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.
would be interestung to know more about that, yeah...
especially if we could be se3lf sufficient when al-Fayed is not here anymore.
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.
We start paying it back a 10 million a season, as of this season.
Quote from: Admin on January 17, 2013, 09:30:21 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: TonyGilroy on January 17, 2013, 09:36:14 AM
Quote from: Admin on January 17, 2013, 09:30:21 AM
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.
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.
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.
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)
Quote from: Ordar on January 17, 2013, 10:14:31 AM
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.
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.
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
Quote from: Riverside on January 17, 2013, 10:48:53 AM
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.
Quote from: Ordar on January 17, 2013, 10:14:31 AM
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.
Quote from: Riverside on January 17, 2013, 10:48:53 AM
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.
As a matter of interest, is there any professional football club in the world that is solvent and not in debt at all?
Quote from: FC Silver Fox on January 17, 2013, 12:41:26 PM
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 ?
Quote from: FC Silver Fox on January 17, 2013, 12:41:26 PM
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
Quote from: FC Silver Fox on January 17, 2013, 12:41:26 PM
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.
Didn't I hear somewhere that the actually debts are not bolted to Fulham Football Club but Fayed himself or some kind of subsidiary business to the club called Fulham Leisure Ltd? It also has something to do with the new club badge or I could be wrong?
The ,oral of the story is....if you have an idea or a plan to generate some wealth for yourself, don'y buy a football club....(although Bates and Mandaric did OK for a quid investment).
Quote from: jarv on January 17, 2013, 01:33:16 PM
The ,oral of the story is....if you have an idea or a plan to generate some wealth for yourself, don'y buy a football club....(although Bates and Mandaric did OK for a quid investment).
You had to go and lower the tone didn't you 064.gif
ALso bear in mind that he was not the sole shareholder, he had financial backers and his brother that would also have been part of any divvying up of the profit.
Al Fayed will probably get the money back when he sells the club. That's really the only way you can make money from owning a football club (unless you have manager who can balance a budget like Wenger): selling it on to the next fool.
i read something a little while ago, said chelsea was 731 in debt thats mega dosh !
paying back 10 million a year is a lot of money for a club like fulham. i suppose building that extra 5K on to the stadium would help towards it ( every little helps ) i can see him also trying to upgrade the hammy and putny ends in a few seasons. i think we could get 35-38 K JH stand of course can not be touch. and i really wouldn't want to lose the style of the old place like the cottage etc.
can someone tell me this new rules coming in next year whats it all about, i don't get it. people been telling me but still buggered with it.
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)
[/quote]
Height: Mohamed Al -Fayed is 5' 11" (1m80) tall.
guess he`s not really short
Quote from: TonyGilroy on January 17, 2013, 09:27:44 AM
The club's finances are extraordinarily complex and opaque
MAF's personal finances match that description, meaning we have no idea whatsoever how his total assets compare with his total borrowings. That in turn means we don't know how big a sacrifice, or even how feasible it would be, for him to write off what the club owes him.
The club's main income and expenditure streams are in the public domain, so it's trading position is clear enough, as is the size of the debt, but the real meaning of that debt is not. It will only become so when it needs to be repaid to any significant extent or, conversely, is written off.
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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.
[/quote]
That's completely incorrect. Loan repayments are a balance sheet item and don't effect the p and l apart from reducing interest payments ( which increases profit and therefore tax). As Fayeds loans aren't interest bearing there is no p and l effect of our repaying the loans.
