Port financial loss not as bad as first thought

[Dogwatcher]

Port supporters will be glad to know their financial loss wasn't as bad as presented.



http://indaily.com.au/sport/2015/05/07/ ... s-on-loss/

AFL | A leading AFL club has told its supporters it lost $2.5 million last year even though official documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show the loss was less than half that.

However, Port Adelaide CEO Keith Thomas has rejected any speculation the club announced a larger loss to improve bargaining power while renegotiating its onerous tenancy deal with Adelaide Oval.

“The Port Adelaide Football Club loss was not exaggerated,” Thomas said this week after The New Daily questioned him about the discrepancy between public statements and club official documents.

Port Adelaide chairman David Koch told the club’s annual general meeting on February 13 this year that the club’s “operating loss” in 2014 was $2.5 million, despite the team repeatedly playing to capacity crowds at its new Adelaide Oval headquarters and missing the AFL Grand Final by just three points.

Thomas, both before and after the February AGM, also referred to a multi-million dollar 2014 loss, at one point linking the club’s off-field fortunes to its tenancy deal at its new home.

“The numbers are crystal clear and compelling,” he told The Age on November 12 last year.

“If we can’t make a profit in these conditions, then how can we ever be profitable?”

But the club did not make a $2.5 million operating loss last year. In fact, it was much less than half that.

According to official financial accounts lodged and then re-lodged with ASIC last month, the club’s “operating loss” in 2013/14 was $1.09 million.

While accounts containing the lower number were available to members at the AGM, the club did not bother to disclose this number in the press release that was issued that day.

Confronted with the anomaly by The New Daily, Thomas strongly rejected any suggestion the club had chosen to announce the higher figure to increase pressure on Adelaide Oval officials and the SANFL for a better tenancy deal.

“Our reference throughout the course of 2014 to the marketplace and the parties with whom we were in negotiations with (was) about our ‘trading loss’ which did not include additional SANFL grant income,” Thomas said.

“The reporting of the statutory loss of $1.09 million versus the trading loss of $2.5 million did not give Port Adelaide Football Club any leverage in this deal as all parties had a great deal of transparency about each other’s financial positions throughout the deal timeframe.”

About a week after the initial media reports late last year of a $2 million-plus loss, the South Australian government threatened to intervene in the dispute between Port Adelaide and the SANFL over the stadium deal.

Eventually, an in-principle agreement was struck in January and legal contracts signed in March, more than three weeks after the club announced the $2.5 million “operating loss”.

The announcement did not include reference to a “trading loss”.

On February 13, Thomas told the Adelaide Advertiser that “we are unhappy to lose $2.5 million”.

When asked by The New Daily to explain this comment, Thomas stated: “We chose to focus on the loss attributable to how we performed as a trading business.

“We were taking ownership and responsibility for this result to our members, rather than trying to dress our loss up as something lower than it was by including SANFL funding of $1.4 million that we had to recognise as revenue.”

Even though Port Adelaide believed the club’s true trading performance was more than twice the official loss stated in the accounts, the aggregate salaries of its key management personnel last year increased by almost 25 per cent.

The payroll for senior executives, which includes the CEO, increased to $2.17 million from $1.73 million in 2013.

Thomas said the increase in the pay of key staff was due to “steep increases in remuneration and performance-based bonuses, of which football performance was a key factor for some individuals”.

“Further, there was an additional senior executive role in 2014 that was not in place for the whole of 2013, thus artificially inflating the percentage year on year comparison,” he said.

[heater31]

This should make an interesting conversation the next time I see my audit accountant mate that works on the PAFC accounts......

[Fluffbag]

They probably go to The Theee Stooges Accounting firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe

[james07]

it might be hard to understand for some but pretty straight forward and realistic approach from Port.

[Wedgie]

Who's managing their real estate?
L'iar and Deshonko?

[tipper]

it might be hard to understand for some but pretty straight forward and realistic approach from Port.

pretty realistic and straight forward when you are trying to cry poor and have your handout for more money......

curious, if the licence has been sold, why did the sanfl give the power any money? let alone $1.4 million??

[whufc]

Is it any surprise the truth comes out after the new SMA agreement has been agreed

[james07]

No point arguing if your too stupid to understand what's been written in the article


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[RB]

No point arguing if your too stupid to understand what's been written in the article


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Lol. Eloquently put, Professor.

[stan]

Who's managing their real estate?
L'iar and Deshonko?

Perfect fit for them then.

[Dogwatcher]

Is it any surprise the truth comes out after the new SMA agreement has been agreed

The article states that the initial figures revealed would not have impacted those negotiations.
But, that figure was still a handy public relations tool in harnessing public opinion into believing that, once again, an authority outside of the PAFC was striving to rip the club off; SMA replaced the SANFL as the boogeyman on this occasion.

[Booney]

Is it any surprise the truth comes out after the new SMA agreement has been agreed

The article states that the initial figures revealed would not have impacted those negotiations.
But, that figure was still a handy public relations tool in harnessing public opinion into believing that, once again, an authority outside of the PAFC was striving to rip the club off; SMA replaced the SANFL as the boogeyman on this occasion.

So public opinion influenced the new stadium deal?

[Dogwatcher]

I did not say that it did, because I don't know. It may have, though.

Football politics is just like any politics and organisations will say what they need to in order to harness public opinion for their needs. It will become a belief of Port supporters into the future that they are being or were ripped off and will become a factor in other debates. It will also allow Port to have an 'out' with their members and the greater public when there are financial questions to be asked - "we were ripped off by the SMA".

Just as the Adelaide Crows threw out the need for a reserves team to harness public opinion for their ends.
Just as Eddie tells everyone that the COLA is bad.
It's good propaganda and it will have a use.

Do you believe that public opinion doesn't have sway in negotiations?

[Booney]

I don't believe public opinion had any effect on the stadium deal, no. Private enterprise ( which we are led to believe the SMA are ) don't have to run a popularity contest. Where else would games get played?

Politics is a popularity contest on the other hand.

[Dogwatcher]

No point arguing if your too stupid to understand what's been written in the article


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Calls someone stupid. Uses your, not you're.

[james07]

bit of a difference with misspelling a word and actually understanding what the article is about

[Dogwatcher]

bit of a difference with misspelling a word and actually understanding what the article is about

Oh, okay.

[Booney]

bit of a difference with misspelling a word and actually understanding what the article is about

Oh, okay.

I prefer "ok".

[Dogwatcher]

bit of a difference with misspelling a word and actually understanding what the article is about

Oh, okay.

I prefer "ok".

Now, I'm not going to say that makes you stupid...