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More redundancies. Where are you SMISA?


glen

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5 minutes ago, faraway saint said:

Thanks Shull. 

Now, show us your excellent input, maybe a programme cover, a tweet of some shite, you've got it all. 🤡

PS Fire in your usual "likes" for yourself, tragic but true. 🤣🤣🤣

You really are deluded, paranoid and sad.

As fit the bit in bold?!  @Long John Baldyand many others! :lol :byebye

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Club staff took action that went to an industrial tribunal whose decision went against the club and cost more money to resolve.




Our former stadium manager was awarded £30,000 by an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal.




The club has been terribly run. Staff have been made redundant. One eventually settled for a payoff others are currently taking legal action against the club.


FFS, get your stories sorted before you post.
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The manager has made it public that we cannot bring in players


We just signed a player.
https://www.stmirren.com/all-news/4721-richard-taylor-signs-for-st-mirren-until-the-end-of-the-season


while rival teams will strengthen their squad.


SR admitted months ago he used all his budget in the summer. Hope you weren't expecting him to exceed his budget. Wouldn’t that be mismanagement. [emoji848]

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/in-your-area/renfrewshire/stephen-robinson-says-st-mirren-27986955.amp


Potential bidders for our players know we are desperate for cash Why would buyers bid big now?


Mmmmmm wonder who blabbed about us supposedly being in the sh!t.

Would@glen like to apologise now?
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11 hours ago, animal said:

Happy New Year.

As a shareholder I have received a copy of the full accounts for May 2021 to May 2022. Over a stiff drink tonight I have noted the following points you may wish to consider. I will probably not comment further until after the AGM. There are a number of obvious questions that need to be asked and hopefully answered at the AGM. My accountancy skills are a bit rusty. Maybe I have misunderstood some of the important details – God, I hope that I have. I’m not going to waste time sparring with some of the childish regulars on here.


The cold facts are that the current board enriched with the financial “expertise” of our Kibble partners appear to have managed to turn a profit of around half a million pounds into a loss of 1.5 million pounds in short the space of 12 months. That in itself is quite an achievement.


The £1,598,506  loss divided by 365 days is £4379 a day. 


No doubt Covid will be blamed but you have to remember that the furlough scheme should have covered much of the wage bill and the government have loaned the club £1.7 million.


Even so the wage bill has gone from £2.8 million to £3.5 million. The number of players has gone from 37 to 39 but the number of management and admin staff has gone from 38 to 75. That is around two management and admin staff for every player. I presume (sincerely hope) there is a plausible explanation for this I just can’t think what it might be.


Importantly cash at the bank is down from £2.7 million in May 2021 to £972 thousand in May 2022 that is a reduction of about £145K a month. So what is the current cash balance?  Say 6 months of losses at £145 K is £870K. Take that away from the May 2022 figure of £972K and there is a lot to worry about. Possibly £100K left at present? I hope we can sell a couple of players to help the cash flow. 


Kibble claimed they would “bring our commercial expertise to St Mirren”. Perhaps that is the kind of expertise we could all have lived without.


Mention is made in the preceding narrative of “exceptional costs” but I cannot see any actual figures that directly relate to this statement. I assume this may partly be the rumoured very large cost overrun at Ralston but is hard to imagine what £1 million plus of “exceptional costs” could be.

You have to also ask why this financial situation has not been made very clear to SMISA members many months ago. After all they own most of the club.

PS To anyone quoting recent increased attendance at home games – please ask yourself how many of these are free tickets.


Now I think I need another drink.


See you all at the AGM.


 

Very good post for a change on this forum. It pretty much sums up all our fears that the club has not been run with due dilligence and it pains me to say it as i have friends on the board. In days gone by we had directors(all St Mirren fans) who had a very much hands on approach to their role at the club assisted by an exceptional CEO  Brian Caldwell . They had their finger on the pulse ensuring we did not overspend our budget and no-one was ever given carte blanche to spend more than we had. Now is not the time though to go through the negatives as i  never believe looking back is a good thing. I now trust our board (with Smisa board backing) with their plan to get us back on an even keel.

Mistakes will always be made. Its how we learn from them that will define us going forward and if we all pull together as a fan base ie Smisa/supporters clubs etc we can get back on track. We are after all St Mirren fans. Equal and in it together.

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We are in debt so there has been mismanagement.  Here's hoping that we, and there's every chance, qualify for Europe this season which will contribute towards financial rescue. 
Debt does not necessarily mean mismanagement. If it did, then you could accuse just about every club in the world of mismanagement. As well as every person with a mortgage, every company with a loan ...
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1 minute ago, Slarti said:
11 hours ago, Jockmd said:
We are in debt so there has been mismanagement.  Here's hoping that we, and there's every chance, qualify for Europe this season which will contribute towards financial rescue. 

Debt does not necessarily mean mismanagement. If it did, then you could accuse just about every club in the world of mismanagement. As well as every person with a mortgage, every company with a loan ...

It's OK, a draw to an unknown team from Azerbaijan in some Mickley Mouse European competition, and a resounding defeat, will rescue us. 🤣

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20 hours ago, Tommy said:

Since most of the money was spent on things that doesn't come round very often, i don't think it is a big worrying issue. 

Possible if we didn't have the Gov money, the training ground work wouldn't have taken place, but it been done interest free now.

The fact we don't have debt apart from the long term loan to the Gov is also good. 

Anybody know who the player the chairman spoke about who transfer collapsed on Deadline day last January ?

I have read that Tony seem to be getting some blame, anything specific or just because he maybe was poor at the job  🤔

 

I think this was McGrath to the best of my knowledge. 

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I'm getting a bad feeling about this. The importance of a top six finish and keeping the crowds coming in has never been so important. 

We will survive as a club, we always do however what players will we be signing next season.

This kind of leaves me feeling apprehensive of the future when the football played this season has me excited about it. 

 

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2 hours ago, northendsaint said:

Very good post for a change on this forum. It pretty much sums up all our fears that the club has not been run with due dilligence and it pains me to say it as i have friends on the board. In days gone by we had directors(all St Mirren fans) who had a very much hands on approach to their role at the club assisted by an exceptional CEO  Brian Caldwell . They had their finger on the pulse ensuring we did not overspend our budget and no-one was ever given carte blanche to spend more than we had. Now is not the time though to go through the negatives as i  never believe looking back is a good thing. I now trust our board (with Smisa board backing) with their plan to get us back on an even keel.

Mistakes will always be made. Its how we learn from them that will define us going forward and if we all pull together as a fan base ie Smisa/supporters clubs etc we can get back on track. We are after all St Mirren fans. Equal and in it together.

No it doesn't. The details are very clear regarding Covid impacts, one time costs (some will almost certainly be legacy from previous boards, such as Ralston), cost of living crisis increases & unfortunate transfer window dealings. 

It was certainly a tough time for the club, but not being run with due diligence is a stretch. 

I wonder why the same people criticising the board up to May 2022 are not now praising them for:

- Very positive league performance 

- Some of our highest home attendances in decades

- Multiple sellable assets

- Appointing a manager who has already attracted speculation about moving to bigger things.

Strange

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2 hours ago, Slarti said:
14 hours ago, Jockmd said:
We are in debt so there has been mismanagement.  Here's hoping that we, and there's every chance, qualify for Europe this season which will contribute towards financial rescue. 

Debt does not necessarily mean mismanagement. If it did, then you could accuse just about every club in the world of mismanagement. As well as every person with a mortgage, every company with a loan ...

Slarti, there is concern amongst personnel that given the expenditure on players, building projects etc the club did not measure accurately the income to pay for it.  In most cases when companies and individuals take out a loan it is measured and for those companies who fail due to factors beyond their control affecting their income that's understandable but for Saints much of the expenditure was within their control.

Anyway, with the new additions to the board I'm fairly confident things will improve.

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3 minutes ago, Jockmd said:

Slarti, there is concern amongst personnel that given the expenditure on players, building projects etc the club did not measure accurately the income to pay for it.  In most cases when companies and individuals take out a loan it is measured and for those companies who fail due to factors beyond their control affecting their income that's understandable but for Saints much of the expenditure was within their control.

Anyway, with the new additions to the board I'm fairly confident things will improve.

What personnel?

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2 hours ago, bazil85 said:

No it doesn't. The details are very clear regarding Covid impacts, one time costs (some will almost certainly be legacy from previous boards, such as Ralston), cost of living crisis increases & unfortunate transfer window dealings. 

It was certainly a tough time for the club, but not being run with due diligence is a stretch. 

I wonder why the same people criticising the board up to May 2022 are not now praising them for:

- Very positive league performance 

- Some of our highest home attendances in decades

- Multiple sellable assets

- Appointing a manager who has already attracted speculation about moving to bigger things.

Strange

I wish I shared your optimism, you refer to one time costs in your posts. Do you have any idea what these are or are you just falling in line with the statement issued by the Chairman/Club when the accounts were published. Ralston, imo, does not fall into a one time cost as there will also be repairs and maintenance needed, which any company worth their salt, would have a budget set aside every trading year for this. Perhaps you could enlighten me to these?

Very positive league performance - we are currently lying 6th and have just as much chance of finishing in 10th as we do of reaching 4th.

Attendances - Definitely on the rise, great that the club has a lot of different initiatives on the go. Hopefully there is a lot of full paying punters among this rise in attendance.

Multiple sellable assets - Remains complete conjecture, I would certainly not be running the business on that basis.

The manager - Doing a great job for the club but speculation does not pay the bills i'm afraid.

A loss of 1.6 million for a club of our size (whether on paper or in actual pound notes) is alarming and horrendous to say the least. I am struggling to see why there are not a lot more of our support concerned about this.

 

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1 hour ago, Cookie Monster said:

Bassa, Azerbaijan F1 race is in April. Was looking to make it a week holiday. emoji6.png

Here you do Cookie, plan yer holibags.

(Maybe I'm being a bit defeatist (no doubt I'll be called a boo-boy for this :D ), but I don't expect us to qualify for next season's CL, so I've not included those dates.)

The dates for both uefa competitions all seem to be the same except for the finals being a week apart.

--------

skysports-f1-calendar-2023_5983621.png?2

--------

When are the 2023/24 Europa League qualifiers?

(No idea about 1st and 2nd qualifying rounds as not on uefa.com)

Third qualifying round: 10 and 17 August 2023
Play-offs: 24 and 31 August 2023

When are the 2023/24 Europa League group stage matches?

Matchday 1: 21 September 2023
Matchday 2: 5 October 2023
Matchday 3: 26 October 2023
Matchday 4: 9 November 2023
Matchday 5: 30 November 2023
Matchday 6: 14 December 2023

When is the 2023/24 Europa League knockout stage?

Knockout round play-offs: 15 and 22 February 2024
Round of 16: 7 and 14 March 2024
Quarter-finals: 11 and 18 April 2024
Semi-finals: 2 and 9 May 2024
Final: 22 May 2024 (in Dublin)

-------------

Europa Conference League 2023/24 schedule

When are the 2023/24 Europa Conference League qualification rounds?

First qualifying round: 13 and 20 July 2023
Second qualifying round: 27 July and 3 August 2023
Third qualifying round: 10 and 17 August 2023
Play-offs: 24 and 31 August 2023

When are the 2023/24 Europa Conference League group stage matches?

Matchday 1: 21 September 2023
Matchday 2: 5 October 2023
Matchday 3: 26 October 2023
Matchday 4: 9 November 2023
Matchday 5: 30 November 2023
Matchday 6: 14 December 2023

When is the 2023/24 Europa Conference League knockout stage?

Knockout round play-offs: 15 and 22 February 2024
Round of 16: 7 and 14 March 2024
Quarter-finals: 11 and 18 April 2024
Semi-finals: 2 and 9 May 2024
Final: 29 May 2024

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14 minutes ago, party politics said:

I wish I shared your optimism, you refer to one time costs in your posts. Do you have any idea what these are or are you just falling in line with the statement issued by the Chairman/Club when the accounts were published. Ralston, imo, does not fall into a one time cost as there will also be repairs and maintenance needed, which any company worth their salt, would have a budget set aside every trading year for this. Perhaps you could enlighten me to these?

Very positive league performance - we are currently lying 6th and have just as much chance of finishing in 10th as we do of reaching 4th.

Attendances - Definitely on the rise, great that the club has a lot of different initiatives on the go. Hopefully there is a lot of full paying punters among this rise in attendance.

Multiple sellable assets - Remains complete conjecture, I would certainly not be running the business on that basis.

The manager - Doing a great job for the club but speculation does not pay the bills i'm afraid.

A loss of 1.6 million for a club of our size (whether on paper or in actual pound notes) is alarming and horrendous to say the least. I am struggling to see why there are not a lot more of our support concerned about this.

 

There won't be major upgrades at Ralston every year - that was the one-off cost.

Better than lying 10th with an outside chance of 6th.

Dunno the details of paying/freebies.

Definitely sellable (for how much is debatable).  I doubt very much if the club is getting run on that basis.

Nobody's saying it will pay the bills.

Not necessarily, it depends on the details.  Maybe because they looked at the details.

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56 minutes ago, party politics said:

I wish I shared your optimism, you refer to one time costs in your posts. Do you have any idea what these are or are you just falling in line with the statement issued by the Chairman/Club when the accounts were published. Ralston, imo, does not fall into a one time cost as there will also be repairs and maintenance needed, which any company worth their salt, would have a budget set aside every trading year for this. Perhaps you could enlighten me to these?

Very positive league performance - we are currently lying 6th and have just as much chance of finishing in 10th as we do of reaching 4th.

Attendances - Definitely on the rise, great that the club has a lot of different initiatives on the go. Hopefully there is a lot of full paying punters among this rise in attendance.

Multiple sellable assets - Remains complete conjecture, I would certainly not be running the business on that basis.

The manager - Doing a great job for the club but speculation does not pay the bills i'm afraid.

A loss of 1.6 million for a club of our size (whether on paper or in actual pound notes) is alarming and horrendous to say the least. I am struggling to see why there are not a lot more of our support concerned about this.

 

Surely this is double standards, if I’m taking the club at its statement, then you’re choosing to do the opposite & not believe it? 
 

Some of the specifics. 

Ralston -  We have had Ralston for around 15 or more years. We have operated at break even since the original SMISA deal was put in place bar the last two years. That tells me we are more than capable of funding & maintain Ralston & that it is indeed, exceptional circumstances. 
 

League position - your take is just pessimistic. We have games in hand over every club above us & are in a league position we haven’t secured for over 3 decades. What I said about this being a positive is absolutely true. 

Attendance - there won’t be many getting freebies & I imagine most will be paying full price. There doesn’t appear to be strategy in place compared to previous seasons that would suggest a large number of people were there without having to pay. 
 

Multiple sellable assets - no one is saying that’s how the business is being ran, it’s just fact that we have performers on the park of a level where outside interest comes in.

Manager - kind of does, better performing manager means more games won, more bums on seat, more league placement money. Again, it’s a positive.
 

The loss - it is disappointing but it’s actually quite common for clubs our size. Before this season, we were possibly the only comparable club that hadn’t had a six figure loss over the last 5-7 seasons.  
 

People are definitely blowing this up bigger than it actually is.  

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4 hours ago, bazil85 said:

No it doesn't. The details are very clear regarding Covid impacts, one time costs (some will almost certainly be legacy from previous boards, such as Ralston), cost of living crisis increases & unfortunate transfer window dealings. 

It was certainly a tough time for the club, but not being run with due diligence is a stretch. 

I wonder why the same people criticising the board up to May 2022 are not now praising them for:

- Very positive league performance 

- Some of our highest home attendances in decades

- Multiple sellable assets

- Appointing a manager who has already attracted speculation about moving to bigger things.

Strange

They seem to be ignoring all these things for some reason.................................

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On 1/13/2023 at 5:06 PM, bazil85 said:

Surely this is double standards, if I’m taking the club at its statement, then you’re choosing to do the opposite & not believe it? 
 

Some of the specifics. 

Ralston -  We have had Ralston for around 15 or more years. We have operated at break even since the original SMISA deal was put in place bar the last two years. That tells me we are more than capable of funding & maintain Ralston & that it is indeed, exceptional circumstances. 
 

League position - your take is just pessimistic. We have games in hand over every club above us & are in a league position we haven’t secured for over 3 decades. What I said about this being a positive is absolutely true. 

Attendance - there won’t be many getting freebies & I imagine most will be paying full price. There doesn’t appear to be strategy in place compared to previous seasons that would suggest a large number of people were there without having to pay. 
 

Multiple sellable assets - no one is saying that’s how the business is being ran, it’s just fact that we have performers on the park of a level where outside interest comes in.

Manager - kind of does, better performing manager means more games won, more bums on seat, more league placement money. Again, it’s a positive.
 

The loss - it is disappointing but it’s actually quite common for clubs our size. Before this season, we were possibly the only comparable club that hadn’t had a six figure loss over the last 5-7 seasons.  
 

People are definitely blowing this up bigger than it actually is.  

This is the content  I come here for.

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2 hours ago, Sonny said:

Covid testing was costing the Club nearly £2k per day. Hopefully that is a cost not to be repeated.

Where is the £2K a day figure reported from?

I appreciate that the Covid testing was extremely expensive, but why did that not show up in last years accounts up until 31/5/21?

The Covid season of lock down the club did incur significant additional transportation and legal costs as well as all the testing required.

The club had to run more than one bus to games for social distancing reasons. 

Additional costs for hotels - meals, room etc.


Remember that the club employed some big hitters to deal with the legal problems that we faced that season including former player Brian Docherty.

We also had no hospitality or fans at stadium that season that must have reduced our income over and above season ticket sales.

I appreciate there was streaming revenue but surely that was not enough to cover those £2K a day tests?

So I’m at a “loss” as to why the club financial loss for that season was not far greater that £45K?

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8 hours ago, Albanian Buddy said:

Where is the £2K a day figure reported from?

I appreciate that the Covid testing was extremely expensive, but why did that not show up in last years accounts up until 31/5/21?

The Covid season of lock down the club did incur significant additional transportation and legal costs as well as all the testing required.

The club had to run more than one bus to games for social distancing reasons. 

Additional costs for hotels - meals, room etc.


Remember that the club employed some big hitters to deal with the legal problems that we faced that season including former player Brian Docherty.

We also had no hospitality or fans at stadium that season that must have reduced our income over and above season ticket sales.

I appreciate there was streaming revenue but surely that was not enough to cover those £2K a day tests?

So I’m at a “loss” as to why the club financial loss for that season was not far greater that £45K?

 

No idea what the accounts show  however Covid testing was on a daily basis  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59683384

before moving on to a twice a week basis due to cost. Everyone had to be tested ie players, coaches, medical staff and anyone in contact with team members. Cost per test seemed to vary between £50 and £100. St Mirren probably had at 30 least staff being tested ie between £1500 and £3,000 per day.

Hamilton Accies spent nearly quarter of a million on Covid testing alone https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/hamilton-accies-reveal-staggering-covid-23734071

Alloa were complaining they were spending between £3,000 and £6,000 per week for a part-time Club.

Overall cost to Scottish football was around £70M https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55030350

SMFC like other Clubs took advantage of a £1.6M loan from the Scottish Government to help with the substantial Covid costs.

 

 

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On 1/13/2023 at 12:22 PM, kevo_smfc said:

I think this was McGrath to the best of my knowledge. 

If it was McGrath (and I’m fairly certain it would be), then this is where the spin is shown in the Accounts statement - as we still banked the cash for McGrath in the accounts. January instead of August wouldn’t have made a huge difference in fees and he would surely have been on a relatively low wage.  None of that would’ve made a dent in £1.6m. 

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No idea what the accounts show  however Covid testing was on a daily basis  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59683384
before moving on to a twice a week basis due to cost. Everyone had to be tested ie players, coaches, medical staff and anyone in contact with team members. Cost per test seemed to vary between £50 and £100. St Mirren probably had at 30 least staff being tested ie between £1500 and £3,000 per day.
Hamilton Accies spent nearly quarter of a million on Covid testing alone https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/hamilton-accies-reveal-staggering-covid-23734071
Alloa were complaining they were spending between £3,000 and £6,000 per week for a part-time Club.
Overall cost to Scottish football was around £70M https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/55030350
SMFC like other Clubs took advantage of a £1.6M loan from the Scottish Government to help with the substantial Covid costs.
 
 
The trouble is that we had no contingency so therefore had to get into debt at thd cost of 1 first team player. Like most of Scottish clubs we live beyond our means


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