He may be off the message board for a bit longer due to a bereavement in the family.

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They won't have got it back immediately at all they would still have a £13m mortgage to pay back! Club money is their money at the end of the day. And it's not as if we are turning a profit and they're skimming off the proceeds anyway, we're actually making huge losses and they're having to make up the difference to keep us afloat. (Yes I know they've brought it on themselves due to their inadequate running of the Club before everyone starts)

Yep. I'd say two more years would be the sort of timescale I'd have in my own mind. I do believe the desire to effect change is there but if massive improvements on and off the pitch aren't at least well underway by then I'd accept it was unlikely to ever happen.

Hypothetically there's now £16m more leeway to offer said players a bit more. And presumably it would take the V's about 20 years to get the £16m back even at a commercial rate.

I know, suspicion is natural under the circumstances. In the latter instance I'd put it down to sheer incompetence and running the Club in such an amateurish fashion such that newsworthy events can't be released in a managed fashion at the appropriate time by the Club and as potential PR opportunities where appropriate.

To be fair to chaddy I'm sure I remember Mowbray saying in the LT in the past that Venus was in charge of the contract negotiations. That could have changed of course, I don't doubt Mowbray speaks to the player to outline his vision for him at the Club I.e. "You'll have to come in behind everyone else son and learn how to play like Corry and Richie before we'll consider you for a start" 🙂

It's a fair question in the circumstances jim, I believe there is a desire to effect the necessary change, whether or not it actually comes off is another thing entirely of course and we'll have to wait and see.

Yet what they've done is I'm guessing exactly what a legitimate owner would do if they were trying to help their Club circumvent the ludicrous FFP rules. Unless anyone else knows of another way round it. I suppose it boils down to whether you believe the owners' intentions are good or not. After eleven years, and £200 m plus I believe their intentions are genuine. Are we at the top of their list of priorities within their business empire and have they kept a close enough eye on what's gone on here in the past? Possibly not and probably not respectively. Has much of their decision making up to now been awful? Definitely. Can it change? Definitely. Will it change? Who knows, but we'll never have a better financial platform from which to operate IF they can get the operational side of the Club right.

I'm not an accountant either den but the headline losses are there for all to see in the accounts.

Agree with most of your post but substitute Waggott/Mowbray/Venus for "they" in lines 2 and 5 and "the owners" for "them" in line 9.

So you don't believe we were losing approaching £20m p.a. pre pandemic or that that figure would have increased substantially again last season due to the pandemic?

Not really, because if a sale arose they would have to write off the debt technically owned to them by the Club. All the debt is owned to them apart from the Bank overdraft. It wouldn't make any difference to them if the STC was sold at the same time as the rest of the Club's assets or at a later date. Obviously from the Club's point of view going forward it would be essential it was included in the event of any future sale which is what we could do with assurances and clarification on.

The other point arising from this is that the Club's PR is absolutely abysmal and being run into a rank amateur fashion. Both the original Brockhall scheme and this subsequent accounting exercise were only initially uncovered due to the diligence of Eagle eyed fans. I think the two things are completely separate and the owners put a stop to the first scheme and instead substituted the current solution to comply with FFP. If my interpretation is correct though this should have been publicised properly as a positive PR story by the Club well in advance of any fan finding out about it. Same with the relatively recent appointments of Head of Commercial and Head of Integration. Not a word from the Club or in the Press about it. The Club need to help themselves at times. At least the Club is in good hands with Eagle eyed fans like Miller 11 and whoever spotted the initial planning application (Matty) looking out for the Club's interests and flagging up anything outwardly suspicious.

I agree, they HAVE to get it right going forwards.

You're not making any sense den. If Venky's left and wanted to recoup every penny they could, why wouldn't they include it in any sale?

I think that's too far. In my opinion you cannot question the owners financial support for the Club. When we were relegated from the Premier League I certainly never expected them to still be here ten or so years later still supporting the Club. I thought they'd run for the hills at the earliest opportunity leaving us high and dry and I'd bet my last pound the Walker Trust would have done had we been relegated under them. Ten years on, from the bits I hear I think the owners are just as committed to the Club as they ever were if not more so. All that said..........let's get it right, the last eleven years have been shite. You can't blame the fans for becoming disillusioned and dropping off. Eleven years - we've lost a generation. You can't turn back time. They HAVE to get it right going forward however. I do believe the first small steps in that direction are in motion but there's obviously still a very long way to go

Agreed. I remember paying nearly £500 for a ticket in JWU in the early 2000's. John Williams was initially most resistant to the concept of lowering prices until the then Fans Forum challenged him on it. He hailed from Southampton and was pals with Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe and their view at that time was basically that the Club should be able to charge what they want and as a fan you should demonstrate your loyalty and support and pay it. Fast forward to today and the combination of a dreadful manager and CEO, average team, generally unpopular owners and prices raised since just before a pandemic have contributed to a perfect storm re attendances.

At least Mr Maguire has a broad handle on what's going on. The article tends to indicate any income counting towards FFP calculations had to be in before 1st of July and from memory Armstrong wasn't sold until some time after that. The loophole on selling your training ground back to yourself was also seemingly closing so it would appear that's all that's happened here.

Or, option 3, in that rather extreme and currently seemingly very unlikely scenario is that any future purchaser could utilise the money they've saved in not having to buy Brockhall towards the purchase of a new facility. Seems to me the owners are re-affirming their commitment to the Club and bedding in for the long haul rather than the opposite I.e. clearing the decks for a sale and/or administration scenario. What they have to do is start employing the right people to run and manage the Club. 28/10/21. Come back to this and quote me in future if I'm wrong.

Having made a quick enquiry I'm content at this stage to attribute this to creative accounting which is allowable for FFP purposes. Feel free to remind me of that statement if it proves to be incorrect. Good point in your final paragraph about Waggott mentioning that any new facility would incorporate public use. My own personal view is that unlike Ewood Park the Club's training facility is private and should remain so and that Waggott's mention of this was a desperate attempt to make the scheme sound slightly more attractive to local residents.

Can't see why it matters if they've split it or not. The same option is still there for the other half if needed.

2) Not as far as I could throw him. 3) Rightly not granted imo. It's a private facility. A public footpath which happens to run through part of the training ground is a bit different to having liberal access to the training centres and their facilities!

The owners wouldn't actually gain anything by transferring all or part of Brockhall to a different Company though would they? If they leave the STC out of any future sale they get correspondingly less money!

I hope that's the case anyway. Needs further clarification mind.