My hope is that despite the claims of investing more in wages this season, the figure actually spent this season does not add up to as much as it did last season, and that performance bonuses did inflate the figure for 20/21.
Good points on our method of finding players. Other clubs have caught up. On Conway, you might have a point. Conway isn't meant to be running the club day to day, so it's not surprising that he wasn't that successful. BUT - he is responsible for the shambles of Dane Murphy's contract expiry, which led to us having no CEO and Conway stepping in. He is also responsible for setting the ideological policy of only hiring foreign young coaches - I don't mind that necessarily, but when we were replacing Schopp it was a spectacular mistake to not get Warnock or McCarthy. He should also have identified by now that we need a couple of experienced playes in the team. Not replacing Mowatt and Sol was criminal.
Though classified on its own separate line, I'd deem it turnover, given the insurance and furlough costs were to compensate for any drop in turnover from the pandemic shutdown. Those two items equate to £15,297,891, not £14.3m. And I'm not at odds with you. Our costs outstrip our income, and have done in every season so far for a variety of reasons. The only way we can break even is to maximise our revenue, while controlling our costs. We're struggling on the first due to pending relegation and the actions of the owners which will harm matchday revenues. I'd suspect sponsorship and commercial income would also be hit, fully expecting clauses for lower fees for lower levels of exposure in league 1, or even break clauses. We can't compare ourselves to Bournemouth et al. We have no safety net. Therefore our only option is to control spending and break even. Whatever league we play in, we play in. That's just the way it is. If we don't control spending to our turnover, we risk the chance of ceasing to exist.
@DannyWilsonLovechild - very well put. The argument that you have to spend the same as other championship clubs to compete is entirely circular. This view will ensure that wage spend remains inflated across the division and, unless a club has a benefactor, will result in financial collapse of clubs that follow this strategy. A few key points I would make are: The current strategy is certainly not sustainable, accumulated losses under the current owners has wiped out the current assets and left the club with £3.6m of debt. A small budget spread across a large number of players may not be the most effective use of the player budget. Spending more than turnover means that the only way of breaking even is making profit from player sales. The current track record does not point to success in this area. If fans want a sustainable club then financial prudence is a requirement. This can be achieved and I would argue is not laudable but essential. It may mean that the club struggles to compete in the Championship in the current guise but the club has shown that spending more than income is no guarantee of success.
I do not think that there is much argument that the aim should be to run the business as a minimum, at break-even. The difficulty is in designing a model that does that without the fans walking away. Results will always be the driver of opinions.
There has to be two starting points for this though which are really easy to achieve. 1. Don't pay ridiculous sums for CEOs and to other board members. Let's be honest, we haven't had a single one who's performance has warranted big money. And 2. Stop the scattergun approach to signing players. The amount of duds we've signed is ridiculous and must be a significant portion of our expenditure and it's all because statistics show they might make the owners a bit of cash in a few years.
A salary roll of £5m spread across 25 player equates to £4k a week on average or £200k pa. I’m sure that would be more than the vast majority of fans digging deep for next year’s season ticket. It may not attract the best but it will be attractive to young ambitious players and, say this quietly, the odd seasoned pro with experience. Fans may choose to walk away but the club would be on a much stronger financial basis. Most of the supporters who aren’t renewing aren’t doing so based on on field issues more the off field distrust.
