OUFC financial chappy on 5 min Fans Forum

[ZeroTheHero]

I wonder what the accounts of the MK football club (as opposed to the stadium owners) are? I suppose they are a different entity.

 

[West Oxon U’s]

I wonder what the accounts of the MK football club (as opposed to the stadium owners) are? I suppose they are a different entity.

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The football club lost £4.5m pre-tax last season on turnover of around £5.5m. Almost £10m of operating costs.

 

[Deleted member 222]

Makes you wonder how long until football, lower league football especially goes pop! All these owners chasing a dream yet realistically very few make it which then leaves clubs like ours in unsustainable debt.

It makes me jealous of clubs like Accrington who might float around the lower leagues but at least their fans have a well ran club that is unlikely to go to wall anytime soon. They know their limitations, they know they have to compete with a few big clubs on their door step but they are at the heart of their community, they have young players coming through to their first team and their fans are generally happy.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Makes you wonder how long until football, lower league football especially goes pop!

I agree. I really cannot see how any of this is sustainable. And it's the imbalance of it all that gets me - the moneybags clubs at the top not only have hugely wealthy owners, but they also take all of the TV money, with no real feeling for football in this country as a whole. But the amount of money in the game DOES tend to inflate players (and agent's) wages even at our level and below, so it's a double whammy.

 

[West Oxon U’s]

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Northampton Town lost £2.2m last season after spending recklessly to avoid relegation which they failed to do.

The club owes owner David Bower around £4m.

 

[Manorlounger]

Our club has no assets. Our club has little or no income. Our club exists because of the "loans" from a Singapore based consortium.

We have come to this through the machinations of various "businessmen" who saw us as a vehicle for their own gratification and grandiosity.

 

[West Oxon U’s]

Our club has no assets. Our club has little or no income. Our club exists because of the "loans" .....

We have come to this through the machinations of various "businessmen" who saw us as a vehicle for their own gratification and grandiosity.

Ditto 30 or 40 lower league clubs. It’s the same story I am afraid.

OUFC has a major problem - it can’t raise ticket prices
and has no real ability to increase Matchday revenues due to a poor stadium arrangement.

 

[Fred]

It does have income! More than many football clubs but like most clubs spend too much!

 

[LondonRoader]

Makes you wonder how long until football, lower league football especially goes pop! All these owners chasing a dream yet realistically very few make it which then leaves clubs like ours in unsustainable debt.

It makes me jealous of clubs like Accrington who might float around the lower leagues but at least their fans have a well ran club that is unlikely to go to wall anytime soon. They know their limitations, they know they have to compete with a few big clubs on their door step but they are at the heart of their community, they have young players coming through to their first team and their fans are generally happy.

The key line there, they know their limitations. Some of our fans are moaning and trying to spend £30m on a dream stadium of some else's money because they think that’s the way forward,
What any owner spends on this club will turn into debt, all the owners are here to make money not to give it away.
The expectations of some fans are so unrealistic they are laughable, as has been said football at this level is unsustainable.

 

[PottersRightBoot]

No - it can be sustained at this level so long as there are regular transfer inlays.

I kind of actually get the clubs business plan - which is effectively grow your own.

It is the level above that can’t be sustained - under the current ground arrangements that is. We haven’t got the ackers - or the backers for player wages.

(How many times have we discussed this now?)

 

[horseman]

There was a story fairly recently of an 11 year old wanted by a few top clubs, as part of the deal for him to sign he will be paid 15k week/month (cannot remember which) and his parents received a lump sum each and their mortgage paid for life. Now that lad is going to be rich whether he makes it in 5/6 years or not so where's the incentive?
That is just one example that football has gone mad and how many more are like this?

 

[FalmouthOx]

You’re right in fans needing to manage their expectations. That’s why the owners need to hold a full and frank press conference outlining what we can all expect going forward. Otherwise we are left to fill the blanks in and can get carried away with our hopes, dreams and expectations. If Tiger and the board spelt out what they were going to put in, what they expected to get out and what targets they had for the team on the pitch and the club as a whole off it, the fan base could see the whole picture and understand the challenges the owners faced a whole lot better. I still don’t understand why we’re getting nothing but shallow sound bites.

Hardly a strategy for selling season tickets though - football is a business which over promises and under delivers

 

[LondonRoader]

No - it can be sustained at this level so long as there are regular transfer inlays.

I kind of actually get the clubs business plan - which is effectively grow your own.

It is the level above that can’t be sustained - under the current ground arrangements that is. We haven’t got the ackers - or the backers for player wages.

(How many times have we discussed this now?)

If that is a reference to our current rent and service charge agreement then I think it's wrong, we are now having to pay over our normal agreement level to catch up on the non payments when we were in arbitration.
So for the last 3 years we have been paying a significant amount less on our service charge through arbitration, a £800k figure of what we owe from that 3 year period, that probably also includes both lots of legal fees, so over the last 3 years we have been paying a reduced service charge and still can't balance the books, I think it's a myth that IF our stadium charges went down we would have more money to be more successful on and off the pitch, IMO nothing beats good business sense and proper money management. Our problem, from the outside have seen nothing that is structured to a business plan unless a sugar daddy is around the corner to hang debt around the clubs neck.