A significant reduction in profit - presumably because of compensation for Whitney, Keates and implementing a scouting system.
Christ here come the accountants!
2 Likes
They aren’t even worth looking at. I’ll tell you what’s in them now if you want. All the income has been lumped into two categories, one showing us how irrelevant our ticket sales are compared to the rest of the revenue, and the other in “Football and Other”, completely ignoring the fact that most football income probably wouldn’t be there but for the fans.
Other than that the rent figure will have gone up by a slight amount if not stayed the same in an attempt of “look how reasonable I am” and that will be about it.
And I haven’t even read them.
3 Likes
So Bonsor this past year has received close to 3 quarters of a Million £ this past twelve months into his pension fund and payment of debt he owns.
Also Coaches/playing staff remains similar and only up 10k. This would include Deano’s team wouldn’t it, but not include the signings made this summer?
Turnover down over £780k which is all “Football and Commercial Income”. Match receipts are a mossive £10k up!
I love the fact that Mr ‘I have never took a penny’ has taken a further £227K from the club for his ‘loan repayment’ then charges us a further £500K in rent.
Walsall FC the gift that keeps on giving …
but we still owe him over £1 million I think. I am pleased our indebtedness to him is being reduced. Can only help when the Club is eventually sold.
Walsall Accounts: Profits down but so is debt
By Joseph Masi | Walsall FC | Published: 6 hours ago
Walsall’s profits crashed but their overall debt was ‘significantly’ cut following a season which saw the club narrowly avoid relegation.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Jeff Bonser
Figures for the 12 months to the end of May, just released by the football club, show the Saddlers scraped a trading profit of just £9,000.
That compares to the £215,000 pre-tax profit the club made the previous year.
But chairman Jeff Bonser has highlighted that the club has ‘significantly’ cut its debts by £279,000 during the year.
ADVERTISING
At the same time turnover at the club, from a combination of match receipts, money from televised games and other commercial income, fell by more than £780,000 - down to £5.85 million from £6.64m the year before.
Despite its unhappy performance on the pitch, the club’s loyal fans still turned up week in, week out – with takings for matches falling by just £10,000 to £1.09 million.
Although the number of players and coaching staff at the club rose to 90 during the year, the wage bill remained fairly static at £3.1 million.
Renumeration for the directors, including Jeff Bonser, totalled £164,000, £20,000 less than the year before.
Mr Bonser was also paid £288,000 in repayments on loans he has made to the club in the past. He is still owed more than £1.1 million.
Advertising
On the transfer front, the accounts showed Walsall sold Andreas Makris to APOEL Nicosia for £110,000. They bought him 12 months earlier from Anorthosis Famagusta for £175,000.
In a statement, Mr Bonser said "On-the-pitch, it was difficult season as we flirted with relegation but crucially managed to preserve our League One Status.
"Ultimately, a series of poor results culminated in the club parting ways with team manager, Jon Whitney, back in March with former player and fans’ favourite, Dean Keates, being installed as his successor once a compensation package had been agreed with Wrexham AFC.
“Despite only being in situ for a short period of time, Dean has already made a significant impact at the club and is putting his stamp on things. He has already brought in his own staff and is in the process of restructuring the football department including the vital scouting system and recruitment network. Importantly, the players have really responded to him and I am incredibly optimistic for what the future holds.”
Turning to the finances, he said: “Off the pitch, the conference & events, commercial and retail departments have all performed well, generating significant profits which were ploughed back into the core football business and we enjoyed our first full year of trading on the Midpoint M6 LED screens which have been a resounding success.”
Mr Bonser also offered his thanks to the supporters: “As always, they have been exceptional during what was a very tough season and I would like to assure them all that all of our efforts are focused on giving them a team and a club to be proud of.”
Walsall Football Club pays Mr Bonser’s pension fund £440,000 a year in rent to play at the Banks’s Stadium. He bought the freehold of the ground through the pension fund, owned by finance firm Suffolk Life. But earlier this year he told fans in a meeting that he would like to see the club, or Walsall Council, buy the freehold from Suffolk Life.
Still find it hard to believe the club ( Mr Bonser ) paid / would allow £175,000 for a player no one had heard of let alone seen play , then permit the Manager not to play him except for occasionally off the bench
To be honest he did need breaking into our way of playing / life , and not throw him in at the deep end , but i thought he looked class the little time he had on the pitch and i’m sure would of scored more goal’s if played more , so the question is why wasn’t he played more , it’s as though we did a deal with someone to bring him over here and keep him wrapped in cotton wool for a season and then sell him to this other club , and now we’re told we lost money in the process , something stink’s to me …
2 Likes
How do we still owe him over £1mill, when we owed him £1.1million in the last set of accounts, yet have paid him £227k in the past year towards that?
it fudgin stinks just like he does the ■■■■■
Here I have an amazing idea - let’s buy a piece of land on the cheap, get someone to pay for a building on it - make myself boss of the building that someone else paid for, then charge a significant rent each year and once our coffers are full borrow the owner of the building some money whist continuing to charge them an ever increasing rent and ensuring the building owner still pays for all the upkeep !
1 Like
Wonder if Jeef has managed to keep the date free in his diary to attend the AGM this year?
Disappointed to see our net profit fall to just £9k. Im confident though that with competent cost management we will see profits return to the 30 year rolling average of £15k next year.
I live in Hednesford but I’m not sure how I’d feel about Walsall FC playing in Hednesford. Also land near the car park has been sold and a housing estate is being built on there so it doesn’t leave much room for future expansions.
1 Like
Didn’t know that. But to be fair, 6,000 is plenty for us just now.
1 Like
Thank you.
Be good if admin could store this somewhere for us to continue to refer back to.
Thanks for breaking this down and helping fans without an accounting background to fully understand the figures.
3 Likes
