the £525K consultancy fees referred to in the audited accounts or any fees whatsoever, according to its new owners. Neither did it have any money owed to it.

The task of figuring out how FV came to the sum of £28.5m for the tangible and intangible assets remains outstanding. I'm not sure it can be done with much certainty because there seem to be a few unknowns but its a big figure and FV owed more than that at the last count. There are  bound to be a lot of Administration costs and fees wrapped up in it all and one might think that was one of many reasons why Eddie Davies did all he could do to try to avoid it.

I've not followed TW closely for years now, so apologies if I've credited Worthy as an accountant if he is not, he certainly was (still is?) their financial 'guru' on there that everybody else seemed to accept what he said without queering it.

He does seem to have some knowledge of accountancy but he clearly put that a poor second to his personal prejudice in his dislike for Anderson and accordingly,  for me anyway, by putting his personal view before his professionalism made me question his competence in the understanding of what was actually going on.

I likened him to some extent to Wanderlust on here who claimed to be a 'business consultant' who similarly let his personal hatred of Anderson cloud whatever professional knowledge he claimed he had.

I switched off from seeking out Worthy's diatribes against Anderson, in the same way as I had to constantly correct Wanderlust's many rants about KA on here, as clearly neither of them could understand what and how he had to run an insolvent company and still keep it trading whilst at the same time keep the right side of the law whilst doing so.

To be fair Bob I'm pretty sure Iles made mention of Aldridge being an unsecured creditor and maybe even ICSM and Athos (I can't remember now without looking it up) but you are right in the sense that very few if any, pondered on why that had come about/allowed to have happened - seeing that KA and Aldridge would both know full well the financial state of the company.

Perhaps if the likes of Worthy and Wanderlust had kept their professional heads on (rather than their prejudicial ones) then maybe the could have thought 'how odd' and 'I wonder why that happened' (which was the stage I got too) and applied their 'business advisor' skills to try to work out why that was, rather ignore it completely due to their blind hatred of Anderson instead.

Unfortunately there were many to easily influenced with the views of Iles and the ST (fed no doubt from the inside by Holdsworth) rather than understand that in the simplest terms the business was bust, Anderson had no liability to keep it funded from his own pocket and not all bills and wages could be paid on time (if at all).

Anderson ran the club in a way to keep it going until a buyer could ultimately be found (within the limits of Company Law) - Eddie Davies tried hard to sell the club and failed - that's why we ended up with Holdsworth and Anderson - there clearly wasn't any credible buyers out there lining up to buy the club off KA until Sharon's consortium eventually turned up - otherwise the Administrator would have sold it to them and not go through all the trouble waiting for Sharon to get all her finances in order first.

Anyway all water under the bridge now and instead we have new queries to consider such as why the businesses debt now exceeds all its assets, and who is paying the bills and why?

At least I say 'we' have new queries to consider because apart from you and I, haven't seen anyone else with the least concern about it.

They most certainly would if Sharon (or whoever is footing the bills) pulled the plug anytime soon!

KA and the auditors produced a useful five-year summary of financial results when the BL 2017 accounts were published, Sluffy. You'll find them on Page 4 of the accounts.

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Season ticket sales in 2016/17 were about the same as this season and I expect average attendances will be not much different either if we have a good run of results and are challenging for promotion.

ST prices are up a bit this season but I don't think its going to add a lot to the £8.3 million turnover figure in 2016/17 and if admin costs are going to be anywhere near the £7.3 they were in 2019/20 its not leaving much for football costs, other costs of sales and interest.

They'll be knocking £2.5m off the debt because of the settlement with EDT but I can only see that the general direction of travel will be increased debt.

Deloittes 2021 Annual Review of Football Finance has been published now. Its later than usual but I'll be interested  to see how EFL clubs fared in 2019/20, the season the report's based on.

Since the 2019/20 season was cut short for L1 and 2 I would expect to see lower income and lower expenditure figures than the preceeding or the following season. What will be interesting imo is the percentage difference between income and expenditure for that season and how much if any existing debt either gre or reduced. I realise it may all be simply academic but I suspect that our debt will actually have grown perhaps even as a 'hard' number, certainly as a percentage of revenue. Another thing I'd be interested to know is how much revenue "i-follow" brought into BWFC specifically and the EFL in general although I understand we won't know that for sure until next year when the 2020/21 accounts are due to be filed.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Since the 2019/20 season was cut short for L1 and 2 I would expect to see lower income and lower expenditure figures than the preceeding or the following season. What will be interesting imo is the percentage difference between income and expenditure for that season and how much if any existing debt either gre or reduced. I realise it may all be simply academic but I suspect that our debt will actually have grown perhaps even as a 'hard' number, certainly as a percentage of revenue. Another thing I'd be interested to know is how much revenue "i-follow" brought into BWFC specifically and the EFL in general although I understand we won't know that for sure until next year when the 2020/21 accounts are due to be filed.

It's a bit more involved than that Peter.

You have to take into account in respect of your costs, those that are fixed, such as say wages and business rates, which you have to pay whether or not your income decreases.

Also there is the government grants and loans during Covid, such as furloughs and Covid business help, which normally wouldn't be part of the accounts.

So to oversimply somewhat what I think you are meaning is lower income and expenditure in respect of match day trading?

I doubt we are nowhere near trading at breakeven due to the costs from Administration which need to be services and settled before we even get close to achieving and maintaining expenditure at a level similar to, or lower than income - and thus FVWL's trading account will be showing a further loss for the season just gone.

Indeed I did sluffy. For example there would be no need for matchday stewards or to buy in food drink etc either for hospitality or selling purposes. Also I understand policing on a matchday can cost a significant sum so I would obviously expect those costs along with things like match programme production costs to be lower.

Of course the savings involved would be useless given the loss of revenue at the turnstiles and from season ticket holders while the players and staff who were not furloughed (I don't know how many backroom staff such as secretaries, receptionists, maintenance etc were furloughed but I know it wasn't all of them) would have to continue to be paid. That's why I said I suspect the existing debt will actually have gone up as a percentage of income if not an actual hard number.

One question I do have is has a decision been made whether or not to continue providing 'i-follow' as an alternative for fans who can't physically get to the games? I don't know how much it brought in but at a tenner a match per viewer I wouldn't be surprised if it helped revenue significantly. Don't get me wrong, I doubt the hard number was more than a few grand at best for any one match but as a certain supermarket says 'every little helps' and I personally feel the EFL would be wise to keep the i-follow option available. It may not generate massive amounts of income for them or the clubs but any income at all that's above related expenditure is desperately needed and not just by us.

As a company FV would also be having to carry any trading loss of the hotel during the Covid period as well Peter.

As for I follow, this is what Cajun posted a few days back, hope it helps -

Cajunboy wrote:Last season, owing to playing games behind closed doors in light of the coronavirus pandemic, clubs were allowed to live stream matches to supporters at home via iFollow or equivalent club streaming services.
That will continue to a degree this season for Wanderers fans, with the EFL confirming which matches can be live streamed.

All midweek matches unless selected for broadcast by Sky Sports can be streamed.
Games to be played on Bank Holidays and those matches which should have taken place at 3pm on a Saturday but have been displaced for non-TV purposes can also be streamed at the discretion of the home club.

Manchester Evening news

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Thank you mate. I'm particularly happy about the midweek games being available since I won't be able to get to most of them this season. I doubt we'll be selected by Sky all that much since we're not in the championship so hopefully it means I'll at least have the option of following them on i-follow (and of course the magnificent portal).

I've recently returned to the office but in truth I am struggling to get things going again since I'm a training manager these days and actually recruiting people and running a training course on site is still proving a bit more problematic than my boss would like. As a result I've been working late a lot recently, mainly because the last two courses were done 'virtually' (ie video conferencing) and in two separate groups each five hours long with a one hour break between the 'morning' group and afternoon groups.

Cheers Peter, I hope you new(ish) job goes well for you.

I can't really imagine training people via video conferencing so the best of luck with that.

I used to find recruiting people very boring - asking the same questions of several people and having to go through the motions when it became clear early on that the candidate was not suitable.

I'm happy that I don't need to do such stuff any more.

Hope you find it more fun than I ever did!

Keep safe mate.

Sluffy wrote:

I've not followed TW closely for years now, so apologies if I've credited Worthy as an accountant if he is not, he certainly was (still is?) their financial 'guru' on there that everybody else seemed to accept what he said without queering it.

He does seem to have some knowledge of accountancy but he clearly put that a poor second to his personal prejudice in his dislike for Anderson and accordingly,  for me anyway, by putting his personal view before his professionalism made me question his competence in the understanding of what was actually going on.

I likened him to some extent to Wanderlust on here who claimed to be a 'business consultant' who similarly let his personal hatred of Anderson cloud whatever professional knowledge he claimed he had.

I switched off from seeking out Worthy's diatribes against Anderson, in the same way as I had to constantly correct Wanderlust's many rants about KA on here, as clearly neither of them could understand what and how he had to run an insolvent company and still keep it trading whilst at the same time keep the right side of the law whilst doing so.

To be fair Bob I'm pretty sure Iles made mention of Aldridge being an unsecured creditor and maybe even ICSM and Athos (I can't remember now without looking it up) but you are right in the sense that very few if any, pondered on why that had come about/allowed to have happened - seeing that KA and Aldridge would both know full well the financial state of the company.

Perhaps if the likes of Worthy and Wanderlust had kept their professional heads on (rather than their prejudicial ones) then maybe the could have thought 'how odd' and 'I wonder why that happened' (which was the stage I got too) and applied their 'business advisor' skills to try to work out why that was, rather ignore it completely due to their blind hatred of Anderson instead.

Unfortunately there were many to easily influenced with the views of Iles and the ST (fed no doubt from the inside by Holdsworth) rather than understand that in the simplest terms the business was bust, Anderson had no liability to keep it funded from his own pocket and not all bills and wages could be paid on time (if at all).

Anderson ran the club in a way to keep it going until a buyer could ultimately be found (within the limits of Company Law) - Eddie Davies tried hard to sell the club and failed - that's why we ended up with Holdsworth and Anderson - there clearly wasn't any credible buyers out there lining up to buy the club off KA until Sharon's consortium eventually turned up - otherwise the Administrator would have sold it to them and not go through all the trouble waiting for Sharon to get all her finances in order first.

Anyway all water under the bridge now and instead we have new queries to consider such as why the businesses debt now exceeds all its assets, and who is paying the bills and why?

At least I say 'we' have new queries to consider because apart from you and I, haven't seen anyone else with the least concern about it.

They most certainly would if Sharon (or whoever is footing the bills) pulled the plug anytime soon!

Its all gone quiet on TW after the Hetty Wainthropp response to BWFC Insane's comments. I mean you'd have to be insane to have expected KA to match Blumarble's £4m with no available security and with Holdsworth getting half the shares for nowt.

The Pjsl and Athos debts were, of course, significant because this was a clear demonstration that neither were being preferred and both were having to stand in line like the other unsecured creditors. 

I don't expect Iles would have  mentioned that and I don't believe he has ever mentioned the fact that the ICSM transaction was not to line KA's pocket but to help fund Holdsworth's pay off, keep Blumarble at bay and avoid corporation tax charges on the amounts paid out of BL to fund these transactions.

Has Iles or the ST ever mentioned how much Holdsworth's involvement cost BWFC? I don't believe they have and I doubt they ever will.

 P.S. Had a quick look at Deloitte's Football Finance 2021 Review. A 'woke' culture seems to be increasingly evident with, for example, women's footie taking precedence over the EFL for the third year running. 

2019/20 financial results were, as expected, adversely affected by COVID not least in the Championship where aggregate losses exceeded £500m. It may have affected FV's results as well but I'm not sure that it would be by all that much. FV benefitted from £1m in government grants and costs in the first month or two of its financial year might well have been picked up in the Administrators accounts rather than FV's.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Its all gone quiet on TW after the Hetty Wainthropp response to BWFC Insane's comments. I mean you'd have to be insane to have expected KA to match Blumarble's £4m with no available security and with Holdsworth getting half the shares for nowt.

The Pjsl and Athos debts were, of course, significant because this was a clear demonstration that neither were being preferred and both were having to stand in line like the other unsecured creditors. 

I don't expect Iles would have  mentioned that and I don't believe he has ever mentioned the fact that the ICSM transaction was not to line KA's pocket but to help fund Holdsworth's pay off, keep Blumarble at bay and avoid corporation tax charges on the amounts paid out of BL to fund these transactions.

Has Iles or the ST ever mentioned how much Holdsworth's involvement cost BWFC? I don't believe they have and I doubt they ever will.

 P.S. Had a quick look at Deloitte's Football Finance 2021 Review. A 'woke' culture seems to be increasingly evident with, for example, women's footie taking precedence over the EFL for the third year running. 

2019/20 financial results were, as expected, adversely affected by COVID not least in the Championship where aggregate losses exceeded £500m. It may have affected FV's results as well but I'm not sure that it would be by all that much. FV benefitted from £1m in government grants and costs in the first month or two of its financial year might well have been picked up in the Administrators accounts rather than FV's.

Iles is completely biased and/or utterly stupid and ignorant when it comes to Anderson/Holdsworth/understanding accounts and/or how business need to be run compliant with the law (note not compliant with morals - breaking the law lands you in jail not acting immorally).

I honestly believe Iles probably intends well but he should stick to understanding what the facts actually mean rather relying on the poison from others - and passing the poison on.

He's been completely unprofessional in his behaviour and fanned the flames/ poured more oil on the fire of what many, many others wanted to believe was happening and why it was.

Unfortunately people, such as those on TW (and most other places too) refuse to reassess their opinions and will not thank you or I for pointing out what DID happen rather than what the lynch mob BELIEVED happen.

I don't see much point in flogging a dead horse myself and think it is about time to move on - haters are only going to carry on hating, as they say these days.

As for wokeism - I'm still somewhat unsure what that is and all the other social nuances that seem to have sprung up in the last few years.

I am an honest person and simply don't wish to upset or offend anyone with what I say or do.

Does it matter much which order Deloitte reports the various leagues?

To my way of thinking - and with it all being about 'numbers' - I would have thought the natural sequence they should be presented in is in descending financial order.

I'm not sure how 'sequencing' the Women's football accounts before the EFL promotes whatever it is Deloitte's is trying to 'message' by doing so - and I would imagine the majority of those reading their report would 'skip' over that section as it probably isn't their primary interest or concern.

So if the reason they did do that is 'woke', then as I say I simply don't yet understand it.

It neither makes logical sense - why not put the women's football details at the front before the PL details then - or place them in a descending financial sequence of all the leagues?

It's neither one thing or the other - and probably meaningless to most users of the Deloitte report who will seek the information they require, irrespective of where the women's accounts are shown.

What as been achieved?

Nothing at all from my point of view - maybe I'm missing something though?

Orwell understood the significance of history when he wrote in '1984':

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. History has stopped.”


There is a supposition that history is accurately recorded at the relevant time but by no means is that always the case. I suppose with age and experience you get to see propaganda more quickly than when young and I can't help but think that we are seeing more blatant propaganda now than at any time in my lifetime and folk seem to accept it without question.

Yes I agree.

I'm constantly amazed how people unilaterally believe what the read on social media, almost without giving it a second thought.

There's no doubt at all that more than a few promote fake/false information knowingly - some deliberately to further an agenda, others just for a laugh.

I'm constantly amazed too how stupid / naive people are to get taken in by it - and that includes many you would think did actually have a brain in their heads.

There's always been propaganda - the Pharos's built monuments so that others would know how powerful they were, yet these days with everybody having instantaneous access on social media, people get to hear about things and follow the crowd immediately simply because everybody else is!

People believed QAnon which was about Trump saving the world from paedophile devil worshipers, or something like that - I simply can't understand how utterly dumb some folk are.

If that's the benchmark these days then its little wonder people happily believe Iles about accounts and Anderson was the Devil incarnate.

We get what we deserve I suppose?

Other examples of the wokery in Deloitte's report, Sluffy, are the three pages on discrimination and diversity, another two pages on climate change and a somewhat exaggerated emphasis on Leagues 1 and 2 being 'community assets'.

Of course footie clubs are an important part of local communities but how many are actually owned or funded by folk from those communities? 

The annual cost of subsidising League 1 and 2 clubs is comparatively small for well-heeled individuals but it doesn't half jump up if you fancy owning and sustaining a Championship club.

Thought you might like this Bob.

Although it isn't exactly about woke it does go to show how utterly bonkers people are by believing what tripe the read on social media.

I suspect most of wokery started the same way too...

The last paragraph sums up social media and the idiots that believe the guff they read...

"Sadly for a lot of people it's very hard to get out these kinds of world views and ideologies once you're in them," explains Chloe Colliver from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. "That's not just because you're surrounded by that disinformation day in and day out, but also because it becomes your social network and your community."

How anti-vaxxers are living and loving in a Covid world

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£3.5 million loss doesn't sound encouraging. I know they were expecting income from the (cancelled)  Rugby League World Cup but even so at this level that's a chunk of moolah.