What follows was written some days ago in the light of our latest failure in the transfer market. I have sat on it because it is critical of some individuals who are doing their best, and as such who should be exempt from criticism. My observation benefit from hindsight, and expect others to have seen and acted differently, when I did not see these things at the appropriate time either. It is with a heavy heart that I submit my conclusions. Nevertheless, I think my observations may influence opinion on here in the coming months of struggle, and as such, it is valid that I make them now. Financial Fair Play / Salary Cost Management Protocol Something in our transfer dealings over the last 18 months that has been obvious to me is that we have little trouble in agreeing a transfer fee with a selling club, but we have, nevertheless, failed to sign players because we have failed to meet their salary expectations. I wondered whether SCMP could be the reason, and have turned my gaze upon its rules and regulations in order to determine whether it may explain the situation. Under SCMP regulations, clubs are limited to a total player wages spend amounting to no more than 60% of turnover. There are two terms in the above statement that require further definition, i.e. Turnover and Player Wages. Turnover Turnover is defined as a total of: Season Ticket Sales Gate Receipts Sponsorship Central Football League Payments TV fees for live transmission of games Commercial Income (net of direct costs attributable to that income stream) e.g. Website Advertising Boards Programme Sales (net of print costs and sellers wages) Catering and hospitality (net of food costs and wages of kitchen and waiting on staff etc) Donations (but only when no repayment is expected and where there is no agreement in place for repayment). Transfer Fees Received. When transfer fees are received in instalments, it is unclear what part of the fee can be included in year 1, but it seems likely that only the fee received in a year may be included in that year. Any part of the fee that is conditional upon a future event taking place is of course excluded until the fee in respect of that conditional event is received. Player Wages Only players’ wages are included in the calculation. Therefore, the manager and training staffs, commercial management and match day staff are not included. In addition, the wages of loaned players for the period of their loan are included, and the wages of players loaned out are excluded from the calculation. In addition, the wages of players under the age of 20 at the start of any season are excluded from the calculation. Transfer Fees Received There is nothing in the rules against a transfer fee being used to fund wages. However, it should be remembered that a transfer fee is a one off. It cannot become part of an ongoing budget because it cannot be relied upon to repeat every year. Players are usually signed on contracts that cover periods in excess of one year. It is therefore probably not good practice to fund players’ wages out of fees received as it could result in an artificially high pay budget and a possible “fire sale” in subsequent years. There is nothing in the SCMP rules that allows unused surpluses to be carried forward to subsequent years. For example, if a transfer fee was received in a year which meant that only 50% of total turnover covered players’ wages in that year, there is no provision to carry forward 10% of turnover to the following year. In this respect, it could be argued that staged payments of large transfer fees may even be a good idea under SCMP. Transfer Fees Paid There is no restriction on the size or amount of transfer fees paid. However, the larger the fee, the larger a players’ salary expectations. I believe that this is where we are being caught out. For example, we reputedly agreed a fee of £300k with Carlisle for Dempsey, but were unable to meet the player’s pay expectations perhaps because of SCMP restrictions, whereas Huddersfield were. In practice, SCMP will limit the size of the fees we can pay because it limits the size of the player’s wages. It probably also means that we must do our shopping in Leagues 1 and 2, with an emphasis on league 2. Exercising Control The league exercise control as follows: During the summer clubs are required to submit a forecast of their turnover for the following season. Each line of the forecast (see turnover definition above) must be evidenced in some way. For example, the club has asked for supporters to sign up early for season ticket renewals because this is evidence to justify the figure used in the season ticket sales line. Predictions of revenue which is not evidenced must be reasonable. No player sales can be included unless the sale has already gone through and a lengthy cup run cannot be included. During the season, clubs must report regularly on their actual financial performance as measured against their forecast. If they come within 5% of reaching the 60% of turnover limit, they will automatically be subject to review. The ultimate sanction for a club that breaches their SCMP limit is that the Football League will refuse to register transfers (transfer embargo). Conclusion The club has not yet fully understood the full effect of SCMP. Because of this, its transfer dealings have been schizophrenic, and as a result of this, and the periodical statements, said to have originated from Ben Mansford, Lee Johnson and Patrick Cryne, fans have been misled. It is no doubt possible to change 12 players during the summer. The SCMP rules make the policy of recruiting young players a viable one, particularly from lower division clubs where players have lower salary expectations. However, the combination of the number of players needed and the higher than expected salary expectations of targeted players has proved a so far insurmountable challenge. Added to this the unacceptable performance levels of several players who were engaged on higher than viable salaries has caused us to seek to dispense with their services. It has so far proven impossible to get them to leave and thereby free of part of the wages budget for new recruits and we may have to start the season with some of them in the team, an embarrassment for all concerned. From the outside, the whole thing seems to be a mess. We are stuck with players that we clearly do not want, whilst we seek to sell a player who fulfils all the criteria that have been set for new recruits partly because his transfer fee will help us to meet the SCMP criteria caused by retaining players we no longer want. Unbelievably, we found ourselves in exactly the same position last year, but have learned nothing from it. We chased survival in the Championship and then chased promotion to the Championship. It is time to accept that what the club needs most is a period of consolidation. It is time to come clean with the fans and ask for their continued support whilst the club consolidates. Unless we can sort the current mess the club will be fortunate to end the season in League 1 never mind chase promotion from it. I am grateful for Patrick Cryne’s investment in the club, particularly the initial investment that saved us from going out of business. However, the management of the club during his reign has been schizophrenic, particularly in his choice of when and when not to invest his own money. He is now probably trapped into baling us out of a hole with SCMP written on it because last year the club chased promotion, rather than accepting consolidation. He has invested consistently in order to prevent imminent disaster, rather than recognising an upward turn in fortune, and invested in order to give support to the swing in momentum. I hope that I am wrong here, but with our lack of inspired management, all I can see is an extended stay in the lower divisions.
It's a good point. But in conclusion we are ****ed until some of stones future money comes in. Cos we can't generate decent player sales anyway
Good post, which perfectly illustrates the gulf between what we would like to do and what we can do. Unfortunately all we hear from the club is what we would like to do, which gives rise to false expectations and inevitable disappointment. They are in a difficult position though because the last thing they want to do is send out negative messages and vibes. The reality is that we have made a lot of very poor decisions over a sustained period of time which have led to today's realities. My experience of business is that if you make too many bad decisions, eventually they will catch up with you. The fact is that there has been way too much shorttermism which has led to us attempted to turn over a dozen players each close season for 3/4 years. It is just not possible to do this and we had had to resort to overusing the loan system with varying degrees of success. What you haven't factored is the number of contracts we have had to mutually cancel and the costs of that e.g. Wiseman, Brown, Treacy and Jennings - to mention just a few. To say nothing of managerial settlements..... What we are seeing now is the result of the lack of a long term strategy. Some of this is driven by the fans who are rightly highly ambitious but equally uninformed. The Board and CEO have to be strong enough to pursue a sensible business strategy despite otherwise they risk appeasing no-one in the end. We are hopelessly short of the size and quality of squad required to mount a promotion challenge and we need players like John O'Sullivan and Ryan Williams to even get close but they are on Championship wages and at best we might get them on loan (like Wilkinson). I expect LJ to use the loan market fully because frankly he has no choice. That would be OK until we suffer a spate of injuries, then we would have nowhere to turn, other than the U21 squad the majority of whom are just not ready to come into a side intent on promotion. All of that said, we may get money for Holgate and get Turnbull, Bailey & Lalkovic off the wage book (probably at a cost to us) and that may allow us to bring a few in. Here's hoping......
Do you think 1. That the owner, Barry Taylor and Ben Mansford have it within themselves to openly state that we are going for consolidation for the next 2 seasons (for example) 2. That if that was publically stated that the majority of Barnsley supporters would still buy season tickets and attend in numbers ? We could perhaps just start by trusting whichever bloke we thought was the answer 12 months previously.
That's pretty much how I see it too. On player wages, what if we offered say £2k a week to a player as salary and a further £5k a week as an appearance bonus, what would we have to account for under Scmp?
Interesting discussion and just shows the difficulties of managing football clubs and the expectations of us fans.
Good post, but most of what has been written I have learnt from listening to Mansford over past year or so. Thereby I'm confident the club know exactly what they are doing. the only way we get transfers by fee is when PC donates the money. Simply put our revenue doesn't give enough to pay transfer fees.
