2 million cash pumped into the business in return for shares. Reported at companies house.

Edited December 6, 20214 yr by Mounts Kipper

14 hours ago, TrickyTrotter said:

Interesting article by Matt Slater.

This is a non paywall link

https://archive.ph/JzgF3

The Trump pardon stinks enough, but I find this bit most concerning: "In May, the 69-year-old invested €100million ($114m; £85m) in newly-promoted Serie A side Venezia, with his daughter Francesca Bodie becoming the club’s president."

Really hope Sharon knows what she's doing getting this blatantly dodgy lot involved.

And nobody is counting the savings when these graduates play for the first team. It’s not just about transfer fees.

29 minutes ago, jmjhb said:

Clough was 3M, Holding 2.5M. Luca Connell was another we sold for next to nowt too. A more recent one is Regan Riley to Norwich for 250K - he's now playing for Bury.

Think it's a strategic investment and helps the club engage with the local community further. Can you put a price on that?

Yes, easily...

Bolton Wanderers chairman reveals £60m investment in club | The Bolton News

45 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

Conway seems to be the only player out of his year to have made it into our first team for some years - yes?

For him and the rest of his year he's been here for how many years (say 3?)

Conway from what I gather as been here since he was around 8 when we were going to wall he had the opportunity to sign for city decided to stick it out and it’s paid off .

Like SS said after the Everton game

‘It's a challenge because financially it’s where we're at. That's why things are not moving as quickly as we would have liked - we're just not in the market to compete with other clubs in this league at this moment”.

We don’t have the finance to compete in the championship hopefully a few from yesterday can step up over the next couple of seasons

Edited Sunday at 11:555 days by Farnywhite

3 minutes ago, Rival Son said:

And nobody is counting the savings when these graduates play for the first team. It’s not just about transfer fees.

Which graduates play for the first team other than Conway, since Clough and Vela from 7 or 8 years ago?

The kids are given 'experience' of being in a first team environment in the Mickey Mouse cups and maybe some minutes on the pitch but that's just part of their learning, they aren't being selected on merit or even on the bench in games that really matter such as normal league fixtures.

7 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

Yes, easily...

Bolton Wanderers chairman reveals £60m investment in club | The Bolton News

You said the other week the Academy made a 611k profit in 24/25? Seems to me it is financially viable then.

Apologies, that was turnover. It has been increasing year-on-year since 2021 though.

Edited Sunday at 12:415 days by jmjhb

14 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

Which graduates play for the first team other than Conway, since Clough and Vela from 7 or 8 years ago?

The kids are given 'experience' of being in a first team environment in the Mickey Mouse cups and maybe some minutes on the pitch but that's just part of their learning, they aren't being selected on merit or even on the bench in games that really matter such as normal league fixtures.

People are saying, for example, Clough generated £3 million. Not just that, he was also a valuable player for a couple of seasons, which saved us bringing other players in.

3 minutes ago, Farnywhite said:

Conway from what I gather as been here since he was around 8 when we were going to wall he had the opportunity to sign for city decided to stick it out and it’s paid off .

Like SS said after the Everton game

It's a challenge because financially it’s where we're at. That's why things are not moving as quickly as we would have liked - we're just not in the market to compete with other clubs in this league at this moment.

We don’t have the finance to compete in the championship hopefully a few from yesterday can step up over the next couple of seasons

It has paid of for Conway, and I'm pleased for him.

In Conway's case it has paid off for Bolton, certainly.

In financial terms, if Conway has been the only success of a player coming through and making it into the first team in the last 13 or 14 years (Clough Vela aside), then it would have been very much cheaper not to fund Cat 2 or whatever it has been over the years and buy a Conway equivalent from some other clubs academy for 'training fees' of £25k or whatever they cost.

Would it not?

Hopefully all the kids from yesterday will step up to the first team eventually but we know from the last 20 years of experience that probably none of them will.

Here is a saying that seems to fit what I'm trying to say...

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Is that not what we've been doing - and still continuing to do - if so is it really working because I can't seem to see the results that prove that it is?

At the end of the day it isn't my money so they can do whatever they want, I just don't see the ends (first team footballers) justifying the means (the cost of how we are trying to producing them).

But as I say maybe I'm missing something?

1 hour ago, Sluffy said:

@Zico Thank you, I guess.

After all...

"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" means that when someone copies your actions, style, or work, it shows they admire and respect you. People naturally copy what they find successful or valuable rather than things they dislike

did you read it all this time?

20 minutes ago, Rival Son said:

People are saying, for example, Clough generated £3 million. Not just that, he was also a valuable player for a couple of seasons, which saved us bringing other players in.

Ok, in his case he justified the cost of bringing him through (and that cost also covered the investment the club put in for all the other kids who didn't make it for the 3 years or so Clough was developing and becoming a first team regular).

So the club broke even - maybe even turned a profit on those 3 or 4 years - but what about the other 16 or 17 other years (over the last 20 years) where we made loss of millions on failing to produce kids to play regularly for us and/or sell on?

It's worth doing for the (small) chance you unearth and develop a player like Wharton at Blackburn. Relatively small losses, comparatively, to elsewhere in the business. We'll spend more on that this season on a bad signing.

1 minute ago, Zico said:

did you read it all this time?

I read everything that people kindly reply to me, including every insult.

It doesn't mean it remains in my head forever though.

I'm sorry if you pointed out something that I later went on to forget about.

I didn't do it on purpose you know.

Have you never forgotten anything?

1 hour ago, Cheese said:

The Trump pardon stinks enough, but I find this bit most concerning: "In May, the 69-year-old invested €100million ($114m; £85m) in newly-promoted Serie A side Venezia, with his daughter Francesca Bodie becoming the club’s president."

Really hope Sharon knows what she's doing getting this blatantly dodgy lot involved.

Yeah, I'm not convinced it's good news

The annoying thing, and this is in hindsight, is releasing players in the Academy, only to re-sign him a few years later and then have to pay a transfer fee and a further sell-on fee to the club that gave them a chance!

27 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

But as I say maybe I'm missing something?

Well there must be something or clubs wouldn’t invest in it and think it worth while you have Brentford model which we tried also just having a B team that was a flop and around 5 others lower done that don’t bother with a official academy out of the 92

Edited Sunday at 13:055 days by Farnywhite

50 minutes ago, jmjhb said:

You said the other week the Academy made a 611k profit in 24/25? Seems to me it is financially viable then.

No I said the Academy contributed £611k in revenue

Revenue simply means income.

IF it cost the Academy say £1m to run and only received £611k in income then it would have made a loss of £389k for that year.

At the end of the day if the owners are happy to fund whatever losses they choose to do, then that's up to them.

I'm no expert in these matters but as I understand it Brentford decided to do things differently and it worked for them.

I'm merely musing if doing something different would work for us, as what we've done over the last 20 years doesn't seem to have been a success to me?

Has it to you?

3 minutes ago, Farnywhite said:

Well there must be something or clubs wouldn’t invest in it and think it worth while you have Brentford model which we tried also just having a B team that was a flop and around 5 others lower done that don’t bother with a official academy

I understood (maybe I'm wrong?) that what Brentford saved on scrapping what they had they instead reinvested it in foreign youths signings - which the sold on for huge mark-ups.

Seems to me Brighton and Bournemouth have both gone along the same route.

We (and presumably the 5 other clubs) just did so simply to slash costs and did not invest in foreign youngsters.

A big difference I would suggest to what Brentford did.

I would suggest we didn't try to emulate the Brentford model at all.

A criticism I always had of Gartside is that we sold players far too cheaply. Anelka maybe the exception.

1 hour ago, Cheese said:

The Trump pardon stinks enough, but I find this bit most concerning: "In May, the 69-year-old invested €100million ($114m; £85m) in newly-promoted Serie A side Venezia, with his daughter Francesca Bodie becoming the club’s president."

Really hope Sharon knows what she's doing getting this blatantly dodgy lot involved.

plus our 'board observer' is basically some kid who works for him who'll attend board meetings and report back to the boss. Not sure I'd enjoy that if I was Sharon or the other directors.

All seems a bit odd at this point - and very 'off-brand' for Sharon - but I'm sure we'll find out more in due course.

21 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

No I said the Academy contributed £611k in revenue

Revenue simply means income.

IF it cost the Academy say £1m to run and only received £611k in income then it would have made a loss of £389k for that year.

For some reason I thought it was profit. With the upgrade to Cat 2 you would assume income would go up, of course we won't know for sure until March 2028.

10 minutes ago, jmjhb said:

For some reason I thought it was profit. With the upgrade to Cat 2 you would assume income would go up, of course we won't know for sure until March 2028.

It's ok, easy thing to think to do if you are not that familiar with terms such as turnover and revenue.

The accounts don't give a breakdown of the Academy's costs so it could be that it actually does run at a profit but as they are receiving grants towards their costs then I think it would be highly unlikely.

As I've said several times now, it's not my money, so the owners can spend it on what they like.

As an afterthought about talking of the Brentford model, I wonder if that is what several of the German clubs do as you often see some of the best young British academy talent moving to there as the young players can't immediately break into their own clubs first team?

23 minutes ago, wakey said:

plus our 'board observer' is basically some kid who works for him who'll attend board meetings and report back to the boss. Not sure I'd enjoy that if I was Sharon or the other directors.

All seems a bit odd at this point - and very 'off-brand' for Sharon - but I'm sure we'll find out more in due course.

Some assumptions there.

I'm far more comfortable in that I trust Sharon/fv to ensure that they have taken all necessary soundings and done their research.

They wouldn't have allowed anyone to threaten their work and success, by nature of observers or whatever.

1 minute ago, Sluffy said:

It's ok, easy thing to think to do if you are not that familiar with terms such as turnover and revenue.

I just misremembered.

Missed the Brentford chat but they reopened their Academy in 2023 and it went from Cat 4 to Cat 1 in 3 years.

Don't really see the point of having both at our level, perhaps that's why we're knocking the idea on the head.

31 minutes ago, wakey said:

plus our 'board observer' is basically some kid who works for him who'll attend board meetings and report back to the boss. Not sure I'd enjoy that if I was Sharon or the other directors.

All seems a bit odd at this point - and very 'off-brand' for Sharon - but I'm sure we'll find out more in due course.

At least give the kid some credit:

In his prior role as VP of Business Development at Oak View Group, McDonald managed and drove projects including multiple Silver Lake Partners equity investments, in addition to working on the equity and debt capital raise for numerous venues including Climate Pledge Arena, UBS Arena, Moody Center, Co-op Live, Acrisure Arena, CFG Bank Arena, and more.

On the mergers & acquisition side, McDonald was responsible for global transaction sourcing, management, and execution for deals with Spectra, Spectrum, Bovingdons, Rhubarb Hospitality Collection and Invited’s Stadium Club business.

McDonald joined Oak View Group in 2017 from Goldman Sachs’ Sports Investment Banking Group, where OVG was one of his clients. At Goldman Sachs, Keegan covered clients in the NBA, NFL, MLS, and EPL, among other sports-focused private equity firms.

16 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

As an afterthought about talking of the Brentford model, I wonder if that is what several of the German clubs do as you often see some of the best young British academy talent moving to there as the young players can't immediately break into their own clubs first team?

They go in the opposite direction and have a mandatory rule that all clubs in the top two leagues have an academy

I was at one stage quite sympathetic to the idea of scrapping the academy in favour of a B team but the B team hasn't borne any fruit here and I think it's less likely to succeed as a model because clubs have cottoned on that any player they think might make a career professionally are worth keeping on to later be sold for a fee

There's also the fact that Brexit has made it more difficult to sign young players from from Europe, which has a big impact