The Everton Board Thread (Inc. Bill Kenwright / Blue Union)

[roydo]

The operating costs increased by £9M from £12M in 2007 to £21M in 2008. This makes a nice headline.........

However, those who chose to highlight this fact, seemingly chose to ignore the fact that this figure was £17M in both 2005 & 2006.

So the differential was never as great as some would have you believe, as £12M was never the starting point.

Well that kind of backs up the point a lot are asking for some clarification of, because changes in these costs, either significantly up or down, look, well, odd. I mean shouldnt the income/expenditure, other than transfers, for any football club be reasonably stable year in year out, especially "operating costs" ? Its not like a football club does anything much different year in year out, or have I missed something?

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Nobody denies that Kenwright’s expenses are paid out of Everton money, but would people place a limit on the amount of money that would be deemed as an acceptable level of expenses? In which case, it would be interesting to see how much of Everton’s money is spent on Kenwright’s expenses?

Also, to suggest the likes of Phil Green don’t know how to LEGALLY manipulate the accounts is naive in the extreme.

It’s a tenuous example, but what is stopping Everton paying a company a handsome fee for ‘security advice’, or ‘transfer advice’? Nothing illegal would have taken place, it could be kept in the rather ambiguous OOC, and the company providing the ‘services’ could even be registered abroad?

I’m not saying this is definitely happening, but I believe it can and does happen, and if there is nothing illegal in doing so then the auditors wouldn’t even bat an eye-lid, because nobody would have done anything wrong?

Call me old fashioned, but wouldn't paying themselves a wage or a hefty dollop into their pension funds be the obvious starting point if they wanted to take a bit from the club?

Why would you pay yourself jack **** & then set about scamming cash out of it via bogus invoicing of non existent services?

 

[nsno-chris]

Well that kind of backs up the point a lot are asking for some clarification of, because changes in these costs, either significantly up or down, look, well, odd. I mean shouldnt the income/expenditure, other than transfers, for any football club be reasonably stable year in year out, especially "operating costs" ? Its not like a football club does anything much different year in year out, or have I missed something?

Not at all, its a business and as operational costs. What happens if the heating system goes at Goodison and its costs £2million (pure guess before people moan) to replace it, this will show in the OOC. Take into account cost of living rises on the most stupidst things (milk, food, drinks for staff), and you'll probably see an increase. Its all these silly things that see the OOC increase.

To publish all transactions relating to this is nonsense. I'm sorry, but it really is. I'm pretty sure you'll breach some sort of Data Protection

 

[Foot Long Hot Dog]

Well that kind of backs up the point a lot are asking for some clarification of, because changes in these costs, either significantly up or down, look, well, odd. I mean shouldnt the income/expenditure, other than transfers, for any football club be reasonably stable year in year out, especially "operating costs" ? Its not like a football club does anything much different year in year out, or have I missed something?

If the OOC's were £17M in 2005 & 6, & increased to £21M in 2008, then that's a £4M increase & the Finch Farm lease is circa £1.5M of it.

But the headline writers amongst our fanbase haven't bothered sharing that fact, they've focused on 2007 & the £9M (which became £10M, which became 'doubling' of our costs) Costs will vary as with every business, I would guess that agents fees go in there for a start of.

 

[Allezfan]

Don't think the agent fees do. They're released seperately and seem in keeping with what you would except.

We pay about the tenth most to agents in the Pl because we pay about the tenth most for eveything. I know it was eyebrow raisingly high even when we weren't buying anyone but that's largely because we were paying agent to renegociate all the contracts.

 

[davek]

It's hilarious reading accusations about crazy conspiracy theorists when all we're asking is a reasonable question revolving around why a massive part of club expenditure is dumped into an unaccounted box called OOCs....and why the capacity of that box has had to expand so greatly from a decade ago (literally a couple of million to £20 odd million).

What does it get spent on? If, as many suspect, it's nothing damning, it wouldn't take much labour to compile a definitive list of costs it goes on. That'd shut everyone up. I highly doubt we'll see that anytime soon though, and people will rightly scratch their heads and wonder why.

 

[Essex Blue]

Call me old fashioned, but wouldn't paying themselves a wage or a hefty dollop into their pension funds be the obvious starting point if they wanted to take a bit from the club?

Why would you pay yourself jack **** & then set about scamming cash out of it via bogus invoicing of non existent services?

Do you honestly think that there is no possible set of circumstances where 'bogus invoicing' would be preferred over paying official salaries?

There are three major shareholders at Everton, and even Kenwright, who has the title of chairman, professes to do feck all in way of actually working for Everton: "I don't even know what OOC are, it's the CEO's job". So you tell me what the reaction would be like if he suddenly turned round and told the supporters that he was paying himself £750,000 a year? What would the reaction be if Rob Earle and Phil Carter started taking a salary?

Anyway, it's not for me to answer why they may engage in bogus invoicing as you put it, I'm just stating that it is possible.

Why are Rob Earle's shares registered in a company name in the BVI? He doesn't have to, but it is possible, and he chooses to do so?

 

[davek]

Do you honestly think that there is no possible set of circumstances where 'bogus invoicing' would be preferred over paying official salaries?

There are three major shareholders at Everton, and even Kenwright, who has the title of chairman, professes to do feck all in way of actually working for Everton: "I don't even know what OOC are, it's the CEO's job". So you tell me what the reaction would be like if he suddenly turned round and told the supporters that he was paying himself £750,000 a year? What would the reaction be if Rob Earle and Phil Carter started taking a salary?

Anyway, it's not for me to answer why they may engage in bogus invoicing as you put it, I'm just stating that it is possible.

Why are Rob Earle's shares registered in a company name in the BVI? He doesn't have to, but it is possible, and he chooses to do so?

That's an easy one to answer: when the club's sold he and whoever is behind that shady vehicle wont be paying capital gains tax.

 

[Allezfan]

Don't think the agent fees do. They're released seperately and seem in keeping with what you would except.

We pay about the tenth most to agents in the Pl because we pay about the tenth most for eveything. I know it was eyebrow raisingly high even when we weren't buying anyone but that's largely because we were paying agent to renegociate all the contracts.

Yeah, the agents fees over the last four years have been steadily around 3 million a year.

They rose to 3.5 the year we sold lescott and were only 2 the year we bought Fellaini but on average we've spent about 3 million a year for the last four years.

 

[Royal Blue Jersey]

Yeah, the agents fees over the last four years have been steadily around 3 million a year.

They rose to 3.5 the year we sold lescott and were only 2 the year we bought Fellaini but on average we've spent about 3 million a year for the last four years.

you'd hope as much givrn he waas our only signing

 

[Allezfan]

you'd hope as much givrn he waas our only signing

Lars Jacobsen, Louis Saha, Carlo Nash, Segundo Castillo, Jô.

How soon we forget.

 

[nsno-chris]

It's hilarious reading accusations about crazy conspiracy theorists when all we're asking is a reasonable question revolving around why a massive part of club expenditure is dumped into an unaccounted box called OOCs....and why the capacity of that box has had to expand so greatly from a decade ago (literally a couple of million to £20 odd million).

What does it get spent on? If, as many suspect, it's nothing damning, it wouldn't take much labour to compile a definitive list of costs it goes on. That'd shut everyone up. I highly doubt we'll see that anytime soon though, and people will rightly scratch their heads and wonder why.

Are you serious, £20m and it wouldn't take much effort to list all the transactions that account for this. Why would you employ a team of people to do this, because a couple of people are scratching there heads because they can't understand the term of other operating costs.

Show me one business that does

Even if they did, some smart arse on here would moan that they spent £2k on a lawnmower when you could down B&Q and pick one up for £500.

 

[Ihaters]

Are you serious, £20m and it wouldn't take much effort to list all the transactions that account for this. Why would you employ a team of people to do this, because a couple of people are scratching there heads because they can't understand the term of other operating costs.

Show me one business that does

Even if they did, some smart arse on here would moan that they spent £2k on a lawnmower when you could down B&Q and pick one up for £500.

Depends how much of hte work is done already for the audit I guess..
If its something that has to be created it would be a truly enormous task, if its just a case of digging out what they were audited on and sending it out to public to miscomprehend as they saw fit then its no trouble.
Certainly wouldn't expect them to disect 20mil into milk, coffee, water, electric, paper, light bulbs.. even lawnmowers for the sake of a few fans... And lets face it the demand for that information is very specific to a certain set of fans, almost none of which are friendly to the boss who would be making this happen.

 

[Deleted member 28206]

What's goin on here?

 

[davek]

Are you serious, £20m and it wouldn't take much effort to list all the transactions that account for this. Why would you employ a team of people to do this, because a couple of people are scratching there heads because they can't understand the term of other operating costs.

Show me one business that does

Even if they did, some smart arse on here would moan that they spent £2k on a lawnmower when you could down B&Q and pick one up for £500.

It'd be easy: every shin pad doesn't need to be accounted for. There is such things as sub-categories that can gather together a number of items that reasonably go together. If there was no problem with giving such detailed breakdown along those lines then that'd suffice, because, given a sub-group generic name (say for kit or stationary or whatever), we'd then be able to logically appreciate costings for it. Where's the problem there? It's all about needing to see what stuff was being spent on (and in what quantity).

You're now defending the withholding of that info merely on the grounds it's not practicable to provide it. It's really not true. It could be done in an instant.