The financial history of Hull City AFC under the Allams

At the beginning of the 2016/17 season we owed £126 million, including a bank overdraft of over £20 million. If Steve Bruce had been allowed to buy Andre Gray and his January targets that debt would have been higher, maybe as much as £20 million higher. We' could have started the season with debts of around £146 million.

During the following season our income was £116 million and our wage bill £61.2 million. That left £54.8 million to pay all the other expenses plus the other debts to third parties from our promotion season. The only way Hull City could have bought an additional 3 or 4 players would have been to borrow even more from the bank. Borrowing an extra £40 million would have taken our debt to £176 million and accounted for all of the following season's Premier League income that's if we'd managed to stay up. The only way we could have survived was to maintain our Premier League status for a decade and hope our wage bill and transfer fees stabilised and fell as a percentage of our income.

Yes, its my opinion but an opinion based on facts.

Using the same argument you could say Bartlett bottled it. If he'd borrowed more and bought 3 or 4 decent players Brown would have kept us up. After going through the experience of Bartlett I can't understand why anyone one would want the Allams to borrow more and more money in the hope Bruce would have kept us up long enough to pay off the additional borrowing. Its taken 2 years and over £150 million to get over Bruce's tenure in charge of Hull City.

 

Good post, Obi.

 

Burnley are a well run club that budgeted properly for the future unlike Hull City under Assem Allam and Steve Bruce. They invested very little in the squad when they got promoted in 2009. They kept the bulk of the Premier League riches and invested in the infrastructure and kept their team together. The second promotion gave them the funds to start building the squad for a prolonged stay in the Premier League. The complete opposite of what we did.

 

You are just speculating as to what anyone did, or didn't tell Burnley.

 

Burnley- another dull place with nowt else to do but watch t' Clarets.

They owe their 'success;' to a grounded manager who selects players from Britain/Ireland who buy into the Burnley ethos. No africans or south americans , just NW European honest sloggers.

 

Seems the only reason City don't get massive crowds is it is the only city where there is anything to do other than go to football.

 

Burnley had had two promotions and two relegations before they splashed the cash on Gray. How much did they spend the previous season on transfers to try and ensure Premier League survival?

 

This is a very misleading figure, surely you should use the net debt taking into account funds owed to Hull City? Rather than the total outstanding. The net debt is still ridiculously high at 99m.

But you can state what you want you are speculating, we can't say which route is right or wrong as there are so many variables. On both sides of the argument. You can state your opinion but it's an opinion.

My opinion is that this was the wrong time to stop investing, as its a hugely wasted opportunity. Which has lead to us falling out of the Premier League and potentially out of the Championship. So if you think its the right move it's hardly worked out well.

If we spent more and still went down maybe sell a lot of players and do badly in the Championship, but we are doing that already with Ehabs strategy. His strategy was poor long term thinking.

You can worry about administration etc.... There isn't a chance a club in the top two division of England will fold. Our place I'm the football league is worth something to someone in Asia, or An Arab or an American etc...

That's my opinion, could easily be wrong but we will never find out.

I hate people who state their opinions are facts and only use certain figures.

 

Net liabilities were just over £50 million for the year ending 2017. How much do you think 3 or 4 players would have cost to give us a reasonable chance of staying up. Another £40 or £50 million? Would that have been enough players or would Bruce have wanted more? Where was the money for the wages, the transfer fees and the national insurance contributions coming from given the wage bill was already over £60 million and our income around £100 million if we stayed up? The only place I could see it coming from is the banks or other financial institutions.

The Allams borrowed £20 million plus from the bank to fund Bruce's promotion push. They'd have had to borrow another £30 or £40 million to try and stay in the league. Something he failed to do after getting £40 million to spend on transfers in 2015.

My opinion isn't a fact, its an opinion based on the financial information in the accounts and my personal distaste of funding Hull City by bank borrowings.

 

A lot of its buts and maybes the last few posts.

All history, and the should Bruce have been backed argument is another that will resurface all the while there is a City forum.

 

Been to Burnley too many times.

Plenty of LFC/MUFC low self esteem morbs loitering around their sub Northpoint shopping centre.

You heard it here first.

 

I fully understand your opinion, we clearly disagree not an issue.

My main question is, what could be worse than our current situation? Surely you agree we would never fold due to our position in the football league being worth something?

Our club is falling apart and neither of us need too list all the issues, so how would giving Bruce more money be worse than today?

Admittedly I am an individual who is comfortable with debt my companies have huge liabilities (covered my assets so very different situation) and we help people develop business and borrow millions and millions to do so. Football is a very different business model but I personally feel spending 30m on players was our best ever chance of become a stable Premier League team.

We didn't do that and the clubs fallen apart.

 

Bruce walked away because the club wouldn't sign Nick Powell, who would have been available for £2-3 million at that time. Talk of £40-50 million spend at that time is for the birds.

 

He tore League One apart and has been brilliant again this year. Didn't Brighton bid 10m in January for him.

People used to moan about Bruce's signings, completely clueless.

 

You really think the only extra player we needed to sign that season was Nick Powell?

 

I really think that Bruce was happy to sign £2-3 million players, not the fantasy sums that you've introduced on his behalf. Your insistence on bringing this mess to Steve Bruce's door is frankly absurd.

 

Ehab Allam's decision after we won the playoff final to not invest in staying in the EPL was purely down to him wanting to take back their money, NOT to save Hull City. To go into the start of the EPL season with the lack of preparation was purely miss management.

I have to say that your reply is what I would expect from an accountant. In my experience, they will usually take the safe option. As OLM said the revenue stream of the EPL is vastly superior to the Championship, and that is where a club should strive to be. This says more about Ehab Allam's lack of experience as well as his default mentality, he is not equipped and has no idea how to run a football club. IMO if it had been managed correctly, and with the right person at the top, they could have invested and still maintained their EPL status, and staying there gives the club the best chance increasing income and profitability.