BigWalrus

I think we should make him name 1,000 footballers, off the top of his head. And he's not allowed to include Beckham.

He's got a point. Beckham never played in the 70's or 80's so it's impossible for him to be in the top 1,000 of those lists.

To be fair, crosswords over here are typically in English. I'd struggle with a French crossword.

Benitez rumours seem to be gathering some more pace. Still can't see it myself.

Or refusing to shake Benitez's hand?

Aye, but back the days of our grandads, it didn't cost £30 a pop for a match ticket, and the players were earning less than the average bloke in the crowd. At what point would you decide against a season ticket? Surely there's a cut off eventually, where you would think it was too expensive? £1000 a season?

Proper chartered. AC fucking A

New sponsor too, has to be factored in. Virgin's deal is probably still in place until the end of the season, meaning they can't play in the wonga strip just yet.

By most improved, they're referring to him being utter shite last season.

It's just muscles. Of his free time, half is spent body building, with the remainder being used to make furniture. http://www.robelliotfurniture.com/

If we want to make front page news, appointing Alison Moyet as our manager is the way to do it.

"Despite only starting in 20 games this year, fans have been impressed by Sylvain's positivity and battling, hard-working performances" Really???

Too true. It's getting to the stage of my life now where there are more important things to spend my money on. I could probably cut the season ticket out quite easily, and just go to the game now and again. I'm not even arsed who we play - I'd just as happily see us play Fulham than Man Utd.

One last point - if you are the director of a limited company, and you've made losses in the past, you should bloody well use them to reduce your tax bill. Everyone else would. If you have a fair whack of historic losses, a decent tax accountant would pay for themselves in this regard!

no worries. As for the £32m loss.... It's fairly simple - as we weren't in the Premier League, the TV money was heavily reduced, our ability to attract sponsorship and advertising was reduced and our matchday revenue was cut as we couldn't charge top whack when we were playing Doncaster at home (compared with Arsenal, Man Utd etc the year before). About £12m of additional costs were incurred with the club writing down player contracts. When we sign players, they're essentially given a value in the books like you would with a fixed asset, and they're depreciated over the life of their contract. (That's why we had Freddy Shepherd making the ludicrous statement that we'd made a profit on Laurent Robert when we sold him for £2m, even though we paid £10m). For instance if we signed a player for £10m on a 5 year deal, we'd recognise a cost of £2m per year over the life of the contract. With Barton (£6m), Nolan (£4m), Smith (£6m), Xisco (£7m), Enrique (£6m), Coloccini (£10m) etc in our squad, there is a hefty amount of write down to take into account. This doesn't have any cash flow impact, but is perceived as the most appropriate way to recognise the cost of a player (over the life of the contract rather than in one lump at the start). Essentially, we reduced the amount of cost in the club massively compared with the season before, but the severe drop in TV money made it next to impossible to cover it. Had we failed to get promoted at the first attempt, we could really be in the shit.

Just noticed your edits. The £35m loss was made because we were in the Championship. Less TV money, massive wage bill. Yes I am definitely an accountant! Tax isn't my specialism though, but I do know the basics. If you make a loss one year, you can offset it against your profits in the next year to reduce your liability. You can even carry losses back and offset them against previous profits in certain circumstances. Honestly - read the link I posted (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ct/forms-rates/claims/losses.htm) which shows the various forms of tax relief available. You don't even have to make a specific claim if you're offsetting past losses against future profits, as it's such a standard procedure.

No dividends have been paid though!

Yep, dividends are taxable at the point the individual receives them, as the website shows. I haven't suggested that NUFC would have to pay tax on dividends paid. OK, so Llambias' take home is 58% of his total gross salary - close enough to just over 50% for me! Losses can most certainly be carried forward and used to offset future profits - it's the most basic of company tax reliefs. See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ct/forms-rates/claims/losses.htm I think you might be referring to carrying forward personal taxes. Self employment / self assessment and limited company tax rules are different. There are elements of individual tax that can be carried forward (like capital gains for instance), but they're two separate areas.

Just noticed the Milliband point. Milliband was also a full time MP during that time, so I imagine he spent comparatively little time at SAFC, so it's not really a fair comparison. Llambias works full time for NUFC, so his daily / hourly rate is likely to actually be much lower than Milliband's.

I'm not a company director, but I'm a chartered accountant.

I see you bite and attach further bait to the hook Llambias doesn't own any shares because it says so on Companies House. St James' Holdings Limited (the holding company for the football club) is 100% owned by MASH Holdings, which is Mike Ashley's company. NUFC is paying any interest on the loan from Ashley as Ashley isn't charging any. Dividends are certainly not tax free. Preferable rates compared with taking a salary, but they're still taxable. Moot point though, as there have been no dividends paid by NUFC since Ashley took over, and there are unlikely to be any for some years due to the loan situation. Corporation tax does work like that. You very much take previous years into account given that the company is still trading in the same line of business. Llambias' take home will work out just over 50% of his gross pay. Just less than 40% will be taken by income tax, with another chunk (probably around 9-10% effectively) taken by employee's national insurance. 50% tax band doesn't come into it.

Wasn't meant to be read that way. Just thought it was less formal than bullet points

Any bout of anal punishing usually begins with the end.

A few points in response... Firstly, no dividends have been proposed or paid by NUFC since Ashley took over. Secondly, as Llambias does not own any shares, he would not be entitled to dividends. Thirdly, Ashley would be an idiot to pay dividends, as he'd be taxed on them. He'd be better off taking repayments of his loan. Fourthly, we'll have a few more years of not paying corporation tax as we've made huge cumulative losses over the last 15 years. Fifthly, Llambias' salary of £200k is consistent with what he'd get if he worked at any other comparably sized company. Sixthly, Llambias will have paid tax through the PAYE system like any other employee, so he'll have taken home around £100k after tax and national insurance deductions.