Debt down?

Money money money...
The newspaper speculation continues now, but the focus has shifted from the playing side to the financial side of life at St James’ Park this time.

The News of the World (who appear to be having a pro-NUFC day today) claim that the debt level at Newcastle has been reduced dramatically and is now one of the lowest in the Premier League. They claim that United are only in debt to the tune of £17 million, which is quite frankly laughable if I’m being honest. Mind you, if it is down to £17 million that is some repayment plan!

I just can’t see it myself to be honest. To reduce debt by roughly £100 million in less than a year is a bit of a stretch to say the least. That is of course unless they are talking about the club overdraft or some such instead? Who knows?

That’s part of the problem though as the only people who really know are the ones who deal with that side of things at NUFC. This isn’t a real issue as we are football fans first and foremost, but with accountancy being linked with the fortunes of the club it’s perhaps understandable that many fans will also want to keep an eye on how the club is being run financially.

Another part of the problem is that we don’t have any recent figures to go off which leads to a lot of speculation with regard to the figures involved. The last set of accounts that are available are from the season in which we ended up relegated which shows just how out of date they are.

The next set of accounts, which will cover our stint in The Championship, are due out any time now, but they won’t make for good reading in my opinion. I will of course break them down and analyse them as and when they become available.

So you see, even with the release of the next accounts we won’t be able to validate these claims. Common sense would dictate that reducing the debt by so much in such a short space of time is unlikely to happen, but at NUFC common sense is a rarity. The only hint that we may get with regard to the current financial situation will be if there are any notes added to the accounts.

Financially we are still in a mess and we still need Ashley’s money. It will take a while to sort out, a long wile in fact, but once it is sorted it will only benefit the club. It’s pretty gloomy to be honest so I won’t go on too much about it.

Ah well…

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

52 thoughts on “Debt down?

  1. the money we owe Ashley will be astronomical but as he owns the club I’m sure you could put a spin on it that we don’t have much debt.

    but it’s good to see that the press are having something positive to say about Newcastle than the usual negative bollocks being written about us.

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  2. Maybe a future manager there in clarke , least he has the balls to ply and learn his trade in a lower league unlike some bbc pundit who I wont name , but lets just call him A Shearer….no thats too obvious lets call him Alan S , yes that will do nicely 😆

    Re the £17 million debt , prob what we owe to bank / transfer fees but not the £100 million plus we owe Mike ‘ Im a saint in france ‘ Ashley

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  3. Graham knows his stuff like. In his interview a few weeks back I remember him saying we’ve been portrayed very well in France with regards to Ben Arfa’s injury and now Benny#s agent himself has said the same!

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  4. In fact there you go Bobby. Kids shirt sorted! Take the ‘oll’ off the end and have it as a Graham Carr shirt 😆

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  5. Alan Shearer as a player was a toon legend, and will always remain one. Unfortunately he has one serious black spot on his illustrious CV… 🙁 🙁

    Clarky seems to be able to do nowt wrong in the eyes of the toon masses, even having played for the great unwashed…. probably down to the classic tee shirt episode ! 😆

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  6. toonsy, Carr’s probably the most important man at the club.. for the summer at least 😆

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  7. Me and my lad met clarkey at the ytfc match! True gent and also let my lad have his pic taken with him!

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  8. I think he will. If everyone we sign is success clubs won’t be after them, they’ll be after Carr 😯

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  9. Dan – True. Luckily he is getting on and is working at the club he supports etc etc

    Mind you, where have we heard that before? 😯

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  10. toonsy, I think the age thing will probably have more of an impact than him supporting us 😆

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  11. Good thing with Carr, if other clubs want him, is that he supports us.

    Forget Nolan Carr should be the next one to get a new deal 🙂

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  12. I think the club should take me on as a scout.

    I’d recommend Messi, Kaka, C Ronaldo…..

    Think I’d be any good? 😆

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  13. You know I’ve had a busy day when I’m asking how long Graham Carr’s contract is 😆

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  14. TOONSY jobs yours mate,now then the easy part,you have a whole 20mil to sign them up,you will have to genarate the cash yourself like,as 35mill is for running the club 😀

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  15. Big D…let’s get the fookin footy back started again and get those points in the bag…pdq mate.. 😉 😉

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  16. ice…pity for the lad, no-one likes to see players getting serious injuries… it could have a serious impact on Wolves chances of staying up…we’ll take all the help we can get, 3 points on Satda will do nicely..

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  17. International is cack, only good footy is club football imo….

    kin el Miro Klose is 8 goals away from Gerd Müllers Jaarmany record of 68 goals in 62 appearances…immense by der Bomber by the way…..

    Funny comment on TV yesterday….”aye…but Gerd Müller scored his goals against proper teams like England, France, Russia and Holland etc…not San Marino, Luxembourg, Kazakstan” ….good point really…

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  18. “Financially we are still in a mess and we still need Ashley’s money. It will take a while to sort out, a long wile in fact, but once it is sorted it will only benefit the club. It’s pretty gloomy to be honest so I won’t go on too much about it.”

    Why are we in a mess, toonsy?

    As things stand today we have £30m in the bank, we’re breaking even every month (at least) and our wage bill is going to be about 50% of turnover, which will be one of the lowest wages to turnover ratios in the league.

    Providing we stay up we’ll have another lump of Sky money and we won’t need a penny of Ashley’s money.

    We will have debt, every company in the world has debt, it just so happens that our debt is owed to the holding company not a bank – which puts us in a better position than most.

    Personally I don’t see it as a ‘real’ debt as Ashley will turn it into equity when he sells the club.

    We’re not in bad shape today – of course that will all change if we go back down.

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  19. Stuart – I was more thinking of the whole amount, as in owing Ashley as well. Ideally that’s not the way to go as we still depend on him not calling it back in or whatever.

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  20. The same as every business depends on their bank not calling in their loan.

    There’s more chance of a bank doing that than Ashley. He’ll only get it back when he sells, and he knows that imo.

    Personally I would say we’re probably one of the healthiest clubs in the PL financially.

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  21. True.

    I’m just not overly comfortable with it and would like us to owe nothing to anyone, whether that be a bank or an individual. For Ashley to not call in the loan would mean he would be making a good decision, and he doesn’t have a history of that does he?

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  22. I think we can all agree he’s a moran, but he’s not stupid when it comes to money. If he called the loan in it would bankrupt the club and he would lose everything. He couldn’t even sell the ground as it’s owned by the freeman of the city.

    We’re in a pretty strong position – he’s not stupid and he’s pottering along without spending anymore of his own money. He knows he’ll get most of it back when he sells. This summer I believe that will happen too.

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  23. And if he doesn’t sell? Or of there isn’t a buyer?

    Remeber, whilst we owe him that money he could easily start charging interest on it. It’s there in black and white that he can charge above LIBOR interest rates on it at any given time.

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  24. Ice – Nah mate. They take ages to get back to people so I won’t hear owt for a few weeks yet.

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