Its surely hardly news that ML is investing huge amounts of money in the club. As a result loans (presumably to him) have increased substantially on top of a capital contribution of £5m. Frankly none of that matters to the future.
As ever the biggest risk to the future of the club is not money spent in the past (whether accounted for as capital or loans) but spend that the club is committed to in the future after ML stopped funding. That spend could relate to player contracts and cost of terminating other employment contracts plus any committed expenditure to third parties. Note 13 which suggests that operating commitments (committed future spend) has increased to £4.5m from £1.8m is perhaps therefore the most concerning figure. Of course these accounts showed the picture nine months ago so who knows what the figure is now.
Bottom line would appear to be we are dependent on either 1) ML winding down his commitment when the time comes (hopefully not for many years) in an orderly way funding the spending commitments while not committing to more or 2) the club having grown significantly such that it can self -fund (feels unlikely) or 3) a new guy can be found willingly to invest significant sums to pay those future liabilities. 2) and 3) feel quite unlikely.
Are we just spending like crazy now so that we have a settled squad ahead of a transfer embargo gets given to us by the EFL?
hope so
Given the uneven results of recent purchases, the worry might might be who we spend like crazy on before the mighty EFL wake up.
Let’s say ML walks away after getting bored, writes off his loans but can’t find a purchaser to take on the running costs. What happens then?
Presumably he would be able to hive off the academy into a separate asset and keep hold of that, renaming it in the process, and maintain its Harlington base. Sad to see it go but no great loss.
The Trust would then, I’m assuming, look to take hold of the playing club but won’t be able to fund the wages of the current playing staff and most of the backroom team. Presumably it would need to make redundant those it could but would still probably have to file for immediate bankruptcy rather than keep the playing team in place until contracts ran out. Unless there’s insurance in place to cover footballers’ wages in this scenario?
What would we be left with then? A phoenix club playing in the ninth tier but still using Adams Park? Access to a training ground until Beeks and co found a tenant who could afford to take over (unlikely really). And, ummm, a golf club?
Aye. It’s the Champions League or the Hellenic League.
It really depends on what happens with the company formed in May 2004 (WWFC Limited). I think your hypothesis rests on liquidation and the formation of a new company.
I think @aloysius is contemplating the continuation of the same company under a new owner. Given the need for it to shrink considerably, the WWFC Trust are likely to be the only owner willing to take on such an unenviable task. In fact, is it an impossible task, given huge financial disparity, and that spending an estimated 6-18 months trying to avoid what would be an inevitable liquidation.
Following on from @aloysius’s post, does anyone know if WWFC Academy is a separate company from WWFC Limited?
What happened at Bury? That’s the situation i’m imagining.
As noted above, the problem only occurs if ML chooses to walk away, chooses not to fund the transition and required reduction in expenditure (if the club is not by then self-funding) and if nobody can be found to take on the future liability. There is no guarantee that will be the case.
Its hard to see how an academy of the nature currently being envisaged could thrive financially and in terms of player recruitment if not linked to a credible club.
Most football club insolvencies are unique. In Bury F.C.'s case, they were bought by Steve Dale, who was essentially an insolvency “specialist”. His business model was buying distressed companies, stripping them of any saleable assets, and leaving them bankrupt. This is essentially what he did with Bury F.C. Steve Dale was declared bankrupt himself in July 2022.
There may be a thread started for this but speaking of spending on infrastructure, there’s a story doing the rounds of planning application for this…is it one of them hoaxes?!
I don’t think it matters what his net worth is, because it looks like he’s not bankrolling it. The club have borrowed £20 million. That’s on WWFC not ML. If he buggers off the debt stays with the club.
ML would never get his money back (or very little) because the club would not be able to repay the loan so would go out of business.
Dejphon Chansiri loaned Sheffield Wednesday £60m whilst owner of the club. He tried to sell the club but could not find a buyer, so put it into administration as he could not / did not want to fund it any more.
Any prospective purchaser has to satisfy the EFL rules on repayment of football creditors, of which Chansiri is one. The current preferred bidder’s proposal involves paying those creditors 25p of every £1 owed, with the exception of Chansiri.
Understandably they don’t want to pay Chansiri £15m and should the proposal be accepted, Sheffield Wednesday will receive another points deduction (15) for the start of next season.
If Mikhail Lomtadze wants to sell WWFC and can’t find a buyer, administration is the obvious next step and any buyer would need to satisfy the same EFL rules re: football creditors, which would include Lomtadze’s loans.
If this were to happen, it’s extremely unlikely WWFC Trust would be in any position to take over, and liquidation would be almost inevitable. Also worth mentioning the administrator costs at SWFC are an estimated £4m, which will be paid by any potential purchaser.
Therefore any succession planning the WWFC Trust are making would more likely involve starting again from scratch as a phoenix club.
I have to say I love the concept here, mostly. But there’s no way this would be practical on the site. 
That and when you look closely it’s missing things like big acreens/scoreboards etc. And quite frankly it’s a bit dull. And you’d rebuild the main stand earlier on I’d expect. And also have no boxes at the end.
Sorry I am going on. 
Pretty sure that’s not accurate.
The EFL rules stipulate that football creditors must be paid in full if the club is to continue to play in the league. I’m pretty sure shareholder loans do NOT count as football loans.
For any company, including football clubs, there are preferential creditors including HMRC who must be paid in full before unsecured creditors get anything.
There is a separate rule in the EFL that unsecured creditors (like director loans) must get 25p in the pound paid immediately. The penalty if that is not complied with is a 15pt deduction - not good but not end of world.
The previous owner can make it almost impossible for the administration process to run successfully but really he has no incentive to do so.
Again it cannot be said often enough. It is not historic debt that kills football clubs, it is lack of cash to pay future costs committed to by the previous owner.
And a way to get inside
Evening games are going to be a struggle without night-vision goggles.
I doubt the three ‘B’s’ Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford, who all appear to be well run clubs, would be where they are without some initial outlay to ensure progression became possible. Large debt is always a concern but not always bad. Lomtadze did say that he wanted Wycombe to get to a point of being self- sustainable. Hopefully investment in the academy, younger players acquired with the potential to sell on for more etc. will ultimately lead to this.
usually I’d be worried about financial accounts like this. But it seems like the big outlay was on the golf course which is now an asset. So not as bad reading as I thought. It would seem like we spent less on Fink, Van Sas and Allen than feared too.