So funny and yet very sad.

It's Harry Enfield's Les The Barman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxg60c2CRjM

Andrew

The biggest surprise is how little impact this keystone cops conversation has had with fans.

As I see it every malady laid at our table is because we're skint - yet 25% of turnover is effectively shoved down a hole and hardly anyone bats an eyelid - extraordinary.

Its the "other operating costs" that appear to be strangling us. Amazes how 25% of your income can not be accounted for, makes you wonder how many years these 25%'s have been disappearing for.

I thought/presumed it went on debt-servicing, but stand to be corrected on that.

It's staggering that the top man in the organisation says that he doesn't know, and has no idea.

What an absolute joke.

Lets get it straight lads, before your imaginations run away with you,.
The £24M "other operating costs" IS accounted for and, it seems, in a perfectly acceptable form as far as companies house and HMRC is concerned, it's just not accounted for in a way that provides transparency for us mere mortals, but if you think someone's managed to fiddle or stash away £24M and it's suddenly going to appear in our transfer budget, then you're kidding yourselves.

So what is it then?

That's what we would all like to know, Andy. What is certain is that those costs have been presented to companies house in our accounts in far greater detail than the abbreviated version that has been made public.

I'm sure you can see that to allow a company to just stick in a figure of £24M with no detail on how that money has been spent would be totally unacceptable to the government departments involved, the money has been spent and accounted for, and we can all guess and make accusations as to how and why etc but the fact is that, although it may be unpalatable to us on where it's gone, it has gone legally and above board.

Just had a scan through the financial statements on the accounts, quite interesting that it mentions taking out the loan (the one from BVI) based on future income and also suggests uncertainty in player trading because of the financial position of the club. If you read Kenwright's statement at the front of the accounts, he comes across as well informed of the club's current position, maybe he fell over and banged his head between then and August? The other operating costs seem to cover everything apart from the staff wages, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did add up to £24M.

£1,475,836
£1,521,988
£1,704,769
£1,650,186
£1,239,621
£5,552,000
£2,914,000
£12,120,000
£17,360,000
£16,416,000
£11,694,000
£21,078,000
£21,213,000
£23,797,000

Those are the "Other Operating Costs" from the last 14 sets of Annual Reports and Accounts.

The concern is that the final number represents an incredible 25% of turnover. The first numbers represent around 5% of turnover and could easily be ignored. The average growth rate over the last 10 years is something like 33% pa, which is astounding.

That increase is massive.

And last time I looked, Steve, the copies of Accounts from Companies House are exactly the same as those provided to Shareholders...

Your suggestion that they are somehow allowed to provide less information to shareholders is surely preposterous. Somebody who knows this stuff, feel free to help or correct me here.

Michael (9) Jesus, it's even more chilling when you see a list like that.

No wonder he's using 'The Murdoch defence'.

(ie: "I don?t know, I have no idea").

Look, we are where we are due to some extremely bad advice given to BK. Is this true? Who knows... the lies we are being told means we will probably never know.

What frightens me most is, if we continue on the same road that we have been for a while now, the word ADMINISTRATION could raise it's head. I'm worried.

Being acceptable to HMRC doesn't neccasarily mean it would be acceptable to EFC fans either.Afterall wasn't Philip Green paying his wife £1.2bn in 2005 acceptable to HMRC too but less so to his London cleaner who paid more tax than him on little more than the minimum wage.It may be worth noting too that it was paid for by a loan taken out by Arcadia, cutting Arcadia's corporation tax as interest charges on the loan were offset against profits.

Kenwright is obviously hiding something or he'd have put this one to bed a long time ago.

Michael:

I didn't suggest that they should be allowed to provide less information to shareholders, in fact I'm not defending them in any way, just making the point that it does actually cost money to run a club the size of Everton. The only other figure mentioned in the accounts is staff wages, so although it's a huge amount of money, I don't think it's an unreasonable amount when you take into account debt servicing and the general running costs of the club. That money IS accounted for by a firm of accountants and independent auditors, not ideal I know, but it's not stashed under the bed is it?

The figures you provided don't really mean anything unless those accounts were done in exactly the same way as this present set, and even if that was the case, they still don't mean much without context. Likewise the growth figure is spurious, we haven't grown, we just take in more money and give it straight to our players, all of our increased turnover during the Sky years has gone directly to the players as far as I can tell, in fact we now give them that plus more on top!!

Oh and by the way, if anyone cares to actually read the accounts themselves, various costs are listed, all of which make up part of that £24M figure, one that pisses me right off is our pension contributions of £1.1M!!! paying pensions for multi millionaires! What next do the greedy bastards want?

Steve, you keep saying the £24M is accounted for by accountants... just not in the Accounts, which is plainly ridiculous.

The whole point is that it's NOT being accounted for; we do not have any indication what the £24M goes on. It very well could be £10M paid to W Kenright Esq for "services rendered" as far as anyone knows. Would that be acceptable as "Other operating costs"?

Why are they allowed to put 25% of the club's expenditure in such a totally vague category?

And then you say the numbers don't mean anything!!!

FFS, I give up. The context is simple: the year-to-year financial performance of a Premier League Football Club. What more context do you need?

ps: The pension contributions are most unlikely to be for players. They are probably for a handful of senior club employees... like Elstone and Ross.

Michael:
No I didn't, it is accounted for and it is in the accounts, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it would we? because that would be plainly ridiculous wouldn't it ?
I know you, along with your many cohorts, want to hang this on our not so bright chairman but, you're clutching at straws mate, if you think that Billy and his other none contributing board members have sweded that money away into their bank accounts, then I'm probably giving you more time than you deserve.
You're numbers actually don't mean anything, just lifted from our accounts over previous years....meaning what exactly ?? care to enlighten me on your figures and what they mean?? growth? tell me how and when and where the money went ? secret borrowings in August ? really? read this then, taken from the clubs accounts in MAY !!


"The Group?s trading projections show that it has a reasonable expectation
of staying within its currently available, and future anticipated, finance
facilities, including the overdraft facility and the available agreed
securitisation facilities against future revenues referred to above, for at
least 12 months from the date of signing of these accounts. In preparing
these trading projections, a number of additional inherent uncertainties
have been identified; notably on-field performance and the resultant
reduction in the Premier League domestic broadcasting merit award and
the level of player trading.
The Directors have considered the uncertainty surrounding the renewal
of the overdraft facility and other inherent uncertainties and, in
the event that they would be required, have identified a number of
potential mitigating actions to manage any resulting forecast shortfall
against current facilities including the ability within the industry to
securitise additional future guaranteed revenues and flexibility around
player trading. Based on the mitigating actions referred to above and the comfort obtained from their bankers, the Directors have a reasonable expectation that the Group will have adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Accordingly they adopt the going
concern basis in preparing the Annual Report and Accounts."

This statement {repeated more than once} in various guises in the statement of accounts tells you that:

We will borrow against future revenue over and above what our main bankers are prepared to let us have.

We do need to sell and not necessarily buy

Our board of directors had the "foresight " to know that this season was gonna be shit !