Fulham FC £ Debt

[TommyBarrs]

just was thinking about the £198 million pound debt that we owe Al Fayed. are we paying this off monthly or what? i'm sure Al Fayed is not taking money out of Fulham to pay it or is he? just wanted to know a bit more about this side of the club.

Our new stand is this coming out of the club or is Al Fayed putting the money in. last few seasons we spent nothing to compared to other clubs, and we made a good bit of money from selling players. and of course our wage bill is 1 of the best in the league.

[vbg cottager]

would be interestung to know more about that, yeah...

especially if we could be se3lf sufficient when al-Fayed is not here anymore.

[TonyGilroy]

We don't know any of this and there's no way of finding out.

The accounts are available for £1 from Companies House but they'll simply confuse. The club's finances are extraordinarily complex and opaque and we just have to trust that all is and will be well.

MAF has been a superb owner for 15 years but who knows what the future holds.

[Admin]

We start paying it back a 10 million a season, as of this season.

[TonyGilroy]

We start paying it back a 10 million a season, as of this season.

Maybe yes maybe no.

It may not be set in stone and they could simply be balance sheet transfers for tax purposes rather than big bags of money.

[FFCSingapore]

The following may be of interest :


Latest Accounts (June 2011) show:
Turnover GBP : 76.4 M
Wages & Salaries : 57 M
Profit : 4.4 M
Long term libilities circa : 213 M -have not changed much since 2008.

Fulham Football Club (1987) Limited was incorporated on 24 Mar 1987 and is located in Surrey. The company's status is active, with a team of 9 directors. Fulham Football Leisure Ltd is Fulham Football Club (1987) Limited's sole shareholder. They have no known group companies. Fulham Football Club (1987) Limited have total assets of £0 plus total liabilities of £213,121,004. They owe £4,186,452 to creditors and are due £1,706,383 from trade debtors. As of their last financial statement, they had £9,106,739 in cash reserves. Their book value is £-195,527,134, and the value of their shareholders' fund is £-176,597,552.

[Admin]

We start paying it back a 10 million a season, as of this season.

Maybe yes maybe no.

It may not be set in stone and they could simply be balance sheet transfers for tax purposes rather than big bags of money.

I should have said "supposedly" but I know for a fact that they we paid back 10 million at the start of this season. The plan is to do it every year but like you said, it may not be set in stone.  

[TonyGilroy]

Making a loss is of course bad but making a profit leads to a tax liability so what needs to happen is that profits are utilised so as to avoid tax. Repaying loans is one way of doing that but MAF has God knows how many companies mostly offshore and where the money is within those companies may not have any real relevance to the wellbeing of FFC.

Or maybe MAF badly needs cash.

We can speculate as much as we like but we will never really know anything useful about the club's finances.

[A Humble Man]

This is to do with the the FIFA rules on financial viability so an agreement has been made that satisfies these rule to deal with a long term debt and produce acceptable liquidity at some point in the future.  At £10m be year it will take a long time but it is a plan.

[Ordar]

I dunno why Al Fayed didnt just write the debt off like Abramovich did at Chelski. Its not like he's short, after selling Harrods for 1.4billion...and supposedly loves the club (granted 200m is still alot of money)

[A Humble Man]

I dunno why Al Fayed didnt just write the debt off like Abramovich did at Chelski. Its not like he's short, after selling Harrods for 1.4billion...and supposedly loves the club (granted 200m is still alot of money)

He is not as rich as Abramovich who has a long time to his demise, anyway why should he he has got the Club solvent and profitable enough to repay him.   He sees Fulham as a family business he wants his kids to take over running when he has gone.

[FFC1987]

I actually like the fact that we are a club who run successfully and pay off our debts and not just write them off. If we did that we would be no better management wise than any of the clubs losing millions. It's sustainable and is a model like Everton for everyone to follow.

[Riverside]

Should remember that Fulham is one of the Clubs that oppose the rules that would stop owners like MAF bankrolling the club. This suggests to be that he is happy to do so but the Club is being pointed in the direction of balancing revenues and costs .
And with a stadium of 25,000 this does not even put is mid table in spending power

[A Humble Man]

Should remember that Fulham is one of the Clubs that oppose the rules that would stop owners like MAF bankrolling the club. This suggests to be that he is happy to do so but the Club is being pointed in the direction of balancing revenues and costs .
And with a stadium of 25,000 this does not even put is mid table in spending power

That is why he wants a 30,000 stadium it changes all the revenue streams and make the club much more profitable and viable.  A venue of that size makes it it much more attractive other sorts of entertainment.

This all assumes the Club can still spend enough to maintain our Premier League status.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

I dunno why Al Fayed didnt just write the debt off like Abramovich did at Chelski. Its not like he's short, after selling Harrods for 1.4billion...and supposedly loves the club (granted 200m is still alot of money)

There were debts with Harrods so the difference was about half the 1.4 billion. So a £200 million debt against a fund of £700 is quite a percentage even if on  different scale to the finances of mere mortals. MAF should be considered as a businessman indulging a personal interest rather than in the same league as Abramovich who seems to have money to squander.

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

Should remember that Fulham is one of the Clubs that oppose the rules that would stop owners like MAF bankrolling the club. This suggests to be that he is happy to do so but the Club is being pointed in the direction of balancing revenues and costs .
And with a stadium of 25,000 this does not even put is mid table in spending power

There was an article the other day explaining some of the background. MAF and the club are objecting not because the new rules would ban bankrolling but because they would ensure that the top four clubs extend their advantage over the rest of the PL rather than ensure a more even and fair distribution of the money coming in to the game.

[FC Silver Fox]

As a matter of interest, is there any professional football club in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all?

[filham]

As a matter of interest, is there any professional football club in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all?

Is there any country in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all ?

[Rhys Lightning 63]

As a matter of interest, is there any professional football club in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all?

I'm not 100% knowledgeable on finances and economics and all that stuff, but surely Arsenal can't be in debt

[God The Mechanic]

As a matter of interest, is there any professional football club in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all?

There are a few in England, can't remember which but I have seen accounts for some that are actually good businesses :P

The Swiss Ramble is a good blog on finances in football, granted he's not been active for a few months.  The Fulham blog he did is old news, but may give a bit of insight.