Madejski Announcement

[Royal Lady]

Yeah good point. New bloke sitting next to me has a seat for his approximately 6 year old and the other little girl sits on his lap. It's pure killing me not being able to swear when they're sat there.

[T.R.O.L.I.]

Yeah good point. New bloke sitting next to me has a seat for his approximately 6 year old and the other little girl sits on his lap. It's pure killing me not being able to swear when they're sat there.

See the Thread in General Football.

[Cypry]

Only if you want them to share your seat

Did that for too long - fidgety little bugger.....he's 5 in November hence the ST this year....

See the Thread in Club Policies.

Which one?

[T.R.O.L.I.]

See the Thread in Club Policies.

Which one?

Apologies - wrong forum. Updated now.

[Extended-Phenotype]

An admirable defence of JM above, but while I am aware 50% of my griping is hangover, I’m still going to rebuff it.

If anybody feels like abusing the man please ensure you would be prepared to work without any pay or reward whilst being abused in the same fashion.

> The whimsy of believing he’s doing this for us is wonderfully romantic, but let’s face it – there will almost always be tangible reasons behind this sort of investment, even if we can’t see it – the value of prestige, publicity and status should not be overlooked, not to mention the use of the facilities and the profit to be made when you sell it on.

RFC earnt approximately £60m from tv, £32m from parachutes and £40m from ticket revenues over this period and spent £130m on playing staff wages alone. Therefore all running costs of the club, stadium, training facilities and of course incoming transfer obligations are currently being met by player sales.

> But what we are covering with these sales is projected future loss. This is where the division is with fans; should we protect the bank balance and hope youth/unknowns come good and keep us challenging in the league, or do we inject more cash into the team to make a serious challenge and protect the balance with future performance? Obviously the latter sounds more ambitious, exciting and more in line with what fans, who are interested in the game not the accounting, want for their buck.

Fourthly transfer income is obviously paid over a number of years and dependant on numerous clauses…so to actually pay lots of cash for any new players right now would lead to borrowing.

> This point defeats itself, as if income is in instalments, so is expenditure. So selling for 7m over three seasons means we can buy for 7m over three seasons. Hence, the instalment argument is total bollocks.

Fifthly, of course this is different from most clubs…Reading could gently pledge future cash to fund a new team but the currently strategy has given us more success than the above clubs so why change?

> I think the feeling is that, with a little more investment we could actually attain something rather than just falling short.

Sixthly, we pay our players high wages so that we attract top players and they no doubt get bonuses for all our recent success, cup runs etc, but most importantly they get high wages so they tie themselves down and can be sold for lots.

> We have the data on here somewhere that Reading pay average wages for the championship, so this supposed excuse for less investment doesn’t work either. Plus, who are these ‘top players’? Our transfers in are from lower leagues, or old dudes sat around on benches. And who are we keeping hold of? The minute these players hit peak, we sell them.

Seventhly and finally, people have asked where would we be without all these sales and surely no other champ club has brought in so much income.... well the best example is Sheffield Utd. They got a reported £25m from west ham but are now an estimated £56m in debt and of course, are in league 1…

> But this is just conjecture. You have about as much reason to predict failure and bankruptcy as anyone else has to predict success and promotion. In fact, despite all this spendaphobia on these boards investment more often than not, brings you success.


So while this post can be gleefully carried about the carpark on the shoulders of sir Madge’s cronies, it has more holes in it than a Norwegian boyscout.

[Yellowcoat]

Rather like your reasoning then!

[Silver Fox]

If anybody feels like abusing the man please ensure you would be prepared to work without any pay or reward whilst being abused in the same fashion.

> The whimsy of believing he’s doing this for us is wonderfully romantic, but let’s face it – there will almost always be tangible reasons behind this sort of investment, even if we can’t see it – the value of prestige, publicity and status should not be overlooked, not to mention the use of the facilities and the profit to be made when you sell it on.

I'm obviously not going to argue each point of E-P's post but in reference to the above, there was an interesting essay on grantland.com by Malcolm Gladwell about the "psychic benefits" of ownership of an NBA team if any ever wonders why Sir John carries on in the face of such nonsense from "fans"

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6874079/psychic-benefits-nba-lockout

[Vision]

Seventhly and finally, people have asked where would we be without all these sales and surely no other champ club has brought in so much income.... well the best example is Sheffield Utd. They got a reported £25m from west ham but are now an estimated £56m in debt and of course, are in league 1…

> But this is just conjecture. You have about as much reason to predict failure and bankruptcy as anyone else has to predict success and promotion. In fact, despite all this spendaphobia on these boards investment more often than not, brings you success.
.

Their relegation wasnt conjecture. They like us were relegated from the Premiership. They had far higher revenue streams than us as well as the additional 20m from West Ham for Tevez yet sold off their sought after young players (Walker/Naughton).They tried to spend a few bob of that money (Ched Evans 3m ) yet instead of giving them the extra push for promotion its seen them relegated with increasing levels of debt.

I'm not using them as an example in a Bradford/Leeds/Pompey way but what happened to them is a significant example of how difficult life is if you dont bounce straight back from relegation. They are a bigger club in every conceivable way than us and spent the sort of sums in the transfer market that people say we should yet still simply lost their way both finacially and on the field

I'm not saying our way doesnt have its own in built flaws but its an indication of how difficult a situation we're in and a pointer to how easily money can just get sucked away at this level.

[FiNeRaIn]

We have the data on here somewhere that Reading pay average wages for the championship, so this supposed excuse for less investment doesn’t work either. Plus, who are these ‘top players’? Our transfers in are from lower leagues, or old dudes sat around on benches. And who are we keeping hold of? The minute these players hit peak, we sell them.

This is what I take issue with. There is just no way we are close to 18-20 million on wages, I don't care how many bonuses, fee's, catering staff or tax you come up with. Not even close. Considering the catering staff get probably around 40 quid a home game and there are maybe a hundred of them The majority of our squad would still have to be well above 10k per week to make that viable...and when you look at the stature of players we have, unknowns, youth players and journeymen....there is not a CHANCE. The only way this would be believable is if the Hotel was paying over 5 million in wages and that's doubtful.

[ZacNaloen]

18-20 million isn't average for the championship.

[Extended-Phenotype]

Yellowcoat:
“Rather like your reasoning then!”

…he says, followed by complete silence.

Vision:
“Their relegation wasnt conjecture.”

But your notion that spending begets ruin is.

“They like us were relegated from the Premiership.”

…and spending may have kept us up. Fight conjecture with conjecture!

[FiNeRaIn]

18-20 million isn't average for the championship.

It can't be, but apparently thats how much we spend on ours according to some. It also cannot be possible our's is that high, like you said yesterday its probably around the 10 million. Much more believable when you look at the types of players we have.

[mr_number]

Total wages for the football club were £18.1m in the year to June 2010. Wages for the hotel, which are separate to those for the football club, were £1.6m that year.

[ZacNaloen]

No, that's how much we spent on the available accounts, and the figure is being used to explain "where the money went" from the premier league. 90% of it went on wages, the rest in infrastructure.


The wage bill will be lower now, but it will still be more than we can afford even if it's 10 million. Hence, player wages are still swallowing up all our money.

[Yellowcoat]

But those are real figures so do not expect Fine Rain to believe those. He prefers to make up his own calculations to try and fit whatever point he is making this week.

[FiNeRaIn]

But those are real figures so do not expect Fine Rain to believe those. He prefers to make up his own calculations to try and fit whatever point he is making this week.

Those are figures from 2010 chump.

There is no way we are paying close to that now.

[ZacNaloen]

Err... exactly?

[mr_number]

Just for comparison (remember these are for the 09/10 season), some other wage bills:
Cardiff £16.7m
QPR £14.4m
Coventry £10.3m
Barnsley £8.7m

Of course ours will have gone down now, but it does show we were spending significantly more than even the 'big' championship teams.
Doesn't prove anything, but is fairly interesting.

[FiNeRaIn]

Err... exactly?

And you have people saying we are. On this thread alone, nevermind others.

I am pointing out thats not the case

So yes....exactly.

[ZacNaloen]

No, they are saying that's where all the premier league money went every time you bang on about it.