Administration

[Shoemaker]

Would now be a good time to go into administration??

I see luton have started cutting costs and if football with fans in attendance is many many months away I can see many clubs doing this.

By then sacking all management and players the clubs can effectively be mothballed until football starts again meaning the clubs are safe.

At first I thought this unlikely for us as KT is tied into the club via a land deal but having thought about it I think the land and club are two different companies so it begs the thought could KT sack everyone and walk away from the club safe in the knowledge he would still own the development land if he wished too?

Is this a possible scenario?

[GrangeParkCobbler]

Its a bit of a left-field post but I sort of get your thinking.

The only way clubs will go into administration though is if they don't pay their bills and someone puts them there.......which I suppose if the cash dries up is a possibility.

If clubs are still paying players then they will still have to be sending their tax in, their NI in, the employers NI in.....

I'd like to see how the points deduction would be applied too....would it be taken off this seasons points (which could cost us a playoff place for example) or would you start next season on minus points?

Its bad enough now that staff and players are still being paid with no matchday income coming in, but if this continues for much longer then sponsors for next season will be harder to find, season ticket take up will basically dry up until anyone knows whats going to happen......could be a tough few months for many clubs.

[Winslow Lee]

Would now be a good time to go into administration??

Is this a possible scenario?

I would hate to see any club use this horrible crisis in an opportunist way, if it’s an unavoidable necessity then I guess there’s nothing you can do but I would like to see the club do anything possible to avoid it.

I was utterly disgusted with the premier league clubs who spend tens of millions of pounds on transfers use the government furlough scheme.

[GrangeParkCobbler]

I would hate to see any club use this horrible crisis in an opportunist way, if it’s an unavoidable necessity then I guess there’s nothing you can do but I would like to see the club do anything possible to avoid it.

I was utterly disgusted with the premier league clubs who spend tens of millions of pounds on transfers use the government furlough scheme.

Agreed.....not to mention paying players £300,000 a week but using the government to cover 80% of the groundsman's wages!

[guest3086]

What I don't understand is why don't they just furlough everyone including the players, would save a fortune?

[CobblerForever]

What I don't understand is why don't they just furlough everyone including the players, would save a fortune?

Probably a breach of contract situation where the player could walk away from his contract. Clubs might lose their more marketable assets.

[Vintage Cobbler]

The latest accounts of the club report as at 30 June 2019 net current liabilities of £6.7 million. Out of that £4.3 million is owed to Belle de Jour Ltd (thought to be Bower’s offshore vehicle) and £1.29 million to the immediate holding company of NTFC, Northampton Town Ventures Ltd which is 80% owned by the BVI company with the balance 10% KT and 10% DB.  Putting the club in Administration would probably have to be done by our owners and what would they gain from that other than the immediate loss of the very significant sums owing to them with prospects of recovering what and from whom?  They may as well write off the inter-company debt and leave the club in a much better place but there is no suggestion of that happening either.

We can rule nothing out at this unprecedented time and unexpected events may happen in the football world but Administration seems unlikely. It is always open to any unpaid creditors to use the insolvency legislation to apply pressure but certainly I have no knowledge of any unpaid creditors. Typically, as we know when football clubs are in distress it is HMRC which issues winding-up petitions for unpaid PAYE, VAT & NIC.  To be fair to our owners, despite the accruing indebtedness to BdJ, they appear to have met the club’s obligations to external creditors in a timely manner and that is good.

[guest3086]

Strange they called it Belle de Jour. Are they prostituting our club?

[Another Pedj]

The latest accounts of the club report as at 30 June 2019 net current liabilities of £6.7 million. Out of that £4.3 million is owed to Belle de Jour Ltd (thought to be Bower’s offshore vehicle) and £1.29 million to the immediate holding company of NTFC, Northampton Town Ventures Ltd which is 80% owned by the BVI company with the balance 10% KT and 10% DB.  Putting the club in Administration would probably have to be done by our owners and what would they gain from that other than the immediate loss of the very significant sums owing to them with prospects of recovering what and from whom?  They may as well write off the inter-company debt and leave the club in a much better place but there is no suggestion of that happening either.

We can rule nothing out at this unprecedented time and unexpected events may happen in the football world but Administration seems unlikely. It is always open to any unpaid creditors to use the insolvency legislation to apply pressure but certainly I have no knowledge of any unpaid creditors. Typically, as we know when football clubs are in distress it is HMRC which issues winding-up petitions for unpaid PAYE, VAT & NIC.  To be fair to our owners, despite the accruing indebtedness to BdJ, they appear to have met the club’s obligations to external creditors in a timely manner and that is good.

Correct their are no overdue Creditors and hence nothing to be gained from the ridiculous suggestion of Administration. There is no intention to use that to remove contractual obligations to players and other staff members. Indeed we are one of the few clubs that continue to pay all employees 100% of their salaries or contracts.

[Larry]

What I don't understand is why don't they just furlough everyone including the players, would save a fortune?

They are not employees but under short term contracts. It may seem they get get a lot of money but that only applies to the top of the tree. The majority earn similar amounts to us sitting in the stand and have the added worry of reapplying for the jobs every couple of years or so.
No-one ever talks of other top sport professionals in the same way as they do footballers. I wonder how much Formula One drivers, tennis players and golfers earn a week? We treat footballers as if they are labourers and get a weekly pay packet with the notes poking out so they can count it without opening the packet.
Of course there are a rarified few that are coining it but the majority of professional footballers live a very precarious financial life with the knowledge they will be chucked on the scrap head with no apology once their legs go.

[CobblerForever]

They are not employees but under short term contracts. It may seem they get get a lot of money but that only applies to the top of the tree. The majority earn similar amounts to us sitting in the stand and have the added worry of reapplying for the jobs every couple of years or so.
No-one ever talks of other top sport professionals in the same way as they do footballers. I wonder how much Formula One drivers, tennis players and golfers earn a week? We treat footballers as if they are labourers and get a weekly pay packet with the notes poking out so they can count it without opening the packet.
Of course there are a rarified few that are coining it but the majority of professional footballers live a very precarious financial life with the knowledge they will be chucked on the scrap head with no apology once their legs go.

Trust me Larry - most employees do not have secure contracts of employment even if they may think they have. If your performance falls below acceptable levels a way will be found to relieve you of your duties and often at very modest cost. The same will happen if your (private) company fails to make a return.

[guest2995]

Send the club into administration ?
Clearly you have never been stung by a company that has done this to you and ended up owing the small businessman considerable sums ? Not ethical .

[Cordwainer2]

They are not employees but under short term contracts. It may seem they get get a lot of money but that only applies to the top of the tree. The majority earn similar amounts to us sitting in the stand and have the added worry of reapplying for the jobs every couple of years or so.
No-one ever talks of other top sport professionals in the same way as they do footballers. I wonder how much Formula One drivers, tennis players and golfers earn a week? We treat footballers as if they are labourers and get a weekly pay packet with the notes poking out so they can count it without opening the packet.
Of course there are a rarified few that are coining it but the majority of professional footballers live a very precarious financial life with the knowledge they will be chucked on the scrap head with no apology once their legs go.

I too could never understand why footballers salaries are always quoted as per week. No one else does this, I was always on a yearly salary, I had no idea what I was paid per week. Why not quote that, it sounds even higher, several million per annum for top players, slightly less for Cobblers' players.

[guest3338]

Maybe it's to do with when footballers wages were directly comparable to the working class mans wage. A throwback. Wasn't everyone except management paid a weekly wage back in the day? Also a time when a professional footballer considered himself no different from a working class man.
Football has changed quite a lot since then. Talk of the average league two footballer earning similar amounts to the average fan in the stand at Sixfields now...really? I thought the average league two footballer was on 1300-1500 a week or 60/75k a year? What % of those that sit in the stands earn that much?

[BackOfTheNet]

Maybe it's to do with when footballers wages were directly comparable to the working class mans wage. A throwback. Wasn't everyone except management paid a weekly wage back in the day? Also a time when a professional footballer considered himself no different from a working class man.
Football has changed quite a lot since then. Talk of the average league two footballer earning similar amounts to the average fan in the stand at Sixfields now...really? I thought the average league two footballer was on 1300-1500 a week or 60/75k a year? What % of those that sit in the stands earn that much?

Quite a few, I'd have thought.

[GrangeParkCobbler]

Quite a few, I'd have thought.

Surely you’re getting us mixed up with The Saints 

[CobblerForever]

Quite a few, I'd have thought.

I'd hazard a guess at less than 5%.

[Melbourne Cobbler]

I'd hazard a guess at less than 5%.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies issued a report on the UK's highest earners in January 2008. At that time 1% of the population earned £99,727 or more. So I would say 5% of the population at 60-75k today was conservative? Way back in 2004 Grange Park Northampton was 6th on the list of UK affluent postcodes with an average household income of £58,000. On that basis I reckon old GPC single handedly pushes up the average earnings in the West Stand to mega bucks?

[everbrite]

I'd hazard a guess at less than 5%.

Too high, as 5% = approx 600 fans. As GPC says Boots is getting confused with Saints. More like 1.5%

[Larry]

Maybe it's to do with when footballers wages were directly comparable to the working class mans wage. A throwback. Wasn't everyone except management paid a weekly wage back in the day? Also a time when a professional footballer considered himself no different from a working class man.
Football has changed quite a lot since then. Talk of the average league two footballer earning similar amounts to the average fan in the stand at Sixfields now...really? I thought the average league two footballer was on 1300-1500 a week or 60/75k a year? What % of those that sit in the stands earn that much?

Considering there are plenty of players in the leagues immediately below are part time you've got to assume the wages in League has to be no more than £40-50k a year. I would suspect many of the younger players are on a much less and just happy to be full time players.
It's in both the club's interest and the players' pride for us to assume they are on a lot more.