The State of Sheffield United's Finances

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The point Darren made about shared costs like insurance and the scouting costs being possibly higher if we didn’t have UV seems plausible enough. Plus the 6 million interest free loan has to be seen as a positive. UV seems geared towards the greater good of United and to be honest I’ve not seen any evidence of the contrary. Having said that I’m open enough to accept I’m wrong if someone can provide this evidence rather than opinion over fact.
 

Some interesting observations from El Accounto regarding current debt against assets and percentage salaries against overall costs.

The one striking comment is the reference to the Transfer repayment Tsunami of £27 million that would have to be paid within the next years accounts. That explains a lot about the financial mess the Club got itself into last year. A lack of planning to deal with this no doubt one of the principle causes as to why we couldn't pay bills and got ourselves into an embargo.

El Accounto clearly has a detailed understanding of the Clubs accounts and does explain in simpler terms for those of a non accounting background. Where I take issue with him is where he speculates about the Clubs structure not least his reference to United World.

I'm not a fan of the UW model as I've questioned in the past its value to SUFC but to fair say if they loaned the Club £6 million interest free in 21/22 then that is a benefit. I don't accept DS comment that all the recruitment for SUFC is dealt with by UW and the team of analysts that work for Paul Mitchell SUFC Head of Recruitment are solely there to provide match analysis. If thats the case why are we paying Paul Mitchells wages?

In 21/22 Steven Vanharen United World Head of Recruitment Director had only just been appointed. He has spent the last two years centralising existing databases across all five clubs and building up the recruitment team from 4 to 14. That 14 absorbed the already existing Paul Mitchell team of 4/5 analysts who have the experience/knowledge of recruitment in England. DS seems to imply this team is a cost borne by SUFC and not UW so it begs the question what were the additional recruitment costs run up by UW in 21/22 that were charged as a consultancy fee?

What helped the Club financially was the sale of Ramsdale. It was reported the Club had employed a third party from Jordan to negotiate the sale. This is more likely an attributable cost to the £1.5 million consultancy fee we paid UW in the latest set of accounts rather than speculating it covers all recruitment costs in addition to insurances. In that scenario money well spent as it avoided an overall loss of £27 million rather than £16 million as reported.

The relaxation in rules regarding overseas players will now test the value of UW's recruitment models. If we do bring in 4 overseas players as alluded to by DS as a consequence of the systems in place then the added value will be realised.

Its important to note that Steven Vanharen left his post 4 days ago so one wonders what know for the UW recruitment model? I suspect the person currently driving SUFC's recruitment is Paul Mitchell the man who has been doing it for the last 6 years, a direct cost to SUFC.
 
Addison said:
Some interesting observations from El Accounto regarding current debt against assets and percentage salaries against overall costs.

The one striking comment is the reference to the Transfer repayment Tsunami of £27 million that would have to be paid within the next years accounts. That explains a lot about the financial mess the Club got itself into last year. A lack of planning to deal with this no doubt one of the principle causes as to why we couldn't pay bills and got ourselves into an embargo.

El Accounto clearly has a detailed understanding of the Clubs accounts and does explain in simpler terms for those of a non accounting background. Where I take issue with him is where he speculates about the Clubs structure not least his reference to United World.

I'm not a fan of the UW model as I've questioned in the past its value to SUFC but to fair say if they loaned the Club £6 million interest free in 21/22 then that is a benefit. I don't accept DS comment that all the recruitment for SUFC is dealt with by UW and the team of analysts that work for Paul Mitchell SUFC Head of Recruitment are solely there to provide match analysis. If thats the case why are we paying Paul Mitchells wages?

In 21/22 Steven Vanharen United World Head of Recruitment Director had only just been appointed. He has spent the last two years centralising existing databases across all five clubs and building up the recruitment team from 4 to 14. That 14 absorbed the already existing Paul Mitchell team of 4/5 analysts who have the experience/knowledge of recruitment in England. DS seems to imply this team is a cost borne by SUFC and not UW so it begs the question what were the additional recruitment costs run up by UW in 21/22 that were charged as a consultancy fee?

What helped the Club financially was the sale of Ramsdale. It was reported the Club had employed a third party from Jordan to negotiate the sale. This is more likely an attributable cost to the £1.5 million consultancy fee we paid UW in the latest set of accounts rather than speculating it covers all recruitment costs in addition to insurances. In that scenario money well spent as it avoided an overall loss of £27 million rather than £16 million as reported.

The relaxation in rules regarding overseas players will now test the value of UW's recruitment models. If we do bring in 4 overseas players as alluded to by DS as a consequence of the systems in place then the added value will be realised.

Its important to note that Steven Vanharen left his post 4 days ago so one wonders what know for the UW recruitment model? I suspect the person currently driving SUFC's recruitment is Paul Mitchell the man who has been doing it for the last 6 years, a direct cost to SUFC.
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Similar to my thoughts.

I thought it was a decent interview in getting over the information in layman's terms, until he started offering opinions on the benefits of UW. At that point he goes back to being a patsy for the board.
 
Addison said:
Some interesting observations from El Accounto regarding current debt against assets and percentage salaries against overall costs.

The one striking comment is the reference to the Transfer repayment Tsunami of £27 million that would have to be paid within the next years accounts. That explains a lot about the financial mess the Club got itself into last year. A lack of planning to deal with this no doubt one of the principle causes as to why we couldn't pay bills and got ourselves into an embargo.

El Accounto clearly has a detailed understanding of the Clubs accounts and does explain in simpler terms for those of a non accounting background. Where I take issue with him is where he speculates about the Clubs structure not least his reference to United World.

I'm not a fan of the UW model as I've questioned in the past its value to SUFC but to fair say if they loaned the Club £6 million interest free in 21/22 then that is a benefit. I don't accept DS comment that all the recruitment for SUFC is dealt with by UW and the team of analysts that work for Paul Mitchell SUFC Head of Recruitment are solely there to provide match analysis. If thats the case why are we paying Paul Mitchells wages?

In 21/22 Steven Vanharen United World Head of Recruitment Director had only just been appointed. He has spent the last two years centralising existing databases across all five clubs and building up the recruitment team from 4 to 14. That 14 absorbed the already existing Paul Mitchell team of 4/5 analysts who have the experience/knowledge of recruitment in England. DS seems to imply this team is a cost borne by SUFC and not UW so it begs the question what were the additional recruitment costs run up by UW in 21/22 that were charged as a consultancy fee?

What helped the Club financially was the sale of Ramsdale. It was reported the Club had employed a third party from Jordan to negotiate the sale. This is more likely an attributable cost to the £1.5 million consultancy fee we paid UW in the latest set of accounts rather than speculating it covers all recruitment costs in addition to insurances. In that scenario money well spent as it avoided an overall loss of £27 million rather than £16 million as reported.

The relaxation in rules regarding overseas players will now test the value of UW's recruitment models. If we do bring in 4 overseas players as alluded to by DS as a consequence of the systems in place then the added value will be realised.

Its important to note that Steven Vanharen left his post 4 days ago so one wonders what know for the UW recruitment model? I suspect the person currently driving SUFC's recruitment is Paul Mitchell the man who has been doing it for the last 6 years, a direct cost to SUFC.
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The note regarding directors pay would suggest Bettis is now paid by YW. Who else?
 
Sean Thornton said:
The note regarding directors pay would suggest Bettis is now paid by YW. Who else?
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It wouldn't be controversial as such for the board of directors to be paid by UW, would also account for a fair chunk of the cash that goes from SU to UW.
 
Sean Thornton said:
And loan us £6m interest free. Don’t forget that.
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Is there any particular reason that UW would loan the money to United rather than it coming through PA as a share allotment? Is that a way of avoiding FFP because it's debt rather than equity?
 
Addison said:
If Bettis salary is charged back as part of the consultancy fee then thats a more plausible explanation behind some of the costs than speculating its all to do with recruitment and insurances.
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The majority of the UW costs are assumed to be executive/consultancy fees? Otherwise we are spending more on scouting then we are on signing players!
 
Carlton Blade said:
Is there any particular reason that UW would loan the money to United rather than it coming through PA as a share allotment? Is that a way of avoiding FFP because it's debt rather than equity?
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As a director's loan (this is what it's recorded as in the accounts) he can repay it to himself (or UW) however quickly or slowly he'd like to (and without tax penalty). As a share allotment he'd need to wait until the business is sold to receive any money back.
 
derekacorah said:
As a director's loan (this is what it's recorded as in the accounts) he can repay it to himself (or UW) however quickly or slowly he'd like to (and without tax penalty). As a share allotment he'd need to wait until the business is sold to receive any money back.
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So if he/UW needed this money back sharpish he could pay it back in whatever payment terms are set up. Thanks
 
Carlton Blade said:
So if he/UW needed this money back sharpish he could pay it back in whatever payment terms are set up. Thanks
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Yeah, it just gives them flexibility, he can take it now or just leave it as owing.

That's the main reason I can think of anyway, there may be others.
 
Rebster72 said:
The point Darren made about shared costs like insurance and the scouting costs being possibly higher if we didn’t have UV seems plausible enough. Plus the 6 million interest free loan has to be seen as a positive. UV seems geared towards the greater good of United and to be honest I’ve not seen any evidence of the contrary. Having said that I’m open enough to accept I’m wrong if someone can provide this evidence rather than opinion over fact.
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We (Sheffield United) have no European scouting outside of UW, as far as I'm aware. We get players recommended to us through 'friends' but other than that nada.

We've hardly used it other than a few exceptions.

If we're going to look to Europe now and in the Championship, then we need one. I guess the benefit of paying into a central pot for it is that we could stop in a way you just can't establish and terminate your own scouting network.
 
If that was explained in laymans terms then I'm still a laymans apprentice
 
So if we don't piss the money up the wall on overpriced English players again we will in the future not be in debt and own all our own property's and facilities, Probably in the championship.
 

derekacorah said:
As a director's loan (this is what it's recorded as in the accounts) he can repay it to himself (or UW) however quickly or slowly he'd like to (and without tax penalty). As a share allotment he'd need to wait until the business is sold to receive any money back.
[/QUOTE

Edited due to talking bollocks

Presumably UW had funds when we didn’t.

Nothing to do with FFP.
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Sean Thornton said:
Actually D, you aren’t. That’s the entry in the group accounts, Blades Leisure Ltd. The club accounts show it as l described. PA/UW loaned to BL. BL loaned to SU. Hence owing to related etc.

Phew! :)

It’ll give Carlton Blade another a headache though.
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I like to understand things 🤷‍♂️

Is there any reason why you'd add a layer of complexity to a transaction like that? Or just as simple as the facility to send money already exists between UW & BL and not with SU?
 
Sean Thornton said:
Actually D, you aren’t. That’s the entry in the group accounts, Blades Leisure Ltd. The club accounts show it as l described. PA/UW loaned to BL. BL loaned to SU. Hence owing to related etc.

Phew! :)

It’ll give Carlton Blade another a headache though.
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Cheers, the club accounts are limited in information and don't make much sense stand alone so I'm basing my info on BLL.
 
Carlton Blade said:
I like to understand things 🤷‍♂️

Is there any reason why you'd add a layer of complexity to a transaction like that? Or just as simple as the facility to send money already exists between UW & BL and not with SU?
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BL owns the SU shares.

Maybe you’d understand more if you thought about things rather than seemingly jumping to you being onto something disturbing or underhand.

With PA’s wealth and business dealings there in necessarily complexity requiring legal, accountancy and taxation matters which we aren’t privy too.
 
Sean Thornton said:
BL owns the SU shares.

Maybe you’d understand more if you thought about things rather than seemingly jumping to you being onto something disturbing or underhand.

With PA’s wealth and business dealings there in necessarily complexity requiring legal, accountancy and taxation matters which we aren’t privy too.
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I don't think any of it is underhand. I don't think anything he's doing is underhand. I think UW is misguided and a really crappy use of resources

I asked you what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question about how companies operate. Honestly, if you don't want to answer because you think I'm some kind of conspiracy crackpot then I won't be offended
 
ACCOUNTANCY, champions of plain English and crystal clear explanation-

available also in pigeon English, we offer an interpreter at reasonable fees

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Carlton Blade said:
I don't think any of it is underhand. I don't think anything he's doing is underhand. I think UW is misguided and a really crappy use of resources

I asked you what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question about how companies operate. Honestly, if you don't want to answer because you think I'm some kind of conspiracy crackpot then I won't be offended
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It’s not that easy. I’m not a tutor.

You leap about, fffp in this case - maybe if your comments were more firmly based as questions rather than taking a guess at what things could mean and throwing it out there .
I don’t think you’re one of the “Arabs nicked money” clowns but you may not understand the workings sometimes discussed because you’ve no experience. That’s the way of the world.
 
On a different topic, I've run the Ramsale numbers through the Balham transfer fee generator. I'm 99% sure we paid Bournemouth an initial £16.75m then a £250k bonus payment, probably for his England call up. Both we and Bournemouth had 25% sell on clauses in the original signing deals.

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We are going to receive a guaranteed £24m from Arsenal. We owed Bournemouth £2.75m of that and then we used the remaining £21.25m as security for a loan from Macquarie bank. That loan is in the creditors section.
 

Sean Thornton said:
The irony is palpable here.

Stanley fucking Unwin.
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Note to the pigeon. Don’t play chess with BTL. When you have checkmated him, he’ll say he’s won, mention Real Madrid and Barcelona and confuse himself.

Don’t rule out him shitting on the board either……
 
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