Official Club Stuff From The President - Club officially debt free 1st Feb 2021!!

[FitzroyBlueBagger]

How bloody good is that, the club off field on the financial side of things seems to be flying...
Healthy membership numbers which are still growing no doubt playing a big part in financial stability...

 

[FitzroyBlueBagger]

Yeah, sounds like it was originally at $6M then by September we'd knocked a couple off that to bring it down to $4M, before taking an additional $1M off in the past quarter leaving us with $3M debt. The Club is aiming to pay off that last $3M over the next 2 years.

Might only take another season if everything goes well....

 

[Arr0w]

Supporters were aware of what this rebuild could finally do on and off field.

Keep the list strong, rise and sustained success.

The rest takes care of itself

 

[I bleed Blue]

Nobody:
Carlton: "look at me. I'm flying. I'm ******* flying"

 

[ferrisb]

Supporters were aware of what this rebuild could finally do on and off field.

Keep the list strong, rise and sustained success.

The rest takes care of itself

I'm not sure the rest ever takes care of itself.

Just because the environment is ripe for success/improvement, doesn't mean it just happens.

Good management means being proactive and harnessing the tailwinds to your advantage.

 

[Arr0w]

I'm not sure the rest ever takes care of itself.

Just because the environment is ripe for success/improvement, doesn't meant it just happens.

Good management means being proactive and harnessing the tailwinds to your advantage.

No doubt, but you don't need a Marketing Degree to cash in, just sound business acumen

 

[ferrisb]

Nobody:
Carlton: "look at me. I'm flying. I'm ******* flying"
View attachment 812857

M Log: There's plenty of cash here. Here... there's plenty of cash, alright? Cash? Plenty. Liddle?
Liddle: Plenty of cash

 

[zeggie]

Imagine how good our off field performance will be once we get back to finals!

As a side question, does anyone have a link to ALL clubs financial and debt status? Without having to go to each individual club report and collate?

 

[Jeremias]

Imagine how good our off field performance will be once we get back to finals!

As a side question, does anyone have a link to ALL clubs financial and debt status? Without having to go to each individual club report and collate?

The_Wookie

 

[Tjblues]

The fact that we’ve raised our football spending by such a large margin whilst still managing to knock that much off the debt is superb.
Also nice to see that our staff engagement results are the highest they’ve ever been and in the top ¼ of the AFL. Credit to all involved

 

[Aphrodite]

Carlton announces further debt reduction

Carlton has reduced its historical debt by a further $1 million.

www.carltonfc.com.au

 

[cookie monster]

It's an amazing result by the club.

Cain Liddle is doing a phenomenal job right now. The way he is running this administration needs to be seen to be admired. He is empowering all his line managers and celebrating their successes as a group. It doesn't surprise me to hear we have our employee engagement at it's highest ever levels; it's not a coincidence.

The Silvagni situation, whilst perhaps not handled well, will end up being a watershed moment for the club where we finally conceded to preserve governance and professionalism over relationships.

The more MLG stays quiet, and let's CL do his thing, the better.

I'm a big fan of where we are at, and where we are heading

 

[Doro]

Imagine how good our off field performance will be once we get back to finals!

As a side question, does anyone have a link to ALL clubs financial and debt status? Without having to go to each individual club report and collate?

From the Footy Industry sub board:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2019-financial-results.1230100/

 

[zeggie]

From the Footy Industry sub board:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/2019-financial-results.1230100/

Legend. Thank you very much. Never noticed that subforum.

 

[slashin_velvet]

Does anyone notice that MLG always refers to our debt as our "historical debt". Makes me nervous that he's hiding something...

 

[thylacine60]

look out the window, heaps of genuine stuff to be nervous about, slasher.........

 

[footyfan1978]

Nobody:
Carlton: "look at me. I'm flying. I'm ******* flying"
View attachment 812857

He's a nutter Carlton supporter himself.

 

[ferrisb]

Does anyone notice that MLG always refers to our debt as our "historical debt". Makes me nervous that he's hiding something...

I think it's just 'this was here when I got here'....

 

[drunkill]

Does anyone notice that MLG always refers to our debt as our "historical debt". Makes me nervous that he's hiding something...

It is the debt from the legends stand and the admin building, afaik.

So it is historical.

There is debt every year, it normally gets paid off within a few years, this is long standing debt. And given the AFL built docklands and games stopped being played at Princes Park the legends stand was a huge debt for us, no chance to pay it off or actually get use out of it once games stopped.

 

[slashin_velvet]

It is the debt from the legends stand and the admin building, afaik.

So it is historical.

There is debt every year, it normally gets paid off within a few years, this is long standing debt. And given the AFL built docklands and games stopped being played at Princes Park the legends stand was a huge debt for us, no chance to pay it off or actually get use out of it once games stopped.

Appreciate the context, and that's my read of it too. Just don't like the inference that we will be debt free by 2022, when that's unlikely the case. Debt is not bad business by default

 

[ferrisb]

Appreciate the context, and that's my read of it too. Just don't like the inference that we will be debt free by 2022, when that's unlikely the case. Debt is not bad business by default

I would argue a football club is not run anything like a business and therefore pretty much all debt is bad.

Full explanation to follow

 

[slashin_velvet]

I would argue a football club is not run anything like a business and therefore pretty much all debt is bad.

Full explanation to follow

Nah. If you take on debt to grow membership you are improving the long term opportunities of the club.

The reality of modern football is that it IS a business.

 

[ferrisb]

Nah. If you take on debt to grow membership you are improving the long term opportunities of the club.

The reality of modern football is that it IS a business.

Sorry slash, but I disagree.

I suspect my response might get long and boring. Warning to the board, you may want to look away now.

People say that football clubs are run like businesses, but they aren't really. They are more like a not-for-profit.

Simplified, a company's main aim is to accumulate long-term wealth/value. Let's say a company makes a $2M profit. It might pay out half to the owners and use the rest to reinvest in the business. And then the enlarged business makes bigger profits which in turn leads to an even bigger business. And so on. External capital helps to speed this process up. And generally debt is cheaper than equity (investors' funds), so debt can be very good (as long as you don't have too much).

A football club wants to make money too. But its primary aim (or at least equal priority) is on-field success. The finances are somewhat of a means to an end. If a football club that makes a $2M profit is likely to spend that over the next few years. Note, I said spend, not invest. They might hire another coach, extra high performance, office staff, training camps etc. These are things that improve the business, but they are not capital. Like a charity that has a good year, they will likely increase their programs. Maybe they hire another staff member. But they probably aren't buying a building / factory / investment. Unless they have a massive endowment, but that's another story.

Spending money to increase memberships is fine. But it's likely a one-off. That spend is unlikely to drive memberships the year after. Obviously more memberships means more money to spend on football dept, which should deliver better on-field results, which should lead to more memberships. That's the theory, but I wouldn't be using debt to finance that.

Technically Carlton could invest its profits (or fresh capital) in buying property or businesses or other assets. But this isn't really what it exists for. And branching out to these kinds of ventures (outside core competencies) is generally a recipe for disaster. Think of it like a surgeon who earns sevens figures, investing in a café or a gym. Purely because they have more money than they need. Often that doesn't end well. This is not the same as a company building an extra factory, opening another store.

Unless Carlton is using the debt to acquire some kind of investment that will provide an ongoing income source, the debt is unlikely to achieve much other than create an interest-bearing liability that will just reduce available income in years to come. Plus, Carlton doesn't pay tax. So we don't even get the benefit of tax-deductibility.

TL,DR: Carlton doesn't operate like a true business. Unless we have a specific capital project to create an income stream, there isn't much point accumulating debt. And paying down the debt we do have makes a lot of sense.

 

[thylacine60]

sounds like s**t.........

 

[TD2010]

Smart thinking I reckon. It's like school fees...very indirect investment and you're glad when it's over.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk