A shame not everyone who had a question got a chance to ask one, particularly when some of the questions were so irrelevant. If we're going to hold the management to account then asking well thought out and searching questions is vital. One guy asked why Des couldn't wave at the fans more FFS! And as for the man who asked the management team to tell everyone the losses for the year before they've even been published...I'm all for holding people to account, but he pushed and pushed a point when what he was asking was akin to asking the board of a FTSE 100 company to tell him their profit/loss before it's published to the markets. We need to have credibility as a fan base to challenge the leadership. Perhaps in future questions should be vetted by OXVOX and the OUSP beforehand?
That person was me.
I disagree with your analogy, as it's nothing like the same as dealing with a FTSE 100 company, before their figures have been published. To do that would be classed as insider trading. OUFC is a Limited Company and as such has nine months from the end of their financial year (30 June) to lodge their accounts at Companies House, meaning they have about three weeks from now until the deadline.
But that's all it is, a deadline, the last possible moment the club/company can publish its accounts before being penalised. There is nothing to stop them publishing earlier, and some clubs do (about a third of League One clubs have already lodged their accounts at Companies House), but we are always one of the last to do so. It is not as if these accounts won't have been completed, and it's not as if the shareholders meeting won't have taken place to agree the accounts either. No company leaves that until the last moment, as sometimes things need to be questioned or ratified. The situation is that the club is choosing not to make this information available until the last possible moment. That's a club that talks about communication, but chooses not to communicate until it has to.
When I was a Managing Director my company also had a 30 June year end and we had our shareholders meeting and board meeting each year in early October. This meant the accounts had to be prepared and audited in a three month window. It was a multi national, much larger than OUFC, and the UK division was about the same turnover as OUFC, so there is absolutely no way these accounts are not done.
I was not trying to catch Tim Williams out, I expect him to know the answer to the question, as CEO. He could have said "I'm not authorised by the owners to divulge that information" (which is fine) or he could have said it's approximately X amount, but instead claimed he didn't know. I felt this was disingenuous on his part, which is why I pressed him. I don't think it did him any favours to answer in the way that he did, and it didn't demonstrate a club that wants to communicate openly with its "customers" either. Instead they closed shop.
I was going to lead onto what the current year looks like, as we're three quarters of the way through it and then (with an approximate debt figure available) ask what the situation was regarding turning this debt into equity. It's OK saying that the owners are covering the debt and not charging interest, that's fine until it's not fine. Debt is debt, whether it's "soft debt" or not and we as a club are vulnerable while we have it sitting as debt. The pool of people able to buy a club with £40m of debt is far smaller than the pool of people able to buy a club with negligible debt and football is full of clubs who thought they were OK until their owners ran out of cash, or lost interest, or became unable to get cash out of their respective countries.
I hope we don't find ourselves in that situation, but make no apology for asking the question. It was a Fans Forum after all, and I won't be able to ask the question in early April, when the accounts are out.
Ironically, I was going to finish my question with a short statement saying well done to the panel for what was a generally good Fans Forum, but after the way my question was dealt with, I didn't feel inclined to do so.
