Leeds United accounts

[Vausey]

SR described our accounts as "not bad at all".

Essentially, it comes down to the fact that I'm happy Bates is making profit/funding ways of generating further profit... I'm just not happy at what the profit is being spent on! Like I said... fine line between him being brilliant and him being the scrotum we all think he currently is.

I'm quite interested to know this though: Would you accept the current level of investment in the team if the ticket prices were, say, 20% lower?

[Disco Dan]

SR described our accounts as "not bad at all".

Essentially, it comes down to the fact that I'm happy Bates is making profit/funding ways of generating further profit... I'm just not happy at what the profit is being spent on! Like I said... fine line between him being brilliant and him being the scrotum we all think he currently is.

I'm quite interested to know this though: Would you accept the current level of investment in the team if the ticket prices were, say, 20% lower?

He's not "funding ways of generating further profit" though is he? The football club is propping up all the ancillary business to the tune of millions - Swiss Ramble bloke mentions it. And not only is it propping them up, it's actively diverting funds away from the football team. If that changed then maybe people would change their behaviours and feelings toward the club. But Leeds fans aren't stupid. We're willing to suck up a lot, even high ticket prices, but when fans see that the money isn't going on football then we withdraw our support.

The ticket prices are a bit of a red herring though. Bates could do himself many favours just by shutting the fuck up. Then the next step would be to adopt a strategy of genuine engagement with the fans. We'd still turn up in our droves, but feel better about doing so. We need to be sold a strategy we can buy into. But it ain't gonna happen.

[Vausey]

He's been saying all along that he wants to establish means in which we can generate money to spend on the team... the problem now is that we ARE generating profit and it's being pumped straight back into the system rather than on the squad. It begs the question at what point will he consider us profitable enough to provide the manager at the time with a healthy budget with which he can spend on improving us on the field.

...but the profitabilty referred to in the Swiss Ramble article has been generated without any of the projects Bates has concentrated on building to the detriment of the team. Neither the Pavilion, the East Stand corporate facilities, the radio station or the possible casino have contributed a penny to our bottom line yet.

And yet, without the things Bates has been building, we are one of the few profitable teams in the division, with a turnover other clubs can only fear and admire.

In fact, if profitability was the aim, it would have been have been achieved much sooner without all the outgoing costs related to the design, planning and construction of the Pavilion, the East Stand, the casino etc etc.

It's almost like there's two ways in which we can take a risk:

1. Spend money on the squad and risk not getting promotion

2. Spend money on a hotel and risk no-one staying in it

If either of them pay off then we're laughing but if they fail then it seems we're royally fucked. I can only assume Bates went for the second option because there's marginally less risk... if the powers that be have genuinely convinced him that these ventures are profitable then you can kind of see why he'd do it as, to him, it would be a much more sensible and calculated risk.

[Vausey]

SR described our accounts as "not bad at all".

Essentially, it comes down to the fact that I'm happy Bates is making profit/funding ways of generating further profit... I'm just not happy at what the profit is being spent on! Like I said... fine line between him being brilliant and him being the scrotum we all think he currently is.

I'm quite interested to know this though: Would you accept the current level of investment in the team if the ticket prices were, say, 20% lower?

He's not "funding ways of generating further profit" though is he? The football club is propping up all the ancillary business to the tune of millions - Swiss Ramble bloke mentions it. And not only is it propping them up, it's actively diverting funds away from the football team. If that changed then maybe people would change. But Leeds fans aren't stupid. We're willing to suck up a lot, even high ticket prices, but when fans see that the money isn't going on football then we withdraw our support.

The ticket prices are a bit of a red herring though. Bates could do himself many favours just by shutting the fuck up. Then the next step would be to adopt a strategy of genuine engagement with the fans. We'd still turn up in our droves, but feel better about doing so. We need to be sold a strategy we can buy into. But it ain't gonna happen.

Admittedly I worded that wrong... you could say he's trying to exploit ways of generating further profit (using our money/borrowed money). Either way, refer to my last post about why I think he's done that and the associated risks.

[moscowhite]

SR described our accounts as "not bad at all".

Essentially, it comes down to the fact that I'm happy Bates is making profit/funding ways of generating further profit... I'm just not happy at what the profit is being spent on! Like I said... fine line between him being brilliant and him being the scrotum we all think he currently is.

Don't lose sight of the fact that Bates is a born cunt and always will be. Getting him to run LUFC properly is one thing, but even if he caves on that score it won't erase Anegada, the Irish Trust Bank, electric fences for Chelsea, or his treatment of Matthew Harding; or, for that matter, our own admin, should the full story ever become clear.

[Vausey]

Haha fair point I suppose we'll never actually warm to him... but I don't think he's a million miles away from running us successfully (based on the little evidence I have seen). Like Dan mentioned, though... he's stuck in his ways and it's extremely unlikely he'll change!

[Mr Reality]

I mentioned this on WACCOE this afternoon but, if you take the Swiss Ramble article at face value, then I don't think it portrays Bates in a particularly terrible light.

Admittedly the shafting of HMRC and local businesses highlights some ethical issues but from the point of view of LUFC it was a sound business move (cringe).

It also dispels the argument that "we're in exactly the same place as we were when he took over". Yes we're in the same league position but we are no longer in financial meltdown and so that represents an improvement although we, the fans, have largely had to pick up the bill to fund this improvement it still goes down as another successful business move.

I'm not a Bates fan but this whole black and white way of looking at it is infuriating. Yes he's a lying, conniving scum-bag who sold our best players and demonstrated a huge lack of ambition on the football field... but I think the key point in this article is that we are a club who is able to generate a profit without player sales (despite paying rent on a stadium - an unusual outgoing for a football club) and that is solely down to Bates. If Warnock can cobble together a team that makes a play-off push on limited funds then crowds will return again this season and it's likely we'll make a profit again before player sales.

Obviously, as a football club, we'd like to see and even expect this profit to be used on the team and that has always been the major sticking point. However, as far as that article goes I don't think Bates comes out of it looking too badly.

thats down to the fans who pay some of the highest ticket prices in the country

[moscowhite]

I would also suggest that your belief that takings from the pavilion (separate company), hotel (proposed to be independently operated) and casino (proposed to be independently operated) will be spent on the football club is charmingly naive.

These things may well all be profitable, but for LUFC? Not convinced.

They are all, though, as Dan points out that Swiss Ramble points out, being set up thanks to LUFC.

[Mustafaster]

I repeat, why are we mortgaging future revenue and selling shares in the club if we are making a profit?

[thechubbyone]

I don't think it reflects on him very well at all. It basically shows that he shifted the debts through a very dubious administration and has spent the time since then wasting money on vanity projects which to date have given very little back to the club.

He's turned an inherently profitable football club into one that scrapes by because it spends all the cash on useless shit.

[Disco Dan]

I repeat, why are we mortgaging future revenue and selling shares in the club if we are making a profit?

We're making a profit, but it's not enough to match the level of expenditure required in the here and now. Ken judged it necessary to spend £7m on the East Stand, so we've borrowed money so he could do it. We're spending more than we're earning.

[Man Called Sun]

I'm staggered, absolutely fucking staggered, that after everything Bates has done and continues to do with our football club, that anyone can see even a small reason for optimism. Off the top of my head:

- Relegation to League One, the lowest point in our history
- The admin and completely dodgy way in which he reacquired the club
- Subsequently lying to us about who actually owned the club
- Covering the east stand in shit we don't need or want at great expense, mortgaging future season ticket sales to pay for it
- the 6th highest season ticket prices in the country
- Slagging off all and sundry and generally being an insufferable cunt
- Instead of making money from selling the radio rights, founding a club radio station that bleeds the club of money and who's output is fucking awful
- Paying the players fuck all, so they bugger off to the footballing hotbeds of Bristol and St Etienne, pocketing the fees received for them
- Spending fuck all on replacements

I could go on, you all know this, yet we get talk that he's not far from being a success?

[Mr Reality]

I repeat, why are we mortgaging future revenue and selling shares in the club if we are making a profit?

bates is a poker player he will have seen the drop in attendences this season and realised the consequences so is just working round it in a different way

[Mustafaster]

I repeat, why are we mortgaging future revenue and selling shares in the club if we are making a profit?

We're making a profit, but it's not enough to match the level of expenditure required in the here and now. Ken judged it necessary to spend £7m on the East Stand, so we've borrowed money so he could do it. We're spending more than we're earning.

Sorry for being a thick cunt and all that, but in my business if I spend more than I earn it's not called a profit.
If I buy a new computer system but don't take in enough cash to cover the costs it is a loss.

[Disco Dan]

I repeat, why are we mortgaging future revenue and selling shares in the club if we are making a profit?

We're making a profit, but it's not enough to match the level of expenditure required in the here and now. Ken judged it necessary to spend £7m on the East Stand, so we've borrowed money so he could do it. We're spending more than we're earning.

Sorry for being a thick cunt and all that, but in my business if I spend more than I earn it's not called a profit.
If I buy a new computer system but don't take in enough cash to cover the costs it is a loss.

The business is profitable though, because we keep selling players. It's just not profitable enough to pay for a £7m development on the East Stand. Big capital expenditure normally has to be funded through a mortgage of some kind.

I don't have a problem with him doing up the East Stand per se, but it's his ability to do what is necessary to fill the fucker that concerns me. Google 'Chelsea Millennium Suites' and you'll see what I mean. That and the fact that the football team - central to the idea of filling the available facilities - is fucking garbage as a result of the incumbent policies.

[Vausey]

I would also suggest that your belief that takings from the pavilion (separate company), hotel (proposed to be independently operated) and casino (proposed to be independently operated) will be spent on the football club is charmingly naive.

These things may well all be profitable, but for LUFC? Not convinced.

They are all, though, as Dan points out that Swiss Ramble points out, being set up thanks to LUFC.

Only time will tell if LUFC are the ultimate benefactor of these investments I suppose.

I'm struggling to get my head around his motivation for doing all this (I don't buy into the idea that he's doing it to piss us all off).

[Mr Reality]

one thing i dont get about the boxes/meeting rooms and why we are doing them is now with the in the current climate most business mine included are cutting down on this type of expenditure using web based meeting tools to avoid wasting money, so although ken wants us to be a 365 days a year company is it ever realistic

[Vausey]

I don't have a problem with him doing up the East Stand per se, but it's his ability to do what is necessary to fill the fucker that concerns me. Google 'Chelsea Millennium Suites' and you'll see what I mean. That and the fact that the football team - central to the idea of filling the available facilities - is fucking garbage as a result of the incumbent policies.

This is the point that I really struggle to get my head around. Bates obsession with creating exec boxes, hotels, casino's etc... having a good football team is central to this business model surely and yet he'll do anything but invest in it!

[thechubbyone]

one thing i dont get about the boxes/meeting rooms and why we are doing them is now with the in the current climate most business mine included are cutting down on this type of expenditure using web based meeting tools to avoid wasting money, so although ken wants us to be a 365 days a year company is it ever realistic

I'd never really thought of this angle before, but it's definitely happening at my place. Skype, facetime, google documents - all free and all taking away from face to face meetings.

Not that Ken knows what any of those things are. Pen and paper, radio stations and expensive programmes. Never mind that internet stuff - bloody load of mumbo-jumbo.

[Vausey]

I'm staggered, absolutely fucking staggered, that after everything Bates has done and continues to do with our football club, that anyone can see even a small reason for optimism. Off the top of my head:

- Relegation to League One, the lowest point in our history
- The admin and completely dodgy way in which he reacquired the club
- Subsequently lying to us about who actually owned the club
- Covering the east stand in shit we don't need or want at great expense, mortgaging future season ticket sales to pay for it
- the 6th highest season ticket prices in the country
- Slagging off all and sundry and generally being an insufferable cunt
- Instead of making money from selling the radio rights, founding a club radio station that bleeds the club of money and who's output is fucking awful
- Paying the players fuck all, so they bugger off to the footballing hotbeds of Bristol and St Etienne, pocketing the fees received for them
- Spending fuck all on replacements

I could go on, you all know this, yet we get talk that he's not far from being a success?

Please don't implode with rage, and please believe me when I say that I can't stand Ken Bates, but I just genuinely don't think the issue is so black and white.

Okay, so he's a crooked cunt and dealt with the admin, acquisition and ownership issues in a very dodgy way. Despite the way in which he went about them though the club seems to be in a better place as a result of them (particularly the admin). I don't think him being a twat would stop him being successful.

The east stand issue depends on whether you believe it will actually generate us some money in years to come.

As for the spending money on the playing side of things: I whole heartedly agree with you and this is the fine line I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure most people would be happy to let him busy away building a hotel if the team was seeing some of the money but, quite simply, it isn't!