Sorry but that's rubbish - you can learn a lot from the financial statements which are all lodged and freely available from Companies House, especially if the company is outside the small company disclosure regime. Accountants can't massage the figures that much - if a club is losing money year after year like Wigan tend to do that can't be massaged into recurring profits without it being obvious (e.g. Lenagan writing off loans). Likewise at Leeds the underlying position is that the company is profitable. You can get odd things going on but it's really pretty easy to spot them if you know how to read a set of accounts, moreso if you look at the same company or the same industry over and over.

The problem at Wigan almost certainly starts with them not owning their own stadium - they don't have the scope to generate all the non-gameday revenue that rival big clubs like Warrington, Saints and Leeds do which subsidise the football operation. Obviously those clubs also have the cost both capital and maintenance of creating the stadia but all things considered owning is much better than renting.

Obviously not.

Between 2009-15 we were profitable 5 out of 6 years. Owning a stadium has absolutely nothing to do with it. Investment on and off-field has everything to do with it.

Saints own their ground and had slightly higher turnover than us but lost £700k.

Except it would be obvious because you would disclose it as an extraordinary item. At least a decent accountant would anyway. So wigans problem is that that they don't own their own their stadium? Tell me then Mr Grant price Waterhouse, How come saints own their own and are in the same predicament?

Regards

King James

Saints losses are driven by depreciation of around £500k a year on a stadium they own - at an operational level they just around break even.
Wigan own hardly any assets so their depreciation is almost zero and their losses are entirely operational - or, if you swallow the Wigan PR blurb, "due to investments on and off field" (but which go straight to the P&L apparently).

Ive always wondered why no footballers have been interested in buying a rugby club. Likes of Wayne Rooney has been vocal as a fan of the sport. The outgoings wouldn't even register on his balance sheet. Might have a bit more free time on the future too..

So Mr KPMG/Deloitte/EY/PWC/BDO/GT/RSM on the basis of what criteria under FRS 102 would that be an extraordinary item ? "decent" accountants know accounting standards and their application.

Superleague's problem is its lack of sponsorship and the stupid decision to tie in to a long-TV deal when things have heated up in the TV rights market.

There are far less big brand names sponsoring the clubs than a decade ago, my own club is now sponsored by a local Scaffolding firm, whereas for a good decade or so we had the internationally known P&O. Same can be seen at other clubs, and it has taken a few years for the league itself to recover from the free Stobart sponsorship debacle.

On the TV rights front just as other sports are making SKY & BT have a bidding war, Union have manged to get a Channel5 to outbid ITV for their highlights show, and Facebook & Amazon moving in on the streaming market...the RFL just signed us up to SKY for years, and we can't even get the BBC to show the Super League show nationally at a time anyone wants to watch.

SKY are seeing their slowest growth in years and scared by the growth of streaming (hence the changes to the Sports packages) and even a slight hint of a solid ratings banker like RL going elsewhere would drum up a few more £.

As for Wigan specifically, obviously I am on the other side of the Pennines, but its noticeable their crowds are well down. To be fair to their Chairman he at least tries new ideas to grow his club and the game, such as going to Australia in partnership with Hull, playing a game in London a couple of years ago and promoting a 'big' fixture each year.

One issue I am hearing from fans of all clubs is the poor refereeing standards and the amount of time spent with ball out of play for video ref decisions, injuries (many of which are being faked by the players to get a breather) and 'talking to the captains' night games now gone on way past 10pm for all this nonsense. RL's selling point before was that the ball was in play far more than other sports.

And you could write a dissertation on the RFL's marketing, so i'll keep things brief! a few social media ads last minute to an audience that already follows RL and its social media pages isn't up to the job. Boxing and RU manage to turn any old event in to a 'must see'

another massive loss this afternoon

Quote: Tigerade "Giants 1.05 million Salford 1.35 million'" Maybe you should d read this dated 21Sept 2017 before banding figures about Paragraph five might help. https://www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leag ... ate/107795

Quote: Tigerade "Giants 1.05 million Salford 1.35 million'" Maybe you should d read this dated 21Sept 2017 before banding figures about Paragraph five might help. https://www.sportinglife.com/rugby-leag ... ate/107795

Is it really, you believe whatever you want old lad

What? He was talking about Lenegahn writing off loans that I correctly stated would be disclosed as an extraordinary item so bore off you whopper. If you think a material related party write off shouldn't be disclosed in the accounts you need to go and resit your btec bookkeeping course

Regards

King James

I don't think I ever suggested they wouldn't be clearly evident to the user of the accounts? That's the whole point - whatever these owners or clubs do, ultimately any accounting treatment usually gives us a view of what's going on.

The idea that they anything nowadays would be "extraordinary" though.... if we're being picky about accounting standards extraordinary items don't in reality exist any more.

I simply said it wasn't an extraordinary item. you're very touchy.

I'm a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered accountants in England and Wales by the way old bean. So toddle along with your amateur accountancy.

My point exactly.

Not a good analogy, in my opinion. Our losses were so high because we had a terrible squad. We turned ourselves from super e to league winners. The investment was worth it as we now have our noses firmly in the CL trough, bring in high commercial revenues and football is yet to fully exploit its market. For the record, we are now profitable.