Happy Face

I think (hope) it's a challenge to him. There comes a point where buying struggling shops, asset stripping them and closing them down becomes second nature. He's bested all his competitors on the high street, he now wants to do that in the Premier League. Throwing personal wealth at it isn't in the terms of the game for him though. It's not about winning a trophy. Any billionaire could walk into a club and spend enough to win a tin pot. Portsmoth, Boro, Swansea, Birmingham, Blackburn etc have all done that. He wants to build the most profitable club in the game. The joy for him comes in the wheeler dealing. To him players are high priced stock, Mike Williamson is a joblot of Firetrap shirts. It's the same game he's played his whole life but the excitement of selling a £35m player who cost nothing will be manna from heaven for him and take him back to being 20 year old when he was the manager of one store, stocking it with shit and selling it at 400% markup. He wants us to win, to keep pushing up the price of his stock.

http://www.scotzine.com/2015/03/king-co-choke-on-their-celebratory-cocktail-weenies-as-ashley-strikes/ What are the assets or are they not known? Secured against Murray Park (training ground), Edmiston House (derelict ticket office and social club), Albion Car Park, and the Club's registered trademarks - but not Ibrox.

Speaking of which... http://www.scotzine.com/2015/03/king-co-choke-on-their-celebratory-cocktail-weenies-as-ashley-strikes/

Absolutley. Both are equally true and show the trajectory of the club over different timespans. Ashley has reduced seasonal matchday income since buying the club. But he's grown matchday income per game.

Can you imagine if Shepherd had tried to fight Ashley and encouraged fans to buy up all the shares Ashley was chasing after to keep him away. He'd have been told to fuck right off

Aye. There's plenty of remaining disgraceful policies that make Ashley a twat. We can't quantify the transfer of funds from NUFC to his shops under the mechanisms he has in place for advertising, retail and kit production (Puma deals havce added no recognisable bump in income). We're not going to sell out for the visit of Man U either, because he won't sell tickets publicly. Same with Arsenal coming up. He'd rather push memberships and half season tickets. But then, even that piss take of a policy is driving up the matchday income and adding to the coffers. Only Man City have grown their matchday income more than NUFC over the past 5 years. These are the only 2 clubs who don't publish ticket prices and categorisations clearly on their site from day 1 of the season. They're shitting on fans with fluctuating prices and picking numbers out of the air on a game by game basis, but the cut-throat policy is driving revenue growth at a rate to oustrip peers.

I don't understand why this is important when everyone else in the league (i.e. our rivals) will see the same increases in TV revenue. Yes we might start spending a bit more money but other teams in the league will do the same and then some. I understand what you're saying about TV money becoming a bigger proportion of all revenue but the same goes for all clubs and we've seen before it usually leads to another increase in wages across the board and not much else. Ashley has not increased wages from the level they were at since arriving (well, only 3%). All other clubs have increased wages an average of 180% in that time. We've not made an operating profit either so the only money to be spent on Transfers has been what we've earned from sales. We've lost ground to all those other clubs in terms of what we spend. But we're still in the group outside the top 6 where tens of millions more has been borrowed and spent. From now on we should be able to grow at easily the same rate those other teams do, but more realistically faster. Unlike the other clubs, rather than paying off debt or interest on debt, any growth in broadcasting income nufc receive can be spent on new players and increased wages without adding to debt. The amount of debt and interest payments to finance it for other clubs will only increase as they can secure more borrowing on future TV income. They're paying significant sums to cover the cost of what was spent to get them where they are now, we'll pay nothing because the painful groundwork has been done over 7 awful years of scraping the barrell, with the owner accepting the financial risk if it led to relegation.

I find myself defending Ashley far more frequently than I'm comfortable with... but billionaires don't get special multi-million pound parking tickets. They couldn't exactly strip him of 10% of his wealth. The fine is a nominal amount only to flag the wrongdoing. The important punishment would have been to have his controlling position at Rangers removed, but given the recent resignations and those about to follow, he has no control at the club any more.

I've been quite vocal about the shit sandwich he's feeding us in terms of commercial and match day income. It's clear that this becomes less of an issue as TV money increases exponentially though.

West Ham Growth 2007-2014 Commercial - £16.4m to £20m = £3.6m Matchday - £17m to £19.5m = £2.5m Total £6.1m Newcastle Growth 2007-2014 Commercial - £27.6m to £25.6m = -£2m Matchday - £33.6m to £25.9m = -£7.7m Total -£9.7 So they still lag behind us on both measures, but let's say their growth and our shrinkage has tipped the balance £15.8m a year in their favour. They're paying £5m a year in interest payments we aren't, so it's actually £11m. That's only 10% of the £111m broadcasting cash a club will get for coming 12th in 2016/2017. http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-premier-league-tv-deal-master-and.html?utm_source=BP_recent Add the other revenues we have on and it's less than 7%

Well exactly As for the other things you say, how has he allowed the club to spend the money it generates except for on two occasions? We'll be posting our fourth profit in a row, with the total profit over that period likely to exceed 100 million. You know as well as I do that the TV deals, although terrific in absolute terms, only serve to make us weaker than other clubs in relative terms, as other club owners are far more inclined to actually reinvest that money. I don't think your valuation of the value of the free advertising comes even close to reality either. Comparing our loss of commercial revenue during his time here to how others have developed theirs, it's probably closer to 30 or 40 times that. The club has only reported profits after player trading. The operating profit will be positive for the first time in these new accounts. That's why the club have had to sell in order to buy, and do so with enough in the kitty to sack and replace the manager and buy new players in January if we're in the shit. Profit after player trading from 2011 to 2013 totalled £44m... We repaid £18m of debt in 13/14 (no doubt) and spent £21m on new players in 14/15. This leaves us as a very profitable club able to spend a good wedge on players. It just seems to me we won't spend money before we have it, nor will we spend it for the sake of spending, preferring to have a war chest in case of emergency. But what the club earns the club spends. Do you think Ashley is taking profits out of the club other than the £29m that's been known about in the accounts for 4 years?

Seems a very odd suggestion to me that Ashley should only pay off club debt if he's willing to put that same amount of money back in himself. That's the same as just leaving the debt outstanding. He seems to have let the club spend all of it's own money except on 2 occasions when he's repaid debt. Both of those came at the start of a new TV deal when the club was seeing a significant growth in income that allowed some of the debt to be satisfied and for some players to be bought. He's not rushed to pay of his debt if the club couldn't afford it. The more that TV income dwarfs commercial and matchday income, the less I have an issue with his methods. Does the 500k of revenue lost from pitchside advertising really matter when we're getting an additional £50m a season every 3 years from broadcasting, on top of the existing deal? I've been hugely critical of the myth that he's sorted the accounts, given the growth in debt and reduction in commercial/matchday income, however every new TV deal reduces the anger it's worth investing in those issues.

Am sure it's been suggested that we've missed out on £50million worth of matchday advertising, since he bought the club. Scandelous, really. Madness I think that it's not right. Matchday advertising on hoardings, walls and the roof is a relatively low income affair. The whole Premier League was looking at entering into partnerships so every team shared the same sponsors, but Man U refused as they're the only ones that already make a significant wedge. Apparently in 2009 the 19 clubs other than Man U only shared an income of £10m per season from it. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/oct/22/manchester-united-champions-league-advertising Whatever the amount though, it's Ashley's shop being put ahead of NUFC, and a similar approach is taken to retail. I'm expecting a £69m profit this week by the way. That's my guess So 19 clubs agree to a profit sharing sponsorship deal and 1 club turns it down. Thus stopping the whole idea. How? It never got past the exploratory stage it seems. Like the article suggests, the people looking at it were the people with most to lose by recommending it go ahead. Only brought it up as evidence that pitchside advertising is basically a pittance as it stood in 2009. Half a million per club per season.

Do the minutes normally come out the next day? Thought it took a few days. But I expect the club will do a statement on the accounts to spin the news as the headline figures would leak following the forum anyway. I don't think the Chronicle have a clue... or the Telegraph, who have guessed at somewhere between £30m to £50m.

Am sure it's been suggested that we've missed out on £50million worth of matchday advertising, since he bought the club. Scandelous, really. Madness I think that it's not right. Matchday advertising on hoardings, walls and the roof is a relatively low income affair. The whole Premier League was looking at entering into partnerships so every team shared the same sponsors, but Man U refused as they're the only ones that already make a significant wedge. Apparently in 2009 the 19 clubs other than Man U only shared an income of £10m per season from it. http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/oct/22/manchester-united-champions-league-advertising Whatever the amount though, it's Ashley's shop being put ahead of NUFC, and a similar approach is taken to retail. I'm expecting a £69m profit this week by the way. That's my guess

If he sells the club, that would include repaying / cancelling the shareholder loans. No-one would be mental enough to buy a club then allow Ashley to control it by proxy- as he does at Rangers. The terms of shareholder loans are largely irrelevant- they can be amended as and when Ashley sees fit to be repayable on certain dates, or for interest to be paid, increased or waived. So it could have been in the 2011 accounts or Monday's accounts- he still could have completely altered them yesterday. Ignore them- they are not debt, but equity. What about if he sold a stake in the club, like he's always said he wants to?

And here's where the 2013 accounts said that £18m was repayable, unlike the other £111m... http://i61.tinypic.com/2vxlpva.png

Confirmed 2009 £111m debt and relegated http://i61.tinypic.com/2vmvwqe.png 2010 £140m debt following promotion http://i61.tinypic.com/ne9wm0.png 2011 £140m debt remains http://i60.tinypic.com/2mor053.png 2012 £129m debt left - £11m repaid http://i60.tinypic.com/2wqsi7r.png 2013 £129m debt remains http://i57.tinypic.com/t83h1l.png so £18m left to repay from the relegation loans.

The original repayment was for the overdraft and small loan when we went down was it not ? Would this not be the first repayment from the original/big/his cock up debt ? I don't think so. £140m debt when we came back up included £29m Ashley had put in after relegation to keep things ticking over. That's the last he put in. £11m was repaid in 2011 I think and £18m remains to be repaid. If he starts recouping the big wedge we have a more pain to come, but I think he wants that debt left in place. He runs SD with debt and he's incolved with 5 clubs all with a history of debt problems. Even if he sold NUFC, he could uyse the debt as leverage in retaining his existing retail/advertising deals.

Just had a quick google, looks like they were paying royalties to a Sister Company, also selling coffee beans to themselves at a higher price so made it look as though no profit was made. A couple of other sneaky tricks too. Its also growing really rapidly, its easy to 'lose' profit in a rapidly gorwing company whilst maintaining a good cashflow. I guess I'm trying to rally against the perceived wisdom that NUFC will always spend the minimum amount necessary to survive. The fact is that under Mike Ashley, NUFC has spent the maximum amount it can afford without having to borrow any more from Mike Ashley. That capacity takes a massive leap with every new TV deal. Those amounts are probably the same Absolutley, but the perception of Ashley changes massively depending on how you frame it.

I guess I'm trying to rally against the perceived wisdom that NUFC will always spend the minimum amount necessary to survive. The fact is that under Mike Ashley, NUFC has spent the maximum amount it can afford without having to borrow any more from Mike Ashley. That capacity takes a massive leap with every new TV deal. Fucking hell what absolute guff Which unused money should the club have been spending more of? Has the clubs coffers been going up like Arsenal?

He also seems to allocate a wedge from the first year of a new TV deal to repaying the loan. Given that £11m was repaid a few years ago and we assume he'll take £18m from the 13/14 accounts, after taking nowt for a couple of years.

I guess I'm trying to rally against the perceived wisdom that NUFC will always spend the minimum amount necessary to survive. The fact is that under Mike Ashley, NUFC has spent the maximum amount it can afford without having to borrow any more from Mike Ashley. That capacity takes a massive leap with every new TV deal.

I'm told Newcastle have built up enough losses over the last 2 decades that paying tax on profits isn't really a concern.

Spot on. That's where he deserves criticism. NUFC growth is restricted for the benefit of his shops retail operations and publicity.