Kone Signs on 3 Year Deal

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Nah mate, that's never explained why certain costs outside of team funding have risen dramatically and mysteriously. And we've just taken in another £25M per season and we cant seem to manage to utilise it for team building.

End of this transfer window will be very interesting adding up what came in and exactly what went out.

The money is due at the end this season, so it's not even arrived yet & you're peddling your conspiracy theories as to it's whereabouts.

 

[fandjango]

Whilst this is hugely interesting I came looking for opinions on kone.....can this stuff be moved elsewhere please ?

 

[Librarian]

There is NO financial irregularity. Elstone (finally!!) gave a reasonably detailed explanation of the cost items in Other Operating Costs at the AGM and there is nothing unusual.

Everton have a revenue problem not a cost problem. A club of our tradition, regularly finishing top 8 in the richest league in the world should generate revenue c. 50% higher than we do using Tottenham as a benchmark of sorts. The reasons why we fall so short are various but largely fall into 3 simple categories:

1. Location, location, location: poor city/poor core fanbase, higher profile neighbours, Manchester rivals...not instantly attractive to "bright lights, big city" international investors, tier A sponsors and casual international fans with £ to spend so you really have to create an alternative image through brand building which takes vision, creativity, time and smart investment

2. 20th century infrastructure in a 21st century economy: old ground/bad views, poor facilities, cramped seating, no mod-cons, underwhelming club shops...bargain basement facilities that we can only sell at (by PL standards given our stature) at bargain basement prices. Arsenal generate 50% of their matchday revenue from 10% of their attendance due to corporate facilities, extensive lounges, executive seating. This is more than we could ever do given #1 but we are still constrained (having thrown away the opportunity of our lifetime's at Kings Dock through the power struggle between Bill and Paul Gregg) but we can, should and must do better. A plan that fans support and will help promote/fund would be a starting place!

3. Commercial Conservatism: We have leadership who know the price of everything and the value of nothing and see risk where others might see opportunity resulting in a collection of commercial deals designed to provide certainty and predictability and which have reduced risk but handcuffed our commercial staff and eliminated growth opportunities e.g. Kitbag, Sodexho and our shirt sponsorship deals

Kenwright and Elstone deserve to be in the firing line but not because of ridiculous and frankly libelous suggestions that they have their hand in the till (they don't). They should be under intense and critical scrutinY because of their complete and utter failure to have a strategy in place to remove/circumvent/mitigate our revenue blockers and build effectively on marketing gold like The People's Club concept as a selling tool beyond our core fanbase and players with popular appeal (Fellaini's physical image, Baines' cool...).

The consequence is that Plan A has been, remains and forever shall be (for as long as they remain) live within our means and hope some mug comes along who'll bankroll us whilst maintaining the leadership status quo. It hasn't happened yet. There is a reason for that...

Price???
Your points 1,2 & 3 SHOULD mean that the asking price for selling the club should be very reasonable.

 

[tim cahill]

This present tranche of funding maybe (we wait to see how exactly how that money is borrowed against and spent), but we've been seeing a lot of years go by with OOCs increasing (no one really knows what comprises it) and surpluses at the end of one transfer window somehow disappearing at the beginning of the next (as with last January's £8M for fer that seems to have evaporated by the following summer, and the Arteta £10M the January before last which frittered away to nothing).

In the absence of a billionaire we need as much generated money invested in the team and if it doesn't feel like that's the case we need to know what we get in revenue explained in detail to us - every penny's destination - to get people's full confidence. Our annual revenue will soon be about £110M. If our manager is having to put up with selling to buy (or worse, negative net spend) then it's a more than fair to request that we have a forensic breakdown of all the costing categories to the 'nth' degree

The £8m for Fer was reported as being £2m up front. The Arteta money went to the bank because we overspent on wages the previous year. The current board is far from perfect but the argument that they are stealing from the club is a bit daft in my opinion.

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

I struggle to comprehend how some just cannot understand the problems as they are and who prefer instead to wheel out dangerous talk of wrong-doing.
I'm all for massive pressure (hopefully leading to the quickest departure possible) on the current Board/ owners - but done the right way and not by underhand frivolity that undermines the real reasons why we're struggling off the field.

Absolutely spot on.

I have a real issue with faceless internet posters chucking out the idea that there's financial impropriety at play here, without a shred of evidence to base their claims on. Irrespective of your view on the board at EFC, there can be no excuse for peddling unsubstantiated garbage that suggests serious foul play.

 

[bignev23]

KONE,HAS HE SIGNED?

 

[snapples]

KONE,HAS HE SIGNED?

Yet another 48 hours before the deal is done according to the Sunday papers.

 

[TheFinnFan]

Tomorrow or tuesday.

 

[Michael Tsui]

Price???
Your points 1,2 & 3 SHOULD mean that the asking price for selling the club should be very reasonable.

The point is we pretty much HAVE to lose money year after year, unless a very massive (I repeat massive) reinvestment on a few things (buying out kitbag deals, all kinds of gimmicks and tricks which makes our club actually fashionable, or perhaps engineer a stadium move a la franchise FC to escape from the RS). All these will cost massive money and without them the price of the club is very close to zero.

Unfortunately I can see why they are reluctant to sell on the other hand.

 

[MACCA75]

Absolutely spot on.

I have a real issue with faceless

internet posters chucking out the idea
that there's financial impropriety at
play here, without a shred of evidence
to base their claims on. Irrespective of
your view on the board at EFC, there
can be no excuse for peddling
unsubstantiated garbage that
suggests serious foul play.

Its hardly surprising though given that the club itself muddy the waters so much. Are you surprised about the suspicion regarding VIBRAC? The true ownership of BCR Sports ( we arent allowed to know are we). Or the exact nature of Philip Greens relationship with the club?

The lack of a complete rundown of the 'other operating costs'? The club arent blameless for the concerns abd suspicions of the fans.

 

[Deleted member 28206]

IT'S A JOKE REALLY

 

[TheFinnFan]

IT'S A JOKE REALLY

bry you are damn lighthouse with you positive shouts. Luv ya

 

[toffee66]

Doesn't really tell us anything that. We have no idea exacty what goes where in terms of revenue received. Broad brush strokes just doesn't cut it.

No business reveals exactly where it spends every penny so you'll never get the precision you want but what we can see in rounded numbers:

Revenue £80m

People Costs £(55)m
Wages, salaries, bonuses of players and staff; 0 to directors as that has to be disclosed

Agent/transfer related fees £(4)m
Again, this gets reported via various newspapers; this sits in other operating costs

Finch Farm lease/Goodison rates/other direct facility/stadium running costs £(8)m
Again, based on numbers that have been disclosed in the past; will reduce slightly with the new deal with LCC includes heat, light, power, water, "routine" internal/pitch maintenance etc. All in other operating costs

Other costs £(10)m
Includes matchday costs for stewards/police, team and officials travel, all the normal costs of - which is costing £2m - running any business (equipment leases, car leases, general administrative costs, employee on-costs etc. etc.), one-offs like new pitch and ground repair/renovation and all the other "stuff" that Elstone name-checked at the AGM.

Financing costs £(4)m
Interest costs on debt split roughly 50:50 between the long-term mortgage deal we did (emergency need at the time but a bit of an expensive millstone now), the 'permanent' overdraft and the annual 'cash flow' loan to get us through the non-revenue generating summer months (Vibrac at the moment as the provider)

In a perfect world there would and should be disclosure of any personal interest the directors have in any offshore funding (does Earl have a direct interest in Vibrac?) and any personal security/debt they have secured against their own shareholding (are BK/Earl in hock to Green?) but under the current rules they are not required to disclose this detail and nobody else does it.

Could we know more? Yes.

Is Elstone's assertion that he/EFC have disclosed more to us than any other PL club fair? Yes.

Does this mean we are well run or that I trust Elstone to deliver the best performance and deals for the club? Yes and No.

I trust him to be honest. He is a Deloitte trained chartered accountant like me and has to comply with the same stringent ethical standards I do and I have no reason to believe he is any less respectful or diligent about that than me but I don't know him (he trained in Manchester 5-10 years after I trained in London and left to enter the real world!).

I trust Elstone to manage costs/risk.

I have no faith in Elstone as a commercial CEO, brand-builder and revenue generater.

As for Bill, he's a showman who has a different conception of "truth" than me. I believe in facts. Apparently he believes in "emotional truth" or some such guff. He'll bend the truth beyond recognition to tell the story he wants. He's not in the detail and has only a big picture grasp of our Finances. He's not delivered revenue growth, investment, a clear strategy or any deliverable plan to address any of the 3 key areas I flagged earlier. He's basically unable to move hos forward. None of that makes him a crook, just a problem.

Apologies to everyone else for the length but as a businessman and a trained Finance professional I get tired of the same misplaced questions being asked over and over again because they mean the questions we should be focused on can go unasked/unanswered and the fanbase gets divided between those who think:

1. Bill is bent and robbing us blind
2. Bill is part of the problem because he is out of his depth and using his showman skills and spin to bluff through
3. Bill is a Blue and the best owner we could have despite not having £

The first of those is just a blind alley that pushes more people into camp 3 as an emotional reaction, meaning they don't engage when people try to show them camp 2 is the reality. If the anti-Bill camp keeps banging the first drum change will never happen.

Rant over!!

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

The club arent blameless for the concerns abd suspicions of the fans.

I agree, that there's been a lack of transparency & at times a bunker mentality at Goodison. I also think they're not capable of taking the club forwards & of maximising it's potential.

However, irrespective of that, I find some of the potentially libelous suggestions around financial impropriety to be totally out of order. There's a line, & baseless suggestions of that nature cross it for me.

 

[bignev23]

Yet another 48 hours before the deal is done according to the Sunday papers.

Thanks! Why does every transfer we get involved in take so long to complete.