General Club Finances 2023

[captainox]

OXFORD UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

OXFORD UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

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PDF available to view via this link.

 

[Yellow River]

Now we know (if we didn’t already) why Tim Williams got all arsey and defensive at the fans forum when @Colin B asked his question about the club’s losses for last season.

Edit , Colin has commented above!

 

[Northstandboy]

£24 million debt before we are anywhere near a digger cutting the soil. It is quite worrying. Do the owners see the stadium generating profit for the club?

 

[Foley]

The anti-stadium argument will be that there is a risk of the club running out of funds and the stadium being left half-built, which, to be fair, is a reasonable concern.

It won't be the club funding this.
So that argument would be irrelevant. Now I totally agree that the funding of the £150m needs to be explained ( presumably this will be part of the planning process).
There will certainly be bo logical argument that the club should stay at the Kassam ( even if it was possible)
So to me OUFC in.its current form is new stadium with a financial structure that works first the club or probably start back in the 8th tier ( would still need somewhere to play)

 

[Northstandboy]

Poll added, are you worried?

 

[RyanioBirdio]

If that includes the cost of the proposals for The Triangle, I’m far from surprised.

If it doesn’t, well I’d have to ask, “where’s it all gone?”

It’ll be the current rate of loss plus several million in stadium project fees. Could be over 11m let alone 10m. Around £30,000 per day.

People can talk about sustainability and the need for a new stadium all they like, but these levels of losses won’t be wiped out by a 16,000 seater new build near Sainsbury’s. Especially when God knows how many tens of millions might be added to the club’s debt to pay for it, despite the fact that the club almost certainly won’t own anything in return. Nobody knows that Oxford United won’t be paying for at least a chunk of it, so for anyone to say otherwise would be unwise. We’ll need to be in the Championship year after year to stand any chance of sustainability, and even then, it’s not a given.

If the overall debt stood at £24m in June 2023 then it’ll be circa £35m by June of this year if the rumoured losses are correct. At the current rate of loss the club’s debt could easily be almost £50m by June 2026, at which point we could be playing in Buckinghamshire in front of 2,000 people, at least temporarily. That isn’t some sort of worst case, that’s based on the current rate of loss.

I believe the club’s debt has doubled in the last three years - it could well double again in the next three.

To say somebody has bet the house on this stadium coming off would be an understatement.

 

[Orkney Islands Yellow]

Football finances are bonkers aren't they?

The championship dream is on however:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1773343980874240295

 

[West Oxon U’s]

The anti-stadium argument will be that there is a risk of the club running out of funds and the stadium being left half-built, which, to be fair, is a reasonable concern.

The club won’t be funding the new stadium though.

 

[Up The Manor]

It's premier league football for this project to be sustainable with the debts and finance that will be returned monthly .

 

[RyanioBirdio]

The club won’t be funding the new stadium though.

We’ll be paying for at least some of it through rent, which is the same thing. We’re absolutely going to be paying for a chunk of this stadium one way or another, unless people think we’re being handed it as a gift. Which we’ve already been told isn’t the case.

Also, the several million pounds that have been spent on the stadium project thus far (£5million if today’s reports are to be believed) has been paid for by the club, which people will be able to see in 12 months’ time when the next set of accounts are lodged. So we are already paying for the stadium by default.

If we’re going to have to constantly pay money to play there, and are having millions put against the accounts for consultants and legal firms in relation to the planning, how can anybody say the club won’t be paying for the stadium?

 

[bashamwonderland]

We'll pay when the time comes.

That might be when the owners deliver the stadium, but then lose interest in the football and close the purse.

It might be when we fail to get into the Premier League, and they offload the club to an unscrupulous dickhead who wants a new train set.

It will definitely be if the stadium is not granted.

It feels like we are very much on a "finite" lifeline now. Forget stability and a well run club. We are not a well run club. The only way we get out of this mess is by getting to the Premier League or at the very least, challenge for it.

You can't help but be angry that our entire existence is being gambled on a commercial property deal, but that's where we are.

 

[tomoufc]

The anti-stadium argument will be that there is a risk of the club running out of funds and the stadium being left half-built, which, to be fair, is a reasonable concern.

Indeed. Unless some extremely rich people are going to fork out £150 million on a new ground, and then benevolently secure it for the club's sole use (and not charge market rents), then we're deep in the mire.

 

[Bigdwoolly]

It’ll be the current rate of loss plus several million in stadium project fees. Could be over 11m let alone 10m. Around £30,000 per day.

People can talk about sustainability and the need for a new stadium all they like, but these levels of losses won’t be wiped out by a 16,000 seater new build near Sainsbury’s. Especially when God knows how many tens of millions might be added to the club’s debt to pay for it, despite the fact that the club almost certainly won’t own anything in return. Nobody knows that Oxford United won’t be paying for at least a chunk of it, so for anyone to say otherwise would be unwise. We’ll need to be in the Championship year after year to stand any chance of sustainability, and even then, it’s not a given.

If the overall debt stood at £24m in June 2023 then it’ll be circa £35m by June of this year if the rumoured losses are correct. At the current rate of loss the club’s debt could easily be almost £50m by June 2026, at which point we could be playing in Buckinghamshire in front of 2,000 people, at least temporarily. That isn’t some sort of worst case, that’s based on the current rate of loss.

I believe the club’s debt has doubled in the last three years - it could well double again in the next three.

To say somebody has bet the house on this stadium coming off would be an understatement.

Obviously I'm not billionaire businessman, so I wonder what their plan is to make money (or even break even) on the whole Oxford project is. I assume it's to get the club to the championship, build the new stadium and then a new buyer would pay off the debts + some extra.

Either way, the debt seems to me to be far greater than any of the clubs assets (er, training ground, league membership, player value).

 

[holdsteady]

We'll pay when the time comes.

That might be when the owners deliver the stadium, but then lose interest in the football and close the purse.

It might be when we fail to get into the Premier League, and they offload the club to an unscrupulous dickhead who wants a new train set.

It will definitely be if the stadium is not granted.

It feels like we are very much on a "finite" lifeline now. Forget stability and a well run club. We are not a well run club. The only way we get out of this mess is by getting to the Premier League or at the very least, challenge for it.

You can't help but be angry that our entire existence is being gambled on a commercial property deal, but that's where we are.

That pretty much happened twenty five years ago when Kassam got the club on that lease at the ground, it was always going to come to a head at some point.

 

[bashamwonderland]

That pretty much happened twenty five years ago when Kassam got the club on that lease at the ground, it was always going to come to a head at some point.

Yeah I agree with this. One of the things I used to love about supporting us is that it felt we were building something, solidifying our position, moving slowly but surely back to where we belonged. We didn't feel like a basket case after 2009/2010.

Obviously that was all a mirage propped up by our expensive, but lengthy lease. Now that's disappearing, and we're involved in this new madness, we're feeling a bit Coventry. A bit Reading, Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday. Wigan.

It just hammers home how shitty the situation is for most clubs.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

I voted for 'Yes - Quite A Lot'.

I still find it hard to understand why anyone (except a minted OUFC supporter!) would want to spend SO much money on the club and the potential new stadium. They have already spent a fortune on the new stadium (I think someone said it had cost about 5 million quid in getting this far!) and seem happy enough to spend sums that seem almost ridiculous to me to complete it. I don't understand how the club is sustainable just making the losses we do, even without that cost. I guess as long as you have people like the current owners prepared to spend money, you are OK - but given that everything changes, what happens when they move on?

 

[Tomox]

That pretty much happened twenty five years ago when Kassam got the club on that lease at the ground, it was always going to come to a head at some point.

Exactly, I don’t see the logic in saying we are a badly run club now. Maybe there are things that need to be improved but its not the current ownership who put us in this position with the stadium.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

its not the current ownership who put us in this position with the stadium.

I rather strongly disagree with that.

 

[Oxymoron]

The anti-stadium argument will be that there is a risk of the club running out of funds and the stadium being left half-built, which, to be fair, is a reasonable concern.

The financial viability of a company or the proposal in front of them is not a material concern to the planning officers, so any representation made that reference the assets, funds or budget of either will not be considered when arriving at a decision.

 

[warksox]

This is why they didn't want to answer my question at the recent Fans Forum.

Are we really expected to believe that the Chairman and CEO did not know, only three short weeks ago, that we had lost over £6m???!!! It's why I kept pushing the point on the night.

A couple of other points to note are as follows. We now publish a shortened version of the accounts, with none of the more interesting information available, and there is 10/12 pages less information than most of our contemporaries, and no Directors' Report, which usually explains the rationale behind the numbers. At the moment the £6m is sitting on the accounts as debt, not equity, which was another point of mine that they didn't want to answer at the Fans Forum.

As I've mentioned the Fans Forum, it's worth relating that I sent Tim Williams an email the following day, as a bit of an olive branch, saying that I hadn't intended things to become as adversarial as they did. Three weeks later and I haven't had as much as an acknowledgement from him. That together with the new, slimmed down, public accounts reminds me of the great Jim Royle quote, "communication my a**e"!

Whilst I agree with the general gist of your post, I don't think the bit I've bolded is strictly true.
The loss for the year was £6.18m.
The debt rose by £4.18m (from £19.98m to £24.16m).
Unless I'm mistaken the difference is the £2m worth of ordinary non-redeemable shares issued 23rd June, effectively the owners giving £2m to the club.
Not that a £4m increase in debt is bad enough, just pointing out it could've been worse.

 

[tomoufc]

Where are people getting this idea that premier league clubs are profitable from?