I am happy to announce a tiny slither of good news now that the Albion Foundation has filed its accounts with the Charities Commission for the financial year ended 30th June, 2015. But blink and you will miss it!
A tiny number of WBA fans have had a go at me for writing about The Albion Foundation - a registered charity intimately linked to a rich Premier League Football Club (and one that should be even richer with the new TV deal around the corner - assuming, of course, that we can manage to stay in the top flight). But people are misinterpreting the point I am trying to make (deliberately or otherwise). It is quite clear that The Foundation do some fantastic work and that is to be encouraged. But the Club is a private business yet gets enormous kudos and favourable coverage from involvement with the charity. That sort of "positive marketing" would not come cheap if the Club had to pay its own marketing teams or consultants for it and yet it puts a pitiful amount of actual cash into the Foundation. The situation becomes worse because it has shifted part of the burden for part-financing its own charity to us taxpayers via the w*nkers who run the Labour basket-case local, "Sadwell", Council.
Before I go on, may I just mention that of the miniscule number of folk who have had a pop at me, not one admitted to having actually paid a single penny to the charity by way of a donation! If you are going to have a go may I suggest £5 a shot to The Foundation! Please read on below the following appeal for help.....
#########################
Help Please
Does anyone have any screenshots or other copies of entries made on WBA fan sites by "Coops" - in particular the infamous "cancer" jibe?
#########################
If you look at the Foundation's website (which I would encourage you to do as you may want to get involved and help in some way) it is all in blue and white and just in case you still don't get the positive marketing message for the rich football Club the Foundation's logo spells this out:
Link to website:
There are some cynical souls who also believe that the Club are "using" the charity to bolster its own youth development programmes (a mere £629k of the charity's money was spent on, er, "football development" last year) and that some of the Foundation's foreign trips, eg to Africa, are glorified scouting missions. Whatever the position is The Foundation, unbelievably. states that one of its main strategic principles as a charity is:
"to add value to West Bromwich Albion Football Club....."
What the f*ck.....?????? If you don't believe me take a look at page 5 of the accounts:
And the accounts also acknowledge that the foreign trips "enabled us to expand the reach of the Foundation and the Football Club." Well they do say charity begins at home.....
The Foundation have actually managed to get some "corporate sponsors", an American (!) motor parts firm, Borg Warner, bhp design and Bache Group. You would have thought hard-nosed business folk might well have cavilled at being asked for cash when wealthy WBA were putting in sod all but there we are and, perhaps, there are signs that people are beginning to wise up as the accounts show that "sponsorship" has dropped alarmingly from £66,127 (2014) to £37,095 (2015).
Happily, the finances are rosy (no thanks to the vast majority of Baggies fans) and this is notably thanks to the likes of the Premier League and the FA who have been very generous.
Enter stage left the lunatic "leader" of Sadwell Council, Darren Cooper, who is very anxious to involve himself in anything WBA but to use OUR taxpayers' money rather than his own (see also the big shaft of taxpayers going on over the Three Degrees statue - more on this blog anon).
Despite 40 years of failing the local area, the Labour Dictatorship in Oldbury still spend our cash like inebriated matelots on "pet" projects and nothing is dearer to the heart of the egomaniacal Cooper than "The Baggies" boing, boing. Recently, the comrades were castigated yet again for the appalling state of their Children's Services Department and the Government has had to step in to try and clear up the appalling mess and to protect the most vulnerable kids in the grim Borough (kids at HIGH RISK of physical and/or sexual abuse). The Council Cabinet [sic] member currently responsible for this abortion is homelessness expert, Labour Cllr Simon "Two Homes" Hackett, and, happily, he also sits on the Board of Trustees of, er "The Albion Foundation"! Despite Labour's horrendous f*ck up with Children's Services the Express and Star reported in August, 2015 that Cooper and pals were CUTTING the budget for these poor kids by £7m!!!!
(From the Charity's website).
In December, 2015 The Foundation were happy to "give something back" to the local community by organising a disabled sports day in Oldbury with Sadwell "Adult Social Care". But they neglected to say how much they were getting from the taxpayer via the Dictatorship. And what of Labour's "Adult Social Care" - well that is failing dismally too and the E&S reported that "significant" work needed to be done to get the Council "up to scratch" in this area. In particular, the health of local Sadwell communities was much worse than the national average.
Of course, despite Labour's Stalinist grip on Sandwell for 40 years, Darren Cooper claims all this sh*t is nothing to do with Labour and all because of "Tory cuts" but he still keeps piling our money into The Foundation allegedly on projects connected to, er, Children's Service and Adult Social Care where he is simultaneously axing their funding.
It is slightly risky just pulling figures from accounts as The Foundation's year end is 30th June (the same as the Football Club) and so the accounts are a "snapshot" of things as they stand on that date. Accordingly, a charity or company may have money in the bank on that day that is already earmarked for expenditure. Charities also prudently maintain a reserve for any "rainy day" and the accounts show that the charity always likes to hold £150,000. But as at 30th June, 2015 the actual bank balance was a stonking £452,639. With the above caveat, why are taxpayers shovelling money into an organisation with nearly half a million quid sitting in the bank?
Cooper and his comrades are specifically said in the accounts to have diverted taxpayers' cash of £74,775 to the charity as at 30th June, 2015. No wonder the charity agreed to the so-called "give back day"!
Even more incredibly, in the financial year in question, Cooper's clowns also made a payment of our hard-earned on 1st January, 2015 DIRECT to WBAFC of £7,906.40p.
Although The Foundation's accounts to 30th June, 2015 are now available those for the Football Club are not and do not have to be filed at Companies House until 31st March. Accordingly, the last accounts for The Baggies are for year ended 30th June, 2014. At present, the Club are charging £25 for an adult ticket in the BRE and, in a "sale", a mere £34.99 for an adult sleeveless shirt. In 2014 the Club had a turnover of £86,760,000 and made a clear profit AFTER TAX of £10,761,000. So did they splash the cash with "their" in-house charity and "give back" to the community. Well the good news is YES! They paid the charity a mighty £17,779.00. That is for the WHOLE YEAR.
If the 2015 accounts show roughly the same position, then the rich Club donated 0.02% of turnover to the Charity or, using the profit figure, just 0.16% of post tax profit! That is generosity alright! If you deduct the money we taxpayers gave to the Club (as above) then the net donation goes down to £9,872.60 or just 0.09% of post tax profit.
And you will see that, leaving aside the direct payment to the Club, Cooper & cronies put over four times more into a Premier League Club's own Charity than the Club itself did! No wonder Labour have brought Sadwell into the relegation zone in almost any league table going.
My message to the Chairman is clear if the Club has indeed made another healthy profit. The poor and vulnerable of Sandwell need the £74,775 Cooper has given away and so please give it back. Please also put some proper money into the Charity so that taxpayers's money is used to provide statutory services - as it should be. (If you will allow a bucket collection at a home game I will also be more than happy to give up an afternoon to help out and I am sure many others will too.)
At almost exactly the same time that the accounts were made up in June, 2015, the Birmingham Mail were reporting that WBAFC was looking at a possible £10m deal for Demba Ba plus wages of £60,000 to £70,000 A WEEK. Of course, the Club has to compete in the mad mad world of top league football but these figures do rather put the donation of £17,779 over a whole year into perspective. But, happily, this is a considerable improvement on the year before where the tightwads on the WBAFC Board gave "FA" to the Charity. That is not "Football Association" but, er, "F*CK ALL"!
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
(PROUD TO BE TROLLED BY DARREN COOPER & ANDREW HIPKISS)
email thesandwellskidder@gmail.com facebook Julian Saunders
Confidential Phone No: 07599 983737 twitter X (censored by "free speech" Twitter)
