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Income and budgets

richard_portland

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Came across the figures given by Julian tagg about a year ago concerning our actual income for 2014/15 and budget for 2015/16.

The figures given were

Football league and cups 737k and 726k
Gate money. 915k and 887k
Commercial. 567k and 668k
Trust. 188k and 161k
Shop/bars. 586k and 615k
Transfers 94k and 0
Grimes money. 347k and 420k

Totals. 3.438m and 3.477m

Wages. 2.479m and 2.783m
Match day costs. 126k and 129k
Business overheads. 252k and 231k
Pitches. 247k and 382k



The things I take from this is our gates went up so hopefully we have made more income than predicted. We made windfalls from unbudgeted cups games and tv/radio so will have exceeded significantly the second line. We sold Tom Nichols so 250k or possible more should be going into the budget for 2016/17. As the grimes money mentioned is less than half the total 1.75m I am assuming further amounts will be in the 2016/17 budget? Obviously only a third of it was going to the playing budget but there is still 1m of the fee not yet included in a set of figures unless I am missing something.

We increased our wages for the season just gone by about 300k and pitches by 135k which will account for the 420k from the grimes tf in the 15/16 budget.

These figures show we spend about 80% of our income in wages, and are allowed to spend 55% of our total of about 3.4m on the playing budget. Would be very interesting to know what our playing budget has been for last two seasons and moving forwards. Would expect over half of the total wages figure to be on playing and even that takes us nowhere near even half of our total income.

If Anyone who can shed any more light on these points, it would be appreciated. I find it hard reconciling these sort of figures with suggestions that we struggle at league two level. The event a couple of weeks ago seems to have been quietly forgotten with no press coverage.
 

Fareham Grecian

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Not sure what more light there is to shed richard, that sounds like a very cogent summary to me. Accepting these figures (in the absence of any reason not to accept them), the only thing that puzzles me is why you think this challenges the fact of us 'struggling at L2 level'? That I assume is a comparative 'struggling', and in view of other posts by Jason and yourself I would tend to assume that this turnover and budget puts us about mid-table in terms of spending power.

If that is the case then it again supports the assertion that we are at or about 'our level', even with the Grimes money. We do not any longer spend above our means, and we are breaking even on average. So the only way we would ever be able to undertake capital projects - like, oh I don't know, just at random, the rebuilding of the OG - is to get someone else to pay.

This, folks, is as good as things get...
 

denzel

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2.8 mn in wages seems steep and fag packet calculations would suggest we set ourselves up to make a loss.

Truly depressing but a salutary point to those who think the club has money to spend on the redevelopment
 

Fareham Grecian

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2.8 mn in wages seems steep and fag packet calculations would suggest we set ourselves up to make a loss.

Truly depressing but a salutary point to those who think the club has money to spend on the redevelopment
Why do you think it's depressing denzel? To me it shows a club living within its means, balancing the books, surviving - and there aren't many of those about.

And before anyone starts banging on about lack of ambition, settling for mediocrity, blah blah blah; well I have spent too much of my supporting life wondering if my club will survive another season thanks.
 

denzel

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Why do you think it's depressing denzel? To me it shows a club living within its means, balancing the books, surviving - and there aren't many of those about.

And before anyone starts banging on about lack of ambition, settling for mediocrity, blah blah blah; well I have spent too much of my supporting life wondering if my club will survive another season thanks.
Because 2.8mn is a lot on players and this seems only to be heading upwards. We aren't living within our means if expenditure exceeds income
 

Fareham Grecian

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Because 2.8mn is a lot on players and this seems only to be heading upwards. We aren't living within our means if expenditure exceeds income
Players' wages are about half of the total.

Why do you think from those figures that expenditure exceeds income?
 

richard_portland

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Not sure what more light there is to shed richard, that sounds like a very cogent summary to me. Accepting these figures (in the absence of any reason not to accept them), the only thing that puzzles me is why you think this challenges the fact of us 'struggling at L2 level'? That I assume is a comparative 'struggling', and in view of other posts by Jason and yourself I would tend to assume that this turnover and budget puts us about mid-table in terms of spending power.

If that is the case then it again supports the assertion that we are at or about 'our level', even with the Grimes money. We do not any longer spend above our means, and we are breaking even on average. So the only way we would ever be able to undertake capital projects - like, oh I don't know, just at random, the rebuilding of the OG - is to get someone else to pay.

This, folks, is as good as things get...
The reason I raise it is from what I could gather there were claims we were only spending around 1.1 or 1.2m on players wages if the reports from Tisdale's talk were accurate. If that is the case we would be paying in excess of 1.5m on non playing wages which would be a huge sum for a business like ECFC which already has a lot of volunteers. Looking at the turnover we would be allowed to spend close to 2m on the playing budget going by the rules. And a number of years ago when the trust loan was converted to donations the reason given was the 55% rule. My point is that I think we could either be run more efficiently, or that we actually have a higher budget than is generally acknowledged.

I understand there is a long list of things to spend money on but with only part of the grimes cash accounted for in those published figures and the cup monies and Nichols tf I fail to see why we shouldn't be on a similar level budget wise to last season.

If we run ourselves efficiently and a significant number of other clubs simply spend a lot more than we can afford then that's fair enough. However there is a lot of talk regarding how we struggle but no meat on the bones to demonstrate that as far as I can see.
 
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denzel

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Players' wages are about half of the total.

Why do you think from those figures that expenditure exceeds income?
Because it does. 3. 4 in and 3. 5 out.

I imagine players wages to be the vast majority then, maybe 2. 2
 

richard_portland

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Because it does. 3. 4 in and 3. 5 out.

I imagine players wages to be the vast majority then, maybe 2. 2
Doubt it's near to that as we are only allowed to spend 55% of turnover, however I agree with you that if we were spending half or even close to half then that's a lot of money.
 

Alistair20000

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Because it does. 3. 4 in and 3. 5 out.

I imagine players wages to be the vast majority then, maybe 2. 2
The small budgeted loss is more worrying than it looks as it includes part of the Bank of Grimes windfall. That particular source of largesse is finite.

I think you are way too high with players wages at £2.2m.
 
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