The "If we go down" thread

[robp135]

In the last set of published accounts we had £337 of transfer debt and £852m of stadium debt, so close to £1.2b of total debt Against that we had £79m of cash and were owed £58m in transfer fees. That is an extremely scary amount of debt if we were to drop to the championship.

Its spread out over a period of time. We will be on the hook for conservatively net £100M outlay. Its not ideal but its not going to kill us. We can sell some players, some of whom are on big wages and we have others already leaving to be on track.

The stadium debt is £1.2B when you factor in the interest. We only pay the interest at this point and down the line will attack the principal. It's still a manageable amount. Again a 1.2B debt for a business that makes £600M per year is like making £60k per year and you have a £120k home you pay a mortgage on.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Its spread out over a period of time. We will be on the hook for conservatively net £100M outlay. Its not ideal but its not going to kill us. We can sell some players, some of whom are on big wages and we have others already leaving to be on track.

The stadium debt is £1.2B when you factor in the interest. We only pay the interest at this point and down the line will attack the principal. It's still a manageable amount. Again a 1.2B debt for a business that makes £600M per year is like making £60k per year and you have a £120k home you pay a mortgage on.

Mate. When you have total debt of £1.2b and net debt of over £1b and your revenue suddenly halves that's worse than 'not ideal'.

£1.2b of debt for a business with revenues of £600m is OK. £1.2b of debt for a business who's revenue suddenly drops to £300m and has had recent history of both burning through it's cash pile while also increasing debt is really bad,

Our debt level is fine in the short term if we're just paying back interest and not the principle. However, our loans are at a mixture of maturities and we've clearly been taking on new debt as tranches expire. Our interest costs have already significantly increased these past few years. I think a lot of financial institutions would think twice about lending to Spurs if we end up in the Championship with vastly reduced revenues and that is before considering our existing debt covenants that very likely require us to retain an amount of liquidity above a certain threshold before punative charges and interest kick in.

I can't help but think of the famous 'This is fine!' meme when reading your posts. It really isn't fine however.

 

[Robbo]

I think the biggest issue with relegation is that everyone will want to beat us so bad. We're looking at 46 cup finals.

 

[robp135]

Mate. When you have total debt of £1.2b and net debt of over £1b and your revenue suddenly halves that's worse than 'not ideal'.

£1.2b of debt for a business with revenues of £600m is OK. £1.2b of debt for a business who's revenue suddenly drops to £300m and has had recent history of both burning through it's cash pile while also increasing debt is really bad,

Our debt level is fine in the short term if we're just paying back interest and not the principle. However, our loans are at a mixture of maturities and we've clearly been taking on new debt as tranches expire. Our interest costs have already significantly increased these past few years. I think a lot of financial institutions would think twice about lending to Spurs if we end up in the Championship with vastly reduced revenues and that is before considering our existing debt covenants that very likely require us to retain an amount of liquidity above a certain threshold before punative charges and interest kick in.

I can't help but think of the famous 'This is fine!' meme when reading your posts. It really isn't fine however.

Its still more than manageable for 1 season. The club has money it just choses to borrow money cheap like most businesses.

 

[SteveAWOL]

I think the biggest issue with relegation is that everyone will want to beat us so bad. We're looking at 46 cup finals.

Hopefully we don’t end up losing 44 of them, to continue our losing mentality of recent league campaigns…

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[Welshspur60]

We will
It will be Romero and VDV first
And dragu, Vic, Bentacur and many other will go too

I wont miss any of those tbh. We will get good money for VdV and Romero. Neither are great at defending, which is what we will need in the championship, cbs who firstly can defend.

 

[Welshspur60]

I think this would be my plan for going down:

Sell:
Vicario - £25m
Porro - £35m
Romero - £40m
Dragusin - £25m
Takai - £5m
van de Ven - £65m
Udogie - £50m
Vuskovic - £60m
Gallagher - £30m
Maddison - £25m
Gray - £60m
Bentancur - £15m
Kudus - £50m
Solomon - £5m
Solanke - £35m
Richarlison - £25m
Veliz - £10m

= £560m for debt repayment

Leaving us with a squad of:

----------------------------Kinsky(Austin)
Spence(Hall)-Phillips(Dorrington)-Danso(Byfield)-Souza(Davies)
-------------------Bergvall(Abbott)---Sarr(Devine)
-----------------------------Simons(Donley)
---Kulusevski(Yang)----------------------------------Moore(Tel)
---------------------------Lankshear(Scarlett)

+Odobert (from December)

Grey wont be sold, neither will Madders and Solanke.

 

[Welshspur60]

I think the biggest issue with relegation is that everyone will want to beat us so bad. We're looking at 46 cup finals.

And we are brick at home pretty much since we moved in.

 

[Muttley]

I wont miss any of those tbh. We will get good money for VdV and Romero. Neither are great at defending, which is what we will need in the championship, cbs who firstly can defend.

I can actually see Ash Phillips coming to the foreground if we get relegated. He's cutting his teeth the in Championship and attaining average score over a season of about 7/10. He gets better and better as he approaches his 21st b'day.

There's actually 46 games in that league so it's a busy schedule. You need depth.

 

[Robbo]

I can actually see Ash Phillips coming to the foreground if we get relegated. He's cutting his teeth the in Championship and attaining average score over a season of about 7/10. He gets better and better as he approaches his 21st b'day.

There's actually 46 games in that league so it's a busy schedule. You need depth.

Considering our recent injury/suspension record, we'd probably need closer to 10 centre backs.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I wont miss any of those tbh. We will get good money for VdV and Romero. Neither are great at defending, which is what we will need in the championship, cbs who firstly can defend.

Agree

 

[Finney Is Back]

Its still more than manageable for 1 season. The club has money it just choses to borrow money cheap like most businesses.

Lol.... Where does it have this money that is hidden away and not visible in our published accounts?

 

[FolkestoneSpur]

I was on a bike ride earlier and it suddenly hit me, the goons could win the league, we could quite conceivably be relegated by Cheatski and West Ham stay up instead of us. Carlsberg don't do brick seasons but...... ffs ruined the whole rest of the ride.

 

[Legohamster]

Yeah i guess there is that assumption in the post - I would say if we aren't good enough to bounce straight back then we aren't good enough to stay in the league so it'll happen eventually anyway so meh

The recruitment in the Championship has to be better than the PL in some ways as its such a difficult league to get out of

You need players that can play two games a week
You need players that are mentally strong enough to play for a club expected to go back up straight away
You need a decent side squad, which you would need to build from scratch once relegated
You need players that are used to a more physical game
You need to balance incomings with off loading most the squad

I don't trust the club to be remotely able to manage this successfully

 

[Legohamster]

Lol.... Where does it have this money that is hidden away and not visible in our published accounts?

People are blind on the damage relegation would cause to the club, it would set us back on and off the pitch for years, even if it was just for one year.

We would be completely screwed

 

[Finney Is Back]

People are blind on the damage relegation would cause to the club, it would set us back on and off the pitch for years, even if it was just for one year.

We would be completely screwed

If it was one season it would harm us considerably but we could get through it. If it lasted more than one season then we'd be in really big trouble.

 

[Baleforce]

People are blind on the damage relegation would cause to the club, it would set us back on and off the pitch for years, even if it was just for one year.

We would be completely screwed

It’s something we would never live down.

Once a championship club, always a championship club.

 

[balesleftboot]

I mean City, Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Villa have all played in lower divisions this century and they seem to be doing OK.

 

[Legohamster]

I mean City, Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Villa have all played in lower divisions this century and they seem to be doing OK.

Villa, City and Saudi Sportswashing Machine have mega bucks new owners and took years to really recover.

Villa and city almost went bust

 

[robp135]

Lol.... Where does it have this money that is hidden away and not visible in our published accounts?

Any business can report large non-cash expenses from the accounting depreciation. It’s standard accounting rule. In the clubs case, they do this in many ways but most notables is the Stadium.

They spreads the stadiums construction cost over many years, reducing reported profit, even though no cash is actually leaving the club in those years. We accounted for an artificial £70M loss in our 2024 accounts.

Lower reported profit means a smaller taxable income, which reduces the clubs corporate tax bill via capital allowances on qualifying assets.