Exeter

[Grecian71]

They have invested 75K in Bowman and Ajose who has only played six times this season is on mega wages for a leage two side. Not one of the supporters can get a straight answer, even the Exeter trust is reluctant to give straight answers. Their new stand was funded by a combination of finance form the football trust and Exeter university so no great outlay there.They have a premiership training facility with league two football,again horse before the cart, similar to us, we built a stand that we cannot fill at our level whereas if the money had been spent on players we would undoubtedly been at a higher level and definetlely been able to fill it.

This is utter garbage.

Any City fan wanting to know the club's financial position only needs to read the accounts or tune into the regular fan forums. As at year end June 2018, ECFC was sitting on shareholder funds of nearly £2.6M and laid out a plan to fans in an open forum that effectively showed us overspending by £0.5M a year for five years to finance a competitive playing budget. This was pretty much on track at the year-end June 2019 with the accounts showing shareholders funds of £1.98M.

Now Covid is of course going to really throw a spanner in the works, and I'd guess it has accelerated things by about a year. Hence some sensible decision making on contract renewals. Out of those who have not had their contract renewed, probably only two - Aaron Martin and Brennan Dickenson - would have had a chance of getting an offer of renewal in normal times. But as it is we're waiting to see what next season looks like before offering new contracts. (And Martin's Wembley display may not have helped him anyway).

Exeter City have a strategy. Invest in the training facilities and the training staff and produce players who can play in the first team, and the best (Matt Grimes, Jordan Storey, Ollie Watkins, Ethan Ampadu etc) will occasionally earn a fee large enough to enable the whole cycle to begin over again. And remember sell-on clauses sometimes apply too. We stand to trouser 20% of any profit Brentford make on Watkins when he eventually is sold.

Year after year, people expect us to struggle after we fail to go up - maybe one season that will happen but it hasn't yet. But even if it did I can't see us budging from the strategy. There is enough talent coming through - shown by the u23 results last year - to keep our heads above water at L2 level.

[The deluder]

Good post. Thank you for explaining.

[culmstockgull]

Grecian 71, exactly what part of my post was garbage, the figure for Bowman was taken from Exeter press releases at the time, the new stand being funded by various institutions other than Exeter City, check the figures from the Football trust. You do not argue that you have received over 5 million in transfers and add ons but strangely only mention that 1.9 million is on the bank. That is a lot of training facilities for a club in divison 2. Trust paper releases and statements are non specific as to where the money is, or has gone it just speaks in generalities. No figures are produced on the playing and non playing staff costs. Are previous managers and directors of football still receiving payouts,only current salaries can be considered commercially sensitive,if you are not totally transparent, people will draw their own conclusions, at the end of the day Grecian it is your club, but Torquay had a similar experience several years ago where certain perported saviours of the club were actually stripping the cupboard bare.

[Grecian71]

Grecian 71, exactly what part of my post was garbage,

Where to start...

"Ajose who has only played six times this season"

- Make that sixteen. Sure, he's been disappointing, but he had a flipping knee operation in mid-season. Let's see how he does next campaign.

"Their new stand was funded by a combination of finance form the football trust and Exeter university so no great outlay there".

- Yep, we did well to effectively get the stand essentially for free, but have you had a look at the away end recently? That had to be paid for.

"They have a premiership training facility"

- Cliff Hill compares well with most League One and Two set-ups. And new artificial pitches don't come cheap. But you wouldn't mistake it for Cobham or Carrington.

"similar to us, we built a stand that we cannot fill at our level"

- we've already filled it at least once for certain, and come close on a number of occasions. Decent seated accommodation has always been a problem at SJP and depressed crowds. (The wooden stand was quaint, but the obscured views and loos from the dark ages put off plenty). As soon as the new stand opened during the season before last there was a notable uptick in attendances.

"what has happened to all their money"

- football clubs are very expensive. As I say, the club has underlying operating losses year-on-year. (Something like £750K last year alone I think - without looking). And then there was the small matter of then making a thumping one-off profit in one financial year due to transfer fees. Do you know what profits lead to, if you play by the rules?? Taxes. We had to cough up over £500,000 in corporation tax to HMRC for the year ending June 2018. Makes me spit when I think of the multinationals who use various devices to avoid tax.

The Trust gives out a lot of information, and it's pretty easy to follow the money if you know how. The problem is that all clubs have fans that are full of s*** and assume there's conspiracies when they can't be bothered to put in the work to figure out what's happening.

None of this is to underplay the tightrope that Exeter City have to walk, but compared to most we are pretty well-run with a very clear strategy. You can argue whether the strategy is right - and plenty of City fans do. And the club gets things wrong, and like every club the manager signs a duffer now and again. But there is no mystery where the money goes - investment in the ground, investment in the training facilities, a Category 3 Youth Academy for 9yos upwards, and a heavily-subsidised wage bill.

[Grecian71]

Are previous managers and directors of football still receiving payouts,only current salaries can be considered commercially sensitive,if you are not totally transparent, people will draw their own conclusions.

Oh god, I didn't read this.

Paul Tisdale rather infamously had notice served on his contract by the Trust. When he left the club there was a small amount of time left on it - 4 months maybe. I *think* that the club received a small amount of compensation from MK Dons as a consequence, and we're not in the practice of paying people who no longer have contracts.

Neither is Steve Perryman being paid - related party disclosures are set out in the accounts. When he was a Director he was paid and he was also director of a company called OTR Limited which owns a property ECFC pay rent on. But anyone who cares to look at Companies House records will see that Perryman resigned from that company in February 2018, and he ceased being a Director of ECFC when Tisdale left.

The people "who will draw their own conclusions", have another name - conspiracists.

[Grecian71]

Kerrr-ching!!!

https://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/202 ... -transfer/

[SuperNickyWroe]

well f*cking well done.

[yellowmonkey]

Kerrr-ching!!!

https://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/news/202 ... -transfer/

You reap what you sow and we will always be a smaller club with smaller crowds. If we had invested in a youth scheme then maybe we would be getting nice little payouts every now again but we allow good quality youngsters to go elsewhere.

[Grecian71]

You reap what you sow and we will always be a smaller club with smaller crowds. If we had invested in a youth scheme then maybe we would be getting nice little payouts every now again but we allow good quality youngsters to go elsewhere.

The Grecians gave a league debut to Josh Key at the weekend, and he was actually at your Academy until it was closed down a few years ago. Josh also played and scored in the EFL Trophy in the previous week.

I understand why some clubs (e.g. Brentford) prefer to operate without a youth set-up, but generally it doesn't make sense. At least you've started a youth programme again, but it's a really long term project and can't be turned on and off on a whim.