Financial melt down?

[QPROslo]

While the football side of things looks worse than ever, I fear that the financial side is even more desperate.

FFP calculations are measured on a three years rolling basis. We had a decent year from a financial point of view in 2020/2021 when we sold Eze in the beginning of that financial year. This makes up the first of the three seasons we are now measured against. However, this has been the only sale worth mentioning during the three years period, and of that reason the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 financial years have produced heavy losses (the figures are not published yet, but I think there is little doubt that they look dark red). Despite the Eze sales we struggle to stay inside the FFP boundary of maximum loss of £39m for the three years in question, if Ferdinand's recent interview is correctly interpreted.

Next season, the Eze-year will be out of the equation. To stay inside FFP boundaries we are probably in need of raising some significant transfer fees during the next two transfer windows. We have three key players with one year left on their contracts this summer. This is Dieng, Willock and Dykes, provided we take up the option of prolonging Willocks contract. With the form and the injury record of the latter two I do not think they will command much more than a couple of million each at most, if there will be any bids at all. Dieng is worth more. However, he isn't Premier League material, so I do not think we will receive bids of more than £3-4m. There is a chance no bids will be forthcoming. We know from the past that once we approach the end of the transfer window, the value of players with a year left on their contracts, that do not want to sign contract extensions, are modest. We could experience a Manning situation for all three if we get to the end of August and none of the mentioned players have left. If I recall right, we got £250.000 for Manning. We got around £4-500.000 for BOS with half a season left of his contract.

I think there will be no other options than to sell Field, Paal and Chair, our most attractive assets, during the early part of the transfer window, to reduce risk. However, to clinch a sale there must be a bid.

However, I fear that disposing off Willock, Dykes, Dieng, Field, Paal and Chair will not necessary free up much money for any serious reinforcements. I will only help plug the FFP hole.

We will be left to sign freebies and loans or stay with what we have.

The catastrophic scenario appears if there are no bids for any of the players, or sales of just one or a few for a total fee that cannot plug the FFP hole. In such case we are looking at a breach of FFP and a point deduction. Given our previous hefty FFP fine, we will probably be docked 10 points or more.

So if we get relegated this season, which looks very likely based on present form, prepare for a new relegation fight next season.

[Dono77]

Prepare for bankruptcy I'd say. Who will carry on paying the wages for our lot. Its like watching water going down the plughole.

[Harrow QPR]

While the football side of things looks worse than ever, I fear that the financial side is even more desperate.

FFP calculations are measured on a three years rolling basis. We had a decent year from a financial point of view in 2020/2021 when we sold Eze in the beginning of that financial year. This makes up the first of the three seasons we are now measured against. However, this has been the only sale worth mentioning during the three years period, and of that reason the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 financial years have produced heavy losses (the figures are not published yet, but I think there is little doubt that they look dark red). Despite the Eze sales we struggle to stay inside the FFP boundary of maximum loss of £39m for the three years in question, if Ferdinand's recent interview is correctly interpreted.

Next season, the Eze-year will be out of the equation. To stay inside FFP boundaries we are probably in need of raising some significant transfer fees during the next two transfer windows. We have three key players with one year left on their contracts this summer. This is Dieng, Willock and Dykes, provided we take up the option of prolonging Willocks contract. With the form and the injury record of the latter two I do not think they will command much more than a couple of million each at most, if there will be any bids at all. Dieng is worth more. However, he isn't Premier League material, so I do not think we will receive bids of more than £3-4m. There is a chance no bids will be forthcoming. We know from the past that once we approach the end of the transfer window, the value of players with a year left on their contracts, that do not want to sign contract extensions, are modest. We could experience a Manning situation for all three if we get to the end of August and none of the mentioned players have left. If I recall right, we got £250.000 for Manning. We got around £4-500.000 for BOS with half a season left of his contract.

I think there will be no other options than to sell Field, Paal and Chair, our most attractive assets, during the early part of the transfer window, to reduce risk. However, to clinch a sale there must be a bid.

However, I fear that disposing off Willock, Dykes, Dieng, Field, Paal and Chair will not necessary free up much money for any serious reinforcements. I will only help plug the FFP hole.

We will be left to sign freebies and loans or stay with what we have.

The catastrophic scenario appears if there are no bids for any of the players, or sales of just one or a few for a total fee that cannot plug the FFP hole. In such case we are looking at a breach of FFP and a point deduction. Given our previous hefty FFP fine, we will probably be docked 10 points or more.

So if we get relegated this season, which looks very likely based on present form, prepare for a new relegation fight next season.

It is my understanding that nowadays when you sell or sign a player the fee is paid over the length of the contract , so if we sold Eze for £16 million and he's on a 4 year contract , we should be receving £4 million per year from Palace , so in theory we should get another £4 million next season as well.
I don't know and doubt any of us really do know the true ins and outs of the finances at QPR because they can fiddle the books in all sorts of ways but if we have lost as much as you think over the last 3 years we deserve to be relegated . All the #### £ 1 or 2 million signings and crap players we've wasted money on i cannot believe we are losing that much money unless they are paying extortionate wages which Les has said they are'nt anymore , so where is it going?
Also i would'nt be bothered if they sold every player on our books because they obviously don't give a #### about our club which is shown by they're differing levels of form and workrate.

[SheepRanger]

It is my understanding that nowadays when you sell or sign a player the fee is paid over the length of the contract , so if we sold Eze for £16 million and he's on a 4 year contract , we should be receving £4 million per year from Palace , so in theory we should get another £4 million next season as well.
I don't know and doubt any of us really do know the true ins and outs of the finances at QPR because they can fiddle the books in all sorts of ways but if we have lost as much as you think over the last 3 years we deserve to be relegated . All the #### £ 1 or 2 million signings and crap players we've wasted money on i cannot believe we are losing that much money unless they are paying extortionate wages which Les has said they are'nt anymore , so where is it going?
Also i would'nt be bothered if they sold every player on our books because they obviously don't give a #### about our club which is shown by they're differing levels of form and workrate.

You may be right on the Eze deal from a cashflow perspective, but from an accountancy angle the value has already been put into the accounts in full.

In the last accounts to May 21 we made an operating loss of £17m before player trading. In the same accounts we accounted for a profit of £17.6m on player trading
Overall, we made a profit of £48k for the year.

The accounts to May 22 will be released by the end of the month. This will include some very expensive loans brought in under Warbs. Its not going to be very pretty in my opinion.

[QPROslo]

If you sell a player for £16m, as in the case of Eze, the entire profit vs book value is booked in the fiscal year that the sale took place, irrespective of the payment profile. Hence, if we received £4m per year over four years this has no effect on the FFP calculations - it was all in the profit and loss account of 2020/2021.

The loss before player sales in the last two fiscal years that have been published were respectively £20m and £18m, so the annual losses without player sales are astronomic. We have more than 100 people on the pay roll. The losses might have come down the last two years but they are still not sustainable. I suppose 2021/2022 will be published very soon - it will give us more insight. However, the fact we did not strengthen more during the last transfer window is a sign that we are close to the FFP boundaries.

[Harrow QPR]

You may be right on the Eze deal from a cashflow perspective, but from an accountancy angle the value has already been put into the accounts in full.

In the last accounts to May 21 we made an operating loss of £17m before player trading. In the same accounts we accounted for a profit of £17.6m on player trading
Overall, we made a profit of £48k for the year.

The accounts to May 22 will be released by the end of the month. This will include some very expensive loans brought in under Warbs. Its not going to be very pretty in my opinion.

What did we lose £17 m on , does it say exactly where that money has gone ? because it was'nt on player transfer fees or wages , we pay low wages according to Hoos and Les .

[SheepRanger]

What did we lose £17 m on , does it say exactly where that money has gone ? because it was'nt on player transfer fees or wages , we pay low wages according to Hoos and Les .

The whole running of the club. The FFP figures are calculatex differently. Download the pdf dated 10th Feb 22. There's a fair bit of justifying text to back up the numbers.

https://find-and-update.company-info...filing-history

Just remember the accounts are to May21 and are nearly a year old before theyre reported. At that time there may still have been players on bigger wages than we're paying now.

[QPROslo]

Prepare for bankruptcy I'd say. Who will carry on paying the wages for our lot. Its like watching water going down the plughole.

I think we misread the situation if we assume the club will go bankrupt. I cannot see this happening. The problem isn't cash. The owners are prepared to inject a lot more money into the club than they are allowed to. The problem is lack of player development and income from sale of players, coupled with lack of other good sources of income, which means we are hitting the FFP threshold and cannot spend more without getting a severe points deduction.

Hence, the existence of the club is not at risk, but we won't be allowed to spend and we might have to sell all players that can command a fee to avoid breaking the rules.

We will know much more in the near future, when the 2021/2022 are published. I agree with Sheep - it will not be happy reading. I think it is another £15m+ deficit, but I hope I am wrong. However, I cannot understand we have managed to improve significantly compared to previous years.

I read in another thread that some posters do not trust the official accounts, and think the losses are much smaller than communicated. They believe the owners are spending less than the accounts are saying. This is not very likely. First of all it must imply that the chartered accountants that sign off our accounts are part of a falsification of the accounts, which is unthinkable. Secondly, showing poorer results that reality would jeopardise the situation, as we would have less head room vs FFP. And thirdly, if the owners would like to sell, they would be stupid to inflate the reported losses above the real level. Hence, we should not spend any time thinking the official accounts are not a true reflection of the situation.

[topperharley]

Our better players are lower prem standard, or at least appealing to lower prem teams. But since late November none of them have shown they are a cut above the rest.

I'd hoped we'd sell Chair in the summer as I think he's a liability and always have.

What we reallt need ot be doing is getting players like Armstrong up to scratch and turning players like Richards around and selling them up. We just cannot do anything when in this kind of form.

The costs of running a club must be astronomical. Wages for the entire on and off field staff will be huge and as Oslo says mediocre player sales will do nothing more then paper over the cracks. It's a good point that we really haven't sold anyone since Eze of any value. Les says we are a selling club and we should deal with that, well, we've had players as sellable assets in the last 2 years so I bloody hope there were feelers out there looking to make sales happen. Yes fans would have been angry if certain players were sold at certain times but the DOF or at least the boards job is to look bigger picture, take the hits and do so for the well being of the club.

[dave58]

Rumour has it that we're losing a £1M a month, how true who knows?

[QPROslo]

Rumour has it that we're losing a £1M a month, how true who knows?

We do not need to turn to rumours when the accounts are open and freely available. We have lost around £1.5m a month before players sales during the last two seasons that are published. I wish we only lost £1m. That would have put us in a good position compared to where we are, as £1m is inside the FFP threshold of £39m over three years. I think the goal of the club is to limit losses to just £1m a year as it would create a more stable platform without the pressure to sell players to keep running.

[SheepRanger]

Rumour has it that we're losing a £1M a month, how true who knows?

As per comment from Oslo.

In the accounting year to May21 we lost £17m or £1.4m a month. That was cleared in full due to player sales including the full Eze money.

For seasons 21/22 we will find out shortly when the accounts are submitted to Companies House. However, it is fair to say that a loss of £17m may be reduced due to lower player wages being paid, but we did not make any player sales of note to wipe it to zero. So, Im expecting a loss of £15m.

The 21/22 accounts are a guide to 22/22 and 22/23 seasons. No player sales of note and i doubt our income has significantly increased. Im expecting losses of £25-30m across these two seasons, but hope Im wrong. The lack of money to buy a striker and our reliance on loan players would suggest we're deep in it!

[ConorQPR2000]

I fear for the club, I really do.


Already planning my trips to the likes of Wycombe, Oxford United and Charlton next season.

[Darkranger]

All those people saying the owners need to go, need to think about what they're asking for. These guys are stumping up £1.4m every month to keep us going. Whilst trying to to reduce this by cutting player wages and transfer fees. This ultimately lessens the quality of player available.
They would like to pump in more money, but they are unable to because of the unfair FFP model.

[QPROslo]

I think the majority of the clubs in the Championship and EFL support the concept of FFP, or whatever it is called these days. I bet this includes QPR.