Agree with you about prices dependent on forced sale/choosing to sell. I’d be surprised indeed if a bank forced a club to sell in one summer as, you’re right, redeemable prices would drop off sharply.

But last time around EFC cleared their debt by selling Rooney for £30m, so they would look, I guess, at a 5 year debt reduction situation if that was their way of doing things. Moyes tends to buy well, so he may be able to wheel and deal to EFC’s benefit…….

I think G+S want to go to the Olympic Stadium as a way to reduce debt – problems there as IOC legacy says athletics. A compromise may exist.

‘Hold your head’ may be on a ’3 years to top 4 or regroup’ is my take on it. You need to speculate to get into the ECL and, to be fair to Lerner, he’s been prepared to try. Martin O’Neill might be asked to ‘do an Arsene’ by creating returns on a few players to balance the books.

And the interest rate being paid is 2.5%. If Randy was solely interested in making a profit, do you not think he could do better than that elsewhere? The loan could be restructured overnight to allow it to meet the UEFA proposals. Lets not forget – he used to run MBNA, so knows a bit about finance!!!!

I would however agree with you that every few clubs are likely to actually go bust because that selling option remains. However something to remember is that when a club is a known seller, other clubs can take advantage of that. The prices you quote for players may be completely different if people knew the seller neede to raise funds.

I guess 2-3 matches would be enough to convey the message and they should ask them to leave by this summer or else they would do it again.

I think you’re being a bit unfair on Burnley as the income figures were for 2009 when they were in the Championship, when this year and two to come, with skyfalling payments if necessary, that will be hugely higher. So their debt is manageable and they decided, on a point of principle, NOT to go bust in the EPL. A quick ‘sorry’ to Chairman Kilbey might be in order………

The Toffees would easily reduce their debt if necessary: they could sell Yakubu, Saha, Rodwell, Baines, Jagielka, Arteta, Cahill et al if necessary and raise a minimum of £80m and quite possibly more. So you’re being a bit naif, there. They won’t sell them all, that’s for sure. But in a debt reduction situation? They’d be debt free, if they needed to be…..

Ditto ‘Hold your Head’. Milner? £20m+. Young? £15m+. Agbonlahor? £12m+. Delph in a couple of years? £10m+. They could reduce wages by ditching Carew and Dunne who would find other jobs easily. So I don’t think they’re in terminal decline. Not Arsenal’s finances, but not a basket-case either. Mr Lerner is playing a 5 year game with O’Neill, then he’ll decide what to do.

West Ham are a seller this summer, we all know that. Their biggest saleable assets are Green, Upson and Cole. Selling all of them would reduce wages and bring down debt to, say, £90m that way. Gilbert and Sillyman aren’t fools, you know. They’ll go back to West Ham’s way of nurturing youth and selling on to pay down the debt for 5 years, then they’ll try and kick on. If all else fails…..

I dunno how much debt Arsenal were in before they raised the Emirates cash, but it was no less than Spurs…they had upfront costs to clear the site and they took most of the Emirates cash upfront to pay off the builders. Emirates had Edelman by the balls and squeezed gently to get a good deal. That’s life…….we came through it. Just. If we’re being nasty, we could say Arsene lost us £50m by pleasing us all in keeping Patrick and Thierry for one more season…….as we’re not nasty, we thank him for thinking of us and keeping his star assets. The tiny Totts certainly enjoy interesting owners on the Caribbean beaches, but they won’t go bust next year……

Much of the rest of it I agree with you.

Lesson: Arsenal are the best run club in the EPL. Man IOU are the biggest cash cow which is bled dry by those lil’ ol’ darlin’s the men in glass houses. Creationism is rife in the accountancy profession and Roman and the Arabs will be like two Tour de France teams claiming to be EPO-free. Whilst dumping the financial needles, drips and canisters in some suitably faraway binliner before les sales flics de futebol stick their nose in where it’s not wanted.

What you might want to ask in this age of ‘austerity’ Tony, is this: what is the net outflow of cash from UK plc to ROW plc as a result of all this?

Dunno, but I’d be surprised if cashflow was net in our direction….something to think about, perhaps??

I’m very mistrustful of company reports generally (think WorldCom, Enron, Northern Crrrrock) and have always been told to read them starting at the back page through to the first page, so you read the qualifying footnotes first, the stuff that the company basically wants to bury.

I extend this wariness to everyone, incl Arsenal, especially with someone “fit & proper” like Usmanov now in the mix, since the timing of the property crash is unlikely to have been in the Club’s favour, and it’s interesting to note divestment of ?land assets now (they probably expect property values to fall further, as do many of us).

Of course, it helps Arsenal that Wenger is and always has been such a demonstrably moral person (the bribery scandal in the French league OM/Monaco/Bernard Tapie) and is economically literate (degree-level qualification).

What I find interesting is that for all the alleged difficulties between Wenger and Michel Platini (?something to do with Wenger’s relationship with Mike’s dad, Aldo), they’re basically on the same page on the matter of overindebtness as a disqualifying factor for UEFA CL.

Bring on the level playing field!

It is debt that annoys them not profit. Loss is acceptable because it comes and goes, and because they don’t want to stop clubs investing for the future – ie make a loss for a couple of years but come out of that with a youth academy and brilliant training.

But what scares the shit out of them (and quite rightly) is this philosophy that you can build up debt after debt after debt and just go on, and still parade yourselves as champions of Europe.

The fact is that if all the debt free clubs get knocked out in the quarter finals, and the debt laden clubs win – this is a dreadful message – and football is very alert to its image.

Two points on that – I can (and will) correct errors and issue a new version in a short while with updates (that’s the great thing about the internet) and I also have a day job so sometimes the time for getting all this together is a bit tight.

The rich list is the Deloittes annual analysis of the richest clubs in Europe which is a misnomer since it focuses on revenue.

In terms of the detailed analysis of Arsenal raised above, having read too many company reports in my life I would say that what is being reported there is the same as any other report. (When I was chair of a plc much smaller than Arsenal plc I found difficulties understanding our own annual report, and I was there every day running the show).

So any implication that the other figures are ok, but Arsenal’s are skewed is not reasonable – there are massive complications in all reports and I am reducing huge tomes to a matter of lines.

The key issues are –
a) what is the debt and how do they pay it back
b) is there a chance of profit in the future
c) what do the auditors say
d) are they making a profit or loss

I would also add, any business that is utterly dependent on one person has an extra load to carry – just in case he is not there.

Thanks for the kind comments about the piece. For the next edition I will try to add anotehr section “Redeeming features” = for example reflecting that Villa have spent some of their money on a training ground and facilities for supporters.

LRV, My guess is that the “rich list” is based on the revenue a club generates during a year. I guess it only looks into the footballing revenues and not others or else our would have been more(Wasn’t our total group revenue more than £300m last season?).

The accident is officially buried… grrrrhhhh…

Guess what is going to happen?

Real, Barca, Chelski, ManLeeds, Liverpool, Abu Dhabi City, et al may threaten to form an Abu Dhabi Pan-European League worth £1-billion of prize money …..

And CITEH will play their home games at Abu Dhabi Sports City or Dubai Sports City; plus Chelski will make Moscow their home ground…

And it will be run the way of bernie Ecclesstone’s Formula One Grand Prix, with turnover in the region of maybe £1 to 2-billion.

You think UEFA will have a leg to stand-on with 10 of European marquee teams threateningn to boycott UEFA CL Cup and setup their own tournament?

top marks.

And it proved that there are plenty of savvy corporate predators feasting on the cash cows of a Premier League.

It is really a well-run junk bonds operation with those owners and consortiums buying up a club, and then promptly loaned them money with interest rates of 7% to 12%; which is way better and lots safer than bettign on a volatile stock-market.

Where else can you have a solid lock on an safe investments with a steady cash flow from TV rights, commercial rights and a captive custoemrs with herd mentality, come what may, and they will loyally stick to that brand-name.

And if they got lucky, they can sell it off to the next sucker and reap a handsome capital gain of 50% or more within 5 to 10 years.

As long as Scudamore & gang continues to grow Premier League – especially emerging GLobal Market had just grow and quite virginal – I can see Scudamore & Gang will work closely with Blatter and Platini to grow this cash cow into auroch-size for the next 5 to 10 years.

Prem League and UEFA are in fact a monopoly with a captive customer in the Global Market, and is in a class of its own and pullign steadilya way from its competitors in Italy, Spain and Germany.

Like a Ponzi Scheme, as long as Prem League continues to grow, and TV rights and commercial rights are able tos ervice those owner’s loan paying 7% to 12% annual interest, I don’t see thsi status quo will change for the next 5 to 10 years.

Like IBM dominaitng 80% of the market in the 80s, Prem league will continue to dominate the Global Market till a serious competitor – like WIntel – emerges to challenge Prem league.

But then in 5 to 10 years time, Prem league may evolve and morph into Pan European league to sustain this present growth to see-off future competitors!!!!