Financial Report

by Graham Peart
Wycombe Wanderers F C Ltd. Financial Director.
first published in the WWFC programme 7th February 1998

Dear Supporter,

At the AGM last October the Chairman announced that it was desirable to make some minor changes to the Articles of Association. This is the document which sets out the rules of membership, voting in of officers and other fundamental matters. The reason for proposing the changes is simply to bring the rules into line with current sensible operational requirements. Some supporters have made the incorrect assumption that the object is to tidy up details to make ready to float the club on the stock market or to sell the assets to a wealthy individual. Neither option is desirable or indeed necessary.

WWFC Ltd. has a nett asset value in the accounts which places it in the top 12 of all football clubs in England. If the stadium was revalued to reflect recent improvements, the asset value would rise even further. Your club does not have large debts but neither does it have a lot of cash.

Some supporters have suggested to me that the Board might seek a wealthy individual willing to put in "a million or two". This is not an attractive option for two reasons. Firstly we are competing with a number of teams where substantial sums have already been injected from outside, notably Watford, Wigan and Fulham. The timing is wrong. We need these teams to get promotion first. In addition teams including Burnley, Bristol City and Preston enjoy much higher income than ourselves due to larger attendances. If you buy expensive players then you also take on wages for 2 or 3 seasons at a level that we cannot justify on current income.

So "a million or two" would not go very far. Somewhere nearer 10m might get you a potential championship winning team but with no guarantees e.g. Wolves, QPR, etc.

Which brings me to the second objection. The club is worth around 10m to the right individual. So selling the club for a few million would be doing an injustice to Wycombe Wanderers members. The other consideration is that once sold, control over destiny has gone - forever. Our stability is envied by most other football clubs and very strong reasons would need to be argued to lose that advantage.

Another angle on large cash injections is to look at the longer term consequences. Not always does it leed to happiness amongst supporters. And there is no certainty of the continuing interest of those benefactors.

The way forward is to continue to invest in our youth team and to produce our own young and committed stars. Also to encourage young supporters to visit Adams Park and yes, to wear our fabulous quartered shirt. That way we can build a team which can fund itself and endure.