OxVox meeting Live

[MarkG]

The WPL debt is the most interesting one. It's worth mentioning that Ensco bought the £4m+ debt from WPL for £1. If Eales has sought repayment of that in any way (and I have no idea if he has), that is morally questionable at least.

As for the question at the fans' forum, it was me who asked it, and it was much more blunt than you are recalling. I simply asked Eales if he would write off any debt accrued under his tenure and he replied "Yes" without any further qualification.

fair enough. But if for instance debt was run up for £5M, and Tiger comes along and says he'll pay £8M for the club, he could buy the shares for £8M and the debt is written off. Or buy the shares for £3M and then repay the debt of £5M. either way Tiger pays £8M. but in situation 1 the debt is written off and in 2 it isn't.

Also worth noting that at time of sale, the club had significant assets in terms of the transfer fees due, hence the loan notes arrangement.

But just because there was a willing buyer or two, doesn't mean it was the "right" sale. See Philip Green selling BHS with its huge pension deficit, and the company going bust a few years later.

 

[MarkG]

And to add something more on whether Ensco was owed money. Alycidon Technolgies June 2016 a/cs note 13. Loans to group undertakings totalled £9,228,570 which I believe includes the old WPL loan of £4,383,878, however there was a total provision against loans to group companies of £4,957,412 .i.e this amount of loan not considered recoverable. so net value of £4,271,158. So at June 2016, Ensco was already thinking that some £700K of its own investment was not recoverable as well as the ported WPL debt of £4.4M.

Go forward a year to June 2017, another £2,044,592 has been added to the loan, so total loan £11,273,162. The provision of £4,957,412 takes it down to £6,315,750. But transferring this to a current asset investment, the provision was written back by £2,611,342.

This leaves the "current investment" as £8,927,092. So this is presumably what is now considered recoverable from OUFC / Tiger, however £4M I think was covered by player transfer fees coming in.

And if my thinking is correct, that means that Eales put in something like £7 million (including what he paid WPL to buy the club in the first place which was about £4M, or half of the original WPL debt), and has ended up porting about half of the rest of the WPL debt of £2M. However the club's accounts still show the full debt as £11,844,049. Tiger has presumably agreed to pay £9M for the club of which £4M is covered by transfer fees coming in. Or rather he's paying £5M with none of those old transfer fee instalments. Or he's bought the club knowing that it owed £9M but with £4M coming in from transfer fees.

**There is quite a bit of guesswork here, in particular that the carrying value of the investment at June 2017 represented what Eales would actually sell the club for in Feb 2018. Also there was another 8 months in which the club had to be funded, and perhaps transfer fees coming in and paying off some of the debt.**

TL;DR I think Eales made a profit of £2M during his ownership.

 

[Sarge]

Interesting comments at the bottom ( last two sentences) of KRs pre Bradford game overview in OM

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/...n-for-oxford-united-warns-boss-karl-robinson/

seems the coaching and playing staff at OUFC VALUE OUFC supporters, even though the board appear, (certainly after the lack of answers the other night), to view OUFC's support with disdain

random thought (on the subject) IF, hypothetically, Tiger is, out of the public glare, a maniacal control freak, in so much as that absolutely nothing can be said or done with out being given his explicit (written ? ) approval?. That , if it were to be true, ( I have NO evidence to support this random thought, only speculation), one hell of a lot could be explained ....unpaid HMRC orders (x2) , the MD always 'having to get back to you' ( has to check with Tiger what response, if any!!!, to offer), reluctance of both OUFC directors to actually answer any direct questions, even when pressed several times ( at an open meeting for Oxvox members, when invited guest speakers are supposed to be able to answer questions there and then).

Is it cultural differences causing the reluctance of Directors answering direct questions? In Thailand, perhaps company owners are treated like demigods, and are viewed as deities even by their most senior employees ? If this is the case maybe someone could and should inform Tiger of the old adage that goes 'When in Rome do as the Romans do' ...or tailor it thus, 'when in Oxford (England), do as the Oxonians (English) do'?.... as in actually permit HIS OUFC MD to Manage directly- without a 4.30am skype call from Thailand to 'clear' any intended actions? and allow other Directors to actually direct without Tigers implicit approval on each and every step they take ? Perhaps we'd then get answers to questions that are a matter of concern to OUFC supporters , chapter n verse of every single detail isnt necessary, however, a general & honest reply to Questions such as the ones, for instance, regarding the 2nd HMRC situation arising under Tigers tenure, would be very helpful....whereas instead, as things are, there will naturally be all manner of speculation, supposition and suspicion regarding OUFC board and its directors, if they continue to block/avoid/dismiss questions about genuine concerns that supporters have. And stop this un-necessary Mushroom treatment of OUFC supporters by the board members & OUFC directors.

There again , speculatively, the board may be a bunch of nerdowells looking to scam all they can from OUFC....who knows either way..... with the 'dont answer anything' approach weve been experiencing thus far under Tigers regime ?


hmmmmm

 

[Finlandia]

And you wonder why you don’t get any response

 

[SiHath]

random thought (on the subject) IF, hypothetically, Tiger is, out of the public glare, a maniacal control freak, in so much as that absolutely nothing can be said or done with out being given his explicit (written ? ) approval?. That , if it were to be true, ( I have NO evidence to support this random thought, only speculation), one hell of a lot could be explained ....unpaid HMRC orders (x2) , the MD always 'having to get back to you' ( has to check with Tiger what response, if any!!!, to offer), reluctance of both OUFC directors to actually answer any direct questions, even when pressed several times ( at an open meeting for Oxvox members, when invited guest speakers are supposed to be able to answer questions there and then).

I think that's unfair Sarge.

There were several questions of yours that were answered directly. You may not necessarily agree with the answers, but that's a different matter.

Just off the top of my head: You asked if the club would be supporting the EFL Trophy next season (not what you actually called it - but that's a different matter). Niall McWilliams gave a very straight answer and also explained why the club have taken that decision.

Of course there were some questions that went unanswered, where they said they would report back in due course, but to say that they didn't actually answer any questions is simply not true.

 

[Sarge]

I think that's unfair Sarge.

There were several questions of yours that were answered directly. You may not necessarily agree with the answers, but that's a different matter.

Just off the top of my head: You asked if the club would be supporting the EFL Trophy next season (not what you actually called it - but that's a different matter). Niall McWilliams gave a very straight answer and also explained why the club have taken that decision.

Of course there were some questions that went unanswered, where they said they would report back in due course, but to say that they didn't actually answer any questions is simply not true.

Fair comment @SiHath ...I perhaps shouldve phrased it reluctance of both OUFC directors to actually answer Many direct questions ?


to be precise I asked if the club would be supporting the continued inclusion of premier league U21s, or whatever it is this week, in the Shaun Harvey Trophy, as, lets not forget, that the Premiership CHOSE to break away from the football league, so why should there be any Premiership involvement in a (E)FL competition? ..... ,which was not quite the question the MD replied to, instead, he gave a clear answer to the question ( which he assumedly, albeit wrongly, perceived as...) will OUFC continue to take part in the EFL/Checkatrade trophy.? .... I, by that point in the meeting, had reached a stage where it was very apparent that there wasnt going to be much clarity offered by either the MD, or Zaki to most of the questions put to them. Therfore,t was pointless to attempt to rectify his misinterpretation of the actual question Id asked on the (similar) subject he chose to reply to , IMO

 

[Deleted member 462]

Fair comment @SiHath ...I perhaps shouldve phrased it reluctance of both OUFC directors to actually answer Many direct questions ?


to be precise I asked if the club would be supporting the continued inclusion of premier league U21s, or whatever it is this week, in the Shaun Harvey Trophy, as, lets not forget, that the Premiership CHOSE to break away from the football league, so why should there be any Premiership involvement in a (E)FL competition? ..... ,which was not quite the question the MD replied to, instead, he gave a clear answer to the question ( which he assumedly, albeit wrongly, perceived as...) will OUFC continue to take part in the EFL/Checkatrade trophy.? .... I, by that point in the meeting, had reached a stage where it was very apparent that there wasnt going to be much clarity offered by either the MD, or Zaki to most of the questions put to them. Therfore,t was pointless to attempt to rectify his misinterpretation of the actual question Id asked on the (similar) subject he chose to reply to , IMO

To be fair I think he answered that part of the question as well by stating that it was the prem u23 clubs inclusion that made the prize money so lucrative to clubs our size.

So yes they will be taking part, and yes he agrees with their inclusion as that what makes financially viable, even with lowest gates in history

 

[Sarge]

To be fair I think he answered that part of the question as well by stating that it was the prem u23 clubs inclusion that made the prize money so lucrative to clubs our size.

So yes they will be taking part, and yes he agrees with their inclusion as that what makes financially viable, even with lowest gates in history

I guess so then .... though it wasnt until @Paul B (I think ?) pressed the point, that an answer regarding the inclusion of prem U 23/21/18 etc which is seriously unpopular with most supporters in England, that it was then responded too

 

[LondonRoader]

And to add something more on whether Ensco was owed money. Alycidon Technolgies June 2016 a/cs note 13. Loans to group undertakings totalled £9,228,570 which I believe includes the old WPL loan of £4,383,878, however there was a total provision against loans to group companies of £4,957,412 .i.e this amount of loan not considered recoverable. so net value of £4,271,158.

Go forward a year to June 2017, another £2,044,592 has been added to the loan, so total loan £11,273,162. The provision of £4,957,412 takes it down to £6,315,750. But transferring this to a current asset investment, the provision was written back by £2,611,342.

This leaves the "current investment" is now £8,927,092. so this is presumably what is now considered recoverable from OUFC / Tiger, however £4M I think was covered by player transfer fees coming in.

And if my thinking is correct, that means that Eales put in something like £7 million, and has ended up porting about half of the WPL debt of £2M. However the club's accounts still show the full debt as £11,844,049.

TL;DR Eales made a profit of £2M during his ownership.

My personal opinion was that it was a pretty good meeting, quite well attended and quite a few questions asked/answered.

The Forum Mafia showed their true colours by not turning up, it's so easy to type messages on a forum but it's so hard to turn up to a meeting.

The thing is, this forum is just that, a public forum where people can put their views and discuss with whoever agrees or disagrees on that opinion.

You have to wonder why people won't stand up in a meeting and ask the questions, a lot of those questions might have been aired on here and from the responses the people asking the questions might judge their worth in asking.
The way I see the meeting panned out, the only relevant questions could of been asked of Oxvox, their 2 "guests" didn't really play ball and we got the standard responses from them.
The one thing I will say Mo, if Oxvox don't know the questions by now themselves then what is the point, they are supporters like the rest of us and they are far closer to the situation than 99% of the fan base, they shouldn't need to be prompted in asking any questions of the club or anyone else connected with OUFC.
Personally I would like to see "stepping over the line" and saying it as it is as ask the difficult quistions, I know that you have to be at the table to ask those questions but I don't see any gain by worrying if that line of communication is broken, it's a difficult balancing act but respect has to go both ways.

 

[Yellow hert]

I read these threads and feel completely confused by a lack of historical knowledge and the expectation of people who are not fans but business people.

We are where we are thanks to two people. An idiot called Nick Merry who got outplayed by a cold hearted business man called Firoz Kassam who must have thought all his Christmases came at once when he sold the club on the terms he got.

Lenaghan got us out of the misery of non league football but that wasn’t good enough because know it alls on here knew how to do it better than him.

Daryl Eagles comes in and gives us two the best years in the last twenty years maybe twenty five years we’ve had. Yet we still have moaning and groaning from people who know how to do it better.

We now have tiger who People shoot down, admittable some based on two HRMC debacles Buthelezi paid good money for Hanson and I suspect some of our loaners because he backed the manager.

In all case people go on about how they are screwing the club over for financial benefit and all that I can think is that they are all in cloud cuckoo land.

If these keyboard warriors were as good as their rhetoric on here then they should have coughed up and the club would be in their hands or even better run by a supporters group but no... They might have the talk and the ‘knowledge’ but strangely they’ve never put their thoughts into successful practise. Nor has one of them ever explained how all these evil men are going to get rich out of our club.

Football clubs are not run by the local done well for myself types anymore but mostly by faceless chairs who don’t have to deal with the fans because rightly or wrongly OUR money alone is not what keeps the clubs afloat and until the football league puts in place financial rules that clubs have to live within their means we will continue not to be.

Feel free to moan about it on forums as much as you like but it is the reality. Blaming and hounding out chairman like Eales and possibly Tiger will in the long run be detrimental to our club.

Because one day we could really end up in the manure like Coventry or Blackpool fans.

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Eales wasn't 'hounded out'. He ran out of money and wanted to sell.

 

[yellowbow]

I read these threads and feel completely confused by a lack of historical knowledge and the expectation of people who are not fans but business people.

We are where we are thanks to two people. An idiot called Nick Merry who got outplayed by a cold hearted business man called Firoz Kassam who must have thought all his Christmases came at once when he sold the club on the terms he got.

Lenaghan got us out of the misery of non league football but that wasn’t good enough because know it alls on here knew how to do it better than him.

Daryl Eagles comes in and gives us two the best years in the last twenty years maybe twenty five years we’ve had. Yet we still have moaning and groaning from people who know how to do it better.

We now have tiger who People shoot down, admittable some based on two HRMC debacles Buthelezi paid good money for Hanson and I suspect some of our loaners because he backed the manager.

In all case people go on about how they are screwing the club over for financial benefit and all that I can think is that they are all in cloud cuckoo land.

If these keyboard warriors were as good as their rhetoric on here then they should have coughed up and the club would be in their hands or even better run by a supporters group but no... They might have the talk and the ‘knowledge’ but strangely they’ve never put their thoughts into successful practise. Nor has one of them ever explained how all these evil men are going to get rich out of our club.

Football clubs are not run by the local done well for myself types anymore but mostly by faceless chairs who don’t have to deal with the fans because rightly or wrongly OUR money alone is not what keeps the clubs afloat and until the football league puts in place financial rules that clubs have to live within their means we will continue not to be.

Feel free to moan about it on forums as much as you like but it is the reality. Blaming and hounding out chairman like Eales and possibly Tiger will in the long run be detrimental to our club.

Because one day we could really end up in the manure like Coventry or Blackpool fans.

Hi Yellow Hert, I’m not sure if this is directed at specific posters but I can only speak for myself. My gripes aren’t that people should or shouldn’t be putting their hands in their pockets, that’s not for me to say. I agree with you that Tiger has put his money up and taken the club on and so should be supported. I’m in no way wanting to ‘hound him out’ but I do have an issue with the lack of information about what his plans are with the club. Since he’s been here there has been very little information about what the strategy is going forward. We still don’t even know if he has the financial clout to bring any sustainable success - the missed tax payments only add to these concerns. We now have a strange situation where a billionaire as arrived after owning Inter Milan! This is possibly the biggest coup in the clubs history but we as fans have had sketchy information about what it actually means for the club. My perception is that we’re tottering on the blade of a very sharp knife and I’m waiting to see which way we fall. A new dawn to the brightest phase in our history on one side, financial disaster on the other. Being kept in the dark only feeds negative speculation

 

[Sarge]

Hi Yellow Hert, I’m not sure if this is directed at specific posters but I can only speak for myself. My gripes aren’t that people should or shouldn’t be putting their hands in their pockets, that’s not for me to say. I agree with you that Tiger has put his money up and taken the club on and so should be supported. I’m in no way wanting to ‘hound him out’ but I do have an issue with the lack of information about what his plans are with the club. Since he’s been here there has been very little information about what the strategy is going forward. We still don’t even know if he has the financial clout to bring any sustainable success - the missed tax payments only add to these concerns. We now have a strange situation where a billionaire as arrived after owning Inter Milan! This is possibly the biggest coup in the clubs history but we as fans have had sketchy information about what it actually means for the club. My perception is that we’re tottering on the blade of a very sharp knife and I’m waiting to see which way we fall. A new dawn to the brightest phase in our history on one side, financial disaster on the other. Being kept in the dark only feeds negative speculation

Agree 100% with you on that ^^ @yellowbow .... lack of basic information of any substance ( regarding strategy, finances for the playing squad, Stadium ownership, and similar info), is the major issue I have with the current OUFC Owner , directors & board members

 

[yellowbow]

After reading the minutes for the last meeting - thanks to all involved for the email - I have to say I do feel slightly more comfortable with the situation. Even though it is still
apparent that answers to questions regarding individual board members’ roles/level of involvement were sketchy, I do get the impression that there is significant ‘activity’ going on behind the scenes and that a move to a new home remains the clubs ultimate goal. How realistic that ambition is remains to be seen and depends how much clout the big hitters on the board have I supposes? Overall I get the feeling that there is a strategic plan in place, I hope we find out exactly what it is as soon as it’s possible.

 

[NottsYellow]

After reading the minutes for the last meeting - thanks to all involved for the email - I have to say I do feel slightly more comfortable with the situation. Even though it is still
apparent that answers to questions regarding individual board members’ roles/level of involvement were sketchy, I do get the impression that there is significant ‘activity’ going on behind the scenes and that a move to a new home remains the clubs ultimate goal. How realistic that ambition is remains to be seen and depends how much clout the big hitters on the board have I supposes? Overall I get the feeling that there is a strategic plan in place, I hope we find out exactly what it is as soon as it’s possible.

I feel rather than "there is a strategic plan in place" my feeling is they are trying to put one together but they are still trying to understand all the relevant component parts .

 

[Corporate_Clive]

They are all C***s

 

[Yellowlab]

They are all C***s

They are all Clives?

 

[TailsWeWin]

They are all Clives?

Are you allowed to use the ‘Clive’ word on this forum??

 

[Yellowlab]

Are you allowed to use the ‘Clive’ word on this forum??

Hopefully not for long, (as a user name anyway) ?

 

[psquared]

I feel rather than "there is a strategic plan in place" my feeling is they are trying to put one together but they are still trying to understand all the relevant component parts .

I believe Niall said he was in the process of writing up the strategy and would share it when appropriate.

Generally everything mentioned on the night, by either NMcW or ZN, always referred back to the short, medium and long term plans they were making. (I wished I had asked what the time frames were now, but hey ho.) The stadium being one example that crosses all plans. Zaki did provide some "vision", but just the usual "aiming to be a sustainable, championship club" type of thing.