Pimlico_Villa

38 minutes ago, Talldarkandransome said:

Technically yes, because the entity will have changed. But it depends who actually employs them. Aston Villa FC or Aston Villa FC Limited

Conversely, wouldn't this also be a great way to get rid of McCormack and Richards without having to book the loss? 

39 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

@PriceOfFootball makes for interesting reading:

 

Loan Notes are perfectly legitimate and a perfectly ordinary structure to utilise when buying a company. The issue might be the interest rate at which those Notes are accruing , however Xia - jut like Lerner did - can forgive loan notes. 

For context, the entity that owns Chelsea has £1.2B of Loan Notes payable to Abromovich.

Curious as to who those other Trade Creditors are, though. The footnote to this figure is not included in that image, but can't see it being for acquiring players on credit as that figure seems too high. It would also show up as interest charge, if we'd used Credit and can't see that either.

Would also add that Recon is a complicated series of companies and perfectly feasible that items from other companies are flowing through these accounts as well.

Saw in the comment section in today’s Financial Times that Xia has sold his stakes in Recon Group and is basically now a wealthy individual as opposed to acting through a corporation. This explains the difficulties he is having getting money out of China as an individual.

: https://www.ft.com/content/df68edc4-68df-11e8-8cf3-0c230fa67aec?desktop=true&segmentId=7c8f09b9-9b61-4fbb-9430-9208a9e233c8#myft:notification:daily-email:content

22 minutes ago, Genie said:

£4.2m reported figure due (no idea how accurate)

Get that from a Telegraph? Normally quite reliable. 

Hearing Wyness suspension unrelated to Tax payment, more to do with him trying to raise finance from elsewhere without authorisation from Xia

If we are loss making, what are we expected to be taxed on? 

2 hours ago, hippo said:

To be fair I think Bruce is waiting on Dr Tony.

The Hull episode was I think bruce waiting for clarity on transfer budget - which he didn't get to late July.

Agree the general point - the situation re Bruce needs resolving one way or the other  - don't see what we are waiting for really. 

I can see that, but I'm also hoping Bruce feels he owes us something after the POF. 

Renewed ages ago. Stopped letting the Football ruin the Football a while back. 

13 hours ago, hippo said:

Probably rubbish - but would be good if true.

Says he was once a Football Agent. Would not want one of those anywhere near us. 

That's how I understand it as well. Just hope we can get those values for those players in this market when buyers know we are motivated sellers. 

Emotionally, it's going to be painful watching tiny clubs spend so much more than us.

Reading today that Cardiff are after Snods.

4 hours ago, villaglint said:

If he "retired" but we gave him the same wages to coach the U15s would that mean his wages wouldn't appear as part of FFP? 

#creativeffpaccounting

No Villa... No... I am not suggesting we give him a new five year deal! 

Like that thinking! More, more, more! 

1 hour ago, Cizzler said:

He was phenomenal after he came back from his injury, a much better player than I ever realised for sure.

But considering he's been at Villa since he was 6, getting about 5 months of consistent football (in the Championship, no less) would be a shocking return on a player we've invested so much in. He'll be 23 at the start of the next season.

If a Champions League club came in, it's impossible to begrudge him the move. It's the move to a West Ham or a Leicester that would really sting. I mean fair play to Leicester, that fluke Premier League season was an unbelievable thing - but I really can't see them doing anything else for a while (Mahrez will go, and even with him their football under Puel is horseshit). If he moves to a bang average Premier League team, it's for money, nothing else.

There's not an international football tournament next summer, so his England prospects aren't as big an issue as they could have been. Michael Keane would have gone to the World Cup if it was last year. I just can't see how he's hamstringing his career by staying one more season. He's going to be the main man at a team which is going for the title.

I think he owes us one full year, and if we fail again - that's fine, he can go anywhere and I'll wish him all the best.

 And I'm not having it that selling him is our only option of complying with FFP. There has to be other ways. If there truly is no other option than choosing between a points deduction or selling Jack Grealish because we spunked silly money on dross like Ross McCormack and Scott Hogan, then Wyness and Round should lose their jobs. It's that simple.

Agree with all of this

Not to rub salt into our wounds, but I've looked at Recon's finances as well. Recon is not public so can't see their accounts, but 2 of the 5 companies it owns are, hence Financials available (converting from CNY into £):

Lotus Health Group: Net Income of minus £10.9M. Based on today's share price it is worth £268M

Roma Group: Net Income of minus  £11.5K (Yes, that is thousands not millions, phew). Based on today's share price it is worth £21M

These figures are after Tax and Debt Service, but even Operating Profit is negative. 

Would caveat that these are only 2 of Xia's companies. Lets hope the other 3 are profit-making. 

2 hours ago, Rodders said:

Mccormack we'd be lucky to sell for anything over £1m. Richards is sadly going nowhere. We need to get the best out of Hogan somehow

In that case, more sensible to keep him than to sell at a loss and book that loss for FFP.

6 hours ago, Junxs said:

I wrote this in the Grealish thread but it's probably better here :

Its not just making up money by selling players, you can also make money up by saving on wages

For example 26m would be around £500k/w - Terry, Gabby and Hutton will all be on about 120k between them, selling some of the loaned out players will add to this, plus fees and wages for Jed , Whelan, Lansbury etc

It can be done without selling Jack

The other thing to consider is that article which stated we needed to make up 40m admitted it used the books from last year, now I don't know at which point the figures were taken.. But its not impossible they included all the wages of the 5 players we had on loan who have gone back which are wages we are no longer are paying. If you average it at 30k per player that's already another 150k/w less than last year. Journalists always try to over dramatise, I would not be surprised if, as things stand, we are not far off where we need to be but obviously not in a position to bring in new players until some leave. 

Completely agree. All depends on this year's losses, which would have been helped by January's frugality. Add in salary savings from returnee loans, shipping back out more of our players on loans and JT + Snodgrass wages and I think we are okay. 

Given the profit/loss calc is applied against book value, anything north of £9M for McCormack (wishful thinking) would be a 'profit' as well. 

B'ham Mail already overstating consensus by £10M precisely to over dramatize it. 

21 minutes ago, praisedmambo said:

Could be interesting. It does seem that if he was going to stick with Bruce he would have said so. It would have been the easiest thing to add and the omission can't be a coincidence. 

I'm not sure how I feel about it all. I like the idea of stability and think that Bruce has steered the club around through difficult times but I like the idea of us trying to play more entertaining football—I'm not sure how long it's been.

Probably awkward Legal territory as anything like that can be misconstrued and used against him if it went to Tribunal, a la O'Neill. This keeps his options open and wouldn't be surprised if Xia was just letting Bruce stew for a while as a sort of punishment. Fact remains that it would be expensive to get rid and Bruce explicitly mentioned in his post match that he wants to stay - anything other than that could be construed as a resignation and the LMA carefully advise Managers on what to say in those situations. 

Nervous that announcements of players leaving are coming before Bruce announcement, just to make it not look like players are leaving because Bruce has left.

21 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

The other possible big question Xia is asking himself could be, how happy is he with his CEO? I believe Wyness, and Bruce to be fair, deserve credit for turning us back into a properly run football club.

However there must be questions over the position we find ourselves in. Still in the Championship, with an ageing squad and an unsustainable financial model. Now if Wyness has basically been running the club day to day and working to Xia’s instructions then the buck stops with the Doc. However if Wyness has had a free hand in policy, hiring the coaching staff etc, then surely he has some questions to answer. Because we literally can’t go on like this. 

Agreed. I don't think Wyness has under-performed against the objectives he would have been set - in fact, I would say that, purely as a CEO, he has out performed. As a Club, operationally and culturally we are a million miles better than where we were when he came in and the stabilizing influence he has had in <2 seasons has been impressive. It was a huge task getting fans back on board (I still know fans that haven't returned since the dark days of McLeish) and I think we are actually being quite innovative on the commercial side as well. 

As CEO, he had to back Bruce, least of all because we needed so desperately that continuity and stability, which is critical. Bruce came to the Wyness as a highly experienced Manager with a fantastic record, so of course Wyness would have listened to Bruce when he outlined his plans for taking the experienced route. On paper, there would have been nothing to oppose Bruce on given his track record.

What will be interesting, is to what extent Wyness can now properly evaluate what went wrong last season on the footballing front and then, critically, address it. For me, there were just too many games that we simply played to draw and it will be down to Wyness et al to carefully message to Bruce that next season we need to try and win every game and evolve our style (and likely personnel) to achieve this. Secondly, he will need to facilitate this financially. If he does both those things, then I don't think we can ask much more. 

29 minutes ago, villarocker said:

I have no worries about Bruce staying just as long as he gets that defensive philosophy out of his head and allows us to play with the freedom to attack teams. However, to do this he has to change our slow players as they are the Achilles heel of the team.

Would agree with that

My view is that for those teams that narrowly miss out, if they can keep the core together and make some modifications, they usually go up the following season - just like Brighton. For this reason alone, I would keep Bruce - by doing so we maintain the culture, togetherness and discipline that he has installed. I just hope he realises that, under no circumstances, can you set out to draw a game and set his team out accordingly. Every single mode of play must be geared towards scoring a goal - that is the type of relentlessness that took Cardiff up this year. 

To be honest, I've often wondered this season whenever I have seen us sit deep and pass sideways and backwards - even when not in a winning position - whether this is Bruce's tactics or the fact that older players will always play the easy ball rather than the ambitious one. 

Perhaps a good infusion of youth - O'hare and Green in particular - will fix this. 

I'd like to see Terry stay but would be more sensible to have him in a coaching capacity; that way, we can keep his influence around the club but not have to pay him huge wages. If we are to bring youth through, it would be hugely beneficial to have Terry looking after them.

23 minutes ago, gilbertoAVFC said:

I'm convinced now we have to sell Grealish. Maybe we can do it as part of a deal that we get him back on loan for a season or something - for me probably the best scenario.

I could stomach selling him to Man U for this, assuming we did absolutely have to sell him. Plus could negotiate for Johnstone and Axel again. 

I think I might try and spend some more time understanding this given it is so prominent for us now.

My understanding at the moment (caveat, this is not a complete understanding and might be b**locks) is that what heavily impacts the loss making calculation is prior transfers, given that these are - in Accounting terms - 'Assets' that depreciate. Although this depreciation is a charge that runs through the P&L as a cost item, it doesn't actually cost us anything in cash. For example, if we sign a player for £10M on a 5 year contract, that 'Asset' represents a £2M annual 'depreciation' charge for 5 years. If you took out these charges and simply deducted the actual cash costs (salaries, mainly) I think we are modestly profitable. So, what is impacting us is previous transfers on sizeable, long term contracts.

The same, I believe, works for players that are signed for free. To calculate the depreciation charge for Micah Richards, for example, you would take the value of his contract (£2M per year for 3 years = £6M) and depreciate each year. So, for players like him you get hit twice - the depreciation charge plus his wages - i.e. £4M per year.

Perversely, this is why if we sold that same player that we bought for £10M for £8M after 3 years we would make a 'profit' as his value on the Books after year 3 would be £4M (£10M minus 3 years of £2M depreciation charges).

In terms of the Owner being able to put money in - a so called Equity injection - I think they can only do this to cover losses, not to just have a pile of cash that can be placed on our books to be spent. 

Really, the only option we have is to attract more commercial revenue. For me, the best route to doing this would be for Recon Group to do more of what they did with Bodymoor - perhaps sponsor a stand (I nominate the Doug). If we see more of this, then I think it is a good sign of Xia's financial power and backing. If we don't, then I'll be nervous about Recon's ability to fund us.