And the money went where exactly?

[maineflyer 0]

Champions League run. Reaching the final of the UEFA cup. The associated attendance money, television income, advertising revenues, merchandising sales, etc, etc. There was even the sale of homegrown Alan Hutton to Spurs.

 

There have been many opinions - played down by Murray, played up by the media. But surely the net income from last season must have been considerable.

 

So where is the payback from success? Why are we no more able to strengthen our squad this summer than we were this time last year? If it was important to take a punt at success last year, what is different this time around?

 

You can speculate all you like about whether this signing is worthwhile or that one is a waste of time. You can even voice opinion on whether we actually need a whole team full of forwards. What is less easy to understand is why the proceeds of success don't seem to have influenced future quality on the field of play.

[elderslieblue 0]

I'm coming to the conclusion that Uncle Walter would only blow more money on another 3 strikers than use it to buy players for where they are needed.

 

About the only manager in world football who could work with our current squad is Jimmy Calderwood [when his team go 3 down].

 

I dare say Mr Smoke & Mirrors will come up with some fairy-tale to justify the cutbacks at the AGM.

[Guest Arnold]

I dare say Mr Smoke & Mirrors will come up with some fairy-tale to justify the cutbacks at the AGM.

 

If the worst happens and we don't make the CL, even Murray will struggle to spin his way out of it.

 

If we do make it then the line will be totally predictable: "UEFA Cup final, two trophies, took the SPL to the last day, in the CL now..."

[Bluedell 5,329]

The money from Hutton funded the transfers at the start of last season.

 

The money from the CL went towards paying the players' wages

 

The money from the UEFA cup went towsards the funding of Walter's budget this year (spent on Miller Velicka, Lafferty).

 

I believe that the NET income was less than everyone has been led to believe.

[maineflyer 0]

I'm coming to the conclusion that Uncle Walter would only blow more money on another 3 strikers than use it to buy players for where they are needed.

 

About the only manager in world football who could work with our current squad is Jimmy Calderwood [when his team go 3 down].

 

I dare say Mr Smoke & Mirrors will come up with some fairy-tale to justify the cutbacks at the AGM.

Oh I think Mr Moonbeams will have little difficulty thinking up some kind of excuse. He always does.

[maineflyer 0]

The money from Hutton funded the transfers at the start of last season.

 

The money from the CL went towards paying the players' wages

 

The money from the UEFA cup went towsards the funding of Walter's budget this year (spent on Miller Velicka, Lafferty).

 

I believe that the NET income was less than everyone has been led to believe.

How exactly do you know these statements to be true? Do you have privileged information? An inside track perhaps?

 

What number does your special insight put on the revenues raised last season?

[Bluedell 5,329]

How exactly do you know these statements to be true? Do you have privileged information? An inside track perhaps?

 

What number does your special insight put on the revenues raised last season?

No inside information. Just an analysis and understanding of the accounts that are publicly available.

[calscot 0]

It's pretty simple - If we don't make the CL or a long run in UEFA we make a multimillion pound loss. We get CL or a very good run in UEFA and we just about break even. CL and a UEFA run means we make a profit.

 

That's all BEFORE we spend a penny on transfer fees.

 

Last season we just about broke even and then spent about �£10M on players and increased our wage bill. That 10M needs to be paid back from somewhere, and that's where the Hutton and other tranfer monies will be headed leaving us about 16M in debt which still has to be serviced.

 

This year we should make a profit (outside of the transfer income) but it's not likely to be more than about 10M - and probably less - which is where this season's transfer budget will come from.

 

If we want better players then our wage bill will also increase again.

 

People also have to remember that increased revenue also comes with greater costs - there are many costs for every home game, and travel and accommodation for away games, then add in all the player bonuses etc.

 

So by the time we finish spending on the squad we'll just about break even to the point we were at before spending on players last year.

 

There is only a finite amount of money and you can't spend more than your earn every year - as lots of people are finding out with the credit crunch.

 

The money that comes in doesn't just disappear and it's all laid out for anyone to see in the published accounts which should contain a Profit and Loss Account Statement, a Balance Sheet and a Cash Flow report.

 

Why not have a good read of the accounts? To understand it you'll need some basic accountancy knowledge, and I've found that a book called "Accounting in a Nutshell" by Janet Walker has helped.

[Tannochsidebear 2,306]

It has been privately admitted by Murray/Bain to corporate sponsors etc that we must compete in the group stages of the CL 3 years out of 5 just to break even. Less than that will result in large losses and player sales. More than that will lead to a transfer budget.

 

I agree with Bluedell's assessment entirely. Again, no inside info, but looking closely at the info available together with snippets of info gathered in the Murray releases tells us that the above is correct.

 

Remember Murray came out last Autumn and told us all that we had majorly overspent last summer but he seen it as necessary to compete. It was not long after that statement that he started trying to offload our best player at that time, Hutton, to pay for his overspending last summer.

 

So there you have the reason for the sale of Hutton and none of that cash being reinvested in the team becuase it was really paying for Naismith, Whittaker, McCulloch, Cuellar etc.

 

The CL money is I have stated earlier, just to enable us to break even. The days of budgeting for being beaten in the first round of every cup are long gone.

 

The UEFA cup run was financially better than expected, but I think a large part of the profits of that went on player bonuses and towards this seasons budget. We get that from reports of huge bonuses for getting past every team from Bremen onwards and the previously stated fact that anything over and above from CL group money is profit that can go towards a budget.

 

Unfortunately we blew the league so we cannot now rely on the CL group money yet, so we have to keep aside the largest part of the profit from last year in case we dont make the CL groups. If we make the CL groups we can then release more to buying players, but by then the best players are gone and you are left with loan deals and unwanted players that could be good but are more of a gamble.

[Frankie 8,145]

The time to take issue with the finances and what was/wasn't spent is when we actually know the figures for certain.

 

What I would say though is that we've probably spent the money we do have on the wrong areas of the team. That was a mistake from the management team and one they could rue badly if we don't qualify for the group stages.