*Official* English Football Season 2009-2010

[Furball]

Ditto Liverpool.

The top 4 club with the best financials by far is Arsenal, who are in a fair bit of debt because of building the Emirates but they're raking it in because they built a new stadium and sold off the old one.

Sure I read somewhere that Arsenal have either got their debt, or are soon scheduled to get their debt to below £50m.

 

[Matteh]

Sure I read somewhere that Arsenal have either got their debt, or are soon scheduled to get their debt to below £50m.

That would back up what i said.

 

[PhoenixFire]

By virtue of the fact that they beat them over two legs, this is evidently not the case.

Hehe, very true.

 

[Craig]

Quality keeping by Petr Cech in the USA - Czech Republic friendly

 

[Uppercut]

I'm not going to back up our chairman here, the way he's run the club since c.1998 has been a complete and utter joke and the sooner we're rid of him, the better - I might add that's a drum I've been beating for 5 years as well.

However, compared to the Premiership, our debt is small fry, and it's a debt we could trade our way out of by selling our top players (2 of whom will line up against England at the World Cup) and slashing our wage bill further. I'd also wager that we wouldn't have the bank leaning on us quite as hard if our owner wasn't in debt to the tune of £750m.

Compare that to teams like Fulham who have debts in excess of £100m, or Portsmouth, who despite selling £80m worth of players over 18 months or so still found themselves in administration, unable to pay players' wages on time, and with debts estimated at around £100m. That's a completely different kettle of fish.

They're just raw numbers that don't mean anything; the Premier League has much larger debt than Scotland because it has much bigger clubs that are capable of financing more debt. Rangers aren't in too bad shape but as I've ranted at length about before, the problems in the Premiership, particularly at United and Liverpool, are pretty heavily overstated too. Debt really isn't much of a problem in itself.

 

[Craig]

They're just raw numbers that don't mean anything; the Premier League has much larger debt than Scotland because it has much bigger clubs that are capable of financing more debt. Rangers aren't in too bad shape but as I've ranted at length about before, the problems in the Premiership, particularly at United and Liverpool, are pretty heavily overstated too. Debt really isn't much of a problem in itself.

As long as you are still able to make your repayments and/or still make a profit?

 

[Ikki]

By virtue of the fact that they beat them over two legs, this is evidently not the case.

Inter only beat them at home (the one where Barca travelled), they actually lost away. While I agree with your point in general; it doesn't detract from social's.

 

[Uppercut]

As long as you are still able to make your repayments and/or still make a profit?

Pretty much. It has to be secure too. So you can't be £300m in debt when your business and all of its assets are only worth £200m. It's theoretically optimal for a profitable business to finance a large amount of debt, although somewhat risky. But the large negative numbers banded about to scare people are pretty meaningless by themselves.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Quality keeping by Petr Cech in the USA - Czech Republic friendly

Cech making a horrendous mess of dealing with a cross?

Whatever next - Ledley King getting injured?

 

[grecian]

Well, obviously not happy that the Millwall thugs will be happy, but it's good we won't have to play the neanderthals next year.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Well, obviously not happy that the Millwall thugs will be happy, but it's good we won't have to play the neanderthals next year.

It's also good that I've won the £20 bet I had in September with my Swindon fan mate that they wouldn't go up.

 

[GIMH]

Swindon looked a much better team when we played them than Millwall did, though tbf we played out of our socks against Millwall. Find it hard to hate Millwall as much as I used to as if it wasn't for them trouncing us 5-0 I think we may have stuck with Barnes longer and henceforth got relegated.

 

[Furball]

They're just raw numbers that don't mean anything; the Premier League has much larger debt than Scotland because it has much bigger clubs that are capable of financing more debt. Rangers aren't in too bad shape but as I've ranted at length about before, the problems in the Premiership, particularly at United and Liverpool, are pretty heavily overstated too. Debt really isn't much of a problem in itself.

It's a problem that only 5 of the 20 clubs in the EPL in 2008/09 posted a profit.

Debt isn't a problem in itself, Arsenal's massive debt was never a huge problem because it was in order to generate revenue through the ground, but when there's over £3bn of debt in the league and only 5 clubs are posting a profit, then something's not right.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Operating profit of £45million for the 08/09 season, ftr.

 

[Uppercut]

It's a problem that only 5 of the 20 clubs in the EPL in 2008/09 posted a profit.

Debt isn't a problem in itself, Arsenal's massive debt was never a huge problem because it was in order to generate revenue through the ground, but when there's over £3bn of debt in the league and only 5 clubs are posting a profit, then something's not right.

The profit number is meaningless too though. The devaluing of assets during the recession is counted as a net loss in the accounts. If you want to know whether a business is really making money then you need to look at the accounts in quite a bit of detail. I mean, there might well be something not right with how the clubs are being run, but none of these figures are any evidence enough to say one way or the other. They're basically just random numbers that don't mean anything without context.

 

[BoyBrumby]

The profit number is meaningless too though. The devaluing of assets during the recession is counted as a net loss in the accounts. If you want to know whether a business is really making money then you need to look at the accounts in quite a bit of detail. I mean, there might well be something not right with how the clubs are being run, but none of these figures are any evidence enough to say one way or the other. They're basically just random numbers that don't mean anything without context.

I don't think Platini is concerned with debt per se, rather spending more money annually than revenue streams generate, which is pretty easy to define.

Man U were actually one of the 5 teams to turn a profit, but that was totally due to punting Ronaldo. Others are (from memory) Arsenal, T*ttenham, Stoke & Burnley. Blackburn would've done too but paid back a £5m loan the owners had made to the club.

 

[Furball]

Quiz question.

During the 2003/04 pre-season, Arsenal performed a bunch of basic fitness tests, one of which was timing which of their players was fastest over a distance of 60m. Not suprisingly, Thierry Henry was recorded as being the fastest player at the club; Jermaine Pennant was 2nd. Who was 3rd?

 

[Jarquis]

Campbell?

 

[sledger]

Yeah was Campbell IIRC. Bergkamp was meant to be pretty sharp over short distances as well.

 

[Jarquis]

See my status on Facebook earlier today Sledger?