2006-07 Financial Review

Nice one Joe, I have passed this over to No.2 son who is an accountant with a lot of experience in liquidations for him to give me the gist and his gut feel.

Would I, or you, or anybody, on the basis this buy shares if it where floated in the public domain or even a used car of this shower...house of cards springs to mind, I might think so, but you couldn’t possibly comment.

Thanks for your time and energy on this again Joe, great piece of work. To me this shows the level of mismanagement that has been going on for years including before BK, but to run at a loss from when Sky reinvented the game and the wealth increased exponentially, he deserves to be marched out of town. Maybe Mr Birch had the balls to tell BK a few home truths and that’s why he left?

I also said some time ago that outsourcing and asset stripping are a bad thing; a desperate search down the back of the couch and trip to the pawn shop to keep the rent man off your doorstep. The club needs new management from the top down, thank god we have had at least a few top half finishes. It also confirms I don’t believe a word that pours from BK’s lying mouth and never will. The likes of share rights would have found funding and the dilution of his shares would not have killed him but it could kill this club.

Interesting to see the gulf in TV money received by ourselves and LFC. I am toying with the idea of subscribing to Sky Sports or Setanta next season. If I do this will it help Everton FC or just ensure most money keeps going to the Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U and Liverpool?

I?m sorry I read the analysis because if it?s all true (I dont doubt your integrity Joe) then we?re deep in the shit, whichever way the vote goes.
I can?t see big changes in the Board etc in the near future, can you?

Good piece of work, however, if we are guided to vote no because of the reasons identified then there is no point even having discussions on any kind of move or even the redevelopment of GP. We can only afford to stay where we are in a stadium in it’s current state. In that case we cannot win. The only answer then is new blood at a management and investment level to improve performance so that we can generate enough money to move. Would a turkey vote for christmas? The question therefore is which is the bigger gamble - moving to Kirkby or staying exactly where we are now?

Good viewpoint...No investment will ever be forthcoming on the facts stated there.The most worrying thing for me is that the club owns nothing apart from Goodison Park...which may not be the case in the next few years.The only assets are on the pitch which leave us open to pressure from the banks to sell.It amounts to asset stripping in order to keep the wolf from the door.A worrying position indeed and without the Rooney money,where would we be now

Personally I think this kind of scare mongering is just the thing we don’t need at the club. We all know we are in the shit, but the difference is we are performing on the pitch, and a consistent level of performance will result in a successful performance of the pitch.

This report has been compiled and published with only one goal in mind, to make people vote no to the stadium move.

We are not going to take on loads more debt, not in comparison to other clubs. But if we stay at Goodison then we are not making any improvements on the status of our club.

A new stadium will do that. It really winds me up that Everton fan’s are so negative all the time, just makes me wonder what if anything will put a smile on these miserable sods.

Nick Toye wrote:
It really winds me up that Everton fan?s are so negative all the time, just makes me wonder what if anything will put a smile on these miserable sods.

Spot on, I’m fed up of it too. The progress we’ve made since Johnson left is incredible. You can’t have progressed on the pitch like we have without spending money, so the debt will be high. At least we’re now a competitive Premiership club, which is thanks to Kenright / Moyes, the stadium is the next step.

Nick,Wyness doesn,t do scare-mongering does he?The figures in the piece by Joe are hard facts.We finished 6th last season,bumper payouts from tv deals,and we are still skint.We are still goint to add more debt to our existing one by moving,it doesn’t make sense.I reckon we will have to have a huge in-take of new fans and sell all the corporate facilities just to stay afloat,never mind money for transfers.It is not being negative Nick,it is being realistic.When you have the figures in front of you,it should genuinely be a worry at the state the club is in finance wise.The one bright light for me is that we have a really good team to put out every game.

The analysis of the accounts is interesting and I don’t doubt it veracity.

However, the stadium analysis veers way of into cherry-picking the figures that support your case and by the end has given up all pretence of neutrality.

Where’s the analysis of the corporate income generated by the new stadium? Where are the figures on increased costs of maintaining Goodison as a viable stadium given it’s widely reported failings. Where’s the probablistic modelling of supporter numbers to support your scepticism over the increased attendance? Where’s your architectual analysis of limited views from the cheap seats (because of course there are no restricted views at Goodison)?

I’ve generally stayed out of the stadium debate and one of the main reasons is the level of misinformation that’s floating about. Like I say, although your second section casts aspersions on the reliability of your accounts analysis, I’ll take those accounts as a fair reflection of a badly run business. The second section is just adding to the weight of unbalanced data.

@Brian,

Wyness has a job to do and he does it. Would you rather have Ken Bates running the club? Figures don’t always paint a positive picture. I mean wasn’t it last year we were in the top 40 rich clubs? Can’t be that skint then.

I don’t care what you say Brian, this is being negative and classic miserable moaning by Evertonians.

When we were with Johnson we had no money to spend, largely unsuccessful and to be honest a joke. We were forced to sell all the time.

Since Moyes has taken over and certainly since Wyness has taken over this club is now on an even keel, we are not sinking anymore. It is being run more efficiently on the field and off the field.

Problem is people are attached to history too much, and its the "I would rather sit in a crap old stadium then move out of the city", its boring and its testament of this countries negative persona in not wanting to make their lives better.

With a new stadium comes many more benefits then staying where we are.

- Better attraction to investors
- Better attraction to players (Arteta already stated one of the reasons he has signed a new contract is because of this new stadium)

Also, if we are in the shit financially and those figures are correct and not sexed up to generate a negative reaction, then how come we haven’t sold AJ, Artea, Cahill or Yobo? How come we are able to buy players to improve the squad?

Bottom line is Goodison is a crap hole, and it has been for 10 years. The reason why we are in the shit is because we didn’t evolve with Sky. We are a little late to the party but we are here.

We have a new training ground that is top notch, we have plans to move to a great new stadium, we have a non-hostile board, including a very useful American, a great manager, great players and great youth - so come on stop being so miserable about things.

Nearly every club in the Premiership are in debt and most more than us. So what if we don’t own the new stadium, all its receipts will be ours and legally its our home for 199 years.

I wonder what the suicidal rate is amongst Evertonians, because they seem to relish in misery.

Thank You Nick! I was bloody depressed reading that report but after your last comment, I feel better. Bottom line is .... where were we 5 years ago and where are we now? It’s not perfect but we’re in a hell of a lot better position than many Premiership clubs and the future, while not guaranteed, looks promising. It’s easy to forget how far we have come when we try and compare ourselves with the big four. We aren’t there yet but I believe we are at least pointed in the right direction now.

At the very least, Joe’s piece forces us all to think clearly, and less emotionally, about which way to vote on the stadium issue. However, I agree with John Holmes that the second part of the article tends towards conjecture and speculation slightly too much. The financial facts are clear, however. As a club, we are constantly short of money and have an old stadium which isn’t working hard enough to provide more revenue for the running of the business. The people in charge at the club are, in my opinion, sincere, hard-working and talented. The deal they have brokered for the new stadium looks like an imaginative way forward and, unlike John, I am prepared to pitch in with an opinion. We should take the deal. That is not to say we should not try to influence the design (which - to me - lacks a sense of the real ’Everton,’) and it is not to say we should not offer a rigorous critique of the work being done by the club which, with great respect to those who work at Goodison, could at times be better. One final point, let us al listen to the views of others and avoid personalising and demonising. I’m prepared to change my mind about the stadium move - when I hear a better option than the Kirkby/Tesco offer.

having waded thru what appears to be a well constructed document but have to admit im no accoutant. on the face of it we appear to be damned if we and damned if we dont. personally i agree with the move from goodison and i also agree that the club is in a healthier state than it was 8yrs ago, granted the debt has risen but so as the revenue. In my opinion we should bite the bullet and go for it, revenue will increase with the new ground and we will probably be ripe for a takeover - which it would appear is needed. new blood new money & new stadium? yes pls to all

Always good with an article that creates debate. For that, good piece of work. Thanks Joe.

The focus on net assets (liabilities) is an interesting one. In my view, there is nothing wrong with debt per se. The optimal financing of a business is not given and in most cases, business is debt funded. An move in the direction of increased debt is not necessarily a negative move.

It is more interesting to compare the underlying business performance. A good measure of year on year development is EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciations and amortisations). This is the operation not adjusted with "accounting" acropbatics and isolates the underlying business. In Joe’s piece the best business performance indicator is the Trading Profits, which EFC have changes from losses in 99-02 to profits in 03-06. The expenditure, however, is a worrying sign and it would be extremely interesting to see a breakdown of this figure.

I am therefore - and purely based on the limited information of this report - slightly optimistic (!) about the financial situation of Everton FC.

The figures given don’t amount to too much taken so far out of context. However, it does sound like Everton is being stripped of it’s assets in order to raise finance.

On the otherhand if Goodison is being sold then certain assets will not be required - such as the carpark.

Looking to the future, what does worry me a bit is that the new stadium will not be owned by Everton and therefore our current largest asset will be owned by someone else.

Out of curiousity, I wonder how Everton’s financial model compares to Man Utd, Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastles? Have they asset stripped their clubs?

Just read the PDF file...

...WHO are our longterm Creditors?? That amount/increase is rediculous!!

Does anyone have a breakdown of who they are?

So they’ve sold off assets and borrowed longterm. No wonder they’re worried!!!

AFAIK, the long-term creditors are:

1. Bear Stearns, to the tune of £25M or thereabouts, a one-time mortgage against the collateral of future season-ticket sales...
2. And then there is this mysterious £14M mortgage through Barclays Bank in Gateshead/Newcastle. Based on Joe’s analysis, I’m guessing that was continued insurance against cashflow problems, giving the club the flexibility ot operate without the threat of the bankers calling in the short-term overdraft.

this article on proves to show that we need a new stadium! We’re already skint, we need the increased turnover that a stadium will provide, iv not heard of any club that have moved to a new stadium where the attendances have not risen dramatically. Obviously people are against Kirkby but this is the only way we can afford to get a new stadium, so its quite clear that in order to even be able to stay in touch with the likes of Spurs, Newcastle, Villa etc then we must move now, if we miss out we wont get another chance like this and we will end up having to sell are best players every season just to stay afloat!

Brian, you sidestepped Nick’s point that if our finances point to risks associated with moving or staying put then better to sieze the chance of the only move we’ll ever likely be able to afford. So were do you and others opposing the Kirkby now move stand in the light of the finances? Are you now suggesting that things are so dire that we must stay put?

Michael, you are forgetting short-term loans to the tune of almost 20 million which are shown in the 2005-06 accounts. The B&S loan is only included as £2.5 million, which is the annual repayment rather than by it’s full value.

What the £14 million loan is for, your guess is as good as mine.

Nick: "This report has been compiled and published with only one goal in mind, to make people vote no to the stadium move."

There is a danger that that is way it will be construed but Joe has been compiling an annual financial review for years now which is why I?ve decided to split the documents in two. The second one is the more speculative one on his part but the first deals in the hard numbers. On that basis the two probably don?t belong together.

Regarding the £14m mortgage, speculation has it that this was taken out in April in order to pay off the club's bank overdraft ad cover payments due on the Joleon Lescott and Andy Johnson transfers.

Strewth,to tell you the truth I have always been against the move,because I have always thought on a business level moving to Kirkby didn,t make sense.The pro fans say that once we move our finances will get better.Problem is that we can,t gaurantee our attendances will rise by 10,000+,What if a percentage of the fans who are against the move don’t go?(I,ll still be going no matter what)You would imagine season and match ticket prices would have to go up in price,some fans could be priced out of going.Corporate facilities need to be sold out.If moving adds £20m to our existing debt,toatal debt could raise to £65m.Now the problem I have is,what if the stadium is not the golden goose it is being made out to be?We could end up with shit loads of debt,no money for transfers for quality players to take us forward.Is it going to be like a new business starting up were we may have to wait 2-3yrs before we see any decent transfer money?I know it is all ifs and buts,and everything may work out.At the end of the day it is going to be the biggest gamble in our clubs history.Obviously, if we could find somwhere in the City we would have a better chance financially.But as we all know,no-one as yet, can offer us a better deal than Tesco.To answer the question you asked.I’ll tell you the honest truth mate.I am up the fucking wall.I know we can’t stay at Goodison,but I think Kirkby is the wrong place for us to go.I am just trying to convince myself as to what would be the right outcome for us.I apologise,if it doesn’t really answer your question,but as I say "I,m up the fucking wall".

Oh for the days when we just used to go to the match an watch the team and we could not even name the board of directors let alone debate how they are running the club

Marko, I’m not "forgetting" the short-term loans. The question was, and I quote: "WHO are our longterm Creditors??" ... to which any response regarding "short-term loans to the tune of almost 20 million" seems to somewhat miss the point. Hope this helps!

Long term loan: Bear&Sterns. Short-term: banks (overdraft), other clubs (staged transfer fees) mainly.

That’s how I imagine things are.

Brian, thanks. I know we have different takes on this but good to hear as many considered views as possible on both sides before casting THE VOTE of the century. I know what you mean about that wall!! Think the only thing worse than moving to Kirkby is not moving there and this latest on the finances suggests it will be the only deal of the century.

Perhaps a little too heavy-handily , I made the point a few weeks ago on this site that the great days for this club could never return until a huge financial investment was made by a forward thinking new owner and the present players and staff are replaced to play in a state of the art new stadium.

Mr Kenrick suggested I was an idiot and rejected out of hand the idea that such a colonic irrigation was needed but interestingly he offered no alternative strategy for the Blues and seemed quite happy with Kenwright and co.

Living in the real world , only Chelsea has been able to prosper from a game plan like that and it would be daft to hold our breath on that one.

Does anybody out there reading these words believe a rich ’white night’ will be in place at Goodison in the near future ?

Seriously ???????

We have a decent side for the season ahead and I suspect it might be even better by the end of this week so the scaremongers talking about not having enough players to play out our Premier league , I believe , are far , far over the top - short of the kind of disaster that ruined Turin and Manchester’s sides in disasters - and nobody can or should try to predict a tragedy like that.

We will finish the season coming up between 5th and 15th place with just how high depending on our ability to beat our fellow lesser lights at Goodison.

We will not win a cup - I still insist that all available evidence supports my view that we do not do cup ties.

If it is of any consolation I cannot see our high-spending neighbours winning anything either although they should be able to scrape
fourth in the Premier before heading off to their ’tin can with windows’ over the park.

Without massive changes in management and investment we remain miles away from a Premier win.

I don’t think that is negative ....just honest !

Disagree with me? ......fine .....talk to me about that next May.

I promise nobody will be happier than me if we win something next year -but come on !!!

We are skint (or damn near it) and as for chasing BK out the door , I will stop some way short of backing him as Mr Kenrick appeared to , but duh.........he does own most of our club and I hear nothing in his words to suggest that he is going any time soon.

Despite all this Everton will survive and maybe we will even start to speak to one another again with less of the vitriol than we are reading on these pages over the past few weeks.

I tell ya what, Joe, you certainly opened further talking points with this one. God on ya! I’m living too far away now to be able to really judge the mood of the city but I’d like to put some thoughts together on the subject of money and stadium moves.

With modern communications being so handy you’re bound to get a whole range of views from the really negative to the really positive. That’s good and healthy!

One thing I’ve learned is not to take long term decisions based on short term situations. OK, so what is long term when it comes to the decision ref a new stadium. My own view is that Everton should stay in the city. So, rather than push through the Kirkby decision I’d like to see the Board draw breath and not mortgage the soul of the club just now based on our short term finances. OK, for that matter - what is "short term" when it comes to the greatest football club in Britain? Now that the Loop option has arisen (OK, late in the game)shouldn’t we buy some time to check it out?

One more point, many businesses don’t own their operating premises. Does a football club have to own its stadium?

If I based my future pension arrangements on the possibility that I might win the lottery in twenty years time, I might expect to be described as foolish.
I don’t see any significant difference between this and moving to a stadium in the expectation that another ten thousand fans will turn up and businessmen will flock to fill the new boxes, particularly if an improvement in playing performance can’t be guaranteed.
The club has been badly run since the 30’s with a short period of grace in the sixties. While Kenwright can’t be expected to turn that round in a handful of years, it isn’t beyond the wit of man to suppose that if he were to offer favourable terms for his holding, new investors might be found. On this as on the stadium debate in general, he remains surprisingly quiet. He may get an A for good intentions, but he certainly gets an E for (KW’s favourite term) delivery.

Seen an interview with Arsene Wenger over the weekend and he reiterated his position at the Club, he is employed to tactically manage and motivate the player’s, the player’s are employed to carry out these tactics and the Board are accountable for the financial stability of the Club. Very simplistic but true, in reading Joe’s accounts it reinforces the notion that David Moyes is the best man for the job, he can only work with what he has got and the player’s by and large are doing their job on the Park. In respect of the Board well enough has already been said on their inadequacies and failings.

Its fact that we are heavily in debt and its fact that by building the new stadium in Kirkby we will be in even more debt, however, the debt will be as small as possible when building any new stadium and by building a new stadium we will be be able to generate more income, which inevitably reduces the debt and this will make us much more of an attractive option to potential investors. It clearly makes sense to me that we need to move and we need to do it as cheaply as possible, and Kirkby presents us with an ideal opportunity.

Add to this, the new stadium will provide a feel-good factor that will attract new players, help hold on to our current manager and also in itself attract new investors that want to be part of the building of the new Everton.

Lets not stay in the past but push onto new glory, change is inevitable, lets get behind the move and make the future bright for Everton.

Simon, I for one am not partial to the past - yes at Everton we have a great history we should be proud of but it isn’t going to get us anywhere now.

We are not going to improve the team because we won the UEFA cup or the League back in the 80’s...

...but neither is selling off assets and renting a stadium.

I’m not against the move to Kirby. If Kirby is the most appropriate location based on finance and availability then that’s the place to go. What worries me is the manner in which Everton will be going and at what cost in the future. I would be just as concerned if We were moving to the Loop site under the same pretence.

What Bill and the board are doing is paying for players on the never-never. Taking out loans to buy players because none of them can afford to inject any cash into the club themselves.

Leeds got themselves into trouble because they spent too much on players who they didn’t own. The Everton board are effectively doing the same but in a round-about manner. Taking out a loan to purchase a player and not being able to repay the loan ends in exactly the same result.

....and not having any physical assets to use as collateral to mortgage means no future loans beyond potential ticket sale futures.

Please, somebody tell me if I’m worrying needlessly!!!

Increasing the average ticket price by £3 would result in £2.5mil more, (plus cup run ticket revenue) a season, at a near sell-out GP every match. Same circumstances at Kirkby and it would be round £8.5mil extra each season.

What are people’s views regarding ticket prices? Would you pay more? Or are tickets already over-priced in your opinions? If prices were the same as the likes of Chelsea, it would increase revenue close to £14.5mil a season. As it stands, GP is a relatively cheap ground to visit in the Premier League, so is there scope for an increase in ticket prices? I personally would not be against a small increase if it went somewhere to securing some financial stability, however I am not a season ticket holder, but do try to get to as many matches as possible.

Joe - can you produce an analysis based on staying at Goodison so that this analysis can be put into context.

Without that it seems like negative propaganda against the stadium i.e. give us the knowledge to make a balanced decision

Well that’s settled it - Kirkby it is then. We obviously can’t afford to build a stadium on our own.

I think all of us blues need to take a rain check.We are in a state of near financial ruin and we have no option to move. We have to face facts that we live in the shadow of Liverpool FC and there is no way we can stay at a stadium that is going to be so overshadowed by their new fancy home. The problem we have is moving out to Kirkby is only going to encourage more local lads to support the redsand rather than 40 or 50% of the city supporting us only 25% will.

Goodison looked magnificent tonight - felt magnificent tonight- smelt magnificent tonight. Dead near the players. We could shout down to them and they turned around and could shout back to us. Service in the snack bars was awful as always. Kirby isn’t going to solve this - we need a new chief executive with well paid, dedicated staff. You get what you pay for. Underpay your staff and they will undersell us.

Having read the Joe Beardwood report there are numerous figures that can be disputed and challenged so I believe it would be very wise for people to get clarification rather than assuming the presentations are correct.When one looks at the overall picture of the current situation at Everton in terms of progress we have to realise that a move from Goodison Park is imperative at this point.The latest options of possible sites are only political posturing by the likes of Warren Bradley and people with vested interests and not in tne best interests of Everton Football Club. If Bill Kenwright and David Moyes resigned from the club directly after a "no" vote then what and who ?
The biggest mistake Everton made was putting the decision to a vote Liverpool FC did not have a fan vote on gound move or takeover from the USA.

i see the light now its the same light you are supposed to see when you are close to death, i speak of the death of football its coming soon to a stadia near you, sound ridiculous well maybe so, but what happens if murdoch decides he wants to sponser fly fishing instead of footie, we are all screwed for sure, so hears the deal, a merger of the top euro clubs into a euro elite leauge which im afraid EFC doesnt exactly qualify for, and the rest of us dissappear into the abyss like yeovil or burnley you get the picture its only a matter of time before the bubble bursts, and lots more clubs go bang you mark my words you heared it hear first, i am a true evertonian who was born a blue and has stood in the then boyspen freezin my little taters off, im passionate about my team i have been in the players lounge in the seventies to meet the players i even have roger kenyons son named after me so please dont think im not with the blues, i just feel like the housing market, the BUBBLE is going to burst on English footie. true blue Daniel harris.