Finances

[SheppyFox]

Wage bill too high and frankly if I was Top I’d be terrified giving BR any more money. The squad we have is good enough to challenge the establishment, it’s time the off field staff started pulling their weight again.

[Lesta2014]

Maybe we expected people like soumare/vestergaard to leave on loan and cover some of the wage. Then financial implications came in for Europe in April and we now want to sell them clubs who would of loaned them for a year cannot afford transfer fee and commitment to 2/3 years wages.

 

Is failing to get Europe has also massively hampered us! If we are financially proper struggling we wouldn’t be proposing the stadium redevelopments etc! 

[stu]

This may be simplistic, so apologies in advance, but other than the wages what’s the attraction for Martyn Glover to join us in September if our long term finances are apparently not great?

[cityfanlee23]

22 minutes ago, filthyfox said:

Kasper is gone.   Thats 100k+ off of the wage bill, although I am absolutely ****ED SHITTED OFF that he went for free.

 

Hopefully that will be all for outgoings. I am not sure about our goalkeeping options though.

 

So, sell another outfield player for to give more leeway and sign a proven top flight league keeper, and pay him half as much.

Something I haven't seen explained, why did he go for free with a year left on his contract? Why could we not command any fee at all for a player that will easily be one of the top keepers in that league?

[RobHawk]

6 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Something I haven't seen explained, why did he go for free with a year left on his contract? Why could we not command any fee at all for a player that will easily be one of the top keepers in that league?

Are you sure he's gone for free?

[Mickyblueeyes]

A well run business does not invest heavily in infrastructure, wages and investment to then turn around at the start of a new financial year to say, we are in the shit. If we have, people at the top need replacing - I don’t think think this is the case, at all.
 

Things just haven’t gone the way we wanted this summer. There is an a lot of deadwood in our squad. For every Fofana, there is a Vestegaard. For every Maddison, there is a Perez. We can’t keep adding to the squad without getting rid of those who are not sufficiently contributing to our long term projects. That’s when you will be in trouble. 
 

 

[cityfanlee23]

1 minute ago, RobHawk said:

Are you sure he's gone for free?

Well I'm not 100% sure, but it was L'equipe who first broke the story as far as I can tell, and they were the ones that said he would join on a free, although that quote was in the sun, and I'm not going to degrade FT by posting the link to their site 

[Guest Kopfkino]

There’s a bit of catastrophising about the finances.

 

Clearly FFP is a problem and, ceterus paribus, we probably had a forecast nearing 100% of turnover spent on wages at the start of the summer which clearly isn’t viable.

 

The stadium expansion wouldn’t have been announced last year if our finances or KP’s finances were as bad as is now being made out.

 

We clearly have no wriggle room and need to get costs down. It hampers the squad this year but Sam Martin’s words strike me as someone that’s financially illiterate knowing what we all know and going overboard.

Edited 1 August 2022 by Kopfkino

[cityfanlee23]

2 minutes ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

A well run business does not invest heavily in infrastructure, wages and investment to then turn around at the start of a new financial year to say, we are in the shit. If we have, people at the top need replacing - I don’t think think this is the case, at all.
 

Things just haven’t gone the way we wanted this summer. There is an a lot of deadwood in our squad. For every Fofana, there is a Vestegaard. For every Maddison, there is a Perez. We can’t keep adding to the squad without getting rid of those who are not sufficiently contributing to our long term projects. That’s when you will be in trouble. 
 

 

It's a strange one, you can always expect to have some deadwood in any squad year on year as players age, but in the space of just a few seasons, we've gone from looking at one of the brightest young squads in europe who just needed some strong bench cover, to needing to potentially sign 6-8 players to keep up with our ambitions. When Puel left I was really excited by the philosophy and direction of our transfers under him, Tielemans (signed perm by rodgers but obviously was part of puels plans), Maddison, Perreira, Soyuncu, Evans, Benkovic looked like he could come really good. Now I look at our transfer record for the last few seasons and it just feels like we have names in a hat. Justin was a shrewd signing, I think Daka looks good and Fofana, but then we have Bennett, Vestergaard, Bertrand, Under, Perez, Spending 20m on Praet then loaning him out even though he never really did much wrong (albeit not great)

We just seem to have thrown away our blueprint the last few seasons of well spent money at all times. 

[eblair]

58 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Wouldn’t read too much into Sam Martin tbh personally. This sort of information would be privy to the very top of the club rather than the youth players etc he gets info off. 
 

Why are we rejecting transfer bids for example? 
 

Even in worst case, we’d be a very good asset for someone to purchase if money was a real issue with King Power. 
 

I’ve always been concerned that Thai politics at some point will kick off. Appears PM is refusing to step down this year and the king literally wanders around Bavaria with his mistresses. That famously affected Man City but they quickly managed to find a buyer 

yeah i reckon there are about 5 people at the club who know our true financial position, doubt brendan even knows exactly what is happening (i.e. a lot to with king power)

[jonthefox]

12 minutes ago, RobHawk said:

Are you sure he's gone for free?

0ne million wasn't it ?

[moore_94]

11 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Well I'm not 100% sure, but it was L'equipe who first broke the story as far as I can tell, and they were the ones that said he would join on a free, although that quote was in the sun, and I'm not going to degrade FT by posting the link to their site 

€1m + some clauses for him

 

We were never going to be able to get a big fee for him when he is nearly 36 and has less than 1 year left on his deal

 

The main thing about this is being able to drop his wages which will save us around £7m

[Mickyblueeyes]

1 minute ago, cityfanlee23 said:

It's a strange one, you can always expect to have some deadwood in any squad year on year as players age, but in the space of just a few seasons, we've gone from looking at one of the brightest young squads in europe who just needed some strong bench cover, to needing to potentially sign 6-8 players to keep up with our ambitions. When Puel left I was really excited by the philosophy and direction of our transfers under him, Tielemans (signed perm by rodgers but obviously was part of puels plans), Maddison, Perreira, Soyuncu, Evans, Benkovic looked like he could come really good. Now I look at our transfer record for the last few seasons and it just feels like we have names in a hat. Justin was a shrewd signing, I think Daka looks good and Fofana, but then we have Bennett, Vestergaard, Bertrand, Under, Perez, Spending 20m on Praet then loaning him out even though he never really did much wrong (albeit not great)

We just seem to have thrown away our blueprint the last few seasons of well spent money at all times. 

When you’re building a club (off field) and a team to compete at the top end of the richest league in the world on what is a (in football terms) a modest budget, your transfer business is going to look like this. It’s been like this since we came up. 
 

We don’t have the commercial appeal yet of the top 6. We can’t just create that - so your transfer business does have a bit of hit and miss about it.

 

2015/16 - yes, we had Kante but we also had Inler.

 

2016/17 - probably our most disastrous window yet. 
 

2017 - Kel and Maguire but also Iborra (who I thought was decent but moved on) and Silva.

 

2018 - Madders and Evans but don’t forget Ghezzal and Benkovic.

 

2019 - Justin and Tielemans but also Perez

 

2020 - was a pretty decent summer - Castagne and Fofana. However the loan for Under didn’t work.

 

2021 - Patson, Soumare, Veste and Bertrand. The problem we have here is that Patson and Soumare have needed last year to adapt and didn’t hit the ground running. I personally think both will contribute well this year. 
 

We haven’t change anything. It’s just it didn’t work as well last year as it did with Fofana the year before.

 

 

[JamieG]

I think the owners have taken a look at the squad seen the amount of deadwood we have on the books and ordered it to be shifted. 

And nobody else wants it. 

 

I think it's as simple as that. 

It's 2022 nothing is a secret in football these days. A premier league club in financial trouble is going to be big news and isn't going to be kept quiet  for this long. 

 

[HankMarvin]

1 hour ago, Tielemans63 said:

Sam Martin knows **** all about **** all.

It’s funny he is “in the know” but mentions it about 2 weeks after BR changed tact on the plans of a rebuild.

[Bayfox]

1 hour ago, SecretPro said:

So, where do we think we are financially? At this point a chunk of the 1st team squad seems to be up for grabs in the sense that we will let clubs make bids and possibly, possibly not, if the price is right take it...

 

Sam Martin who is pretty LCFC ITK seems to think we are in massive financial trouble on twitter.

 

Would seem weird to go investing all that money in the training facilities and stadium expansion without first securing our financial status on the pitch. 

 

Something clearly isn't right behind the scenes, financially. 

 

We have an extremely rich owner. Of course Covid played havoc with King Power finances during the lockdowns, but KP and the owners are still some of the wealthiest around. Is somebody else at KP pulling the financial strings behind the scenes? Tops mum? 

 

Looking for some insight here as I'm worried the bubble is well and truly bursting at this point.

Can someone please explain to me why our finances are linked to KP is a group suffering.

 

We as a club survive of the club turnover and TV money like pretty much every PL team.

 

If anything considering the KP business other assets. We should actually be able to turn a profit if ran correctly and despite losses on paper the club still has cash in the bank so long as the owners don't call in the debts, which would make no sense. They should be able to claim dividends if they needed a small cash injection personally.

 

Our wage bill and wage to turnover ratio is the only issue. They really should just allow a few to leave on free or pay them off reduce the squad numbers with 1 game a week next season.

 

We have dug ourselves into a hole trying to manage 2 games a week and it didn't work.

[AS78UK]

I think we messed with what looked like an awesome transfer policy of bringing in quality youngsters and selling them for a premium and reinvesting again.   Its what will have attracted players like Daka.   We brought a couple of random defenders and tried to hold onto players like Tielemans last year in hope of securing top 6 and sadly its backfired big time.  

 

Genuinely hoped we were going to be the next Dortmund or one of the 2 redbull teams.   We have ended up not securing the success we craved for by holding onto the players and now have cost ourselves thr chance to be the goto club for all the best young prospects.   

[cityfanlee23]

37 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

€1m + some clauses for him

 

We were never going to be able to get a big fee for him when he is nearly 36 and has less than 1 year left on his deal

 

The main thing about this is being able to drop his wages which will save us around £7m

Yep fair enough, £1m is fair for someone of his age. Hopefully the gamble of letting him go early doesn't come back to bite us if Ward/Iverson are not good enough, a few mistakes that cost us points could very well end up costing us more than £7m 

[FoxyPalace.com]

Kingpower and Top are no mugs. It’s been pretty clear from the start that we only spend what we can afford. We have just had new training complex (£100 million +) and waiting on planning to refurbish the stadium (complete transformation) The owners are wise, they will spend when good value presents itself, and will only sell when we the club are benefitting massively. 

Edited 1 August 2022 by FoxyPalace.com

[reynard]

1 hour ago, cityfanlee23 said:

Something I haven't seen explained, why did he go for free with a year left on his contract? Why could we not command any fee at all for a player that will easily be one of the top keepers in that league?

Well he has a year left on his contract here. If the club he is going to will not pay so much wages we could still be left providing a hefty chunk of his wage. So in order to get his wages completely off our books we take a modest 1Million Euro fee allowing his new club to afford his full wages.

I'm just guessing here but I know deals in the past have been structured this way.

[Freeman's Wharfer]

26 minutes ago, Bayfox said:

Can someone please explain to me why our finances are linked to KP is a group suffering.

 

We as a club survive of the club turnover and TV money like pretty much every PL team.

 

If anything considering the KP business other assets. We should actually be able to turn a profit if ran correctly and despite losses on paper the club still has cash in the bank so long as the owners don't call in the debts, which would make no sense. They should be able to claim dividends if they needed a small cash injection personally.

 

Our wage bill and wage to turnover ratio is the only issue. They really should just allow a few to leave on free or pay them off reduce the squad numbers with 1 game a week next season.

 

We have dug ourselves into a hole trying to manage 2 games a week and it didn't work.

The truth is, they’re not.

 

But you get idiots in our fan base with zero analytical or critical thinking skills adding 2 + 2 together and getting 7. It’s like some of our fans can’t understand that the club’s turnover each year has nothing to do with cigarettes and designer fragrances and that all of the money that comes into the club from tv, sponsorship and ticketing is actually Top’s pocket money.

 

There’s an image that’s gone round from Swiss Ramble which shows owner investment over the past 10 years as being high and people use this to show King Power are putting lots of money in. You then realise that a) the time period covers when they were putting their own dosh in to try and get their investment into the Premier League and b) ‘owner investment’ for the purposes of that stat includes loans.

 

King Power have loaned the club a lot of money (for the training ground) but they’re making money on that loan. Ok, not as much as a bank - which is why it’s a good arrangement for the club too - but they’re still making money from LCFC. On the accounts you’ll also see that LCFC pay King Power a management fee every year of several million pounds.

 

We’re at a point now where King Power are putting in relatively little (certainly investment that isn’t a loan they’ll get back). That’s all very well in that we’re not dependent upon a rich benefactor, but it also leaves us in a position like this summer where money is tight and the club has to be careful.

 

This narrative of “finding another way to compete” or that our policy is one big sale a summer (how hard is that to get right when your recruitment has to essentially be perfect) is just a screen for the fact there’s no one putting in money to speculate to accumulate.

That’s a little frustrating when an extra £50m and properly addressing the Mahrez right wing gap could have been the difference between the CL bottle jobs and sitting here with Kasper happy he’s played enough proper European football, Tielemans on a long-term deal and the likes of Fofana/Barnes/Ndidi seeing that the club is one that can genuinely compete at the levels they want to.

[MattFox]

58 minutes ago, cityfanlee23 said:

It's a strange one, you can always expect to have some deadwood in any squad year on year as players age, but in the space of just a few seasons, we've gone from looking at one of the brightest young squads in europe who just needed some strong bench cover, to needing to potentially sign 6-8 players to keep up with our ambitions. When Puel left I was really excited by the philosophy and direction of our transfers under him, Tielemans (signed perm by rodgers but obviously was part of puels plans), Maddison, Perreira, Soyuncu, Evans, Benkovic looked like he could come really good. Now I look at our transfer record for the last few seasons and it just feels like we have names in a hat. Justin was a shrewd signing, I think Daka looks good and Fofana, but then we have Bennett, Vestergaard, Bertrand, Under, Perez, Spending 20m on Praet then loaning him out even though he never really did much wrong (albeit not great)

We just seem to have thrown away our blueprint the last few seasons of well spent money at all times. 

Macia did more good than bad in his time here even if he seemingly spent half the time trying to leave

 

 

 

[Ric Flair]

54 minutes ago, JamieG said:

I think the owners have taken a look at the squad seen the amount of deadwood we have on the books and ordered it to be shifted. 

And nobody else wants it. 

 

I think it's as simple as that. 

It's 2022 nothing is a secret in football these days. A premier league club in financial trouble is going to be big news and isn't going to be kept quiet  for this long. 

 

Doesn't explain why we've rejected bids for Praet, Soumare, Castagne and Vestergaard then....

[Rigga]

27 minutes ago, FoxyPalace.com said:

Kingpower and Top are no mugs. It’s been pretty clear from the start that we only spend what we can afford. We have just had new training complex (£100 million +) and waiting on planning to refurbish the stadium (complete transformation) The owners are wise, they will spend when good value presents itself, and will only sell when we the club are benefitting massively. 

In my eyes we are going to have to take 2/3 steps back squad wise in order to help finance the expansion.. obviously no funds for both..

the trouble is, we ain’t gonna fill a 41k stadium when we are languishing mid/lower table…

I see a tough couple of years… already we have ricardo with a potential season ending injury…and we have no way of replacing him..

Kasper leaving for peanuts and again, can’t be replaced… 

[Corky]

They should give Brendan envelopes with names in of players we intend to sell. Three will go. The choice is his......