[Foxman_WBA]

News coming out of WBA is that we have absolutely zero money and cant afford to bring "Big" players into the club, well lets break this down into who's here, who's going to leave and what we need to do for the season ahead;

Here's my prediction of how we'll line up at the start of the seaon;

Johnstone
Nyom Bartley (New) Townsend
Field Brunt
Burke/(New) Edwards Tulloch
HRK

Subs; Bond, Kane, Leko, Rogers, (New), (New), (New)

This assumes we sell or lose;

Harper, Livermore, Phillips, Rondon, Rodriguez, Dawson, Hegazi, Gibbs

I've left burke in there as it depends how much he's on, the way this works is it makes no difference what we've spent its about costs going forward.

Assuming the squad above left is on an average of 20k each that means we pay £18.75 mil a year on wages. (18 players)

Again we need a manager assuming we pay 20k a week, that adds another 1 mil.

This also assumed we spend exactly what we make on replacing players and the manager.

We need further 4 (atleast) for a deeper squad, again 20k each another 4 mil.

Wages for a first team squad then 24mil (again assuming we spend everthing we make from the above player sales).

Now looking at last year accounts assuming the following is the same;

Gate Receipts - 7.5
Merch - 2.5
Sponsorship/Commercial income - 12
Reported parachute payment (so decreased from last yr - 33
TV money from sky (average of 590m reported) - 25

80 mil

1st team costs - 24
Directors sal - 1
Non playing staffing and costs - 20
(Estimated as theres no official breakdown, based on what id guess the playing staff are on, loan costs etc)
45 mil

Purely in terms of cold hard cash, not messing around with player valuations and amortization (which is just a made up figure lets be honest, there's a bit more science involved admittedly but how can you say exactly what a player is worth?) then we should have 35 mil a year knocking around after the loss of all these players that management appear to be expecting. So the question is;
Why is constantly coming out of the club that we have no money!!!! Where is it all going? Have they just not planned for the loss of the high earners or do they know something we don’t!

[Beefy 1965]

As I posted on another thread Lai is taking money out of the club, !!!!
Not sure what's going on, apparently a bid from USA is still there from 18 months ago but won't sell for less than double he paid for it ...
Work that out wants more for a championship club WTF ??
Here's what I posted earlier

Owner Guochuan Lai owes #wba £4.1m because of a loan he inherited from Jeremy Peace in the takeover https://t.co/PtUaYvH2qD

Big stink on Twitter, we had to go into a over draft yet Lai took a loan out for 4 million against the club that the club can call in at any time ....
Why the loan ? Why have we not called this in and pay Gayle's wages again,why the overdraft last year
Being called out by shareholders as a fraud
Good god what is happening to our club ??

[Foxman_WBA]

I read that on Twitter earlier, I think Matt went on to say that it was a debt that he inherited and so Lai didn't actually take the loan. It should have all been sorted in the purchase though and should have been part of the purchase price to clear the debts (like this one that feels like an overdrawn directors loan or something of that ilk) and so peace should have then taken the net of that. Feels like a peace issue to me this one.

That being said though, these figures and the issues around the club just don't add up! As someone who has audited 3 football clubs and worked on the due diligence of another; something really doesn't feel right and I can see something coming out in the near future!

[Beefy 1965]

That's correct however it's still all baffling , the club can call this money in at anytime but haven't
Yet went into a overdraft in the summer, threating redundancies with people who are on a pittance why our billionaire owner dissent give the club 4 million back and to make matters worse spends 6 million on a knowbody from China ,
Shareholders are alarmed some calling him s fraud, a billionaire owner who has put this club in serious shit
Something has to be done, but god knows what ???

[Blue Baggie]

I've said before I don't trust him - We don't even know if he borrowed money to buy the club.
Finances have not made sense for months - it was reported we bid £15M for Dack in Aug - so we must have had money available, maybe not in one lump as nobody pays upfront for players - But £15 Million was available, then we received £10+ Million for Chadli again not in one lump it would be spread over a period of time.
When we got to the Jan window we had no spare cash at all - We had to borrow from Barclay's Bank - this loan was secured against payments from the EFL in June this year. Once that's repaid we won't have any money for purchases again.
IMO Lai is creaming money out of the club and Jenkins is helping him.

[Beefy 1965]

We was told we needed a overdraft
Black mailed for season ticket money from hard working fans
Staff on minimum wage being layed off if we signed Gayle
Yet all this time a millionaire owes the cub 4.1 million and we got told the word TRUST !!! #wba

[Blue Baggie]

We was told we needed a overdraft
Black mailed for season ticket money from hard working fans
Staff on minimum wage being layed off if we signed Gayle
Yet all this time a millionaire owes the cub 4.1 million and we got told the word TRUST !!! #wba

The laying off of back room tea ladies was a terrible thing to say. How to kill all trust with your staff in one easy lesson.
I said before Gayle would cost £6 Million a season to buy £3M salary + £3M tranfer cost x 3 years.
But that £6million equates to 1,000 tea ladies earning £6,000 a year - that's how silly his statement was - he neither understands finances or 
how to treat his staff. We have been paying Gayle £30K a week Newcastle paying the other £30K - with the savings of salary on the dozen who have already left we have saved hundreds of thousands a week and we cant afford an extra £30K - it's rubbish. Darren was very infulential in Gayle coming and now Darren has gone Even if we offered Gayle £60K a week - (this doesn't represent a pay rise) I don't think he would return anyway. 
This is obviously why we are finding it difficult to get a manager - they don't want to work for Jenkins / Dowling and the missing Lai
Darren is almost impossible to follow - He makes £10 million on transfers - reduces the wage burden by millions and keeps the team in the top six all season. Only a madman would contemplate bettering Darren's record. Only to get the sack for IMO being far to loyal to GJ. 
I'm still taking Lai at face value - I would guess he loaned money to buy the club and has no money to invest.

[Beefy 1965]

Chris Lepkowski the best Midland journo before he retired from the Birmingham mail a freind of mine and we still chat, also knows everything that went on ...
Read on ,very interesting ....

Just saw this thread on Chris Lepkowski’s Twitter Account

May be a case of hell has no wrath etc. etc. Have no idea what the implications are.

This is a big deal on many fronts. Firstly, loan taken out in 2014 - that particular summer was one of 8 frees/loans of players (Gamboa, Davison, Samaras) on relatively modest wages (though they did pay £10m for Browns). Also the year of Irvine arrival - so basically all low cost

Secondly, Jenkins was the sole director of Group from 2013 to late 2016. Also, Peace sold Holdings ( August 2016 ) when the FC directors knew the loan was partly in default –and no interest paid. Jenkins is now CEO and so therefore some burden of responsibility to call in loan?

When one repayment is missed - as has happened - notice could be given demanding the whole loan back; a normal condition of repayment loans. But not this one? Strange.

Crucially, in a week where WBA have pleaded poverty and tried to offset the non-signing of Gayle against ensuring staff won't be made redundant, they are owed in excess of £4.1m - a figure that would easily help ease financial issues, possibly even pay for 12 months of Gayle.

Basically, the whole thing stinks

Jenkins has Qs to answer. Loan taken out (in 2014) on his watch as finance director & sole director of WBA Group? So presumably he agreed it? As CEO why hasn't he called it in? What was that loan used for? ( I wonder....?) Why wasn't it repaid when JP sold?

BTW, it is a matter of public record that Peace, via his company Holdings, acquired just over 10% under his offer in July 2014 which was a few weeks before he and Holdings had the loan. That took him past the vital 75%

[Salopbaggie]

This is interesting from one of the newspaper forums

"I am one of the 430 shareholders in WBA Group ( mostly longstanding and loyal Albion Fans ) . As an experienced Finance Director , I have tried to track the history of this loan made to Peace's private company in 2014 . We were hampered for a long period because our sole director Mark Jenkins only issued us with the June 2015 accounts that were not consolidated with the figures from WBA Football Club , our 100% owned subsidiary , which made the loan . Accordingly it was not disclosed in our accounts until the June 2016 Consolidated version were issued in early 2017 . On inquiry to Martin Goodman , the new CEO , in 2017 , after Peace and Jenkins had left , we discovered that the loan was , in fact , in default but no successful efforts had been made to get it repaid by Peace's company before he sold out . I still do not understand why the loan is still outstanding . It is suggested in the article above that it has attached an advantageous interest rate .
That is of no particular use if the interest is not actually paid . We are also not longer afforded Group AGMs which is totally unreasonable for a company with hundreds of shareholders--99% are loyal fans ! Therefore we cannot easily get these sort of questions answered . It is now imperative that the Board of the Football Club explain WHY this loan has never been repaid . Quite obviously , we need the money as soon as possible .W

[Blue Baggie]

FAO Beefy - obviously you have faith in Chris Lepkowoski? I know some posters detest him and even accuse him of false news to seek attention? I don't know him or have an opinion on him myself. Any background info on Chris maybe useful? Thanks in advance ?