I Love Southend And support the CLUB fully...

[EastStandBlue]

Ok, I pretty much can buy most of that. However I look at it like this; why would you want the same person who's done this, to stay and try and carry us through?

I don't think anybody truly wants any football club chairman, do they? Obviously, the ultimate goal is to have the club owned by the fans, but that has proven to be unfeasible without the club itself owning the infrastructure and having a significant supporter base paying annual membership costs a la Barcelona. Those who are deemed to be Pro-Ron or simply agnostic agree that, while RM is by no means the saviour, he's the only show in town and with Sainsbury's now on board, we stand a significantly greater chance of seeing the project through.

Hell, this was even the view of the Trust having spoken to a number of supporter groups and were privy to a considerable amount more information than the majority on here.

Now, had RM realised that in the wake of the banking crisis he couldn't have pulled this off on his own and got Sainsbury's involved sooner, then we may not have been in this mess.

The accounts show that a £60k management fee is tranfered from SUFC to one of Martins comapanies (Martin Dawn?) on a yearly basis, despite Martin saying that he doesn't take a wage and his other companies are nowt to do with SUFC? What is this for?

Firestorm has already cleared this, on several occasions. The £60,000 management fee isn't a wage from the club, it's to compensate Martin Dawn for the time both RM and GK spend away from MD running the club and its interests. It's a contentious sum, but it's not something alien to football clubs owned by property developers. Both Robbie Cowling (Col Ewe) and Darragh MacAnthony (Posh) take similar fees IIRC.

 

[Beefy]

Ok, I pretty much can buy most of that. However I look at it like this; why would you want the same person who's done this, to stay and try and carry us through?

Because you'd have made the same mistakes. I'd have made the same mistakes. 90% of our fanbase were screaming for transfers to be made. And this is where I have a certain sympathy for him.

The accounts show that a £60k management fee is tranfered from SUFC to one of Martins comapanies (Martin Dawn?) on a yearly basis, despite Martin saying that he doesn't take a wage and his other companies are nowt to do with SUFC? What is this for?

For the use of Martin Dawn staff and resources. It's fairly standard. Cowling at Colchester charges double that and I doubt that goes into his back pocket. The Management Fee goes in the accounts as a justification for the time and resources that one company spends running another.

 

[GBJ]

I don't think anybody truly wants any football club chairman, do they? Obviously, the ultimate goal is to have the club owned by the fans, but that has proven to be unfeasible without the club itself owning the infrastructure and having a significant supporter base paying annual membership costs a la Barcelona. Those who are deemed to be Pro-Ron or simply agnostic agree that, while RM is by no means the saviour, he's the only show in town and with Sainsbury's now on board, we stand a significantly greater chance of seeing the project through.

Now, had RM realised that in the wake of the banking crisis he couldn't have pulled this off on his own and got Sainsbury's involved sooner, then we may not have been in this mess.

I'm sure if he was to offer the club up, then there would be interest. We've already heard about the consortium, but I wonder who else would come forward? There's no point in anyone piping up atm, as Martin won't step aside.

Firestorm has already cleared this, on several occasions. The £60,000 management fee isn't a wage from the club, it's to compensate Martin Dawn for the time both RM and GK spend away from MD running the club and it's interests. It's a contentious sum, but it's not something alien to football clubs owned by property developers. Both Robbie Cowling (Col Ewe) and Darragh MacAnthony (Posh) take similar fees IIRC.

Compensate? 1) Martin's got 27(?) companies, so why don't we have to compensate from him being away from all of them

2) why the **** should we have to compensate for it? It's martins choice to be here?!

Choose to believe it or not, but that is one of the biggest bits of ******** I've heard come out of this club

 

[Tommy2holes]

Love him or hate him and lets face we all pretty much hate him, he isnt going anywhere until he builds the stadium and retail and makes his money or the club does not exist.

The truth of it is that the consortium dont like Ron and Ron certainly doesnt like them which is a shame as they have the money and interest in the club to be quite a wealthy partner in this whole venture with maybe ownership transferal when the stadium is built.

But it wont happen because Ron is too stubborn and so are the consortium who just want Ron out. If they just put there business heads on then a deal could be thrashed out whereby Ron does one as soon as he gets his money with us getting the stadium.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

The accounts show that a £60k management fee is tranfered from SUFC to one of Martins comapanies (Martin Dawn?) on a yearly basis, despite Martin saying that he doesn't take a wage and his other companies are nowt to do with SUFC? What is this for?

Surely the issue here is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys?

 

[GBJ]

Because you'd have made the same mistakes. I'd have made the same mistakes. 90% of our fanbase were screaming for transfers to be made. And this is where I have a certain sympathy for him.

Only difference is, I know that I haven't got what it takes (financially and technically) to run a football club. It's Martins job to say what's what. Not bow under pressure.

For the use of Martin Dawn staff and resources. It's fairly standard. Cowling at Colchester charges double that and I doubt that goes into his back pocket. The Management Fee goes in the accounts as a justification for the time and resources that one company spends running another.

What staff and resources do we use?

 

[Beefy]

Love him or hate him and lets face we all pretty much hate him, he isnt going anywhere until he builds the stadium and retail and makes his money or the club does not exist.

The truth of it is that the consortium dont like Ron and Ron certainly doesnt like them which is a shame as they have the money and interest in the club to be quite a wealthy partner in this whole venture with maybe ownership transferal when the stadium is built.

But it wont happen because Ron is too stubborn and so are the consortium who just want Ron out. If they just put there business heads on then a deal could be thrashed out whereby Ron does one as soon as he gets his money with us getting the stadium.

Completely agree with every word. If they all love the Football Club so much then surely they'd all work together. The truth is that I suspect both sides like money a bit more.

 

[EastStandBlue]

I'm sure if he was to offer the club up, then there would be interest. We've already heard about the consortium, but I wonder who else would come forward? There's no point in anyone piping up atm, as Martin won't step aside.

Well, RM stands to make a considerable sum if he pulls the project off, one that he needs to subsidise his other companies, so if he was to put the club up for sale it'd be for a figure to allow him to at least break even... That's without the minefield of negotiating appropriate costs for Roots Hall itself and/or FF, as even if somebody was to buy the football club, we'd still be at RM's whim with rent payments.

Compensate? 1) Martin's got 27(?) companies, so why don't we have to compensate from him being away from all of them

2) why the **** should we have to compensate for it? It's martins choice to be here?!

Choose to believe it or not, but that is one of the biggest bits of ******** I've heard come out of this club

Martin's got 27 companies, but he's the owner of those and most of them are simply holding companies without much day-to-day activity. I dare say if he wanted to he could charge, but that'd be an outrageous charge to the football club and one that would leave him open to accusations of siphoning money from the club, and quite rightfully too.

 

[Beefy]

What staff and resources do we use?

Ron Martin and Geoff King for a start. I imagine that we use parts of Martin Dawn's legal and secretarial staff too.

I know you're trying to find something dodgy in this payments but again I'd point to our neighbours in North Essex. Cowling pumps in millions of his own money propping Colchester up and at the end of the year Colchester pay Cowling's main company 120k management fee. That's not going into Cowling's back pocket - it's an accounting payment in one company's figures to show time and resource put into another company.

Just because it's in the accounts doesn't mean that it's actually been paid. We made losses so the chances are that Martin Dawn ended up effectively loaning that money back to fund our working capital anyway.

 

[GBJ]

Martin's got 27 companies, but he's the owner of those and most of them are simply holding companies without much day-to-day activity. I dare say if he wanted to he could charge, but that'd be an outrageous charge to the football club and one that would leave him open to accusations of siphoning money from the club, and quite rightfully too.

£60k to compensate his "running" of SUFC is an outrage.

Ron Martin and Geoff King for a start. I imagine that we use parts of Martin Dawn's legal and secretarial staff too.

Why would we use MD's legal eagles when SUFC has their own? (which are accounted for in the accounts)

I know you're trying to find something dodgy in this payments

Smart as I am, :) I doubt highly I could ever find anything. Not because it's not there though.... ;)

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Nobody's denying that player wages were hugely inflated, nor the fact our rampant extravagance in signing players like Richie Foran cost us dearly, but people allude to RM siphoning money out of the club for himself and the accounts just don't show that. We're a loss making football club, like so many in the professional game. We've been a loss making club before Ron was here and, barring monumental investment to wipe our slate clean and rapidly improve our infrastructure, we'll be a loss making football club after he's gone, too...

Interesting you cite the RF signing as an expensive mistake and as we all know, this was a deal Ron pushed through over Tilly's head (now fully expecting a retort of "really do you think Tilson WAS that weak?") but it was a deal the chairman wanted to save face and get out of potential trouble with Motherwell as well as, in his eyes, satisfying the supporters with a signing when we needed one.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

£60k to compensate his "running" of SUFC is an outrage.

I refer you back to my previous comment

Surely the issue here is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys?

£60k pa is less than half of what we'd have been paying (or not paying) Alan McCormack.

If over twice that doesn't buy you someone who can run a midfield, it's hardly surprising it doesn't buy you someone who can run a football club.....

 

[EastStandBlue]

£60k to compensate his "running" of SUFC is an outrage.

So's charging £120,000 per year for one individual to rack up a frankly obscene wage bill for a football club that averages just under 6,000 gates, but you don't hear many Colchester fans moaning because Cowling is still subsidising losses that, at the last time of checking, were double ours.

And £60,000 isn't just for Ron, it's for GK too who, despite his complete lack of PR nous, puts in a fair shift in the day-to-day running of the club.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Interesting you cite the RF signing as an expensive mistake and as we all know, this was a deal Ron pushed through over Tilly's head (now fully expecting a retort of "really do you think Tilson WAS that weak?") but it was a deal the chairman wanted to save face and get out of potential trouble with Motherwell as well as, in his eyes, satisfying the supporters with a signing when we needed one.

So the supporters need to share their part of the blame as well?

 

[Tommy2holes]

So the supporters need to share their part of the blame as well?

Yep we definately should. I remember before signing him i got out some candles and held an all night vigil praying to god for a footballing miracle .

Ron then went and signed Foran . Im guessing i personally should shoulder the blame.

 

[GBJ]

Yep we definately should. I remember before signing him i got out some candles and held an all night vigil praying to god for a footballing miracle .

Ron then went and signed Foran . Im guessing i personally should shoulder the blame.

Tommy out!

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I don't get what you mean.

I assumed you were implying that the Consortium were suppling HMRC with inside informatiion about SUFC's financial affairs.Surely you weren't perhaps implying that Sainsbury's are?:unsure:

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

So the supporters need to share their part of the blame as well?

Yes, definitely.
If you remember back to January 2007, there were pages & pages of complaints on here about the lack of signings. This led indirectly to the infamous "warchest" comment. Some points raised by fans were valid, some were just blinkered rants about not understanding how a club like us could survive in the CCC.

Maybe RM got carried away, but you could equally argue his initial pursuit (thanks to ST) of Scott Macdonald would have been an excellent signing. The typical RM bulldozer way of carrying out day to day business however wasn't and this is partly what scuppered the deal for a player who's sold for millions since.

 

[Ailsa Road Shrimper]

Nobody's denying that player wages were hugely inflated, nor the fact our rampant extravagance in signing players like Richie Foran cost us dearly, but people allude to RM siphoning money out of the club for himself and the accounts just don't show that. We're a loss making football club, like so many in the professional game. We've been a loss making club before Ron was here and, barring monumental investment to wipe our slate clean and rapidly improve our infrastructure, we'll be a loss making football club after he's gone, too...

We're only guessing at how much money players during the last few years cost the club, I don't think any of us on this site really know the truth about how much individual player wages cost. For every Richie Foran there were the likes of Lewis Hunt, Damien Scannell and Franck Moussa who played for us, I find it very difficult to believe players such as these were on large wages.

In the mid 90's we averaged gates of 5,000 yet signed Mike Marsh for £500k and players from Celtic's first team such as Paul Byrne and Mark McNally, it was obvious to see where the financial problems stemmed from in that era. We've barely paid a transfer fee during the last few years, we've had money coming in for players sold, operated with a small squad and apart from Michael Ricketts we haven't signed any 'big name' players, therefore I'm not sure our serious financial problems can be solely because of expenditure on players.

 

[Wise Head]

The only reason we don't have new owners is because Ron will not sell until he has realised the large profit from all the developments. At the moment we have had enough delay as he negotiates with Sainsburys on the continual bailout of the club and this brinksmanship will be evident when their latest slug of money runs out next year. Each time he has to go back to them it costs him more of the potential profit as they squeeze tighter. Unless a potential new owner offers Ron most of his paper profit he isn't going anywhere.
Oh and as for the claim that Ron has invested millions into the club I would point out he merely cleared the club's 4 million debt but transferred out the freeholds of Roots Hall and the training ground and charged a huge annual rent that he knew would never be paid and merely rolled up at 20% interest. This doomed the club to making the loss it has over the last ten years 400k x 10 years rolling up at 20% = 7 million approx?