Player Contracts

The club has been accused on here of allowing players to call the shots because they have allowed player contracts to run down. This is undoubtedly so, but is it the club’s fault. Ever since the law changed and football clubs had to give up the right to hold a player’s registration even after his contract expired, the ground was not only levelled, it was sloped in favour of the player. Why do I say that?


Well, every contract is a balance of risk and reward. When a club signs a player, the contract guarantees to that player that he will receive the rewards listed in the contract for the contract term, but there are very few guarantees on the player’s side. The player does not guarantee that he will be of a quality appropriate to his wages or the transfer fee paid for him, that he will be injury free and will play every week, though the contract will usually pay him at a reduced rate if he does not play in the first team. A young player does not guarantee that he will improve or that he will ever be good enough to play regularly for our first team. All that they are required to do is to do their best and be fit when the call comes. The rest is risk.


Some young players will make it, and the club will do its best to identify the right players, but there are no guarantees. Players mature at different rates. Sometimes it is obvious, like with John Stones or David Hirst before him. At other times it is not so clear cut like with Paul Digby, who was tipped by so many for stardom, but who has never lived up to the hype. Picking the right players is not an exact science. And yet some posters, mostly using hindsight to influence their judgement, will insist that it is. Everybody can pick the right players after the event. The staff and management at Barnsley FC are required to pick the right players before anyone knows for certain. Awarding a long contract, and long contracts have to be linked to attractive salaries, are a risky business and even a long contract expires eventually. If you pick the right player then the club wins. If you pick the wrong player, the club is stuck with that player and with the player’s wages for the length of the contract. Because there is one thing that is certain, no-one will rescue you from a bad decision. A player will not leave voluntarily to reduce his wages if he turns out to be a dud. He will cling on and take the money for as long as he can. Contracts are not the risk free business that some might insist they are, with the benefit of hindsight.


Many who play this contract game forget that there are two parties to any contract. They assume that the club holds the cards, when in fact that is not the case. They say, the club should have signed the player on a new contract a year ago. A player will be advised by his agent about his courses of action. Generally speaking, if a club approaches a player with a contract offer, the player and his agent are alerted that the club value his services. That immediately gives the player an advantage. It means that he has a market value to the club, and if he has a market value to one club, he automatically has a market value to others. If the player has a market value, it means that he can let his contract run down and cash in on that market value by converting some of the fee that would be due to the club on the sale of his contract into a wage that will be paid to him instead by his new club. The cost of ownership of a player’s contract is judged by a club on the basis of the initial fee plus his pay costs over the length of his contract. The annual cost is obviously the total sum divided by the length of the contract. This means that an existing player does not have a fee and his contract renewal should have a lower annual cost as a result. The fault of that logic is of course that he often has a transfer value that can be cashed in. Of course, there is always the danger that if he does not sign a new contract when it is offered, he could get a career ending injury, and with little time left on his contract with his current club he reduces his potential career earnings, but it is a risk that most are willing to take.


What incentive is there for a player to sign the new contract? Well, he has to think that his new pay structure and his career prospects will be better than they would be by letting his existing contract run down, or by at least forcing his current club to sell him on. Agents spend their whole working career making these value judgements on behalf of their clients. They have no emotional attachment to any football club and they are clear sighted in their aims, which are to do the best they can for their client, his career prospects and his career earnings. The choices will of course be well explained to the player, and at the end of the day the player will have the final choice, but the agent will recommend a course of action to the player. That recommendation will change as their client’s career progresses. That is why Barnsley FC is a good choice for a young player learning the game, but a bad choice for a Championship quality player in mid-career who is trying to maximise his earnings whilst he is at his peak.


So the club has to make the correct judgement on the right players to sign when they are young. It has to decide which players are worth the longer contract terms, which inevitably cost more. It has to persuade the player and his agent that the terms are right for them as well, and it has to choose when is the right time to cash in on the players value knowing the club supporters become the clubs greatest critic when a fans favourite is sold.


Who would want to be the owner of a football club?

 

Well said. Guys like Scowen, Watkins, Roberts, Mcdonald, Yiadom etc have seen their chance of success with us lessened from their team mates being sold off. So that makes presuading them to sign back up for longer, not as likely.

 

Do you believe the professionals use the same criteria to measure a player's value as the fans. As a professional, if you were about to spend a serious amount of cash on a Barnsley player, would you consult this site in order to test the fans opinion before you did so? No, me either. I would watch him and make my own mind up about his ability, and balance my views in relation to the ability of those about him, his team mates and the opposition.

 

What a great analysis! Thanks for putting that all so well. it describes very accurately the issue of club, player and contracts. Just one question - are you applying to become the next CEO?

 

I know you are joking but I am 66 years of age, but if I was young enough to be considered, I would not go near it with a barge pole. I am far too thin-skinned.

 

The limits of the plan are dependent on our ability to negotiate contracts. Peterborough who have been running a version of the same plan for years are both someone to look at and a lesson in the limits of this sort of plan as to a lesser extent are Crewe. Both show that perhaps their is a ceiling that is reached operating on our model. Peterborough though are fantastic on contracts no player is allowed to run down contracts. Automatic extensions in the clubs favour with automatic pay increases based on performance. It's the only way to maximise value whether like Peterborough you can only take the model so far before falling back to your 'natural' level is a moot point.

 

Who would want to be the owner of a football club? Well Patrick Cryne obviously does and there are another 91 owners in the football league who do.

Conor Hourihane said the players would have signed new contracts had they be offered. The club says they were offered. It's up to the individual whose version of events the believe.

I know who I believe.

 

The name of Peterborough United has sparked an interest. Our club is always being compared unfavourably to some other club so I thought that I would look up their accounts at Companies House. It was just a cursory glance, but I noted that last year they lost £194,774 and in total their losses are £9,812,158. Conan keeps bringing up another paragon of virtue, Burton Albion, but Companies House has never heard of them so I cannot check what their secret formula for success is. #justsaying

 

I have found the Burton Albion Accounts at Companies House. They were under The Albion Football Club (Burton on Trent) Limited. Who woulda thought of looking under 'T'.

Last year they lost £10,814 with a loss of £455,497 the year before. Their cumulative Profit and Loss in well into profit however at £4,066,219, so I would guess that they must have sold a player more than 2 years ago to generate a large surplus. If you look at the Barnsley FC Accounts for the year to 2017, they too will show a cumulative profit, again because we made player sales.

 

So their losses were around 80% lower than ours. On half the gates.

 

Actually, our losses were £577,669, so no.

 

Thought it was £950,000?

 

Did you look on the Companies House web site, or did you rely on somebody else giving you the information?

 

Pretty sure that was the information you gave in your accounting lesson. For some reason I can't find the thread.

 

If you are going to be our expert on these matters, you should have the figures at your finger tips. Anyway, it is very easy to look up at Companies House.

 

You have just highlighted the second part I.e the limits of the plan.

Both Peterborough and Crewe highlight it can only go so long. The year they sold Assalomba they made a massive profit (like us) this season.

Now they have slipped back into deficit as they sold their good players got relegated and couldn't get promoted because they sold too many players. They then couldn't attract players and the plan failed.

They are a salutary lesson for us. They concentrated too much on profit and not enough on football eventually this plan failed. Possibly they should have gambled but played it safe and returned to deficit. It's why the conservative approach that you advocate may be flawed. They are the poster child for your approach.

They are great at contracts though and don't get taken advantage of the way we do. I know the firm who does them and they are top notch. As I said a lesson both ways.

 

He is trying to be clever. He knows that the actual posted losses were just over £500k but that was AFTER a large donation by Patrick cryne.

In red rains own words: "Without the donation the loss would have been £979,812. Not so far away from the £1m stated by Mr Cryne back in June."

 

But in order to compare with Peterborough results, suely we need to know if their accounts included a donation as well. Whilst Connan researches the Barnsley accounts at Companies House, why don't you do the same for the Peterborough accounts, then you might both be experts.

 

Well I don't know the firm who does them, and all I have to go on is their league position and their published accounts. There is probably a fan in Peterborough moaning even as we speak, how come we didn't cash in like Barnsley when we had the chance.

 

Alternatively you could stop talking down to everybody and being condescending