BFC Accounts have landed

Latest in a long line of long term people/companies that have gone in the last few years.

 

The accounts don't make great reading and to put into context how messed up football is, these are some of the losses posted by other clubs for the same 23-24 period (according to Keiran Maguire on Twitter):

Scunthorpe £499k
Oldham (Including Norwood) £3.2m
Salford in L2: £5.3m
Donny in L2: over £3m
Port Vale down from L1: £3.8m
Stockport up from L2: £7m
Swansea in Champ: £15.2m

Then Preston who are often compared to Barnsley, have been losing £1m per month over the last 4 years to tread water in mid table.

Basically, every team is losing money trying to get promoted into the next Division where you lose even more money. Mental

 

Very true, we have no idea. But it doesn't paint our ownership in a good light that they (imo) were deliberately economical with the truth I order to deflect when asked in the past about transfer fees received.

Claim: Can't spend owt because the transfer fees aren't paid in lump sums, they're in installments.
Reality: can't spend owt because we've spunked money up the wall handing over our merchandise rights to fanatics, giving Julie's mate free reign on kit design and signing a few dozen nobodies instead of a few good players


I'm not cynical at all

 

I know it won’t be all of it, but they also need to purchase new players. Easy to say player trading covers the losses, but in reality surely profit from player trading goes into buying new players and the owners cover the losses?

Football is a mess financially and realistically without the owners putting in what they are we’d be in a far worse position. Having said that, i think a lot of expensive players have been a bust (or maybe badly coached i suppose) and that needs looking at. But it’s not because of lack of investment, as far as i can see.

 

I think the design of the shirt was immaterial. FWIW, I loved the original stars kit, so the throwback to it was an immediate purchase for me.

But there lay the problem. I ordered it on pre-order, and the delivery date got pushed back, and back, and back. Many will have cancelled their orders before the shirts finally arrived in, from memory, November. That was the story of the Fanatics experience in season 1 of the deal, and many swore never to go back for a second experience. I bought shirts in the club shop this season. Still a Fanatics run store nowadays, but at least you could see the specific merchandise and try stuff on. Not a chance that I'll do an online BFC order with them again though. The general unavailability of shirts for at the start of the season will have been the thing that killed the revenue to such an extent, in my view.

 

It does say however what we haven't yet received from future installments. 4+ million it says doesn't it under debtors

 

No way we paid him 800k and similar money to Mansfield, unless you meant the transfer fee was 800k?
Could believe the wage though.

 

Put it in the other thread but i’ll put it here too. RE: Merch turnover…

Could it not just be that the actual profit is similar, but the club no longer takes as much money for the merchandise?

Eg. if turnover in season 1 is 800k, but out of that we have to spend 500k to purchase the merchandise, that’s 300k profit, but if in season 2 we only receive the 300k because the rest is handled externally the profit is the same but turnover is vastly reduced.

 

Selling all or none would gave been very poor decision making. But let's look at in the wider context. We shouldn't be letting players get to the final six months of their contract. It's not a choice of whether they were all sold in Jan or allowed to leave on a free, we had years to renegotiate or sell before that point.

 

Id hazard a guess. The club have no control over Fanatics. Fanatics pay a percentage to the club on sales. But they will incur any losses on over production.
Bear in mind. even at half price the gear i would imagine will still make em a profit. They will be paying peanuts in the fact they have loads of clubs under their wing and manufacturing costs will be minimal.
Having to have the sponsor put on by the club on replica shirts is another farce. Someone told me the other week. (a fan) some fans prefer the shirt without the logo. If so. Then I'm wondering why they just wouldn't buy other merchandise without it. Cheaper.

 

The total amount receivable is recognised in the player trading profit. The instalments simply reflect timing of cash flow.

 

Bolton a good like for like comparison given recent history. They have lost £11.2m. They must be paying players stupid amounts given their attendances dwarf ours.

 

At least Oakwell Holdings got a repayment of £250k of the £3m they were owed from the legal settlement regarding the purchase.

 

As a rule of thumb, are the instalments not spread across the sold player new contract term?

 

Look at you lot knowing your way around a balance sheet.

 

I suppose the downside is the horrendous customer service from Fanatics themselves and the ill will this causes many fans.

 

That's a fair point.