Echo News Southend United chairman Ron Martin explains how club would be boosted by new ground

[Mad Cyril]

Any new stadium can't be worse than Harrogate's.

I swear they had dog waste bins next to the corner flags.

 

[Crawliano]

Any new stadium can't be worse than Harrogate's.

I swear they had dog waste bins next to the corner flags.

Positive about next season is seeing if the bar gets much lower.

 

[fbm]

Absolutely you are right. All things have to be paid for. In this case the expenditure will be a fraction of the returns. Good business of course but the only loser, potentially, is the club. No assets, no serious revenue streams beyond football and trapped in the cycle of debt repayment due to insufficient income. SBC has got what it always wanted and never gave a hoot about the club, the fans or the Bloomfield legacy. RM gets what he wants and will continue to hold all the aces over the clubs future.

Capitalism at its worst and devoid of any morality whatsoever.

Presumably you aren't taking into account the £15m rent Ron hasn't collected and many other millions he has spent in keeping us out of Administration?

 

[Somerset Ex-TTB]

Presumably you aren't taking into account the £15m rent Ron hasn't collected and many other millions he has spent in keeping us out of Administration?

Would that be the rent from the ground that he purchased for nothing, sold to pay off our debts to only then get into worse debt again?

 

[fbm]

Ron's not lying. He basically said there is no retail, no hotel, minimal opportunities for income generation (not his words), no new covenant (okay he didn't say that either but if there was one he would have said so). Bottom line is that Southend United will still rely on someone pumping in money each month as Ron has done for decades to cover the losses. Ron will have achieved his goals, and good luck to him, he has been very patient, but the club will not be in a hugely different position financially after the move to the new stadium, unless I have missed something here. Is there a plan to reduce losses each month, to prevent us moving from one embargo to another? Maybe there is, we need to know.

I imagine Ron will want to sell the club and the new ground fairly quickly, and then the new owner--who will almost certainly be another developer or a front for a developer-- could seek to do exactly the same thing i.e. sell the land of the new stadium to build more homes and move us to a (yet) cheaper site and smaller stadium. So, we could quite feasibly be back on the move again within 10 years. My view is the stadium should be at least partly publicly owned to safeguard against this, but that's not going to happen is it...

This isn't anti-Ron. If anything we are lucky that he does care about the club. He has brought good times as well as the bad, and has performed miracles keeping us afloat financially (but he has only been able to do that because of the developments that the club is tied into). I have my doubts as to whether future owners will be as responsible or as resourceful as Ron has been.

I doubt it... there will be a decent income stream for his family for years.

Personally, I don't think we have any worries re our survival at all whilst Ron is still fit and at the helm; our interests are too intertwined with his.

The problems will start if he dies without a proper succession plan. Then we are absolutely up the creek without a paddle.

 

[fbm]

Would that be the rent from the ground that he purchased for nothing, sold to pay off our debts to only then get into worse debt again?

I'm not sure it was nothing, but it was very cheap. Didn't notice any other bidders at the time though. And he still would be owed the rent, would he not?

 

[WestyReturns]

Amazing some people protecting Ron over his company payments. All companies have payments. If you own a business there are expenses. That's not something to be thankful for that they get paid.

It's like saying should someone have the right to
mistreat their family if they pay the bills.

 

[borientater]

That would depend on how.

Lets say it’s within the law and it secures the future of your family for generations to come.

I’m no massive fan of RM but neither do I hate him , don’t know him well enough to, but I think he gets a lot of unnecessary stick from people who haven’t got a clue how the business world actually works , that’s how it actually works and not perhaps how it should .

 

[BluBayou]

Lets say it’s within the law and it secures the future of your family for generations to come.

I’m no massive fan of RM but neither do I hate him , don’t know him well enough to, but I think he gets a lot of unnecessary stick from people who haven’t got a clue how the business world actually works , that’s how it actually works and not perhaps how it should .

Football worked fine when it was a community activity. Once it was stolen from the working man and run by the "business world" it has become an insolvent mess.

 

[borientater]

Football worked fine when it was a community activity. Once it was stolen from the working man and run by the "business world" it has become an insolvent mess.

Agree 100 %

 

[pottster]

It's not in Ron's interest to collect rent on the ground, as he would have to pay tax on it. Always make me smile when I hear that line from him, like hes doing the club a favour!

 

[NZamba Legend]

I doubt it... there will be a decent income stream for his family for years.

Personally, I don't think we have any worries re our survival at all whilst Ron is still fit and at the helm; our interests are too intertwined with his.

The problems will start if he dies without a proper succession plan. Then we are absolutely up the creek without a paddle.

Not being facetious, just interested because you might have a better understanding, but why would Ron want to keep the club when it costs him over 100k a month and a mountain of stress to run? Surely he (and his family) would be better off without it?

When the housing developments on the two sites are built, the clubs interests are no longer intertwined with Ron's. Ron's long term income is from the housing and rent from land, the football club just loses him money so I can't see why he would want to keep this 'asset'. The best we can hope for is that he keeps the stadium and charges the club and new owners minimal rent, although if a miracle occurs and the club does start to make money, he's already said he's going to take some of that as windfall, so the club wouldn't even benefit from any future success. If he sells the stadium, or rather the land on which two or three cheap stands are built, we are very vulnerable. I'm just left wondering, where/ how does the club benefit from this move?

 

[fbm]

It's not in Ron's interest to collect rent on the ground, as he would have to pay tax on it. Always make me smile when I hear that line from him, like hes doing the club a favour!

Nonsense... if the club were financially able, the rent would be paid. It would be Corporation Tax anyhow, so he wouldn't be paying it, the company would (Corporation tax rates are lower than individuals), and that's assuming that the company is profitable in the first place. It always makes me laugh when people say they choose to have 100% of nothing rather than pay the taxman something, That's like saying you'd refuse a 20k pay rise a year because your tax bill would increase and that by refusing it would somehow be in your best interests.

However, you are right in saying it's not in his best interests, but not for the reason you state. By not collecting the rent he is achieving three things;

1) He is not putting the club into administration, thereby keeping it alive with him at the helm so that his dream can be fulfilled,
2) If the club receives a windfall, he can take some out of what he is owed... possibly tax free, depending on how it has been shown in the books, and
3) If the club is sold or goes under, he will be the biggest creditor.

 

[in the know]

Any new stadium can't be worse than Harrogate's.

I swear they had dog waste bins next to the corner flags.

Cos defenders shxt themselves when ferguson lines up for one of his famous long throws that he might or might not have!! (Think we would have seen it by now!)

 

[fbm]

Not being facetious, just interested because you might have a better understanding, but why would Ron want to keep the club when it costs him over 100k a month and a mountain of stress to run? Surely he (and his family) would be better off without it?

When the housing developments on the two sites are built, the clubs interests are no longer intertwined with Ron's. Ron's long term income is from the housing and rent from land, the football club just loses him money so I can't see why he would want to stick around. The best we can hope for is that he keeps the stadium and charges the club minimal rent, although if a miracle occurs and the club does start to make money, he's already said he's going to take some of that as windfall, so the club wouldn't even benefit from any future success. If he sells the stadium we are very vulnerable. I'm just left wondering, where/ how does the club benefit from this move?

The business plan and modelling would show that with a new stadium, it would not cost him £100k per month. No one would lend any money to anyone on that basis. Note - I have no idea what the business plan is and no inside track on revenue streams. But it would not make any sense.

There must be something in the plan that Ron thinks will make it a successful development, as all property developers want a development that is successful, otherwise there is no point. Someone on another thread cited Darlington as an example but that was just a completely flawed plan; there probably isn't an event of any type or description that you could put on in Darlington that would attract 30,000 people. The demographic up there is completely different.

I think, if anyone hasn't already seen the Zoom call, then watch it because it is quite interesting. And try not to get caught in the trap of thinking that the position now is how it will always be.

 

[Chris Powell's mate]

Football worked fine when it was a community activity. Once it was stolen from the working man and run by the "business world" it has become an insolvent mess.

That working man you speak of was treated like toilet for 100 years.
Usually, only one stand for the landed gentry and a box for the octogenarian directors, while the hoi polloi stood on an open terrace in the rain, and once in a while got trampled to death.
Football stadium facilities were pants until the Taylor report, but it's the type of 'business world' you and I probably despise.

 

[Wise Head]

With Ron confirming he will own the stadium complex the club is no better off than it is now, other than its owner has made millions on the back of it. I find it sad that we are only being thrown a few crumbs with the income generated from the main stand will ‘flow to the benefits of the club’.
What lease will he let the club have? What rent will he charge and then generously allow the club to leave it as unpaid rent on their balance sheet? This assumes that the main stand will be built which at this point seems highly unlikely. It’s a rinse and repeat of our RH scenario. The club is in a precarious situation and I fear for our future in Ron’s hands, especially as he has made no effort to package the club up in a saleable state. Who would be interested in purchasing a club that doesn’t own its own stadium and has to pay a sizeable rent to a third party? It simply doesn’t work and you only have to look at Coventry as an example of it not working. Thanks for nothing Ron.

 

[Willis]

See the Chairman's as arrogant as ever :- SOS-" I thought I'd been doing that for the last 22 years".

Yeah, I picked up on that too. Shame one of the attendees didn’t respond with “isn’t that what a chairman is meant to do?” As guardian of the club, he shouldn’t feel the need to inflate his ego by pronouncing this at the first opportunity. A little bit of humility will go a long way, Ron...

 

[The Big Shrimp]

Presumably you aren't taking into account the £15m rent Ron hasn't collected and many other millions he has spent in keeping us out of Administration?

The debt is a paper debt that has no logic to the true rent costs. Col U and Orient pay between £130-150K per season. Swansea, who RM banged on about as being the example to follow, pay £180K per season for their stadium. RM has charged, but not collected, £450K per season. What club in their right mind would pay that? The figures that he has quoted for various accounts I would take with a pinch of salt.

 

[Strykr]

Lots of good questions for the next zoom.