How Much Does Seagrave Cost Per Year

[Long Eaton Fox]

If relegation happens can we sustain this facility. Could we sell it? Who would want  it?

[MPH]

14 minutes ago, Long Eaton Fox said:

If relegation happens can we sustain this facility. Could we sell it? Who would want  it?

We’d probably just not use as many pitches. , have a few less staff..

[Long Eaton Fox]

1 minute ago, MPH said:

We’d probably just not use as many pitches. , have a few less staff..

This place cost £100m but I assume you're not quite being serious 🤔

[MPH]

19 minutes ago, Long Eaton Fox said:

This place cost £100m but I assume you're not quite being serious 🤔

 

well, I’m not sure how else to phrase it?

 

you asked if we can sustain it, so all we will be able to do is reduce running costs.. so we will use less of it to reduce maintenance costs and less staff for less running costs. All our championship tv money will go to Macquarie for the loan we have out from them 

Edited 12 February by MPH

[FOXYTALK]

Could we sell thee women's training facility and put them in with the men's team.

[FoxesWalk]

1 hour ago, FOXYTALK said:

Could we sell thee women's training facility and put them in with the men's team.

Could also do what Chelsea did and sell the women’s team to ourselves for 10s of millions 🤣 they got away with that somehow 

[C.J]

1 hour ago, FOXYTALK said:

Could we sell thee women's training facility and put them in with the men's team.

I have no idea why they've not done that already, and use that for houses 

[fox_favourite]

It's costs relegation in every division. 

 

We won't be able afford to run it in league 1

[Tommy G]

Probably 30%-50% more than it probably should - just because I have no faith in the decision makers to run the business properly and cut costs appropriately 

[ian__marshall]

It's certainly not cheap to run a luxury health spa these days. 

[Stadt]

1 hour ago, Tommy G said:

Probably 30%-50% more than it probably should - just because I have no faith in the decision makers to run the business properly and cut costs appropriately 

I can’t share more but there is at least one thing I know of that absolutely needlessly costs the club about £5k a year. 
 

There will be dozens of these things 

[Tommy G]

3 minutes ago, Stadt said:

I can’t share more but there is at least one thing I know of that absolutely needlessly costs the club about £5k a year. 
 

There will be dozens of these things 

Multiple dozens I'm sure!

 

If they cant do it themselves it would be worth spending a cpl of hundred K on a big 4 to come in and do a cost base assessment, it would probably payback in less than a month.

Edited 12 February by Tommy G

[Stadt]

Just now, Tommy G said:

Multiple dozens I'm sure!

 

If thy cant do it themselves it would be worth spending a cpl of hundred K on a big 4 to come in and do a cost base assessment, it would probably payback in less than a month.

They don’t even have the agency to do that.

 

Top isn’t here, doesn’t care.

We know Rudkin is the least savvy man on the planet.

”Monica” is out of her depth

We don’t have a commercial director 

 

Who is making the call? Current FD is lucky to be in the position 

[Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, C.J said:

I have no idea why they've not done that already, and use that for houses 

Because we'll need it when we are in League one for years and have had to abandon the worlds most expensive training facility. 

[lfu]

9 minutes ago, Stadt said:

I can’t share more but there is at least one thing I know of that absolutely needlessly costs the club about £5k a year. 
 

There will be dozens of these things 

Rudkin's VIP subscription to Babestation?

[Tommy G]

1 minute ago, Stadt said:

They don’t even have the agency to do that.

 

Top isn’t here, doesn’t care.

We know Rudkin is the least savvy man on the planet.

”Monica” is out of her depth

We don’t have a commercial director 

 

Who is making the call? Current FD is lucky to be in the position 

I agree - as someone who has been in his position and promoted into a role, he is completely out his depth. He probably saw it as a great opportunity but given the complexities of PSR and the general shit show the club is in, they probably thought we'll chuck £120K at him instead of paying a for a proper FD/CFO, and for that size business and the experienced required they would have to pay £200-£250K and they probably thought it wasn't worth it. Idiots. 

[coalvillefox]

1 hour ago, C.J said:

I have no idea why they've not done that already, and use that for houses 

Because it's the best, womens only, training facility in the country and the club are immensely proud of that. It is also one of the standout reasons why some of the best young girls around choose Leicester when decide which academy they want to play for. It's not always all about the here and now, it's building something for the future also. I fully appreciate that Seagrave itself is also an incredible facility but it would feel like the women/girls just got shoved on an unused pitch somewhere in the far corner, at Belvoir Drive the whole facility is theirs.

[Terraloon]

7 hours ago, MPH said:

We’d probably just not use as many pitches. , have a few less staff..

If you read my posts over the last few months I have been talking about running costs.They will have to be cut and cut dramatically 

 

 The other day I was trawling back through some of the closed years accounts and it’s quite interesting how some of the little snippets contained therein are quite frightening. Not just that but what they tell us it tells us that when the spending on transfers and wage growth got out of control the clubs “ ambitions” simply couldn’t be funded from the reality small income streams that a non PL club generates and even if in the PL without a significant transfer fee each year LC simply can’t afford the type of luxury facilities that Seagrave offers up.But it goes deeper in that to maintain two training grounds isn’t just financial madness it smacks of poor planning in that to have planned for just one site ( maybe different buildings on the site )  dealing with all teams would have bought about significant economies of scale .

 

 

Back to those snippets. A sum of circa £91 m by way of loan was provided by KP for construction costs in respect of Seagrave construction costs. The club clearly haven’t been in a position to pay down debt so either that has been swept up in the sum Top has written off or that debt is included in the sums still owed. 

 

In terms  of running costs of Seagrave we simply can do no more than guess the numbers.KP charge interest small sums on their loans ,  but charging and being paid aren’t one and the same nor are the sum in the accounts necessarily the same as will have to be shown in FFP submissions . If you work on the basis that say a nominal FFP  charge of 3% and that £91m is still owed there’s a £2-3 m charge in those submissions even if those sums aren’t the same as reflected in the accounts or ever likely to be repaid.

 

As for selling Seagrave the ship has pretty much sailed unless there is some way around the new squeaky PL rule re selling assets but as we all obviously know the league the club plys its trade is under the jurisdiction of the EFL where such transactions have been banned for many a year now. I am far from sure that Belvoir can be sold from a FFP perspective, the time to have done that was when Seagrave was delivered( see above) when no questions at all would have been asked.

 

 In those snippets in the accounts you can track for instance the massive increase in energy consumption by the club. Prior to Seagrave it was circa 12.2m KwH the latest published accounts that consumption was just under 17m KWH.

 

I can’t see that there is a statement as to how much of that is gas or how much electric. Being super conservative just on energy consumption my guess is that there is around a £500k increase in energy costs my logic is all , well most, of  that is a Seagrave cost.
 

I asked a contact of mine who is involved in a semi pro team how much the budget/ spend maintaining their one pitch he excluded man power costs and machinery hire and he estimated around £6k. I challenged him because that seemed massive and of course the 21 pitches at Seagrave will be maintained to a far higher standard and of course there will be economies of scale  he included watering costs,  annual refurbished costs etc.  Add in a staff of at least 10 grounds people and at least another 20-30 to maintain, clean and service the facilities themselves then you must be talking of at least £1.5 million

 

Business rates were something I mentioned the other week and add to those costs the water bill for the building, the insurance costs and that’s another £1 million minimum. There will be lots of other costs such as refuge disposal, window cleaning, TV licences etc etc . In themselves relatively small sums but collectively they are going to add at least another £100k 

 

So back to the question how much does Seagrave cost ? My best estimate would be £3-4 million in hard cash terms rising potentially to £5-6 million if you have to factor in the interest I talk about.

 

For perspective going back a few years ago the club used to tell us how much the stadium cost ( they no longer do ) pre Covid that was around £5 m
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 12 February by Terraloon

[C.J]

6 minutes ago, coalvillefox said:

Because it's the best, womens only, training facility in the country and the club are immensely proud of that. It is also one of the standout reasons why some of the best young girls around choose Leicester when decide which academy they want to play for. It's not always all about the here and now, it's building something for the future also. I fully appreciate that Seagrave itself is also an incredible facility but it would feel like the women/girls just got shoved on an unused pitch somewhere in the far corner, at Belvoir Drive the whole facility is theirs.

Someone at my works drives past it everyday, he says the carparks are nearly always half empty. It must be massively underused given it's size so could easily accommodate the women's team. 

If we're that hard up, then surely the income from some prime building land would help. 

[Muzzy_no7]

It is strange the Women aren’t there too

[StanSP]

31 minutes ago, Stadt said:

I can’t share more but there is at least one thing I know of that absolutely needlessly costs the club about £5k a year. 
 

There will be dozens of these things 

Give us a clue! 

[jayfox26]

Watch the video on the wheres the money gone thread and it gives you an idea of the mess we are in.

[CornwallFox]

31 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Multiple dozens I'm sure!

 

If they cant do it themselves it would be worth spending a cpl of hundred K on a big 4 to come in and do a cost base assessment, it would probably payback in less than a month.

The big 4 are terrible. No idea how they keep their names in high esteem given the number of failures they oversee or fail to spot.

[Tommy G]

Just now, CornwallFox said:

The big 4 are terrible. No idea how they keep their names in high esteem given the number of failures they oversee or fail to spot.

Give it a break - you can't just label the entire big 4 as terrible. If you are talking about Audit and Carillion then yes there will be failures, it's a numbers game - there are plenty of issues with lower tier firms aswell, which is why they have tightened up audit reporting which makes the audit process now completely ridiculous and laborious, 3 months of the year I don't look forward to. 

 

What direct experience do you have with advisors to label them terrible? Or is it just something that you've picked up in the guardian. I deal with PwC Tax and KPMG for M&A and both in my experience are very good, but with anything there will be the opposite. 

 

Back to the subject, whether it's big 4 or otherwise, LCFC need some external help. Do you have a better suggestion?

[davieG]

2 hours ago, C.J said:

I have no idea why they've not done that already, and use that for houses 

As I understand it because there's Covenants in the Deeds placing restrictions that is believed to not allow housing as it was seemingly purchased from the YMCA  and was their sports facility. I believe the YMCA still have certain access rights.

 

This of course could all be bollocks