Ambition (not what you think).

[roadrunner]

big foot for mod.the boy is on the ball.in fact shouldnt all discussion of financial matters be put in there?

This is my point

Tactics and match previews/reviews = Team
Where's the money gone etc = Club Policies

It's actually an interesting read if you can get over yourself and digest it.

[Rob-Royal]

In theory you're right, but in practice you're swimming against the tide.

It sems that between May and July every single thread in "The Team" has to evolve into a where's the money gone/lack of ambition/football finance one.

That's because we're fans of football! If it was an even playing field then you have a point but it's not. We're not asking for millions of pounds to be ploughed into transfer fees or wages and put the club at risk, we find it hard to keep seeing the crown jewels being sold off every close season with minimal investment back in. How hard is that?! Unless you keep producing players through the academy and buying uncut diamonds and selling on the finished article, there is only 1 place we'll eventually end up and that's relegated! Just like we did from the premier league. It is not a sustainable business model, eventually you will get found out. It may take some years but it will happen. If this article can bring about an even playing field financially then no doubt we will benefit and clubs will quite rightly re-adjust their finances accordingly. I am all for salary caps and the spending within your means (which comes in from the start of next season) this should help greatly. What I don't like is the expectation of the fans dampened by continous selling of our prized assets and having to rebuild constantly.

At the end of the day, I buy a season ticket to watch my team, not the bottom line!

[ZacNaloen]

Christ, Spending money you don't have isn't a sustainable business model either.


What we do is about as sustainable as it gets when it comes to football.

[Rob-Royal]

Christ, Spending money you don't have isn't a sustainable business model either.


What we do is about as sustainable as it gets when it comes to football.

Sigh.....

[ZacNaloen]

[Rob-Royal]

:lol:

Ha ha - good one Zac!

[Big Foot]

In theory you're right, but in practice you're swimming against the tide.

We must be kindred spirits then with your efforts on safe standing m8

[Big Foot]

big foot for mod.the boy is on the ball.in fact shouldnt all discussion of financial matters be put in there?

This is my point

Tactics and match previews/reviews = Team
Where's the money gone etc = Club Policies

It's actually an interesting read if you can get over yourself and digest it.

Glowing reference coming from you




I think I'll pass

[rabidbee]

The “House of Commons
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Football Governance
Seventh Report of Session 2010–12”

has been published today.

I would draw nobbers' attention to paragraph 180-181, about Club Ownership. This appears just after a discussion on the beneficial aspects of local, responsible ownership.

180. The problem is that this is by no means the whole story. There are also too many examples of domestic owners acting against the long-term interests of their club either out of naivety or duplicity. While this has always been a part of the game, the financial stakes are much higher now: the temptations and opportunities greater; and the falls more precipitous. There is, for instance, much evidence critical of owners overreaching in order to “live the dream”. The complaint is that such over-reaching serves further to inflate wages and push up spending levels, issues that lie at the heart of English football’s financial problems. Leeds United under Peter Ridsdale and Bradford City under Geoffrey Richmond are perhaps the most infamous examples. Sean Hamil warned that such behaviour threatened to push good owners out of the game, as they could not compete themselves without taking excessive risk:
"If you have a scenario where someone of the quality of Delia Smith, a successful entrepreneur, or Sir John Madejski, successful entrepreneur and local boy who tried to build a sort of major sporting institution in his hometown, decide it is not worth it and that they would like to get out, I think that is a problem."

181. Lord Triesman was equally critical of clubs who had sought to achieve success:
"by spending money, as I think was described in the last session, related to their ambition rather than to their business model. They want to beat other clubs; they spend what they believe is necessary to do that. The model falls apart—Leeds is a very strong example of that—and they are left with a huge financial crisis on their hands. People in other clubs reflect not only on the amounts that were spent but on the unfairness to the competitive regime that it creates.
I know people think that “financial doping” is a rather dramatic term but it is a pretty accurate term for what is described."

Greg Clarke alluded to the level of frustration among more prudent owners:
"We had a lively debate at our last chairman’s conference. […] there was a motion from the floor from a very respected chairman of a Football League club. He has been a long time, high quality owner who said, ‘I’m sick of bad owners going out of business and besmirching the game""

The below is also relevant :

78. In similar vein, Burnley Chairman Barry Kilby spoke of the pressure to over-spend in order to remain in the Premier League during his club’s recent season in the top tier: “The word ‘ambition’ always crops up—lack of ambition is one of the usual ones you get in the phone-in programmes”. He noted too that fans’ expectations were likely to increase during a second season in the Premier League:
"When we got up it was a bit easier at first. We were new, we hadn’t been in the Premier League for 30-odd years, so perhaps it was easier to keep the fans’ expectations; we are being sensible, we’re clearing our debts, if we do go back down we’ll be able to handle it. I think they did understand, but I’ve got a feeling if we had been in another year or so the pressures would have built to spend more."
The earlier experience of Bradford City, whose owner went on a spending spree subsequently dubbed “six weeks of madness” in a failed attempt to survive a second season in the Premier League, rather bears out Barry Kilby’s comments.

Presumably, the Twitterati will think that the most important issue to arise out of this report is that Barry Kilby thinks that the First Division was called the Premier League in 1976.

#BarnsleyTown

[rabidbee]

It's also morally indefensible to screw local businesses/St. Johns/the taxpayer in insolvencies to prop other bloated football clubs.

The single most sickening thing about Bradford's fall into the abyss was that they defaulted on thousands owed to the St John's Ambulance whilst continuing to pay Benito Carbone £40k a week.

Why's that particularly galling? Because St John's were first responders at Valley Parade in 1985 and undoubtedly saved many lives in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

Awful, just awful.

Didn't Pompey only pay their debt to the St John's Ambulance thanks to collection buckets being passed around the crowd, whilst they were on the point of signing new players on £20K per week?

[Svlad Cjelli]

It's also morally indefensible to screw local businesses/St. Johns/the taxpayer in insolvencies to prop other bloated football clubs.

The single most sickening thing about Bradford's fall into the abyss was that they defaulted on thousands owed to the St John's Ambulance whilst continuing to pay Benito Carbone £40k a week.

Why's that particularly galling? Because St John's were first responders at Valley Parade in 1985 and undoubtedly saved many lives in the immediate aftermath of the fire.

Awful, just awful.

Didn't Pompey only pay their debt to the St John's Ambulance thanks to collection buckets being passed around the crowd, whilst they were on the point of signing new players on £20K per week?

More or less - it was the supporters who did this spontaneously without the club being involved - so Pompey never did pay their debts, their supporters did.

[brendywendy]

big foot for mod.the boy is on the ball.in fact shouldnt all discussion of financial matters be put in there?

This is my point

Tactics and match previews/reviews = Team
Where's the money gone etc = Club Policies

It's actually an interesting read if you can get over yourself and digest it.

oh ffs

its in the wrong forum. i think its probably ok for someone to point that out


and maybe you should try some of your own advice in future

[brendywendy]

In theory you're right, but in practice you're swimming against the tide.

It sems that between May and July every single thread in "The Team" has to evolve into a where's the money gone/lack of ambition/football finance one.

That's because we're fans of football! If it was an even playing field then you have a point but it's not. We're not asking for millions of pounds to be ploughed into transfer fees or wages and put the club at risk, we find it hard to keep seeing the crown jewels being sold off every close season with minimal investment back in. How hard is that?! Unless you keep producing players through the academy and buying uncut diamonds and selling on the finished article, there is only 1 place we'll eventually end up and that's relegated! Just like we did from the premier league. It is not a sustainable business model, eventually you will get found out. It may take some years but it will happen. If this article can bring about an even playing field financially then no doubt we will benefit and clubs will quite rightly re-adjust their finances accordingly. I am all for salary caps and the spending within your means (which comes in from the start of next season) this should help greatly. What I don't like is the expectation of the fans dampened by continous selling of our prized assets and having to rebuild constantly.

At the end of the day, I buy a season ticket to watch my team, not the bottom line!

LOL- in reply to an appeal for idiots to stop making every thread into a wheres all the money gone/ambition thread, and thats exactly what you do anyway.

what do you suggest then?
you say you arent asking for millions on players or wages, but you then say that you are upset that players have to be sold.
what is your solution to our problems, that would mean we could break even, and not have to sell players at all?

[Svlad Cjelli]

But then saying :

At the end of the day, I buy a season ticket to watch my team, not the bottom line!

means that you don't care about the finances - one way or the other. If you're not bothered about the bottom line you lose the right to complain if too much - or too little - money is spent.

[friday fan]

every season we have where's the money gone and it's a fair question but bottom line is we are a selling club much in the same way that Crewe were under Dario Gradi. Until we get a rich sugar daddy or some arab we are not going to see anything else. I suspect in years to come if Copell writes his memoirs he will say he managed Reading with limited resources. The whole Long saga needs to end and not turn into another Sidwell episode. I never blamed Sidders for exiting and he did it in a dignified manner. We won't produce crop after crop of young hopefuls year after year and relegation might occur but that will not change the policy one iota unless a new owner is found. I love the club and stood in the Southbank from the age of 6years and I will never support another club. I think SJM has done a great job and my team is not the Thames Valley Royals, I'd love the club to be sold and a new owner with deep pockets and enthusiasm is found but that is fate. We need to stop asking where has the money gone as we all know the chairman has other interests, his loan nneds to be repaid to prop up the failing ventures he has on the sideline.

I noticed BBC predictions has us sitting in 10th at the end of the season, that will make me feel good if we achieve that especially if Long goes, in anycase what if he has a long term injury 1 or 2 weeks into the season, wer'e stuffed then anyway. One player does not make a team and to suggest it does devalues all of the other squad members. Lets get the Long sale sewn up and the black hole this year filled and hopefully the squad will move on. I hate the uncertainty just before the start of the season.

My view for what its worth

[brendywendy]

nicely balanced post

but:

We won't produce crop after crop of young hopefuls year after year and relegation might occur

kind of guessing on that, and the management obviously think otherwise based on more info.

We need to stop asking where has the money gone as we all know the chairman has other interests, his loan nneds to be repaid to prop up the failing ventures he has on the sideline.

i dont know what the accounts will show for 2011 but up till 2010 accounts JM had not taken a penny back for his loans. not saying he hasnt, id just caution against rash assumptions

[Svlad Cjelli]

The whole point is that financially RFC is completely self-contained as far as SJM is concerned.

He's not putting money in - which so many people are up in arms about - but the other side of the coin is that he's not taking any out, either - but no-one seems to accept this.

It's a simple principle, but why can so few understand it - the club is self-contained and has to be self-sufficient. Nothing in or out and anything they make they can use however they see fit.

[friday fan]

Brendy points taken,

Dario Gradi got Crewe relegated but they didn't give up on him and the fans were used to league 2/3 football anyway, they did produce some fine talent, a feeder club for a while for Liverpool.

I haven't seen the accounts so fair call but I have heard of creative accounting but basically we need to stop moaning accept that we aint gonna splash the cash and have faith in the gaffa, I'll really get worried when Big Bri walks

[Z175]

Scrap Football Creditor's Rule

Personally I think this one small (legally necessary) step would be a game changer.

Its currently risk free gambling for Cardiff, Pompey, Leicester, Palace. Rack up debt and maintain a better team than Reading can keep on the field and either get a promotion windfall or merely go into administration, don't pay your VAT or PAYE obligations on players salaries and keep your place in the championship.

If other clubs and players didn't get paid before HMRC then no way would this model be sustainable. We would never have sold Matt Mills as we would have no guarantee of getting the money. All the players would have to demand less wages as no one could offer more.

Without the football creditors rule clubs that go into administration would be thrown out of the league for failing to pay other clubs, players would be released on free transfers as they would not be able to be paid and HMRC would liquidate businesses that didn't pay their tax.

Leicester City would not have been promoted in 2003 while in administration. In fact they would have lost all their players and dropped into the lower reaches. Perhaps the FA should allow fans' clubs to replace liquidated businesses. If a new Portsmouth had competed in last years championship without the likes of Nugent etc and finished below Sheffield Utd and saved that debt-ridden club from relegation, it would be fairer than in-administration-portsmouth keeping their expensive team while sheff utd are suffer the fair financial consequences of relegation.

[Svlad Cjelli]

There's a lot of sense in that - but the whole structure of the game will need to change, as you say.

We might well have sold Matt Mills, but only if we could be sure of getting the money - which in reality would mean that we'd be paid up front in one lump sum (like we were from Hoffenheim - it's significant that in Germany this is the standard way of doing business.)

Where it gets interesting is with players' contracts - will they be prepared to sign them if there's no guarantee they'll be honoured right to the end. Would you have signed a 3 year contract with Portsmouth or Plymouth? But if it leads to players sharing the financial risk in the game, and of them looking more closely at the clubs they're signing for, then that can only be a good thing.