Saints Stuff

https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/2021-01-12/st-marys-football-group-financial-results-2019-20

 

Yeah, there's some tweets here breaking it down. One for Schad!

 

@Schad

 

From my, admittedly very ignorant, point of view. I can't see how our revenue is less than ****ing Fulham's?!

 

That dude has done a series of tweets on it. It's quite interesting (though far from my area of expertise, which is currently chocolate and beer).

 

That's my expertise right now too! I'm gonna have some issues to address post lockdown.

 

I want to know if the dry January rules are relaxed in lockdown. I mean can I drink at weekends of after 8pm?

 

Have the highest wage to revenue percentage in the league which is pretty concerning.

90%

 

It's all about Tony's Almond and Sea Salt chocolate mate.

 

Seriously?! How is that possible

 

Most interesting point, for me: a loan taken out early in the spring of 2020 to help with the impact of COVID-19 will not be paid back, at all, until 2025.

 

I read it as it will be paid back by 2025? Annual interest of just over £7m.

 

Same people involved with Burnley too (the below post is given a thumbs up)?

 

Yikes. The good news is that the external debt is a bit misleading given that we had over £86m in cash on hand...apparently we took out a very large term loan (at very high interest) right at the end of the reporting period:

The bad news is that, despite our success on the pitch, our financial position has almost undoubtedly gotten worse. A sizable portion of that loan has likely been used already, and we're hemorrhaging money. We can point the finger at COVID -- and there's no doubt that it is a contributing factor -- but we're on a bad path with or without it.

Now, here's where it gets a little tricky. What we really need (beyond the club being sold) is an injection of money. That's probably going to mean significant player sales at some point. In the immediate future, we could really do with holding our league position and getting some Europey games...it's not massively profitable but the combination of those games and the merit payment from the league position would staunch the bleeding a bit.

 

Cheers Schad. The loan was made public at the time iirc?

Looking at the wage to revenue percentage I don't see how we can sensibly increase Vesty and Danny's wages without a sale.

Is Fraser's contract up this year or next? Really need him off the books.

 

And some fans will still say “just pay them the fee and wages needed” when it comes to transfer Windows.

 

The fact that we had taken out the loan was public, but I don't remember them making public the size, nor the fact that we're paying more than 9% a year on it (and repayment is delayed for several years).

Fraser expires at the end of '21/'22, as does Long. We also still need to extend a number of players who have less than 18 months remaining however, including McCarthy, Vestergaard, Stephens (maybe? I could see him sold) and Ings obviously. Plus Bertrand, who expires end of this season. So it'll be hard for us to substantially shrink the wage budget in the short term.

The sensible play may be to shift some solid players. That would mean maybe Stephens (assuming Salisu exists/plays football), Romeu, perhaps someone like Redmond...players that will fetch decent prices but where we also may be able to replace them internally or via lower-cost acquisitions.

 

I've been pointing to our high percentage of wage/revenue for two years as a reason we're skint.

 

The wages we pay to individual players aren't anything exorbitant, and neither are the fees. But when those fees and wages go to players that you ultimately do not play, forcing you to spend another fee/pay packet on further players, it really starts to add up. If we were merely paying our current squad we'd be more or less fine: it's all of the people we've paid to be bad elsewhere that have ushered in our problems.

That's the balancing act: if you're hunting for bargains, they'd best be actual bargains. Because while it might seem a good deal on paper, there are few things more expensive than a £15m signing at 70k p/w after bonuses who you're farming out to another club.