Last Wednesday we briefly covered the Soccerex Football Finance 100 report with Aston Villa figuring in their overall table.
The previous piece can be viewed by Clicking Here.
Villa came in at 91st place in their table of 100 clubs from around the planet and the figures listed for the club certainly sparked a few comments and questions.
The first thing to note is that the figures used by the report refer back to the season of 2015/16 and obviously Aston Villa have undergone a number of changes since that time.
Not only did our Premier League ever present status come to a crushing end with relegation into the Championship, we have also changed owners from Randy Lerner to Dr Tony Xia.
Unlike some other reports, Soccerex attempt to factor in debt levels, owners potential for further investment and a few other markers, but of course there is a degree of interpretation to be factored in as although Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich is said to have a wealth of 9billion Euros, he obviously won’t be investing all of that into Chelsea.
The report explains that it bases its analysis on club balance sheets and annual reports, but also sources such as UEFA, Financial Times, Yahoo Finance and transfermarkt for example.
Even allowing for their methodology, that does mean there are inconsistencies and certain curiousities in the final figures produced.
It was those curiosities that stood out for some and here were the numbers attributable to Villa.
Players Value – 107
Fixed Assets – 13
Cash in Bank – 0
Owner Potential Investment – 39
Net Debt – 187
In the general piece, those curiosities attracted attention Click Here.
For Mr Gut Prat & Ugly Cash in Bank and Net Debt, led him to ask.
‘How the hell do we recover that situation? Should we consider the ‘A’ word?* (administration – or is that like swearing in church?).’
Some idiot called Mr Field responded.
‘It’s not a true situation based on the metrics they used Mr Prat. Zero cash in bank for example is clearly wrong for us, and whilst they picked out Chelsea’s debt to clarify it’s debt to owner, ours would also be the same. It’s also based on figures/estimations for 2015/16, so in our case it doesn’t factor in Xia and it doesn’t reflect the financial accountancy bumblings we went through to make the club more attractive for a buyer.’
The figure that took my attention was the fact that our fixed assets were only rated at 13, in light of the fact that Bournemouth were rated as 12 but also because Burnley were rated at 19.
‘I’d also be interested to know why we barely have better fixed assets to Bournemouth looking at VP and Bodymoor compared to Dean Court…Burnley being way ahead of us on that front is also a confusion as they are currently building their new training ground (this season). So there’s an awful lot that doesn’t appear to make sense to me.’
That had also attracted the curiosity of Mr JuanPabloAngel.
‘Yes I was wondering how Villa Park/Bodymoor was somehow worth the same (or less maybe) the Dean Court. Very weird. Interesting piece in the Brum Mail about our wage bill for 2016 being 85% of turnover and higher than Inter, Atletico and Dortmund!! How is that even possible?!!’
Obviously with relegation and our new owners investment to fund a speedier return to the top flight, on the issue of wage ratio to turnover, I wouldn’t imagine there has been much progress on that front, but next year’s edition of the report covering Xia’s first year in charge might be interesting on how those numbers change and whether we push slightly up the table and ultimately for fans, that is the main takeaway from these types of studies.
How does the outside world perceive your club to be performing year on year, are you on the up or on the slide.
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