by 3points »
02 Jan 2019 23:35
Blackburn’s fortunes are probably a good proxy for our own. Club badly run for several seasons, dwindling crowds, poor investment in players and a Cat 1 academy.
When they were relegated the Venkys had a decision to make - withdraw all financial support, write off all the money they had invested and basically walk away and hope someone picks up the pieces, or undertake a proper cost cutting and restructuring of all elements of the club, but invest a decent amount of cash which gave them a budget bigger than anyone else in the division. This would give them something with some value going forward so they’d recoup some of their investment in the future. A double down strategy if you will.
They chose the latter route and, so far, it seems to have worked out OK for them. They brought in a decent manager in Tony Mowbray who perked up the club and recruited well for the division (think Bradley Dack). They were able to move on some players but couldn’t shift Danny Graham, who ended up being quite decent in League 1.
I’d hope the Dais would choose the latter route too. I personally don’t think they’d let the club go into administration. I have heard they are very into the sports science of running a club and are very keen on the academy. They want to understand from Reading’s set up how they can make it work at their other clubs. So perhaps it really is a play thing for them. I also hope that Gomes is the right manager to lead us forward, whichever division we are in.
I was also told that a Cat 1 academy costs about £3m a year to run, after the FA development programme subsidies. So it isn’t cheap. A Cat 2 is about £1m I believe.
