Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
By Tom Bason
December 7 2012
On Wednesday night, I attended my first Fans' Parliament meeting. Apologies for to giving you the opportunity to put forward questions - this happened for two reasons:
1. I was away with work last week, hence the lack of a report on the Millwall game (gutted I missed that one...)
2. I kind of just wanted to go to this one and see what it's all about, before I waded in, throwing my weight around
Now, there are two reasonably important things that I need to make clear. Firstly, we are requested not to disclose any information about the meeting until the minutes are published on the website. Some of you may have seen that I 'live tweeted' the Stale Solbakken forum a few weeks ago - this won’t be happening during Fans' Parliament meetings. Secondly, there's not a lot I can tell you about the meeting that isn't documented by David Instone in the Minutes. I had intended to write up my own reports of the meetings, but I can't see any use for this.
So what is the point of me going? Well, from now on, you will be able to contact me and I will email the club and make suggestions for the agenda. Please note that I cannot guarantee that they will be discussed - if they are put on the agenda, they will be. If not, there may be time for me to raise the point during the meeting, but this isn't for certain. Wednesday's meeting was nearly three hours long and this was barely enough time to cover every agenda item.
So, I suggest that going forward, when I hear the date of the next meeting (as far as I know, the next one will be February time), I will open a thread announcing this, and you will be able to suggest questions for me to put forward. But, please remember that the generic questions are going to get asked anyway. At every Parliament I would have thought there will be questioned about money available for transfers, recent form of the team and ticket prices so try and conceive questions that are a bit different.
Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Wolves (IP Logged)
Date: 07/12/2012 10:23
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013:01:24:21:25:23 by toomb.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013:01:24:21:25:23 by toomb.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Meditate today (IP Logged)
Date: 10/12/2012 09:46
Read the minutes tom - jez needs a better answer to the 30 mill question - we all know morgan gave the money to the club and in return he was issued with shares to that value - but for moxey to say he doesnt know how much of it has been spent merely fuels inaccurate speculation.Indeed it implies that all the money hasnt been spent so what does that mean.
Second on the profits - small tho they are and yes they can be spent in future years but why werent they spent when they were neede last season - to use an olympics analogy its like a competitor in the 100 metres saying well i only ran 95% cos i wanted to keep a bit back - poor in my opinion to have to admit you didnt give it your best shot not least becos it was obvious as early as the qpr and swans games that we had big problems despite a great start.
Questions were pretty comprehensive so will try to come up with something left fieldish
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:12:10:09:49:57 by Fat bloke behind you.
Second on the profits - small tho they are and yes they can be spent in future years but why werent they spent when they were neede last season - to use an olympics analogy its like a competitor in the 100 metres saying well i only ran 95% cos i wanted to keep a bit back - poor in my opinion to have to admit you didnt give it your best shot not least becos it was obvious as early as the qpr and swans games that we had big problems despite a great start.
Questions were pretty comprehensive so will try to come up with something left fieldish
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:12:10:09:49:57 by Fat bloke behind you.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: cedric harper (IP Logged)
Date: 10/12/2012 16:12
If the money has been put into the club in exchange for shares as seems to be the case, how can he possibly say as CEO that he doesn't how much has been spent.
If that is the case then Pieman is just Morgan's puppet doing and saying exactly what he is told, takes a bit of believing. Either that or he is lying and thinks everyone is stupid enough to swallow the don't know line.
If that is the case then Pieman is just Morgan's puppet doing and saying exactly what he is told, takes a bit of believing. Either that or he is lying and thinks everyone is stupid enough to swallow the don't know line.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: toomb (IP Logged)
Date: 10/12/2012 20:37
Regarding the £30m, my interpretation of it was that it was £30m that was put into the club. It wasn't ringfenced, it's been eaten in to with the normal running of the club, rather than being spent on one or two special things.
It's like when you were young and your nan gave you £5. You'd put in your wallet to spend on something nice, but before you know it it's been gradually spent on other things. You've not intentionally spent the £5, but it's not there any more
toomb's twitter
It's like when you were young and your nan gave you £5. You'd put in your wallet to spend on something nice, but before you know it it's been gradually spent on other things. You've not intentionally spent the £5, but it's not there any more
toomb's twitter
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: cedric harper (IP Logged)
Date: 10/12/2012 22:10
Something nice being a new stand then i guess, so not much more than 10 million at best left. This was kept back for stage 2 of the redevelopment i suppose. Even if this is the case he should still be able to give a straight answer.
I read the clubs assets are about £75 million according to the accounts, is this money included here. The full accounts for the last 4 years should also go some way to showing where this money has gone or is it in some special holding account ?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:12:10:22:11:24 by cedric harper.
I read the clubs assets are about £75 million according to the accounts, is this money included here. The full accounts for the last 4 years should also go some way to showing where this money has gone or is it in some special holding account ?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012:12:10:22:11:24 by cedric harper.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Meditate today (IP Logged)
Date: 10/12/2012 22:22
I accept it wasn't ring fenced or even that he doesn't know what it was spent on -if he had said its all been spent running the club -players ,building,wages ,the tea lady etc everyone would shut up -but he said he doesn't know which as I said just fuels speculation.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Bradmore Wolf (IP Logged)
Date: 11/12/2012 00:28
Maybe I am not understanding this properly but that is the worst answer possible.
He has not invested 30 million in the club he has effectively bought the club for £30 million which he will get back when or if he sells. Meanwhile he has used the 30 million to increase the overall capital value of the club.
Saying that we will probably never find out what really goes on until Moxey writes his book.
He has not invested 30 million in the club he has effectively bought the club for £30 million which he will get back when or if he sells. Meanwhile he has used the 30 million to increase the overall capital value of the club.
Saying that we will probably never find out what really goes on until Moxey writes his book.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Ivybridge Wolf (IP Logged)
Date: 11/12/2012 11:16
Thanks for the update Tom. I think playing it gently to start will mean you have more impact when your questions start to roll.
I wish you success .... I am however hugely cynical about the process especially with 'MC' Moxey setting the agenda, however I hope you can prove me wrong! Getting a real answer from Moxey will be like pulling teeth but he certainly has the 'charm'. As for the £30M (or whatever the value / costs / spend actually is) .... there will be an auditable trail, it's a question of whether the Pie man wants to share it. It may be that it is highly sensitive business information - nevertheless it will be accounted for.
By the way, my Nan used to give me 10-50p .... er actually it was a shilling at the start!
I wish you success .... I am however hugely cynical about the process especially with 'MC' Moxey setting the agenda, however I hope you can prove me wrong! Getting a real answer from Moxey will be like pulling teeth but he certainly has the 'charm'. As for the £30M (or whatever the value / costs / spend actually is) .... there will be an auditable trail, it's a question of whether the Pie man wants to share it. It may be that it is highly sensitive business information - nevertheless it will be accounted for.
By the way, my Nan used to give me 10-50p .... er actually it was a shilling at the start!
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: ernesto hunt (IP Logged)
Date: 11/12/2012 13:30
We now know, and have for a long time, that the money was available to fund an action to prevent the loss of Premier status and the £40m.a year income that goes with it.
Either - 1. The Board (SM) made a conscious decision not to fund the strengthening of the team, or 2. They know so little about the industry they had bought into that they were clueless as to the implications of what was in front of them.
The question is which is the worst case?
Although, among fans, there is little sympathy for MM - it will eventually be understood that the person responsible for our downfall is Moxey and/or SH for it was their decisions that led to a starving of the talent required to maintain our membership in the Prem. We can look back at the targets that MM referred to Moxey and see it was always a 'third choice' option we ended up with. The 'first choices' either never having been contacted or they refused because of the low wages offered.
Mind you this is all water under the bridge . . . unless the same attitude is being persued currently. But what the (real) matter . . . a drop from Champ. to Div 1 is nothing like the clamity from Prem. to Champ. And anyway whats it got to do with us - it's not our money or our club!
Either - 1. The Board (SM) made a conscious decision not to fund the strengthening of the team, or 2. They know so little about the industry they had bought into that they were clueless as to the implications of what was in front of them.
The question is which is the worst case?
Although, among fans, there is little sympathy for MM - it will eventually be understood that the person responsible for our downfall is Moxey and/or SH for it was their decisions that led to a starving of the talent required to maintain our membership in the Prem. We can look back at the targets that MM referred to Moxey and see it was always a 'third choice' option we ended up with. The 'first choices' either never having been contacted or they refused because of the low wages offered.
Mind you this is all water under the bridge . . . unless the same attitude is being persued currently. But what the (real) matter . . . a drop from Champ. to Div 1 is nothing like the clamity from Prem. to Champ. And anyway whats it got to do with us - it's not our money or our club!
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: cedric harper (IP Logged)
Date: 11/12/2012 16:02
Quote:ernesto hunt
We now know, and have for a long time, that the money was available to fund an action to prevent the loss of Premier status and the £40m.a year income that goes with it.
Either - 1. The Board (SM) made a conscious decision not to fund the strengthening of the team, or 2. They know so little about the industry they had bought into that they were clueless as to the implications of what was in front of them.
The question is which is the worst case?
Although, among fans, there is little sympathy for MM - it will eventually be understood that the person responsible for our downfall is Moxey and/or SH for it was their decisions that led to a starving of the talent required to maintain our membership in the Prem. We can look back at the targets that MM referred to Moxey and see it was always a 'third choice' option we ended up with. The 'first choices' either never having been contacted or they refused because of the low wages offered.
Mind you this is all water under the bridge . . . unless the same attitude is being persued currently. But what the (real) matter . . . a drop from Champ. to Div 1 is nothing like the clamity from Prem. to Champ. And anyway whats it got to do with us - it's not our money or our club!
A lot of us are long term investors in this club, so in part it is our club. As for your either/or choice, if the money was never fully invested into the club there are a few more options to add to this.
Re: Fans' Parliament - 5th December 2012
Posted by: Steway (IP Logged)
Date: 16/12/2012 17:47
As I have said before on this forum, Morgan hasn't invested a single penny of his own money into this football club. He has used his £30million to increase the value of the club by a lot more than he's invested, whilst spending the money the club makes on players etc and nothing more. Whilst I would usually respect such well run finances at a club, this doesn't take away from the fact that we as fans are suffering. We have made a fortune in profit since he took over and what are we seeing from it? A lacklustre effort and rocketing ticket prices at best, a team not fit to be competing in old gold and attendances falling faster than James Bond at the Olympics. He's a Scouser robbing our hard earned cash, which shouldn't surprise anyone.
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