Bizarre, I citicise a team I was in charge of for poor performance - go figure?!

I've said this on the Wigan board, and I'll say it here - sporting teams are almost without exception dreadful investments. The owners may hope to make profits, but realistically almost every team you look at will probably be continually subsidised by the owners. The issue isn't so much if/when Sts ever make a profit, as whether the levels of losses are sustainable - i.e. whether the owners are willing/able to continue to put more money into the club. I would be willing to bet money that not one owner of any SL side seriously expects to make consistent profits from owning a team.

Sometimes people ought to take that last point on board when criticising the owners of clubs - they are quite literally putting their money where their mouth is (although there can be tax benefits depending on the consolidation of profits and losses from all sources apart from the club itself).

The same is true in the NRL - IIRC the Broncos are one of only two sides to regularly make a profit. The difference financially is that most clubs (especially in NSW) are supported by their leagues clubs, which in turn are generally 'non-profit' organisations who make most of their money from pubs, and particularly poker machines (hence the outcry here over the aim to make it more difficult for problem gamblers to p*ss their lives away).

The thing that really es me off is the Sky contract. Although we would be lost without it, rugby league is a very important brand for Sky.

1) there are a hell of a lot of sky subs in the north that would think twice about paying for sky if super league was not on it.

2) It is a great filler for them when the footy season is not on

3) i am sure I also read somewhere that apart from Premiership football RL gets the highest viewing figures

We need them but they need us too. I think somebody needs to show a bit of guts and stand up for us more in these negotiations

Exactly the reason I was calling for Richard Lewis' head after the last Sky contract was signed. He hasn't brought any benefits to the sport at all and we roll over so quickly.

But to be fair to Sky there isn't a competitive market. There is no opportunity to market the product to different providers, in the UK there is only SKY who invest in sport.

What gets me is the wages?

Who are we paying these ever increasing wages too?

It's not the players, they are capped. We've paid pretty much the same on players for the last 10 years, the league does not allow for anything else.

Do we have too many highly paid hangers on? What real benefits do these paid people bring to the club?

Everyone is saying we need to increase revenue, but there is actually an alternate method, which is to cut costs. £1.6 million on players, our sky revenue and gate receipts even now cover that. So it's not the players weighing us down.

It's not a rebrand as such this time, all they've done is change the Saints RL in the badge to St. Helens RFC

I doubt that's the case given the corporate backgrounds of several members of the management team. I'm not saying there aren't areas that could be improved but I'm sure they look very closely at labour costs because I've yet to work in an organisation that doesn't.

Well, its good to see that the Directors do not take any salary or other benefits.
However, 93 players and coaching staff does seem OTT to me as does 62 "other staff" for a business with a turnover of less than £5M.

Looking at wages, we have 34 tier one and two players and assuming that the SC is used to its full £1.65M thats an average of £48,250 p.a. which gives the remaining staff an average £15K p.a.
so it doesn't look like the club is overpaying people or "hangers on" it just looks like we have too many of rthe buggers!

I'd assume the 62 'other staff' would include the likes of stewards and turnstyle staff.

I'm not sure whether they are on formal employee contracts or just classed as casual staff but shop staff would be included.

You have to be careful about speculating upon salaries and personnel ratios in businesses that are different to ones you've experienced. I've worked in ones where there's 300 employees for a £250m business and ones that have employed nearly 2,000 employees for a business that generated a fraction of that amount i.e. approx £14m. Without knowing the exact ins and outs we get into dangerous generalisations and speculation which serve no real purpose without genuine insight.

Much better news at Wigan.

Accounts for the last financial year (ending Nov 2010 - i.e. the 2010 season) has recently been filed by the club with Companies House.

Main highlights:

- Operating profit of £141k against an operating loss of £459k from 2009

- Turnover up 15% to £5.5m against £4.8m the previous year

- Stadium rental costs of £197k against £190k the previous year. Notes to the accounts confirm that "rates determined by match revenues" and we have a "25 year renewable lease"

- The £2m loan that was assumed to be owed to Whelan was paid on 3 December.

- Net debt position reduced from £1.63m to £1.29m

Overall some very encouraging results and will probably only get better this year.

Still in debt though Rogues.

Who cares.

Nobody outside Wigan gives a $h1t ...apart from you I suppose being as you live in St Helens

Well done indeed Rougues. Quite how the club managed to increase revenues by 14% but actually reduce overall costs but increasing salaries is quite a feat, however some of it is down to transfer fees being over £225,000 less than in 2009

What you don't say is:

[listClub is still insolvent to the tune of £2.69M in spite of the £572,000 benefit of a 2010 property revaluation.

There is no clue how the £2M loan was repaid e.g. another loan from the parent co LENAGAN INVESTMENTS LIMITED or Barclays bank loan. In other words what is likely in the absence of a share issue is that one debt been replaced by another.

The parent company to which Wigan owed £1.08M is a non trading insolvent company supported by its shareholders (Simon and Ann Lenagan).

Large liabilities for deferred income and accrued expenses amount to over £1.5M well up from previous years.

The club is still under investigation by the Inland Revenue (HMRC) for PAYE/NI issues arising out of payments including expenses to employees. No agreement has been reached with HMRC.
(Hypothetically, if at some stage HMRC sucessfully argue and rule that some expenses payments are in fact to be treated as salary then this may possibly have SC implications for the club and possibly other clubs (having said that, there is no such note about HMRC in Saints 2010 accounts) - of course no-one including myself is accusing Wigan or anyone connected to them of any sort of wrongdoing). This is also a big issue in RU[/list:u

In the end, Wigan's accounts are not much better than those of Saints apart from the fact that for the first time in a very long time Wigan has made a small - but nonetheless positive - profit after tax of £38K.
Against that, we will own a new shiney stadium. I know which I'd rather have?

Awww youve gone and urinated all over the non trolls parade.
I like you

I hope it's been posted on the pies board

Hmmm that business with the c£14M turnover; even if all its income went to salaries they would average £7,000 p.a. which seems extremely low?

I do take on board some of what you say but there are some very strange stats when looking at some of our peers e.g.:

Number of employees - Saints 155 (Players and Coaching Staff - 93, Other Staff -62), Wigan - 78 (Players and Coaching Staff - 54, Other Staff - 24).
Why do we have nearly double the number of total staff and 72% more coaches and players to Wigan anyone?

Wigan Turnover £5.49M, Salaries £3.42M
Saints Turnover £4.83M, Salaries £3.81M

Don't get me wrong, in spite of wigan's small profit in 2010 their balance sheet is in similar shape to ours. The difference is that we will have a real revenue generating state of the art stadium next year!

Wigan and Warrington have acknowledged the HMRC investigation.

Have Saints?
If not why not?

They are in the frame (as indeed are most RL clubs)

How do you know saints are in the frame? Proof?

Can't and won't divulge my source, but there are a few on here who know what I'm on about.

You should know more than most that I don't post cr@p. This thing regarding HMRC and image rights could cost RL clubs big time and could kill some of them off.

I'm pretty sure we'd have heard about it

I don't think you would.
Have I ever deceived you?

Can't be spouting such liabolous comments on here old timer. Doesn't even matter if it's the truth, Sadfish told me.

Ban hammer time...