CONFRIMATION of the CONFIMRED

[WestYorksRoyal]

Accounts good context for Couhig to make difficult but necessary decisions.

Do you mean hike up Ticket Prices by a significant amount?

More likely cuts. As others have commented, our 1st team wage bill can't be that high when you look at personnel. It's the non playing staff that is too big for L1.

[Winston Biscuit]

us and Wycombe to merge to form WycDing Wanderers?

[Linden Jones' Tash]

You do have to ask though how we have a salary budget that high? I mean, given how many of the players are academy and the lack of any obvious 'big money' players. If we had 24 players earning £4k each a week that would be about £5m in total..... OK, more with NI, pension etc etc, but..... £14m? I know that figure includes non player staff, but still.

Brogue's analysis has 288 employees ... Do the accounts split that into FTEs?
I assume most would be matchday only so low pay, but if more than ~50% are full time that would add up to a fair whack.

Quoting from the accounts.

2024 staff numbers:
total - 288
Players - 51
Football management & coaches - 84
Admin - 52
Govt schemes - 21
Match day staff - 80

[Brogue]

That wage total included:

Mola, Holmes, Monlouis, Hutchinson, Ballard, Mukairu, Carson, NGW, Bouzanis, J Anderson, Carroll, McIntyre, Ejaria, Abbey, Vickers, Azeez, Smith.
The average salary for a league one player in 2023 was 7k pw. Let’s say we average that lot at 5k pw, as there are some youngster in there. that works out at 17 players x 5k pw = 85k pw x 52 = 4.42million per year. We have potential lost that off this seasons wage bill.

Which means the salary for this season could be in the region 6 mill. give or take a mill, which falls in with the predicted salaries for this year by club in league one which has us in 19th for wages

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Accounts good context for Couhig to make difficult but necessary decisions.

Do you mean hike up Ticket Prices by a significant amount?

More likely cuts. As others have commented, our 1st team wage bill can't be that high when you look at personnel. It's the non playing staff that is too big for L1.

So more redundancies then - never a popular move...

There's been a few rounds already, so interesting to see if it's a route they follow...

Radcliffe at United went down that path...

Personally, I'd look to grow revenues where possible..

[Snowflake Royal]

Accounts published today for 2023/24 ( up to 30th June 2024)
12.4 M loss

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Do you mean hike up Ticket Prices by a significant amount?

More likely cuts. As others have commented, our 1st team wage bill can't be that high when you look at personnel. It's the non playing staff that is too big for L1.

So more redundancies then - never a popular move...

There's been a few rounds already, so interesting to see if it's a route they follow...

Radcliffe at United went down that path...

Personally, I'd look to grow revenues where possible..

I'm sure they will try that also, but there is no magical "grow revenue" button to push.

[Snowflake Royal]

It's pretty much what i was expecting based on the Charlton analogue.

Turnover; £10M
Costs; £25.5M
Of which All wages: £14M

Wage to revenue ratio = 140%

Player trading: £3.2M

So loss for year is £12.3M

We know from the STAR statement that this is roughly the same for the current season.

Albeit with Olise Azeez Smith and Selles sized intangible asset sales revenue probably swinging it to close to breakeven.

Hopefully...

The stark reality is that there is a funding gap of £10M+ in L1 for a club like Reading.

That will need to be found somewhere..

Some people on here (HNA) seem intent on refusing to believe the facts as laid out in the accounts or STAR statement.

The current squad is costly, wages wise and if we are to strengthen, we need the new owners to fund it - which is a risk....

There shouldn’t be. The average loss in League One is significantly lower than that, and that average is inflated by clubs like Derby and Birmingham (and us).

[Hound]

Accounts published today for 2023/24 ( up to 30th June 2024)
12.4 M loss

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

Brogues post mentions a few others I’d forgot

Ejaria would be the main one, suspect he was on near £1m p/a

But Azeez, NGW, Hutchinson, Jahmari Clarke, Senga plus I think a few others above the ones you mentioned all signed contracts when in the champ and are no longer with us or on that contract so it should be coming down

Smith would have been on a good wage as well

[Snowflake Royal]

Accounts published today for 2023/24 ( up to 30th June 2024)
12.4 M loss

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

Brogues post mentions a few others I’d forgot

Ejaria would be the main one, suspect he was on near £1m p/a

But Azeez, NGW, Hutchinson, Jahmari Clarke, Senga plus I think a few others above the ones you mentioned all signed contracts when in the champ and are no longer with us or on that contract so it should be coming down

Smith would have been on a good wage as well

Yeah, its always hard gearing your memory back virtually 2 seasons.

Dai just oxf*rd us again and again didn’t he. Wage bill of £24m in the Championship under a business plan he'd agreed to that capped our wage bill at ... was it £12m or £16m?

The Academy produces goods, but players signed up to a Championship Academy with PL aspirations aren't going to be that cheap for L1 players. Its why L1 clubs don't have one, its just too expensive

[Snowflake Royal]

LMAO, just remembered some fans trying to tell us our wage bill was less than Cambridge and about £4m.

[Linden Jones' Tash]

I have a naive question.

What happens to the £90M in borrowings when the club is bought?

[Stranded]

Accounts published today for 2023/24 ( up to 30th June 2024)
12.4 M loss

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

Brogues post mentions a few others I’d forgot

Ejaria would be the main one, suspect he was on near £1m p/a

But Azeez, NGW, Hutchinson, Jahmari Clarke, Senga plus I think a few others above the ones you mentioned all signed contracts when in the champ and are no longer with us or on that contract so it should be coming down

Smith would have been on a good wage as well

If I'm reading it correctly we made 3.1m on player sales in 23/24 - so Abbey, Homes, TMc, Vickers, Harris and a couple of Academy players.

In 24/25, this figure will likely be over 10m due to the Olise money and the Smith sale.

[Stranded]

I have a naive question.

What happens to the £90M in borrowings when the club is bought?

Thats a good question - if owed to Dai's companies, then it is highly possible that those will disappear on completion. Else Dai will remain a creditor, albeit likely an unsecured one.

[Brogue]

from what I've understand button is on silly wages for a league one club, which is a joke as he signed when we were in league one.

[Brogue]

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

Brogues post mentions a few others I’d forgot

Ejaria would be the main one, suspect he was on near £1m p/a

But Azeez, NGW, Hutchinson, Jahmari Clarke, Senga plus I think a few others above the ones you mentioned all signed contracts when in the champ and are no longer with us or on that contract so it should be coming down

Smith would have been on a good wage as well

If I'm reading it correctly we made 3.1m on player sales in 23/24 - so Abbey, Homes, TMc, Vickers, Harris and a couple of Academy players.

In 24/25, this figure will likely be over 10m due to the Olise money and the Smith sale.

that 3 mill figure would include Installments from puscas too

[Snowflake Royal]

I have a naive question.

What happens to the £90M in borrowings when the club is bought?

It depends who the debt is too and how Couhig structures things.

This is very far from my expertise or experience, but I think it goes like this.

If its debt to Dai, then it's presumably written off as Couhig buys the club for ~£25m ad Dai won't remain as a creditor... the sale price is essentially him recouping everything he can.

Couhig may or may not load the fee he paid onto the club as debt owed to him. Likely will.

If the debt is to outside forces, I think it carries over and remains a liability

[One Beer is never enough.]

I have a naive question.

What happens to the £90M in borrowings when the club is bought?

Not a naive question, and not one I can answer.

I guess it will partly depend on how much is owed to Dai and his associate companies and how much is therefore written off.

Sorry that's not much help!

[Hound]

from what I've understand button is on silly wages for a league one club, which is a joke as he signed when we were in league one.

Well he won’t be soon….

[Hound]

Christ, £12m loss with a squad of academy graduates, League One freebies and a few Champ players like Yids, Holmes, McIntyre. Did we end up paying Carroll the whole season or something?

How are we losing this much money with a high income for League One. The rest of the division aren't doing this badly, and we've been making comparatively big sales.

Brogues post mentions a few others I’d forgot

Ejaria would be the main one, suspect he was on near £1m p/a

But Azeez, NGW, Hutchinson, Jahmari Clarke, Senga plus I think a few others above the ones you mentioned all signed contracts when in the champ and are no longer with us or on that contract so it should be coming down

Smith would have been on a good wage as well

Yeah, its always hard gearing your memory back virtually 2 seasons.

Dai just oxf*rd us again and again didn’t he. Wage bill of £24m in the Championship under a business plan he'd agreed to that capped our wage bill at ... was it £12m or £16m?

The Academy produces goods, but players signed up to a Championship Academy with PL aspirations aren't going to be that cheap for L1 players. Its why L1 clubs don't have one, its just too expensive

Yes - also worth remembering that a few of those lads were getting offers from elsewhere in likelihood - Holmes, Azeez, Yiadom, McIntyre - all were being linked elsewhere when they signed. So I doubt they’d have been that cheap. Prob Carroll as well