Ramsgate fan rebukes owner

Tweeting from his Thanet base,VOTV editor Rick Everitt has pointed out a number of errors in recent statements by Thomas Sandgaard.

'According to TS last night, Charlton made an operating loss of £100m over several decades before RD turned up. Club did run an operating loss 1992-1998 - which aggregates to £7m. From 1999 to 2008 it often made an operating profit but the aggregate is a loss of about £15m.

This isn’t the actual loss though because it doesn’t account for player trading. In the next seven years, under RD, the operating loss was £70.5m. Thomas claimed that RD improved the finances but the facts suggest he made them MUCH worse.

Charlton made an operating PROFIT during five of eight PL seasons and lost £59k in another. They did make an operating loss of £7.5m in 2005/06 and £11.6m in 06/07, and £6.6m in the First Division in 99/00, but the claim there was a £100m cumulative operating loss pre-2014 is false.

In 2009/10 it would have made an operating loss of £3m on trading without a big debt write-off (which shows as profit). Thereafter the operating loss was £10m in 2009/10, £6m in 10/11, £6.8m in 11/12, £6.4m in 12/13. So, you can make a case for about £50m over 21 years before RD.

It’s also the case that the"Spivs"* inherited relatively little debt in 2010/11, because the former board had wiped most of it in 2009. Comparisons with Derby County are ridiculous and amount to no more than the obvious point that English football is a money pit. Yes, we know!'

* Shome mishtake shurely - ed. Experienced entrepreneurs who had plans for a new ground for the club

A long-standing fan from London has provided an alternative view: 'There seems to be some dissent on TS comments around the debt of the club when RD bought it. Rick Everitt is disputing TS figure of £100M saying it was only about £7-8M and that the club made some small profits when in the Premier League. 

Without looking at the accounts I guess the difference is RE is looking at the balance sheet, which doesn’t include any directors’ loans that had been written off, whereas TS is including them as the loads were required to cover external debt so therefore meant there was a loss that would have been shown if the loan was still in place. I get where TS is coming from.'