UV

Is it not going into NUFC's coffers? Pretty sure it still is and Sports Direct are just being utilised to replace and run the old shop system for presumably a commission or a flat fee. Holy shit. Maybe we're actually getting it for free! How exactly are you sure of this? If NUFC & Sports Direct have a sale & distribution arrangement which involves money being transferred from one to the other or services being provided for free by Sports Direct, why is this not mentioned in the Related Party Transactions section in the accounts? People assume that because something is sold with a NUFC badge on it, its a Newcastle United product; but if Sports Direct produce and sell the clothes & merchandising and just stick a NUFC badge on it, then it is a Sports Direct product which the club is "advertising and promoting". This would be covered by the related party transaction clause and not a penny of any sale would need to go to the club.

That's the only bit that came as news to me. It's still very unclear though. Doesn't sound like the £111m loan will now become a £129m loan which would have been the preferred approach for fans. There's no clue as to how long the £18m repayment will be deferred for. Has he used it for the January spending this year and want it back in full next year? Will he be taking £6m a year for 3 years instead of all in one fell swoop? These are the only important questions to me because as long as we're paying him back, the cost of relegation is still inhibiting our spending power. Ashley's mistakes from 08/09 are still costing the club in terms of forward momentum 5 years down the line. Actually the "cost of relegation" was more or less covered by the sale of Martins, Bassong, Duff & Beye, plus money still to come in from Milner, Given & N'Zogbia. There was almost no cashflow deficit in the Championship season. Prior to relegation however, the club built up a £36m overdraft (from £11m on takeover), and when we were relegated the bank demanded it was reduced back down to £10m. So Ashley was forced to loan the club the £26m plus £3m from another short term loan already in the accounts. This is the £29m (now £18m) which is being talked about as the short term loan. The increase in the overdraft in the first place was largely due to Ashley's desire from the off to pay for players up front while selling in instalments, which obviously hits the cashflow while transitioning to that setup.

What about when they reached the last 16, 3 games from the final? Did they make 9 voluntary changes? Still too far away from a chance of winning something to bother with for us. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/9059568.stm Arsenal (h), Wigan (h), Ipswich, Birmingham

Since Ashley bought the club (6+ seasons) we have won a total of 11 domestic cup ties. Only 2 of those were against Premiership opposition - Blackburn the season they got relegated, and the 4-3 at Chelsea. We went all out for that Chelsea game with a team of Krul, R.Taylor, Ferguson, Campbell, Coloccini, Smith, Vuckic, Lovenkrands, Ameobi, Gutierrez, Ranger. As we were on a cup run we put out an even better team for the next round against Arsenal - Krul, R. Taylor, Kadar, Perch, Williamson, Guthrie, Smith, Vuckic, Ranger, Routledge, Lovenkrands (only Krul & Williamson started in the preceding and following league fixtures). Some are saying we are no different from other Premiership clubs in not prioritising the cups. Under Ashley's ownership, "concentrating on the league" seems to be one thing we excel at though.

Oh dear. Hope they didn't print off too many of their September collection.

This covers the period from after the end of the accounting year (31/6/12) to the date the accounts were signed off (6/2/13), which actually covers all the players signed in the Summer of 2012 and in January this year. So the following players cost a total of £27.3m (including agents fees): Summer 2012: Amalfitano, Bigirimana, Good, Anita Jan 2013: Debuchy, Yanga-Mbwia, Gouffran, Haidara, Sissoko, Mbabu

most will want to see it proven before being accused of turning a blind eye to it. Much is already proven, the free advertising for example. i was meaning the possibly illegal siphoning off from the tills. Illegal? Do you mean to suggest it would be fine by you if the merchandising/retail revenue no longer went to the club as long as it was f***ing legal? Are there any related party disclosures in the latest set of accounts? Slow day: http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2149/xzka.jpg Yup that's the note - free advertising but no merchandising arrangement I don't think the merchandising going through Sports Direct is a new thing, I think it's been like that for years as the girlfriend got me a bunch of stuff off it a couple of Christmases ago. Everyone is assuming that because something is sold with a NUFC badge on it, is a Newcastle United product. If Sports Direct produce and sell the clothes & merchandising and just stick a NUFC badge on it, then it is a Sports Direct product which the club is "advertising and promoting". This would be covered by the related party transaction clause and not a penny of any sale would need to go to the club. For example, I picked the first shoe on nufcdirect, NUFC Skill Mens Astro Trainers: http://www.nufcdirect.com/nufc-skill-mens-astro-trainers-110582 They bear a striking resemblance to these Sondico Strike Mens Astro Turf Trainers: http://www.sportsdirect.com/sondico-strike-mens-astro-turf-trainers-268000 Sondico are a brand owned by Sports Direct: http://www.sportsdirectplc.com/company-information/brands.aspx

It is - but only up to 30th June 2012. Well that's all we can go on really, what is in the accounts. If he pockets all the new TV money than that's a different matter. In the accounts there is £111 million of loan that is long term - i.e due after more than one year. That has now been there for several years. As at June 2012 he had loaned the club an additional £29 million during 2011 and 2012 to buy players and meet short term cash commitments. This additional amount was short term, repayable within one year.. The accounts show he had already received £11 million back, and we can probably assume he's had the remaining £18 million back by now. He's not going to get his loan back anytime soon if that pattern continues The additional £29m from Ashley came in the 09-10 Championship season and was required because the bank wouldn't allow the club to continue to have a £36m overdraft outside the Prem. Player sales on relegation (and income from previous player sales) covered the revenue fall in the Championship season so there was practically no increase in the net debt, it merely transferred from the bank to Ashley. He certainly didn't put in any money during 2011 and 2012 to buy players. The entire debt to Ashley is in the accounts (and was pre-relegation too) as payable within one year. Whether Ashley regards the £29m as special and will stop using profits to pay off the loan once this is recouped is speculation. Unfortunately for Ashley, I think the unanticipated, forced January spend will have put paid to any plans to pay off any significant amount of the loan last year. You're certainly right though that the way he is running the club, he is going to be unable to pay off much debt anytime soon unless very little of the additional TV revenue gets spent on fees & wages for the foreseeable future, or we pull quite a few more Milners & Carrolls out of the hat. I'm not sure that qualifies for a smiley though. For reference: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Ashley Loan00100000111000139800140000129000 Overdraft55281086398735781103890343 Stadium Loan474414508900000 Other Loans17248230366067323619600 Cash at bank and in hand9309930900095150 Net debt6090869679107054150017150385130485129343Debt increase/decrease87713737542963368-19900-1142 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Overdraft55281086398735781103890343 Repayable within one year10867616752939114056123496140000129000 Repayable in the first to second years775331271030521961650000 Repayable in the second to fifth years1741033231960000 Repayable after five years28659000000 BTW Some people have said that finding out the loans were repayable on change of ownership meant Ashley had to rethink his plans and changed how he was going to run the club. Only the Stadium loan was repayable on change of ownership, which was around £45m. Ashley chose to repay the other loans, and he also chose to move to a system of paying up front for players brought in while receiving payments in instalments for players we sold (part of the reason the net debt rocketed in the first couple of years). He had the money to take on the debt, and it benefited both him and the club. It's pretty obvious he would have paid off the stadium loan regardless of any clause. What accounts are you looking at? As I type this I have in front of me the 2012 accounts of Newcastle United Limited (company number 2529667) and the disclosure of Ashley's debt is exactly as I have described it. £111 million is long term (more than one year) and £18 million is short term (less than one year). It makes me wonder about the veracity of some of the other stuff in your posts but I can't be ars*d to go into it tbh. I've spent too much time arguing about numbers on here over the years. I was going by this: http://i44.tinypic.com/256e9sy.png It does however appear that this is contradicted in section 12. http://i40.tinypic.com/2gsefq1.png That's the first year since the 2009 accounts where it is not stated that the bulk of the loan is to be repaid within 1 year or on demand. As you've been looking at the 2012 accounts above you can see that it was the case for 2011. I'll edit the table so that it's accurate for future reference.

It is - but only up to 30th June 2012. Well that's all we can go on really, what is in the accounts. If he pockets all the new TV money than that's a different matter. In the accounts there is £111 million of loan that is long term - i.e due after more than one year. That has now been there for several years. As at June 2012 he had loaned the club an additional £29 million during 2011 and 2012 to buy players and meet short term cash commitments. This additional amount was short term, repayable within one year.. The accounts show he had already received £11 million back, and we can probably assume he's had the remaining £18 million back by now. He's not going to get his loan back anytime soon if that pattern continues The additional £29m from Ashley came in the 09-10 Championship season and was required because the bank wouldn't allow the club to continue to have a £36m overdraft outside the Prem. Player sales on relegation (and income from previous player sales) covered the revenue fall in the Championship season so there was practically no increase in the net debt, it merely transferred from the bank to Ashley. He certainly didn't put in any money during 2011 and 2012 to buy players. The entire debt to Ashley is in the accounts (and was pre-relegation too) as payable within one year. Whether Ashley regards the £29m as special and will stop using profits to pay off the loan once this is recouped is speculation. Unfortunately for Ashley, I think the unanticipated, forced January spend will have put paid to any plans to pay off any significant amount of the loan last year. You're certainly right though that the way he is running the club, he is going to be unable to pay off much debt anytime soon unless very little of the additional TV revenue gets spent on fees & wages for the foreseeable future, or we pull quite a few more Milners & Carrolls out of the hat. I'm not sure that qualifies for a smiley though. For reference: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Ashley Loan00100000111000139800140000129000 Overdraft55281086398735781103890343 Stadium Loan474414508900000 Other Loans17248230366067323619600 Cash at bank and in hand9309930900095150 Net debt6090869679107054150017150385130485129343Debt increase/decrease87713737542963368-19900-1142 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Overdraft55281086398735781103890343 Repayable within one year or on demand1086761675293911405612349614000018000 Repayable in the first to second years77533127103052196165000111000* Repayable in the second to fifth years1741033231960000 Repayable after five years28659000000 * The period in which this is to be repaid is not stated in the 2012 accounts, only that is is no longer due within 1 year. BTW Some people have said that finding out the loans were repayable on change of ownership meant Ashley had to rethink his plans and changed how he was going to run the club. Only the Stadium loan was repayable on change of ownership, which was around £45m. Ashley chose to repay the other loans, and he also chose to move to a system of paying up front for players brought in while receiving payments in instalments for players we sold (part of the reason the net debt rocketed in the first couple of years). He had the money to take on the debt, and it benefited both him and the club. It's pretty obvious he would have paid off the stadium loan regardless of any clause.

Where are you getting this from? Or are you wrongly lumping all commercial income together as being advertising? £29million to about £14million a year. Doesn't exactly take a brain surgeon. To think our turnover was higher than Spurs in 2007 too. Clearly it does as commercial income is not just sponsorship which is the point i was making, genuinely dont know what your post has to do with mine. Erm, considering sponsorship takes up a big chunk of commercial revenue, I think it's pretty obvious. Considering the biggest reduction in commercial income was not related to sponsorship then it doesnt sound too obvious. Still no point in taking people like The Swiss Ramble's word when you know everything about it from looking at the basic numbers Let's put this into context then. The last accounts which split up the commercial figures were the 2006 ones (which were for an 11 month period). The revenue was split as follows: Total: £25.7m Sponsorship: £11.2m (44%) Catering: £6.7m (26%) Branded products: £7.8m (30%) The commercial revenue in 2007 was £27.6m so we can estimate the catering part of that revenue was around £7.2m. The commercial revenue in 2012 was £13.8m, precisely half what it was 5 years earlier. I'm no catering expert, but I'd guess with the high end corporate market and competition-free matchday sales, the catering at the club should have a very high profit margin, probably over 50%. Even if you assume we now only get £1m from the outsourcing company (Sodexo), that still leaves around £7.6m of lost revenue from sponsorship and merchandising. You should also factor in that the sponsorship part of the commercial revenue is practically all profit, so pound for pound a reduction in the sponsorship revenue has a much greater effect on the club's cash-flow than reductions in catering or merchandising revenue (which would have associated reductions in costs). PS When taking blogs from supporters of other teams like the Swiss Ramble as gospel, remember that they don't necessarily do due diligence on the facts they use:

I don't care what he said to Hall to persuade him to sell quickly when others were sniffing around, it's pretty obvious he just bought the club to quickly flip for a profit. TV revenues were going up £10m that year and buyers were snapping up clubs left right and centre. He thought that by superficially tarting up the club a bit by claiming to have sorted out its finances, putting in place a great new continental DoF structure and a talismanic manager, enthusing the supporters, he'd be able to sell it off for a decent profit no bother. The person he put in charge of the club was a lawyer who specialises in buying and selling large companies ffs. Llambias even admitted he was trying to sell the club before any trouble, within months of buying it. Unfortunately for him and us the financial crash put paid to that plan though, so he has had to settle for plan B since then which is to run the club like his other brand acquisitions, ie for the sole benefit of his baby Sports Direct. Having moved onto plan B though, if he can continue to run the club at a break even level or even at a profit while getting free advertising and revenue for selling club branded merchandise through Sports Direct (how much of that does the club see I wonder?), why should he sell?

How are you defining "sustained" and "success in the end"? Are Spurs only being run well now if they eventually become the best team in the world and remain there forever? Hall & Shepherd took an impoverished team which had to sell to survive with 26k average crowds from the brink of relegation to the 3rd division to one which was constantly in the top 5 in the league and 20 in the world revenue earners. Did they fail because we only came second twice and didn't win any of the cup finals we were in? If that's failure I'll take it over Ashley's alleged financial sustainability. Nothing is permanent in football, and there's no guarantee of success, all you can ask is that you try (within reason). Under Ashley we don't, and surely no-one can still be under that illusion now. As for your "fact", as already pointed out our non-TV revenues are way down on what they used to be while all our competitors are increasing theirs, but even ignoring that, the biggest risk to a PL team's finances these days is relegation. In the 6 years of Ashley's ownership we have only bettered our worst ever pre-Ashley PL points total twice, and I don't fancy our chances of beating it this year either. We live way closer to the edge now than we ever did under the previous owners. We are being run with a low cost manager and a cut down squad which is only some bad luck and a few core injuries from relegation almost every year. Is that financial sustainability to you? Look at Spurs debt from 06-10 btw: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WRqcTQKG3Kw/T4Pg7wR6K4I/AAAAAAAAFeM/HWNXIwKvlrc/s400/Tottenham%2BDebt.jpg £90m in 4 years! Sack the board and call in the receivers.

You're talking about 2 different periods of Spurs' history as if they were one. 91-01 they were majority owned and run by a top English businessman who made his fortune selling cheap tat to the mass market. He supposedly saved them from their financial troubles (I have no idea if this is actually true or a myth spread by himself) and ran them as a proper business. In Sugar's 10 year run they finished 15, 8, 15, 7, 8, 10, 14, 11, 10, 12 - the very definition of mediocrity (the 10 years prior to Sugar they finished 4, 4, 8, 3, 10, 3, 13, 6, 3, 11). If forums existed then they'd probably have had Sugar apologists telling everyone they should be grateful he saved them, they were doomed before he arrived, how he had sorted out the finances and was running the club on a sound financial footing, etc, but they were going absolutely nowhere on or off the pitch, and we easily out performed them financially. It's only since ENIC & Levy took over that the club actually started to be run with the ambition we once had, which sees them where they are now. Yes they have sold their best players on occasion when they have wanted out - NO club is immune to that - but when they do, they spend all the money they get and more on top to try and keep pushing forward. This obvious ambition is what brings in the supporters, the corporate money and the sponsorship, plus it tends to have a happy side-effect of better football, higher league finishes and the extra cash which that brings in. Now they are on the up and making money they are not looking to pay off the debt, instead they are looking to invest in the infrastructure of the club and build a new £250m stadium to bring in even more revenue. I'm convinced Sugar would never have spent £250m on a new stadium, just as Ashley would never have spent £42m to extend St James - in 6 years, a bore hole, underground heating for the training pitches, and lots and lots of advertising hoardings is the sum of Ashley's investment in the infrastructure of NUFC. Under Ashley we're absolutely nothing like the Levy-run Spurs and never will be until he's gone or has a genuine change of purpose towards the club (but that's just a fantasy IMO). Any short term success like the 5th place season will always be a blip and we will never look to build on it, rather it will be a reason to sit back and run with what we have for another year without having to spend money on improving the squad. Any windfall player sale will not be used to boost the season's transfer kitty, but will be used to fund it entirely for the next few years. The commercial and matchday income we had which set us apart from the second tier of well supported clubs (Everton, Villa, West Ham, Sunderland, etc) was down £23.5m per year from when he bought the club in the last set of accounts. The longer he's here, the closer we get financially to theses clubs, and any advantage we built up under the previous owners will soon disappear. Eventually if they're run half decently they too will start to pull away from us. A quarter of the club's yearly revenue gone and nearly double the debt despite a £35m windfall from a player he inherited, and people say the club is better off financially than when he bought it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17218968

Some smart arse at work got me one of them as my secret santa present... Ditto. I immediately "rebranded" mine with the following in the hope that someone will come along and offer me £10m to put their name on instead: http://i.imgur.com/5lZ3f.jpg

Trophy signing on mega wages. Thankfully we wont see his sort in red and blue while Ashley's owner of the club.

When do you think we should have expanded the stadium Cronky? Considering the fact, the ground didn't start getting regularly sold out until '96. I guess the building work should have started in '97 instead of a few years later? I don't remember it at the time, but maybe the club was slow off the mark because wise sages like yourself would have been telling them what a bad idea it was to get the club into a completely unsustainable level of debt (£66m in 2001. I can just see a younger Bobyule warning of inevitably "doing a Charlton/Boro" ). Thank goodness Mike Ashley generously after 4 years of ownership put undersoil heating at the training facilities built under the old board, perhaps in another 4 years if we sell off a few more players we can afford to renovate the showers at the academy facilities built under the old board too. What a generous and forward thinking owner he is, without him developing a youth system at the club we'd never have been able to recruit and bring through the likes of Ameobi, Taylor, Carroll, Krul, and numerous others who filled squad places but didn't quite make it at the top level. Thank goodness also that the commercial revenue of the club is in the hands of someone as capable as Derek is of turning round the finances of the club and bringing in new revenue streams so we can continue to go from strength to strength and allow us to finally compete in the transfer market with the likes of Fulham, Stoke, QPR, Swansea, and Wolves who we can currently only look at with envy for their financial clout. http://i.imgur.com/5l8dI.jpg Typical Cronky postings. Big on rhetoric and imagined good intentions, but low on facts. Lots of history being rewritten and replaced with an Ashley aggrandising version. Quite appropriate in this thread then.

How on earth do you come to this conclusion? We can't have repaid 'debt' because the debt is held by Ashley and as Dekka keeps saying 'Mike hasn't taken a penny out of the club' He has taken money out. I don't believe so, unless you can state when and how much ?? Nearly £30m over the last 2 years was the plan. We'll see in the 2011 & 2012 accounts if this happened, but I certainly wouldn't bet against it. Would you? Taking back (if he has) what you've put in, is not "taking out" Check out the previous regime for a real example of taking out. (£52 Millions worth of taking out) It's money the club is generating which is not being spent on the team whatever you want to call it, but if loaning the club money is called "putting in", then repaying that loan is surely "taking out". Does the whole of the £150m debt have to be paid off before reducing the amount of club generated money available to spend on the team & facilities can be called "taking out"? Why stop there, he paid £133m for the club, it's only right he should be paid back for that out of the club profits. The club wont miss £15m a year, it's only 1.5 players. Sell a Milner or an N'Zogbia & a Bassong every year, or a Carroll every 2 and the club will break even as long as there's no net spend on the other transfers. It's the Ashley model, guaranteed to succeed, unless you get relegated of course. I have no idea where you made up that £52m figure from btw.

How on earth do you come to this conclusion? We can't have repaid 'debt' because the debt is held by Ashley and as Dekka keeps saying 'Mike hasn't taken a penny out of the club' He has taken money out. I don't believe so, unless you can state when and how much ?? Nearly £30m over the last 2 years was the plan. We'll see in the 2011 & 2012 accounts if this happened, but I certainly wouldn't bet against it. Would you?

So we don't need £8 million. Depends if you want to spend more or not. Like I said more profit means more expendable cash for transfers. It doesn't in the Ashley philosophy like Doesn't it? On that philosophy, we'd have spent a canny bit in the Summer (I don't think we were operating with losses of £39m or whatever it was we made). I don't remember us making that much, unless we're not including what I presume are decent signing on fees to Ba and Marveaux, they also failed to get another striker they wanted that's now apparently set up for January. Like I said the money for Carroll will be used over a few years, not just one summer. are you using a magic 8 ball to tell us this? the wum spin is in over drive It's my opinion, what's yours? That Ashley is 'trousering' the money? Despite the accounts showing he hasn't ever taken money out? We'll see in the 2011 & 2012 accounts if this happened, but I certainly wouldn't bet against it. Would you?

I like the fact you consider pointing out holes in your heavily flawed argument is trolling Is this better: Great thread Stu, you've spotted that there's an understandable tendency to overrate new signings and over criticise many of those who have been at the club a while or have left, and using this have quite cleverly managed to convince a lot of people that this means that the same transfer policy which has been in place post-Alardyce (with the single exception of Coloccini) is the route to success.

1. Depends on what the aims of the club are, and then 2. Only if those acquisitions are good enough to stay in the PL, and then 3. Only in the short term if money saved/made is used to pay off a debt to the owner and not reinvested in the team. So from a supporter's point of view rather than that of a businessman who makes money by capitalising on the customer base and good name of once-established quality brands while reducing the quality of the product, probably not.

Not biased, but the players who are still at the club can't be fully judged as they still have a the possibility to increase their standing (or reduce it!). You can only fully judge a transfer once the player has moved on (or at least, with the rate of player turnover we have, you can!) - in the example above, Edmundsson has come to the club, broken into our reserve team and his national side. He might have peaked, he might become a first team player. We don't know. Tozer left the club after failing to break through. We can categorically state that. Still biaised as even if you have these objective rules (although am not sure where Kuqi fits), the rules are still heavily biaised towards those who have been at the club more recently. Precisely. Wind back to October 2005 and Luque's a great signing who looked dangerous as soon as he was put in the team, unfortunately he got injured, but he'll be the star of the team when he comes back. A Ben Arfa shade of Green there. How about 2007? Agreed. Makes a luvverly change for our new signings to be so determined and assured, rather than obsessed with their bank balance, whining how they'd prefer to play for Man U/Liverpool/Arsenal (but still get the obscene money we give them) and waving sick notes. Viduka and Smith I am paticularly delighted with. Not singling people out, this was not an uncommon view at the time. It all makes comments like massively premature and biased when half of your greens from the last 18 months have only played half a dozen games at most, and the other greens - Simpson, Williamson, Best, and Tiote seem to have faired far better in your subjective analysis than the likes of Faye, Rozenhall, Sibierski and Parker who are not dissimilar to those four price & ability-wise, and had they been in our team now, I rather think you'd have rated higher. It's also a lot easier to be a "successful" free/£1-2m signing than a successful (ie value for money) £5m+ signing. That doesn't mean the former is a better player than the latter though.

There's no doubt from a managerial standpoint a combination of Souness & Roeder is going to be hard to beat even with far superior players as you have incontravertably shown with your completely objective analysis.

Players with 5+ games. 05-06 5*Red - Boumsong (30), Babayaro (26), Faye (14), Moore(8), Luque (6) 4*Amber - Parker (26), Emre (19), Owen (10), Clarke (8) 1*Green - Solano (27) = 58pts, 7th Defence & defensive mids = 4*Red, 2*Amber, goals conceded = 42 08-09 3*Red - Duff (28), Geremi (11), Viduka (6) 7*Amber - Guthrie (21), Owen (21), Martins (21), Nolan (10), Lovenkrands (8), Taylor (8), Barton (6) 5*Green - Coloccini (37), Bassong (26), Enrique (24), Gutiérrez (23), Beye (22) = 34pts, 18th Defence & defensive mids = 4*Green, 1*Amber, goals conceded = 59 Stu's logic & "impartial" ratings = fail