owls-swfc Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 minutes ago, sheffsteel said: 3 minutes ago, sheffsteel said: 1: The sale of the stadium appears to be backdated and submitted into the incorrect accounting year. 2: No actual monies have been transferred into the SWFC back account....as though the sale still hasn’t happened. 2: The value for the stadium seems higher than expected market values....so the EFL now want a detailed explanation. Easy as 1, 2, 3... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalthamOwl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 23 minutes ago, steelowl said: eermm 21 minutes ago, TrickyTrev said: You’d think so wouldn’t you. I guess it was more of a tongue in cheek comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 8 minutes ago, sheffsteel said: I suppose it depends on the detail in the email. SWFC: Can we sell the stadium at market value to another company owned by the Chairman and put it in the accounts? EFL: Yes, it’s not against the current rules. .........weeks later the accounts are accepted by the EFL on good faith and agreed. ..............weeks after that the EFL scrutinise the accounts and find details that are concerning, 1: The sale of the stadium appears to be backdated and submitted into the incorrect accounting year. 2: No actual monies have been transferred into the SWFC back account....as though the sale still hasn’t happened. 2: The value for the stadium seems higher than expected market values....so the EFL now want a detailed explanation. An important factor is when the EFL agree the accounts are they expected to skim over them....so that they can be agreed in principle or is the expectation that the accounts are investigated In full before they can be agreed. The mechanism of the sale is common practice and lawful. Whether or not the EFL did their due diligence before signing off the accounts is not under our control. The EFL lifted the embargo in place and even after scrutinising the accounts, didn't reimpose an embargo. More questions to be asked of EFL competence, rather than our conduct IMO. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latemodelchild Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 9 minutes ago, sheffsteel said: I suppose it depends on the detail in the email. SWFC: Can we sell the stadium at market value to another company owned by the Chairman and put it in the accounts? EFL: Yes, it’s not against the current rules. .........weeks later the accounts are accepted by the EFL on good faith and agreed. ..............weeks after that the EFL scrutinise the accounts and find details that are concerning, 1: The sale of the stadium appears to be backdated and submitted into the incorrect accounting year. 2: No actual monies have been transferred into the SWFC back account....as though the sale still hasn’t happened. 2: The value for the stadium seems higher than expected market values....so the EFL now want a detailed explanation. An important factor is when the EFL agree the accounts are they expected to skim over them....so that they can be agreed in principle or is the expectation that the accounts are investigated In full before they can be agreed. From what I can see we have had our accounts signed off and everything is legal. The EFL say its not according to them. Unfortunately for them any accountancy firm who has their judgements questioned will fight those questions vociferously. Stop trying to sow seeds of doubt and worry, some of us know what you are still. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarrowbyOwl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, steelowl said: In my experience no lawyer does in a day what can take a month I had a legitimate expectation as a fan that I’d never need to know the difference between legitimate expectation and estoppel, let alone the subtle distinctions between the 3 flavours of estoppel WALAW? Edited July 23, 2020 by HarrowbyOwl 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Binky Griptite Posted July 23, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 23, 2020 Very few football clubs run at a profit, whether challenging for promotion or scrambling for safety. Ambitious clubs in the Championship are competing for the chance to get into the Premier League, however unless they are already well established and have a decent squad (ie recently relegated from the Prem) they will need to buy in quality. Quality players in the Championship are now being 'routinely' sold for £10-20m, or even more. Such players do not typically stay with clubs at which they are not surrounded by quality and they do not typically move from one Championship team to another - a Championship team bidding on a real quality player from another Championship team will alert Premier League teams who will think "He's potentially Premier League quality... £10-15m? Not a problem". Because of the Premier League hoovering up real quality players a club attempting to improve their lot must first keep hold of their quality (not easy unless they're on good wages) and supplement it with more quality, however they're generally shopping only for players deemed not good enough for the Premier League, even though that's where they hope to be in 12 months time. In other words they're likely shopping for players who will offer only marginal gains, rather than game changers, unless of course they are lucky enough to stumble across a player who the Premier League teams with their army of scouts aren't aware of (or incorrectly don't rate). So, generally speaking championship clubs are buying in players who offer marginal gains and paying maybe £3-5m for those marginal gains. EFL rules will work for clubs with a good foundation, a solid squad needing nothing more than a tweak. Allow me to tell a story... --- Amongst the melee of Championship sides exists a club which has been in the doldrums for a while, circling the drain in the Championship and occasionally yoyo-ing between that and League One for the best part of two decades... they get taken over by a 'rich' owner. They arguably have a squad of overachieving players - they've just finished midtable with a team of cast-offs, has beens and never have beens who would be more suited to a relegation dogfight than a promotion push, barring one or two bright sparks... it's been a 'great' season but 'greatness' has just been redefined, the crosshairs have now been set on promotion, the fans expect and theclub know they need to invest in the playing side if they want to do better. Theres a feelgood factor around the club, the giant can be awoken and returned to former glories, all it needs is eight or nine quality first team players and another six or seven who can push them for places... so just 16 or so quality players, each costing £3-5m (unless they can polish a few turds along the way)... or they could shop in the Premier League bargain bin for released players on the decline; even then they'll have to offer seriously good wages for players who are reaching the twilight of their careers and have little to no resale value. They get off to a good start in their first full season of new ownership by going down the free transfer / high wages route and riding the wave of excitement, anticipation and general good feeling around the club but they fall just short, losing in the play-off final. They've already taken their budget into the FFP dangerzone (they cant really afford another season of similar budget stretching) but now they theoretically only need two or three real quality players, the missing pieces in the jigsaw. So they go big, turfing out some larger transfer fees and bringing in a headline veteran striker who redefines the wage structure at the club. Existing players get wind of this and realised they're now underpaid relative to their worth and to certain colleagues, one player even refuses to play a game. Eventually calmness is returned at the expense of an extra million or three added to the annual cost of wages. They 'fail' that season, finishing fourth (higher than they actually did the season before) and losing on penalties in the play-offs. The fans deem the season to be a disaster. More marginal gains are required but they've reached a crossroads... the squad is another year older and marginal gains are more difficult to identify, they can't afford to actually spend any money as the leap from relegation fodder to challengers has well and truly burst the FFP barriers... they're going to have to go into a slightly more 'experimental' phase, eeking out the final few drops of quality from existing players whilst picking up unknown players from the Dutch / German leagues and adding in occasional loans which may or may not work... unless they change track and go for a more sustain, slower build... but theres nothing 'sexy' about having tonnes of money to spend and not spending it... The club poll their fans on the ongoing strategy and the fans speak loudly on continuation of existing strategy of retaining quality and adding to it, rather than selling to buy. This strategy doesn't work and a string of managers come and go as they try to get the winning formula. All the while they still need to trim the wage budget... they need to sell their decent players but who to? Who will take them on decent wages and with the downward trajectory of their careers reaching its steepest section? They'll just have to let contracts run down... All the while new Managers want new players and theres EFL trouble on the horizon, they're under an embargo but gain EFL consent to 'sell the ground' to loosen the FFP noose around their neck... only it turns out they shouldn't have done that and now they're under threat of a points deduction, a season which was promising so much goes well and truly off the rails and they're lucky to avoid relegation with the post Christmas form being absolutely horrendous. --- Morale of the story - 'Rich' owners breed expectations but 'rich' owners cannot really meet those expectations unless they have a naturally advantageous platform in terms of playing staff to start with in an environment where they can only buy half a team of top end Championship players (not good enough for the Prem) due to an arbitrary cap on losses. There's bugger all to gain from having a 'rich' owner if the club is starting low and has a strategy to slowly build over ten years, complying with FFP. A destitute owner can arguably do that. So what benefit a rich owner at a traditionally 'big' club in a world with spending caps? With the odd exception, the rules keep the small clubs small, the sleeping giants sleeping and the Premier League yoyo clubs yoyoing. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darra Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 46 minutes ago, latemodelchild said: Ah right, cheers. I think I've misunderstood administration. Who owns Wigan now? My understanding is once a company goes into administration it is owned by the administrators who's job it is to find a buyer if they can't then the company is wound up. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latemodelchild Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Just now, darra said: My understanding is once a company goes into administration it is owned by the administrators who's job it is to find a buyer if they can't then the company is wound up. Ah, I was labouring under the impression that the people who had put them into Admin were the people who were appealing it. Now I'm a bit more concerned that the EFL will do summat about their punishment. Though now I say that they really can't can they? Surely Admin is Admin regardless of how or why it comes about. Any action by the league to not punish them opens the door for litigation from other clubs and gives a green light to owners to line up a buyer, go into Admin and give the new owner a clean slate. 2 people could collude there very nicely. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darra Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 38 minutes ago, sheffsteel said: I suppose it depends on the detail in the email. SWFC: Can we sell the stadium at market value to another company owned by the Chairman and put it in the accounts? EFL: Yes, it’s not against the current rules. .........weeks later the accounts are accepted by the EFL on good faith and agreed. ..............weeks after that the EFL scrutinise the accounts and find details that are concerning, 1: The sale of the stadium appears to be backdated and submitted into the incorrect accounting year. 2: No actual monies have been transferred into the SWFC back account....as though the sale still hasn’t happened. 2: The value for the stadium seems higher than expected market values....so the EFL now want a detailed explanation. An important factor is when the EFL agree the accounts are they expected to skim over them....so that they can be agreed in principle or is the expectation that the accounts are investigated In full before they can be agreed. But surely if that was the case wouldn't HMRC investigate it. Or is it more likely that once Gibson started asking questions the EFL decided they had to do something to justify their existence? It would be like buying a house and 6 months later your solicitor calling you to say a mistake had been made and you had to give the house back or some money back. You would take it to a court of law to sue their ass off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarrowbyOwl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 16 minutes ago, Binky Griptite said: Very few football clubs run at a profit, whether challenging for promotion or scrambling for safety. Ambitious clubs in the Championship are competing for the chance to get into the Premier League, however unless they are already well established and have a decent squad (ie recently relegated from the Prem) they will need to buy in quality. Quality players in the Championship are now being 'routinely' sold for £10-20m, or even more. Such players do not typically stay with clubs at which they are not surrounded by quality and they do not typically move from one Championship team to another - a Championship team bidding on a real quality player from another Championship team will alert Premier League teams who will think "He's potentially Premier League quality... £10-15m? Not a problem". Because of the Premier League hoovering up real quality players a club attempting to improve their lot must first keep hold of their quality (not easy unless they're on good wages) and supplement it with more quality, however they're generally shopping only for players deemed not good enough for the Premier League, even though that's where they hope to be in 12 months time. In other words they're likely shopping for players who will offer only marginal gains, rather than game changers, unless of course they are lucky enough to stumble across a player who the Premier League teams with their army of scouts aren't aware of (or incorrectly don't rate). So, generally speaking championship clubs are buying in players who offer marginal gains and paying maybe £3-5m for those marginal gains. EFL rules will work for clubs with a good foundation, a solid squad needing nothing more than a tweak. Allow me to tell a story... --- Amongst the melee of Championship sides exists a club which has been in the doldrums for a while, circling the drain in the Championship and occasionally yoyo-ing between that and League One for the best part of two decades... they get taken over by a 'rich' owner. They arguably have a squad of overachieving players - they've just finished midtable with a team of cast-offs, has beens and never have beens who would be more suited to a relegation dogfight than a promotion push, barring one or two bright sparks... it's been a 'great' season but 'greatness' has just been redefined, the crosshairs have now been set on promotion, the fans expect and theclub know they need to invest in the playing side if they want to do better. Theres a feelgood factor around the club, the giant can be awoken and returned to former glories, all it needs is eight or nine quality first team players and another six or seven who can push them for places... so just 16 or so quality players, each costing £3-5m (unless they can polish a few turds along the way)... or they could shop in the Premier League bargain bin for released players on the decline; even then they'll have to offer seriously good wages for players who are reaching the twilight of their careers and have little to no resale value. They get off to a good start in their first full season of new ownership by going down the free transfer / high wages route and riding the wave of excitement, anticipation and general good feeling around the club but they fall just short, losing in the play-off final. They've already taken their budget into the FFP dangerzone (they cant really afford another season of similar budget stretching) but now they theoretically only need two or three real quality players, the missing pieces in the jigsaw. So they go big, turfing out some larger transfer fees and bringing in a headline veteran striker who redefines the wage structure at the club. Existing players get wind of this and realised they're now underpaid relative to their worth and to certain colleagues, one player even refuses to play a game. Eventually calmness is returned at the expense of an extra million or three added to the annual cost of wages. They 'fail' that season, finishing fourth (higher than they actually did the season before) and losing on penalties in the play-offs. The fans deem the season to be a disaster. More marginal gains are required but they've reached a crossroads... the squad is another year older and marginal gains are more difficult to identify, they can't afford to actually spend any money as the leap from relegation fodder to challengers has well and truly burst the FFP barriers... they're going to have to go into a slightly more 'experimental' phase, eeking out the final few drops of quality from existing players whilst picking up unknown players from the Dutch / German leagues and adding in occasional loans which may or may not work... unless they change track and go for a more sustain, slower build... but theres nothing 'sexy' about having tonnes of money to spend and not spending it... The club poll their fans on the ongoing strategy and the fans speak loudly on continuation of existing strategy of retaining quality and adding to it, rather than selling to buy. This strategy doesn't work and a string of managers come and go as they try to get the winning formula. All the while they still need to trim the wage budget... they need to sell their decent players but who to? Who will take them on decent wages and with the downward trajectory of their careers reaching its steepest section? They'll just have to let contracts run down... All the while new Managers want new players and theres EFL trouble on the horizon, they're under an embargo but gain EFL consent to 'sell the ground' to loosen the FFP noose around their neck... only it turns out they shouldn't have done that and now they're under threat of a points deduction, a season which was promising so much goes well and truly off the rails and they're lucky to avoid relegation with the post Christmas form being absolutely horrendous. --- Morale of the story - 'Rich' owners breed expectations but 'rich' owners cannot really meet those expectations unless they have a naturally advantageous platform in terms of playing staff to start with in an environment where they can only buy half a team of top end Championship players (not good enough for the Prem) due to an arbitrary cap on losses. There's bugger all to gain from having a 'rich' owner if the club is starting low and has a strategy to slowly build over ten years, complying with FFP. A destitute owner can arguably do that. So what benefit a rich owner at a traditionally 'big' club in a world with spending caps? With the odd exception, the rules keep the small clubs small, the sleeping giants sleeping and the Premier League yoyo clubs yoyoing. Would agree with all that but you’d expect savvy owners to go into the venture with their eyes open and a strategy for navigating the realities of life in the Championship 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
latemodelchild Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 minutes ago, darra said: But surely if that was the case wouldn't HMRC investigate it. Or is it more likely that once Gibson started asking questions the EFL decided they had to do something to justify their existence? It would be like buying a house and 6 months later your solicitor calling you to say a mistake had been made and you had to give the house back or some money back. You would take it to a court of law to sue their ass off Yep, that's the case. Unfortunately for the poster his attempt to sow a bit of worry has already been done. He's probably not read the whole thread. After all, he had his eye on Europe a few weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darra Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 11 minutes ago, HarrowbyOwl said: Would agree with all that but you’d expect savvy owners to go into the venture with their eyes open and a strategy for navigating the realities of life in the Championship Most businessmen are gamblers surely? They have an idea for a product but there's no guarantee it will sell or be successful. If Carlos had got his act together against Hull and Huddersfield maybe we wouldn't be in this mess? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxonOwl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 How about this? The independent panel have found in our favour and now we are pursuing our charges against the EFL. Presumably this would be sub judice and the findings of th panel cannot be published. Just a thought. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveyboy66 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 35 minutes ago, Binky Griptite said: Very few football clubs run at a profit, whether challenging for promotion or scrambling for safety. Ambitious clubs in the Championship are competing for the chance to get into the Premier League, however unless they are already well established and have a decent squad (ie recently relegated from the Prem) they will need to buy in quality. Quality players in the Championship are now being 'routinely' sold for £10-20m, or even more. Such players do not typically stay with clubs at which they are not surrounded by quality and they do not typically move from one Championship team to another - a Championship team bidding on a real quality player from another Championship team will alert Premier League teams who will think "He's potentially Premier League quality... £10-15m? Not a problem". Because of the Premier League hoovering up real quality players a club attempting to improve their lot must first keep hold of their quality (not easy unless they're on good wages) and supplement it with more quality, however they're generally shopping only for players deemed not good enough for the Premier League, even though that's where they hope to be in 12 months time. In other words they're likely shopping for players who will offer only marginal gains, rather than game changers, unless of course they are lucky enough to stumble across a player who the Premier League teams with their army of scouts aren't aware of (or incorrectly don't rate). So, generally speaking championship clubs are buying in players who offer marginal gains and paying maybe £3-5m for those marginal gains. EFL rules will work for clubs with a good foundation, a solid squad needing nothing more than a tweak. Allow me to tell a story... --- Amongst the melee of Championship sides exists a club which has been in the doldrums for a while, circling the drain in the Championship and occasionally yoyo-ing between that and League One for the best part of two decades... they get taken over by a 'rich' owner. They arguably have a squad of overachieving players - they've just finished midtable with a team of cast-offs, has beens and never have beens who would be more suited to a relegation dogfight than a promotion push, barring one or two bright sparks... it's been a 'great' season but 'greatness' has just been redefined, the crosshairs have now been set on promotion, the fans expect and theclub know they need to invest in the playing side if they want to do better. Theres a feelgood factor around the club, the giant can be awoken and returned to former glories, all it needs is eight or nine quality first team players and another six or seven who can push them for places... so just 16 or so quality players, each costing £3-5m (unless they can polish a few turds along the way)... or they could shop in the Premier League bargain bin for released players on the decline; even then they'll have to offer seriously good wages for players who are reaching the twilight of their careers and have little to no resale value. They get off to a good start in their first full season of new ownership by going down the free transfer / high wages route and riding the wave of excitement, anticipation and general good feeling around the club but they fall just short, losing in the play-off final. They've already taken their budget into the FFP dangerzone (they cant really afford another season of similar budget stretching) but now they theoretically only need two or three real quality players, the missing pieces in the jigsaw. So they go big, turfing out some larger transfer fees and bringing in a headline veteran striker who redefines the wage structure at the club. Existing players get wind of this and realised they're now underpaid relative to their worth and to certain colleagues, one player even refuses to play a game. Eventually calmness is returned at the expense of an extra million or three added to the annual cost of wages. They 'fail' that season, finishing fourth (higher than they actually did the season before) and losing on penalties in the play-offs. The fans deem the season to be a disaster. More marginal gains are required but they've reached a crossroads... the squad is another year older and marginal gains are more difficult to identify, they can't afford to actually spend any money as the leap from relegation fodder to challengers has well and truly burst the FFP barriers... they're going to have to go into a slightly more 'experimental' phase, eeking out the final few drops of quality from existing players whilst picking up unknown players from the Dutch / German leagues and adding in occasional loans which may or may not work... unless they change track and go for a more sustain, slower build... but theres nothing 'sexy' about having tonnes of money to spend and not spending it... The club poll their fans on the ongoing strategy and the fans speak loudly on continuation of existing strategy of retaining quality and adding to it, rather than selling to buy. This strategy doesn't work and a string of managers come and go as they try to get the winning formula. All the while they still need to trim the wage budget... they need to sell their decent players but who to? Who will take them on decent wages and with the downward trajectory of their careers reaching its steepest section? They'll just have to let contracts run down... All the while new Managers want new players and theres EFL trouble on the horizon, they're under an embargo but gain EFL consent to 'sell the ground' to loosen the FFP noose around their neck... only it turns out they shouldn't have done that and now they're under threat of a points deduction, a season which was promising so much goes well and truly off the rails and they're lucky to avoid relegation with the post Christmas form being absolutely horrendous. --- Morale of the story - 'Rich' owners breed expectations but 'rich' owners cannot really meet those expectations unless they have a naturally advantageous platform in terms of playing staff to start with in an environment where they can only buy half a team of top end Championship players (not good enough for the Prem) due to an arbitrary cap on losses. There's bugger all to gain from having a 'rich' owner if the club is starting low and has a strategy to slowly build over ten years, complying with FFP. A destitute owner can arguably do that. So what benefit a rich owner at a traditionally 'big' club in a world with spending caps? With the odd exception, the rules keep the small clubs small, the sleeping giants sleeping and the Premier League yoyo clubs yoyoing. Yep just about sums it up Jody Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckwheat Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 keep hearing that they hate us. Just wondered if there's any reason for that. Can't think of anything. Also would the clowns going on Football Heaven and saying we haven't done anything wrong, or we've been proved innocent of this and that, please S T F Up. Until everything comes out in the decision we don't know what's gone off . Also pointless sacking Monk and getting another loser. Give him at least till half way through next season and see how things are going. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelowl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 minute ago, OxonOwl said: How about this? The independent panel have found in our favour and now we are pursuing our charges against the EFL. Presumably this would be sub judice and the findings of th panel cannot be published. Just a thought. I doubt it but who knows Oxon My thoughts are on our counter charges that we may have dropped them contra with them dropping the personal charges against our directors as were 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Did you miss that 548 page thread on the EFL ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nbupperthongowl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 18 minutes ago, steelowl said: I doubt it but who knows Oxon My thoughts are on our counter charges that we may have dropped them contra with them dropping the personal charges against our directors as were I thought our charges would kick in if we were found guilty.....the theory being that we would get a fairer trial in a court of law, rather than the EFL kangaroo court which we were concerned about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxonOwl Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 I am confused and my memory is shot. I guess I am just talking rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animis Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 hours ago, sheffsteel said: I suppose it depends on the detail in the email. SWFC: Can we sell the stadium at market value to another company owned by the Chairman and put it in the accounts? EFL: Yes, it’s not against the current rules. .........weeks later the accounts are accepted by the EFL on good faith and agreed. ..............weeks after that the EFL scrutinise the accounts and find details that are concerning, 1: The sale of the stadium appears to be backdated and submitted into the incorrect accounting year. 2: No actual monies have been transferred into the SWFC back account....as though the sale still hasn’t happened. 2: The value for the stadium seems higher than expected market values....so the EFL now want a detailed explanation. An important factor is when the EFL agree the accounts are they expected to skim over them....so that they can be agreed in principle or is the expectation that the accounts are investigated In full before they can be agreed. In terms of your 1,2 & 3 points, these have been discussed on here previously: 1. It's not the 'incorrect' accounting year. It's in line with the UK accountancy rules/law. We clearly took advice on this. 2. MKowl and others have explained that as long as there was a legal and binding contract for the sale, the amount can be included into the financial year 17/18. 3. The valuation is not a market value one, but depreciated replacement cost, which was undertaken by a qualified and registered valuation practice/consultant. 3 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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