Interesting Insight into a Football Clubs Finances

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Taken from the Exeter City Supporters Trust website.

Surely if James Brent (or indeed the Football League) was interested in transparency then this high level detail would be made available to the now defunct(?) PASB or it's successor and the Trust.

Doesn't seem much to ask and no need for any confidentiality agreements.

The blurb below the figures state that it is estimates - "The figures above (and below) are estimates, but educated ones based on experience in previous seasons and known factors such as staff’s individual contract details".

The figures show that City would run on a £60k pa loss. Is £300k on support staff wages typical for a small league 2 club?

The price of "fan involvement?"

No just the price for responsibly running a football club.

The alternative, as we have seen at Argyle but at many others too, is to irresponsibly run a football club which involves chasing a goal that might forever be unattainable in the course of which debts which can never be repaid are run up. Denial sets in until the inevitable happens and administration follows.

In our case Argyle shed something like £9m in debt and carried a further £6m over. If all goes well then Brent's Argyle will, quite unfairly, have paid off that £6m despite it having had no part in running it up. That £6m in turn will be paid for by putting £6m worth of less talent on the field, or into the infra-structure, so we, as Argyle fans, all pay by forking out too much dosh to watch cack players take the field.

It's those who trade with Argyle expecting, quite reasonably to be paid as agreed for their goods and services, who effectively subsidise a business operating an unsustainable and, basically, fraudulent business plan. Well them and HMRC who get similarly stiffed for taxes due resulting in higher VAT, NI or income tax for every last one of us (and higher business taxes for companies too).

This, of course, is outrage piled upon outrage and no decent person should be willing to tolerate it.

So do I decry or chastise Exeter for adopting their approach? No. Do I wish that Argyle and every other club behaved similarly? Yes I do.

Would it actually increase or decrease our chances of success if that happened? It probably wouldn't make a jot of difference but given history I suspect that currently we are losing out.

Are Exeter getting it right? No. Probably not. That, however, does not mean that us, or someone else, will not.

Modern football is little better than a cess pit and Exeter City offers us a glimpse of how it could be different.

Exeter City may not be the solution but it most certainly is not the problem.

No one cares enough round here, Exeter is too small, Plymouth is too far away from anything. No one wants to come to the south west for anything other than to retire.

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Dougie wrote:

Surely if James Brent (or indeed the Football League) was interested in transparency then this high level detail would be made available to the now defunct(?) PASB or it's successor and the Trust.

Information James Brent has withheld since Day One.

Remember when JB promised to open his boardroom up to the Trust pre-takeover? It was going to be a new dawn of transparency. Then he specified it would be non-voting shares, no supporters representatives would be allowed in the board meetings, and the price for this was £400k.

Sticking two fingers up would have sent the message just as clear.

ejh wrote:

Dougie wrote:

Surely if James Brent (or indeed the Football League) was interested in transparency then this high level detail would be made available to the now defunct(?) PASB or it's successor and the Trust.

Information James Brent has withheld since Day One.

Remember when JB promised to open his boardroom up to the Trust pre-takeover? It was going to be a new dawn of transparency. Then he specified it would be non-voting shares, no supporters representatives would be allowed in the board meetings, and the price for this was £400k.

Sticking two fingers up would have sent the message just as clear.

what a bargain that would have been   

ejh wrote:

Dougie wrote:

Surely if James Brent (or indeed the Football League) was interested in transparency then this high level detail would be made available to the now defunct(?) PASB or it's successor and the Trust.

Information James Brent has withheld since Day One.

Remember when JB promised to open his boardroom up to the Trust pre-takeover? It was going to be a new dawn of transparency. Then he specified it would be non-voting shares, no supporters representatives would be allowed in the board meetings, and the price for this was £400k.

Sticking two fingers up would have sent the message just as clear.

Yep.

There's no doubt in my mind that that offer was made with the intention of it failing.

Only a complete idiot would pay £400,000 on such a basis.

That was pretty much the moment that Brent's ownership showed itself as being somewhat less benevolent than it was being portrayed.

A great piece on this thread SFD, as ever i agree with all you have written.

Yes speccy has and continues to treat Argyle fans as mugs.

It is quite symbolic that he got nooli to bring out the pisspoti mug, sought of rubs salt into the wounds in a sick way.