HOW IS THE ENFORCED FOOTBALL LAYOFF AFFECTED OUR NOISY NEIGHBOURS DOWN THE ROAD?
With this coronavirus epidemic having no end in sight, revenue for all football clubs, apart from their shopping channels, are nigh on zero.
It seems that the spuds are approaching this problem quite differently to us. The Arsenal billionaire owner, Stan Kroenke, having shown the class of one, and Joe Lewis the money grabbing side of the other.
But there are very pressing financial matters that the Spuds have to consider.
It was reported that Levy was targeting a world record naming rights deal for the toilet bowl, that involved a 15 year deal, at the cost of £375,000,000. This dream has now collapsed as the coronavirus is hitting the financial world like never before.
The deal would have brought in a windfall of £25,000,000 a year, presumably to help pay off the £1,000,000,000 building works debt.
What I also discovered was that the spuds training ground is included in that figure, with the new training facilities still owing £21,000,000.
This was projected to be paid back by April 2022, but it now seems that, with the reduced income from the playing and commercial side of things, drastic action is necessary.
Daniel Levy has reportedly taken a 50% cut in his salary, the poor fellow only receiving £3,000,000 compared to the £6,000,000 he bagged in 2017.
It is also being reported that Mourinho will have nowhere near the transfer budget originally intended.
With the official line from spud officials being that they expected £100,000,000 in match day revenues over the season, compared to the £55,000,000 Tottenham Hotspur Stadium repayments, things looked rosy,
They need money from somewhere…but the heavyweight fight between Joshua and Pulev being officially postponed, that opportunity has been ko’ed!! Who knows when the American football bandwagon will be back? The rate that the coronavirus is sweeping across the USA, no time soon is the answer.
Finally, if the premier league is declared finished and positions at present as final positions, the CL revenue that has made so much money for Tottenham over the last three seasons will disappear as well.
Now I’m just an ordinary Arsenal fan, with no idea of this level of finance, but with all our problems, I’m just pleased that our stadium debts only amount to £15,000,000 a year for the next ten years, we have survived three seasons without CL revenue, we have secured all our major sponsorship deals and have a manager in place who has proved he can work with players who have previously been seen as “dross”.
Mourinho has always wanted to buy top players and gets ratty when these are not forthcoming, losing the dressing room and getting sacked – meaning more compensation needed and a new Tottenham manager needed.
Just my take on what the media is reporting of course, does it seem a reasonable view?
Keep safe out there and keep your glass half full!!!
ken1945
Well Ken, The obvious name for their toilet bowl is the Thomas Crapper Stadium! Though they are hardly flushed with success overall (he added, in deadpan style!) Any more jokes like that and I’ll be getting my wages in lieu(loo). Shame Lou Grade was not a Spuds fan. LOO GRADE SEEMS ABOUT RIGHT.
On a serious point though, their decision to furlough their non playing staff will go down like a lead penny(spend a penny!) even with their own fans(both of them!) who do have a degree of morals, when they are not disgracefully misusing the Y word. To think that back in 1961, I used to be jealous of Spurs. HOW HILARIOUS THAT SEEMS NOW!
I SHOULD have taken you post more seriously as you asked some pertinent questions and I much enjoyed your article- more please BTW – and apparently Joe Lewis , their ABSENT owner, which we can identify with, is worth around £4 billion, around half of Kroenkes worth. They will feel the pinch with the new stadium being more expensive than was ours and without any football, for what I think will be far longer than most people consider, it is bound to affect them worse than us. Sigh! NOT!!!!
The reality will prove, I am sure, that the Spuds will not be able to cope with the huge financial losses they will no doubt be forced to accept to the loss of revenue they will receive.
They immediately adopted the small club mentality by attempting to receive the governments handouts for business, without asking their players to accept a wage cut or deferral in the interim.Thank God Arsenal have not lowered themselves to this level.
Levy will be expected to somehow find the borrowing costs from somewhere, and that can only come through player sales. The banks won’t wait that’s for sure. This is business, and while they might get a period of respite, this will not last for too long. All lenders will expect their money to be repaid, and as we all know through experience, the longer the money is not repaid, the more it eventually costs.Could it happen to a better person than Levy? Hard to think of anyone I must admit.
So to add to this, the Clubs that have been careful in their approach to finances, and not overspent on buying players, managing their accounts respectful of the laws, and living within their means, will come out of this quicker and easier than those that haven’t. It will be interesting to see exactly how things work themselves out.
Spurs and Arsenal face the same problems. Buying massively over priced players and paying idiotic wages. You can get away with this when huge revenues are coming in but are made to look farcical when the income dries up. PL has been living in la la land for decades and this Covid19 should be a wake up call for the sport/business. The 60’s 70’s and 90’s recessions the ’86 and 2008 stock market crashes based on fake money and greed. We don’t seem to learn.
A proper salary cap and transfer fee regulation could and should have been implemented decades ago. But greed has won over sense and the only way we learn is by suffering from economic melt downs. Will we learn this time? History suggests won’t
Every professional football club is in peril but the spuds are in the shit right up to their scalp. Their debt is on the proportion of a scale never seen before, made far worse by the timing of this crap we are going through. I predict they will come out the other side of this very badly, they are in serious trouble. All revenues to all clubs for the next few years will be drastically cut and any club that has borrowed on sums related to projected earnings before this are in jeopardy. We didn’t owe money like some clubs and we like other will have to scale down in everything from salaries, transfer and stadium loans. Clubs will need a massive adjustment in their finances and those that have strangled and saddled themselve will not survive. The landscape is and has changed, they wont have the types of money coming in that they had before creating massive challenges.
Reggie, while scrolling through the different clubs financial records and according to one site I used, spuds have the second highest borrowing debt, after man united, in europe.
It must also be remembered that, if as most anaylists say, transfer values and salaries will come tumbling down, their greatest asset, Harry Kane, will not bring in the revenue that Bale did when he left.
Of course, that applies to Abua as well.
Yes Ken their debt to revenue is rediculous and their assets are worth less and less as time goes on. They are taking hit after hit as far as finance is concerned. I really dont see where they are going to survive this without something giving. Plus every day without income is another nail in the coffin.
Unfortunately, we are not in the greatest shape financially either. Although we are better off than Spurs, it looks too me like we could be very exposed, as maybe our biggest sponsor is an airline and our owner is a company heavily involved in the sports entertainment industry. It may only be a matter of days before we need to take very drastic measures. Personally, I hope first step will be an agreement with the players in unison to take a massive pay-cut.
A whole load of sensible and welcome comments from all the posts preceding mine. A massive financial change is actually , already with us, though unnoticed by many as yet. But it will become all too clear ere long. All contracts up this summer will be in completely new territory from before Corona.
As to Anders’ post, I am hoping the financial hit Kroenke wlll take, with almost all his money tied up in sports clubs in USA, ourselves apart and with an imbecile “running” that country, thus making the virus longer lasting and far more financially damaging in than other countries and no, or little, money coming in, will force Kroenke into a sale.
Jon, I have written an article on just this topic, regarding the 12 billionaires involved in the premier league.
Have asked Pat to check my numbers (that may have been in the email that went missing Pat!!) regarding Aliko Dangote’s wealth. My calculator ran out of noughts when converting $ to £s.
I believe The Arsenal is the only tie that kronkie has in this country?