U_V

The previous accounts would only have included 2-3 months of the Jan 13 panic signings.

The MASH accounts are available for download. They are made up to 30/4/14, so not quite in sync with the club's. This is the main bit specific to us: Also mentions elsewhere that amortisation and impairment on player registrations was only up £4m.

Points-wise rather than positionally, we only finished below last season's total in 3 out of those 10 years, in fact its 3 out of the 14 we were in the PL. The worst we ever did was only 3 points below last season, and in each of those years we were competing in Europe and having a decent run in one or other of the domestic cups, either of which is now seen as a relegation risk and to be avoided. In Ashley's 7 years, last year has only been bettered twice of course (once only on GD), so you're right we shouldn't be expecting such a high level of performance again this year.

Would be the best move Ashley could make but it wont happen. The cock ups of the striker situation may force a re-think in transfer negotiation or personnel but I would be surprised if that but Llambias under threat. This is who we should be directing any protest at. Wonder how happy Llambias is getting all the stick he does for £100k a year or whatever paltry sum he's on. Wouldn't be surprised to see him say he's had enough before Ashley pushes him. 54 year old now, hoping at the end of the season he just kicks back and enjoys the Casino business....or retires early. I must say I was very surprised when I looked at the accounts by how relatively low Delboy's wages were. However consider that: Ashley is known for dishing out lowish basic pay, but big bonuses based on financial results. Llambias is the main man in charge of the club, and so would obviously be the biggest winner if any such bonuses were on offer. Increasing the wage bill would reduce any profits made by the club. Llambias is the the man in charge of setting the total wage limit and dictating what individual players will be offered in contract negotiations. Spending money on transfers would reduce any profits made by the club. Llambias is the man in charge of setting the amount we bid for players the scouts have identified. Strange isn't it that we struggled to get players to sign new contracts/withdrew contracts which had been agreed on, and never managed to get any of those many strikers we were after "over the line". I'm sure he's fully committed to doing his best to help the manager to get and keep the best players we can to get the best possible results on the pitch though. It's very likely that as a senior manager in the company, Pardew would be in receipt of any such bonuses too btw, so hopefully that will soften the blow for him a little and persuade him to stay.

Purely coincidental, I'm sure.

Err, yes, that's all the club's Commercial, Catering & Sponsorship Revenue which understandably fell when we were in the Championship. Generously the money from SD didn't fall while we were in the Championship, it remained at £0.00. The article also mentions the new sponsorship deals with Puma and NR. Strangely it doesn't mention the great new club branding deal with SD. I wonder why.

The club received no money from SD in 2008 & 2009, in fact we paid the costs for the privilege. If that wasn't happening to us it would be comical. I think you've both misunderstood the statement (I'm also pretty sure that SD branding at SJP arrived in 2010?). Anyway, that fee is for services promoting Newcastle, not SD. A statement on SD's promotions isnt relevant to our accounts. Its basically saying that we got assistance in selecting e.g. promotional channels and refining brand messages for NUFC from the enormously powerful and successful marketing department at SD. It does NOT mean we paid SD £42k to advertised SD at SJP. I stand corrected. I don't. That convoluted attempt to try and turn a pretty clear statement around is clearly absurd. Advertising and promotional services were provided BY the club TO an Ashley owned company (obviously SD) and nothing was paid for that service. The cost to the club for setting up/performing the services in FY2008 was £42k. The only thing correct in that post is that the @SJP and the defacing of the ground didn't start until 2010. I've since got hold of the 2010 accounts which would cover that time, and there's a similar paragraph in the related party transactions section there too. Still not getting paid. This time however it doesn't go into the costs to the club of painting the classy SD logo on the roof, etc. If money changes hands or services are provided between the club and any companies it's directors have an interest in they have to be declared in the accounts. http://www.frc.org.uk/asb/technical/standards/pub0097.html The club advertises and promotes SD. Ashley is the owner of the club and the major shareholder of SD. Any money paid by SD to the club would have to be declared in the related party transactions section of the accounts. The accounts state that nothing is being paid for the services provided. Speculate all you want on why the club is not getting paid, but you can't dispute the fact that it's not.

From the 2009 accounts: The club received no money from SD in 2008 & 2009, in fact we paid the costs for the privilege.

This isnt right, basically theyve punished the non members due to what they assume is trouble caused by people who are not members. Aye its not fair for the majority but thats how it goes. As for ST holders theres nee difference other than you know if your a ST holder you could be traced Following your previous logic, do you now think it is all long standing ST holders who should take the responsibility and be punished financially for the trouble? It's not fair for the majority but that's how it goes.

You're going to have to explain that one to me. How did the debt increase because it was transferred from an external creditor to Ashley? These clauses are usually at the insistence of the creditor btw. The debts mainly increased firstly because we started to pay for players up front while selling the same net worth of players but with payments coming in over a number of years, and secondly of course due to the revenue drops due to relegation and lower sponsorship, advertising, and ticket sales.

In 06-07, I can't remember the exact number, but the cash flow loss was < £10m In 07-08 Premiership TV revenue went up by £18m

I wonder where U V thinks the money could come from, maybe he'll answer the question. I'm too busy with the conundrum of where the money we used to generate with a terrible chairman has gone such that now we're run by such a great businessman we managed to double the club debt in 3 years even though TV revenues shot up when he bought the club and we've made £50m+ profit on selling players. It's completely bizarre and unexplainable how revenues have dropped when everyone can see how well Mike is doing by putting the best possible people in charge, selling players and cutting costs. I wonder if Toonpack, or his chums on skunkers, can shed any light on this mystery ? What's the point when as soon as someone with half a brain actual produces an analysis of the figures they are dismissed with insults and any half-baked opinions like this with no back up are quoted by you here and on Skunkers. Doesn't matter what the subject, actual facts are ridiculed under the guise of "but we were in Europe" as if that's some kind of ultimate joker which trumps anything. For starters this lad can either break down his "50m profit" (which I guess includes Carroll which has no bearing on current financial figures) or we could try some actual facts or questions you can't answer like how would Shepherd have refinanced loans since the credit crunch. http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/2006-2011.html The 5 years shown include an £8m spend in 06-07. Assuming no more debt was built up only £25m of the debt (ie only the footballing part of the debt, not the part which was wasted away on increasing the stadium capacity) would have needed to be refinanced during the credit crunch. That is unless the already agreed refinancing package which was cancelled when Ashley bought the club didn't cover that anyway. That's less than the debts of the majority of the rest of the clubs in the league, some with only half our revenue at the time. As most of them survived, I would think we could have found some finance from somewhere. If not, and if desperate, we could always have followed the Ashley route of selling our best players to old rivals (though hopefully without employing some of the people he has entrusted with the running of the club it would not have had quite such dire consequences).

I wonder where U V thinks the money could come from, maybe he'll answer the question. I'm too busy with the conundrum of where the money we used to generate with a terrible chairman has gone such that now we're run by such a great businessman we managed to double the club debt in 3 years even though TV revenues shot up when he bought the club and we've made £50m+ profit on selling players. It's completely bizarre and unexplainable how revenues have dropped when everyone can see how well Mike is doing by putting the best possible people in charge, selling players and cutting costs.

"Mike Ashley didn't take a penny of the money from the sale of Andy Carroll out of the football club, is has been pumped into keeping the club afloat. Without the sale of Andy Carroll Newcastle United would not be here today, its as simple as that. We have learned from our mistakes, our vision for the next 5 years is blah blah blah..." "Enrique is not going anywhere." "Once Jose handed in a transfer request the club had no option but to let him go. I can assure supporters that every penny will go straight back into the team."

I think we'll be getting something, but it will be well below market value. Despite people saying Ashley doesn't care what we think, he has always gone out of his way to try to put as much of a positive spin on what he does out to the media as is possible. For the first couple of years we never stopped hearing about how he saved the club from near-extinction and how we'd soon be competing for everything. When he's been trying to sell the club, we hear about how he wont just sell to anyone, he wants us in safe hands. When we sacked Hughton for no good reason, it was so we could get someone more experienced in. When we loan out/sell players in January we need for the rest of the season it's so we can free up space/generate cash for transfers to improve the squad in the Summer. Maybe it's down to a desperate need for some to have hope that Ashley is trying to do what's best for the long term good of the club, and not just what's best for himself financially in the short term, but it seems some are taken in by it. The reason therefore I think it's unlikely that we're getting a decent going rate for all the SD advertising - let alone something above the market rate - is that we haven't heard a peep about it. When we signed a new deal with Northern Rock for half the previous amount and dependant on being in the PL, Llambias was in the press "absolutely delighted" about it. If we were getting £5m+ from SD you can be sure he would have been all over the press mentioning at every possible opportunity how we were lucky to have an owner like Mike who could use his other business to give the club such a great deal. Instead we got: Subsequently, despite being promoted and immediately being guaranteed to be on the TV more than most others in the division, it seems no-one at all was interested, and we've had to have another year of SD "showcasing" the advertising opportunity. Hmmn.

I wonder if letting multi-million pound business decisions rest in the hands of a 22 year old footballer and his agent is the kind of business acumen that made Mike all his money? Its the simplest explanation.

I can't pick out the £107m spend from that article but it looks about right (looks like it should be 98.2 expenses + 6.4 interest + net cash spent on transfers) so I guess you've got that figure straight from the accounts (I've not seen the 2008 accounts myself). If that's right though, have you any idea why the net debt jumped from £67m to £107m (according to that article). Where's the money gone to account for that debt? Why did it not just rise by the overspend amount, ie £8m? Was our debt any worse than most other clubs though? The stadium debt was secure and it was only the £25m or so remaining debt which we would have had to refinance at some point. If the worst came to the worst, a couple of years of cutting back (or just maintaining expenditure rather than increasing it) and we could pay off that £25m in a couple of seasons if absolutely necessary - it would not surprise me in the slightest if Ashley is able to pay of £25m of his loan this season alone in spite of the revenue drop, although I'd never have recommended cutting back this far. With our turnover, I'd have thought relatively speaking we'd be one of the better risks in the premiership, and only those who went majorly OTT like Portsmouth got into trouble they couldn't get out of. We were NOTHING LIKE Portsmouth in how far we stretched ourselves beyond our means. As one comparative example of a club with no sugar daddy, Everton have a debt of £41m with a turnover of £80m, wages £50m (May 2009). From an outside viewpoint without looking into it in too much detail, they're managing to get through the financial crisis okay. All other things being equal we should easily be able to achieve at least £10m more turnover than Everton, so a £10m higher wage bill is sustainable. I wouldn't say Everton are particularly well run financially, but you would not say finances were "about as bad as it can get" there would you, and their loans aren't at threat of being foreclosed and forcing them into administration are they? Or should they be worried? How do you know we were at the end of our credit line? I have a mortgage on my house, but it doesn't mean I can't loan any more money. It depends on the value of the house and the amount of the current mortgage. The stadium loan is secured against gate receipts, did we have anything secured against the TV income? Even if we did the value of this has risen significantly. Note, I am not saying we should have or needed to increase the debt from what it was, just addressing the point that we were at the end of the line with nowhere left to turn if extra debt was required. I'm not saying the club was healthy when he bought it, but it was no more sick than most of the rest of the league, bar a few lucky teams. Personally I have no confidence that Ashley is looking to run this club at a level anything other than to do enough to survive in the Premiership year-on-year as he pays back his debt. Players brought in will be cheap, some will do well and some will be poor. The "success" rate will probably be quite good, as you're not expecting much from a cheap player, whereas it seems anyone over £5m has to be a world beater to justify their cost, however the overall quality of the team will diminish even further. The ones that do poorly will add to the depth of the squad, but also to it's mediocrity, the ones that do well will be out the door as soon as someone offers a pot of cash for them (the disloyal bastard has been touting himself around for ages) or if they dare to ask for a wage they could get elsewhere (the mercenary cunt - it was in the paper he wants £60k a week!). Support and interest in the club will dwindle, some of that will be fickle and would come straight back with results, but some will be lost forever and will take years of (relative) success to build back up. IMO every year Ashley owns this club it will be harder and harder for us even to get back to where we were as a club when he bought it let alone surpass that. I hope he proves me wrong, but he hasn't so far, and to do so he'd have to completely go against his nature and previous business practices.

Yeah, well obviously revenues are going to drop from a year when you're in the CL to not being in it. But I don't think we ever budgeted expecting to be in the CL (despite a lot of people now claiming financial recklessness from Shepherd demanding we spend even more than the budgeted amount we'd pre-spent on Woodgate before we were assured of getting in in Summer '03). The falls after that were not massive, and were not irrevocably on the way down either. Two of the revenue streams were up in the year prior to Ashley taking over, and the one which is least impacted by the immediate performance of the team in that year, ie the commercial revenue, was constantly rising until Ashley turned round the finances. With the initial euphoria which greeted Ashley's arrival, you would have expected that to increase even further but that wasn't reflected in the figures. The costs rose more than they should have IMO in 2007, but I think that was somewhat borne of necessity and down to 2 reasons: 1) Owen's injury meant we needed another first choice striker in. Good one's don't come cheap and on low wages, I doubt we would have gone for Martins had Owen not been crocked. In fact Owen's compo from the FA (which is not reflected in those costs) more than paid Martins' wages that year. 2) Knowing the TV revenues were about to jump up the following year, we had some leeway in what we could allow the wage bill to rise to. It was definitely a mistake to allow that to continue to rise in 2008 when we had to start footing the bill for Owen again. If Owen's compo is taken into account, then the wages actually only went up by £4m in 2007 but then jumped up £13.8m in 2008 under Ashley.

Income: http://www.football-finances.org.uk/newcas...008/income3.htm It's up & down due to yearly variations in how well we do in cups/europe or the league, but I don't see a major significant downward trend there, and due to UEFA cup in 07 & increased TV money in 08 it was on the up. Costs were up year on year of course, mainly down to wages, but that was not an inevitable rise, it could have been stabilised. That will usually be to the detriment of the squad as we are now seeing, but we've had to cut back and rebuild before, there's nothing to say we wouldn't have done it again under H&S without getting to the stage of being in real danger of relegation (notwithstanding a major injury crisis like we had in the first half of 06-07). We have a much lower wage bill now, but at the cost of a significantly weaker squad. Far too weak for my liking, in that if one or two of a number of key players get injured, suffer a loss of form, or god forbid sold we're screwed and could easily go straight back down. Its not that clear an analysis. Is there really much scope for cooking the books? Surely if this were true Ashley the club insider would have mentioned it. From the 07-08 accounts: There's no details of what this entailed, but the assertion in the article that we'd hocked everything to the hilt is clearly wrong. I'm not convinced there was actually any need to get further into debt - that's just 1) Ashley's choice to pay up front, and 2) Ashley's incompetence in running the club causing drastically reduced turnover (media increases excluded), increasing costs, and getting relegated. Rectifying his mistakes by slashing costs to those of a club on half the turnover we SHOULD be making as a minimum with our potential (if we were a half well run, stable mid-table club) and bringing in mates rather than the most competent people possible to run it and thus dragging attendances, interest in the club, and eventually revenue down to match it is not what I call running the club well and cause for optimism. Ashley's ONLY plus point over the last lot is that he has the cash to cover for his mistakes. However if he intends to pay himself back, which it seems he might (we will make a significant cash profit this year even if relegated so his plan to "break even" in 5 years has nothing to do with year-on-year numbers) then it is us who will suffer in the long run by having far less resources to build a successful team than we should have.

Is that really true though? Which decisions specifically do you mean? Of course player wages in contracts negotiated prior to Ashley's arrival will contribute to outgoings and were somewhat beyond Ashley's control (unless those players were sold - I'm sure we could have got some money for Owen and his wages off the books if we were THAT desperate). However these amounts were also outgoings in FY06-07, so why did they not add so significantly to the debt then too. The £30m+ loss figure is thrown around a lot, and I'm sure a lot of people take that to mean we spent over £30m more than we took in that year, but this is not the case as it is massively weighted by the amortisation and impairment of the squad value (around £29m that year - and £7.5m of that was the convenient writing off of Luque in that FY by the accountants under Ashley's direction when he wasn't actually sold until the year after). These amounts are paper losses, not cash spent in that year, and they may not even be a true reflection of the rise or fall in squad value, they are just an accounting convenience. The actual amount we overspent by in that year looks to be around £6m as reflected in the increase in the debt which was nowhere near as bad as this accounting "loss" figure makes it look. In fact £5m of this overspend was actually directly due to the takeover (director payoffs and aborted finance costs). The club wasn't exactly "haemorraghing money" was it. In Ashley's first year we were guaranteed an £18m boost in TV revenue, and due to this actual revenue went up by £13m, we also stopped paying interest on the loans, so how did we end up over-spending by £30m in 07-08 and £43m in 08-09 due to actions taken in years prior to his arrival when in the previous year it would have been a £1m overspend if not for the purchase of the club? I have not looked at the accounts beyond 2007s, but I can only assume that most of this extra debt is actually due to the policy change implemented by Ashley of paying up front for players while selling in instalments and to the increase in the wage bill due to the players brought in under his watch. You say "By rights we should have gone bankrupt in 2009, 14 months after he bought the club.", but that's assuming H&S would have run the club in the same way as Ashley did. That's by no means a given and very likely wouldn't have been the case. Had Ashley taken over the club in 2000 when the net debt was near the £50m mark, the turnover was only £45m, we'd made a £19m loss, had a 64% wage/turnover ratio and 3 years finishing in the bottom half with another on the way I'm sure the same case could have been made then for him saving us from oblivion even if he'd sacked Robson, sold Shearer and we'd been relegated - it was all inevitable and would have been even worse under Shepherd!

People will still have a need for cheap tracksuits. If Sports Defect don't get the business, then JJB, JD Sports or local independents will get it, and maybe save jobs at places that Sports Defect are trying to squeeze out of the market with their unethical trading practices. If a Sports Defect store closes, something else will open in it's place.

Target Sports Defect, not the club. Make it known that any true Newcastle supporter should not buy anything from his stores until he sells up. Set up pickets outside the shops (at least at first) to publicise it. At the very least stores in the North East should suffer if support for the club amongst the general population is anything like claimed. Use negative publicity about Sports Defect practices - they're probably no worse than anyone else, but a cheap tat merchant like that is bound to source a lot of it's merchandise from sweat shops, and treat it's staff poorly. If we make sure that Sports Defect are constantly associated with cheap child labour in poor conditions (it doesn't even have to be true), false sale promises, imply his goods are of a really poor quality, etc - over time it will have a negative affect on sales across the country.

5 month BUMP "Fancy" new website which stops you copying content, but still no change. Is it a concious decision not to have a message board and only canvas opinion from the roadshows and random emails? As a member I really have no idea what the current position of NUSC/T is and what action if any they are thinking of taking should Ashley announce the club is off the market, or the sale just remains ongoing like a Sports Direct store closing down sale. I certainly have no input into it or vote on it. Patience with the imminent takeover pretence will come to an end soon and there's going to be a lot more people willing to "do something" over a more prolonged period to show their anger than there were a year ago. Are NUSC going to take the initiative?

So in fact even the pre-Ashley accounts were worse off due to Ashley's takeover. Around £10m, or less if you take off the up front costs of the aborted refinancing due to Ashley's takeover. Yes it was http://soccerlens.com/20072008-premier-lea...v-revenue/7415/ Television revenue for 2007-08 season (2006-07 in brackets) Manchester United £49.3m (£32m) Chelsea £45.6m (£30.9m) Arsenal £47m (£29m) Liverpool £45.4m (£28.4m) Everton £42.1m (£25.3m) Aston Villa £42.3m (£22m) Blackburn Rovers £40.2m (£22m) Portsmouth £40.4m (£23m) Manchester City £39.7m (£21m) West Ham United £36.8m (£21.1m) Tottenham Hotspur £36m (£27.3m) Newcastle United £39.2m (£21.2m) Middlesbrough £34.2m (£20.5m) Wigan Athletic £33.4m (£18.4m) Sunderland £33.6m (£6.5m*) Bolton Wanderers £32m (£24.6m) Fulham £31.3m (£20.4m) Reading £30.6m (£23.6m) Birmingham City £29.8m (£6.5m*) Derby County £29.1m (n/a) Total £815,175,812 (£502,533,570)

You were obviously on the "right" side of the argument to avoid the formal warnings for lowering the level of debate on there then.