Do we really have billionaire owners?

[paddy20]

Like many I suspect I was disappointed by the level of spending on transfers this season. The cost of relegation to Div 1 I guess would be substantial in the long term.The question is therefore why wasn't more money made available to Clements to bring in a couple of good strikers including a decent target man?

Yes we all know that we need to run the club effectively but there has to be good investment to succeed. How much we spend should be relative to how much money we have
.
Last season Gourlay blamed 'Fair Play as the reason for lack of investment. Clearly thats nonsense. The rules state the you are allowed to lose up to £39m in the last 3 seasons before any penalties are made. We lost about £20m in that period. This season that loss for 2016/7/8 is about £8m.

So whats the real reason for our lack of investment? Yes they are putting money into the training ground but Is there political pressure on the Chinese not to spend anymore in Europe , or are our owners not quite as wealthy as we thought?

[Theroyalbox]

Don't know.

[WoodleyRoyal]

perhaps we have money to spend but the right player didn't turn up that we considered value for money. we all want a 15 to 20 goal a season striker, but they ain't cheap, probably looking at 10 to 15 mill. and would a striker of that caliber want to come to a club that avoided the drop by the skin of its teeth. Moore has publicly said the owners are extremely ambitious too.

[paddy20]

perhaps we have money to spend but the right player didn't turn up that we considered value for money. we all want a 15 to 20 goal a season striker, but they ain't cheap, probably looking at 10 to 15 mill. and would a striker of that caliber want to come to a club that avoided the drop by the skin of its teeth. Moore has publicly said the owners are extremely ambitious too.

True but the same would have to go for a creative midfielder which we also need. I'm sure if the money was there we could have signed at least two good players that are better than our present squad

[muirinho]

Like many I suspect I was disappointed by the level of spending on transfers this season. The cost of relegation to Div 1 I guess would be substantial in the long term.The question is therefore why wasn't more money made available to Clements to bring in a couple of good strikers including a decent target man?

Yes we all know that we need to run the club effectively but there has to be good investment to succeed. How much we spend should be relative to how much money we have
.
Last season Gourlay blamed 'Fair Play as the reason for lack of investment. Clearly thats nonsense. The rules state the you are allowed to lose up to £39m in the last 3 seasons before any penalties are made. We lost about £20m in that period. This season that loss for 2016/7/8 is about £8m.

So whats the real reason for our lack of investment? Yes they are putting money into the training ground but Is there political pressure on the Chinese not to spend anymore in Europe , or are our owners not quite as wealthy as we thought?

Worth pointing out that it's not £39million for the "last three seasons", it's the last two seasons plus the current one.

So we only have a single year of the figures, as we don't have last year's figures yet, and obviously know nothing about this year's.

If you don't have the data, you can't call it nonsense, as you don't have anything to back that up.

Our income will have been considerably less last season as we had poor attendance, no decent cup-run, and no play-offs.
It will be even less this season as we've got no parachute payments.

Worth noting from last years accounts (2016/2017 season)- matchday income was £9.7mill in our "near promotion" season, but £5.2mill the season before. Doubt if it broke £5mill last season.

Meanwhile our wage bill was £28million odd.

It would take an awful lot of commercial agreements, transfer profit (ha ha) and media revenue to bridge that gap.

It would be very very easy to lose £13 million average a season over three seasons, without conspiracy theories coming into play.

[WoodleyRoyal]

perhaps we have money to spend but the right player didn't turn up that we considered value for money. we all want a 15 to 20 goal a season striker, but they ain't cheap, probably looking at 10 to 15 mill. and would a striker of that caliber want to come to a club that avoided the drop by the skin of its teeth. Moore has publicly said the owners are extremely ambitious too.

True but the same would have to go for a creative midfielder which we also need. I'm sure if the money was there we could have signed at least two good players that are better than our present squad

a creative midfielder is still going to cost a fair bit, but the point remains, we are not an attractive club anymore. players are going to be looking at us and thinking this club has no chance of getting the PL in the next 3 or 4 seasons. The best we can hope for is up and coming players from lower divisions, the question is, are they going to be better than what we have? or foreign punts, and i think we've all had enough of them...

Name a team that finished in the bottom third of the table last season that have bought a creative midfielder that would get in our team? we need to be realistic - if a decent player is available, within our budget, they won't want to come to us. We will have to do as we have been, look for free transfers and utilise the loan market.

*edit actually Forest finished in the bottom third ignore them

[sandman]

Their money is all in Venezuelan Bolívars.

[Zip]

The owners forked out a lot of money during 2017 with the signings of Aluko, Ilori, Mannone, Edwards, Bodvarsson, Barrow etc and we have had very little back in terms of player sales. So no complaints from me about player investment. The money has not been wisely spent and that’s not their fault.

[Stevie G]

Billionaires in China = Millionaires in UK by the exchange rate?

[paddy20]

Like many I suspect I was disappointed by the level of spending on transfers this season. The cost of relegation to Div 1 I guess would be substantial in the long term.The question is therefore why wasn't more money made available to Clements to bring in a couple of good strikers including a decent target man?

Yes we all know that we need to run the club effectively but there has to be good investment to succeed. How much we spend should be relative to how much money we have
.
Last season Gourlay blamed 'Fair Play as the reason for lack of investment. Clearly thats nonsense. The rules state the you are allowed to lose up to £39m in the last 3 seasons before any penalties are made. We lost about £20m in that period. This season that loss for 2016/7/8 is about £8m.

So whats the real reason for our lack of investment? Yes they are putting money into the training ground but Is there political pressure on the Chinese not to spend anymore in Europe , or are our owners not quite as wealthy as we thought?

Worth pointing out that it's not £39million for the "last three seasons", it's the last two seasons plus the current one



So we only have a single year of the figures, as we don't have last year's figures yet, and obviously know nothing about this year's.

If you don't have the data, you can't call it nonsense, as you don't have anything to back that up.

Our income will have been considerably less last season as we had poor attendance, no decent cup-run, and no play-offs.
It will be even less this season as we've got no parachute payments.

Worth noting from last years accounts (2016/2017 season)- matchday income was £9.7mill in our "near promotion" season, but £5.2mill the season before. Doubt if it broke £5mill last season.

Meanwhile our wage bill was £28million odd.

It would take an awful lot of commercial agreements, transfer profit (ha ha) and media revenue to bridge that gap.

It would be very very easy to lose £13 million average a season over three seasons, without conspiracy theories coming into play.

Apologies, I see your point. Of course with the loss of the parachute payments also which I believe was about £16m last year it will be very tight avoiding a loss of £13m

[Snowflake Royal]

Last year was our fifth post relegation, I believe parachutes lasted four seasons, and were down to something like £4m - £8m by year four.

Remember we went down the season before the huge TV deal and parachutes (presumably) took a big jump (pun intended).

I'd be amazed if we still got £16m last year. I was of the view that coming so close the season before, we bet big on the hope we'd get promoted, spending beyond our means to get up rather than cutting to out new income level, hence when we're spending much more cautiously now. Because it failed and we made a huge loss.

[Hound]

The owners forked out a lot of money during 2017 with the signings of Aluko, Ilori, Mannone, Edwards, Bodvarsson, Barrow etc and we have had very little back in terms of player sales. So no complaints from me about player investment. The money has not been wisely spent and that’s not their fault.

Totally this. And they are apparently spending 30m on a new training ground, which is underway.

I genuinely can’t see why anyone has any grief with our current owners. Gourlay down is a different matter.

Other thing is if we blow our budget now, we have nothing for January. Also not wise

[Gunny Fishcake]

Meanwhile our wage bill was £28million odd.

Epitomises everything that's wrong and rotten with our club and football in general.

[AthleticoSpizz]

^ Alledgedly, Sandro Weiser (who he?) was on £15k pw.

[Oilroyal]

A business loosing £39million over a 2 and a bit year period whilst paying a yearly wage bill of £28million to go backwards and still fans want to see more spending and if not, then question the integrity of our owners.

£39million loss…gone/down the pan. Now say it out loud, “£39million down”. Most of you would be in shock if you lost your Smartphone!

[Linden Jones' Tash]

Imagine what would happen if people found out about some agent fees and the amounts that get paid in football to place a player....

[TiagoIlori]

There’s something called financial fair play... we’re also the third highest net spenders in the league... stop blaming the owners, blame the way it’s spent

[Augem]

^ Alledgedly, Sandro Weiser (who he?) was on £15k pw.

So there is our problem in a nut shell players get paid massive wages even when they don't play or perform so why should they try too hard.

[WAZZOCK]

Like many I suspect I was disappointed by the level of spending on transfers this season. The cost of relegation to Div 1 I guess would be substantial in the long term.The question is therefore why wasn't more money made available to Clements to bring in a couple of good strikers including a decent target man?

Yes we all know that we need to run the club effectively but there has to be good investment to succeed. How much we spend should be relative to how much money we have
.
Last season Gourlay blamed 'Fair Play as the reason for lack of investment. Clearly thats nonsense. The rules state the you are allowed to lose up to £39m in the last 3 seasons before any penalties are made. We lost about £20m in that period. This season that loss for 2016/7/8 is about £8m.

So whats the real reason for our lack of investment? Yes they are putting money into the training ground but Is there political pressure on the Chinese not to spend anymore in Europe , or are our owners not quite as wealthy as we thought?

Worth pointing out that it's not £39million for the "last three seasons", it's the last two seasons plus the current one.

So we only have a single year of the figures, as we don't have last year's figures yet, and obviously know nothing about this year's.

If you don't have the data, you can't call it nonsense, as you don't have anything to back that up.

Our income will have been considerably less last season as we had poor attendance, no decent cup-run, and no play-offs.
It will be even less this season as we've got no parachute payments.

Worth noting from last years accounts (2016/2017 season)- matchday income was £9.7mill in our "near promotion" season, but £5.2mill the season before. Doubt if it broke £5mill last season.

Meanwhile our wage bill was £28million odd.

It would take an awful lot of commercial agreements, transfer profit (ha ha) and media revenue to bridge that gap.

It would be very very easy to lose £13 million average a season over three seasons, without conspiracy theories coming into play.

Great post.

The wage bill is the big one here. Our squad is so overinflated it’s ridiculous, it’s been a negligible period for handing out needless contracts since Gourlay has been in charge.

[Rollerbob]

Word from a friend who works in the same office as Gourlay, and may go to explain why its all a bit of a mess.

Clement signs some of the players he wants.
Gourlay signs some of the players he wants.
The owners' sign some of the players they want.

Can't be usual to have 3 different sets of stakeholders making decisions on signings.


Also, he said that the Moore asked for the same money as Baldock for his new deal. Apparently, this was originally given the green light, but Dai Yongge went mental when he heard about it. Started shouting at his sister in Chinese. lol.