Minority Report 2019-20 - Talking Finance (2)

To be honest, I never understood why they bought the club, right from day 1. They are not going to make a significant sum from share dividends, so I have always assumed that they bought the club in order to improve it and then sell it on, pretty much as the club does with players. However, there are a number of problems with that strategy. First of all, how do you improve the club without spend loads of money on it. Many of the clubs in my analysis have had loads of money spent on them, but they still lose money every year and they are still no nearer being an established team in the Premier League. If they are going to make money from selling Barnsley FC, that is where we must be. Not just playing there for a season, but be established there. Even to become re-established in the Championship will take investment. You see, every club promoted from League 1 will have been subject to SCMP, which is far stricter, and much more of a leveler than the failing FFP. Promoted teams are therefore always going to be starting at a disadvantage. Individually, their players will not be as good as those already playing in the Championship. But you need more players in the Championship, because you are going to have to work harder in order to try to make good on the difference in individual quality. So how do you square the circle? How does the club fund the step up? I wish that I knew.

The owners do not want to get on the financial treadmill, and looking at the financial analysis, I can understand their reluctance. But without investment, we are simply a yo-yo club. I'm sorry but like the rest of the BBS, I do not have any answers. I'm just glad that it is not my problem.

 

Well I did outline strategies for increasing revenue, and they are valid, though require effort and time to establish and build. With the size of populations of those countries, it wouldn't take much to start incremental change and improvement. If they aren't going to utilise their existing contacts and business interests then their personal wealth and business empires are completely irrelevant.

The club be owned by someone with £200 in their account.

I have to say, I expected more, more visible things, more tangible steps forward. But 2 years in, if someone was to hazard a guess as to who owned us, how wealthy they were and how well they'd utilised business acumen they may or may not have.... I don't think anyone would guess we had billionaires from several continents with multiple business interests... because it doesn't show. You could argue very much the reverse.

 

The "us and them " wasn't aimed at you just generalising.

 

I must admit, I was very concerned that our owners were from varying overseas regions. Not personally, but given Barnsleys history and the general Brexit turbulence and negative feelings that some have towards anyone from another country.

I hope it doesn't manifest strongly, but I think its up to the owners to realise that despite when at our best, our fans can be incredible... but at our worse... well, I don't think anyone wants to see us at our worst.

Over egging the pudding is very much an American thing. Barnsley people don't like their Yorkshire Puddings overegged.

 

Let's wait until January before we write them off. For all we know they may have plans that will shock us. I will also be interested in the accounts for last season, which will be available in March. I do agree with you though, so far they seem to have invested less than PC, and their most promising strategy seems to be to do nothing and hope for a miracle.

 

I'll be delighted if they show something with more sense and reason and aimed at ensuring we stay in this division. I don't think anyone would be against such a move. The danger is by then we could be a long way adrift. I hope not, and we may well develop faster than expectation... but crikey, we've asked far far too much of the players and coaches in doing so and has likely lost a lot of goodwill in the process.

 

My concern about multiple owners is slightly different. A sole owner has no-one to please but himself. If he thinks that something is a good idea, he has no argument to win, other than the internal argument with himself. If he decides that he must invest, he does so with his own money. He does not have to seek the appropriate contributions from the other owners to ensure their new investment is in the same proportions as the original investment. This was something that also troubled me from day 1, so I tried to look at the information held in Hong Kong about our holding Company. I could not gain access over the internet and gave up. My hope was that the owners invested substantially more than it took to buy the club, and that there was a significant sum available for further investment, that currently lies untouched in a Hong Kong bank account. Sadly, I uncovered nothing. The only information about our owners comes from Companies House. It is that Chien Lee owns between 25% and 49% of the share in BFC(2002)ltd via Barnsley FC holdings. Not much is it.

 

I did the same thing on day 1 as the presentation they gave outlining structure on a board somewhere, never seemed to make it on screen or be shared.

But as you say, public scrutiny of ownership and accounts in some countries just isn't possible.

All we can do is wait and judge by actions and what we're able to see. Sadly, the comments made by our owners are extremely vague and nebulous, and my experience from the turnaround community is that often what is said to customers, staff and anyone else, is not often what is said behind closed doors. Not always the case.... but more frequent than not.

 

Do you think based on the showings in recent transfer windows investment before sales?

 

Do you think based on the showings in recent transfer windows investment will be before sales?

I dont.

They have brought into the model and are offering little flexibility.

 

Double post.

 

I can see no basis for thinking dealings in January will be any different to what has gone before. Flat track bullies in League One; whipping boys in the Championship. As things stand, this season is looking like the third iteration of this cycle since 2005-06 and I think quite a few folk are growing weary of it.

 

It's

Not worth responding to any of that because you haven't read what I wrote nor answered in a reasonable manner. Just for the record I haven't obviously done anything as anyone can read.

 

We sold Lindsay, we increased revenue by gaining promotion. £7.5 million right there.

 

Fair enough. Sorry!

 

I do not know what to think, to be honest.

If there we do not get at least a tall forward, in my opinion, we are doomed. As things stand, we have to work too hard and we are too predictable without the ability to change. I am just trying to keep an open mind, and trying to look for the positives, that's all.

 

I’ve got to say we’ve got one of the most level headed group of fans when it comes to spending money. Barely anyone expects us throw big money about & put ourselves in debt. It’s come from years of been the little fish in the championship & Patrick Cryne, Keith Hill, Mark Robins, Paul Heckingbottom, Ben Mansford, Gauthier Ganaye etc explaining to us what we can & cant afford.

I don’t think anyone really disagrees with the principle of buying young players & selling them on for profit but plenty of people including myself think the strategy needs tweaking slightly.

It seems crazy to have the whole squad as potentially sellable assets for two reasons. First off, you can’t play them all so you end up paying transfer fees for players like Jackson & Hedges & then they leave for nothing. And secondly because it doesn’t work on the pitch, certainly not initially anyway as young players in general take a lot more time to gel.

I don’t see why we can’t have been scouring the market for experienced players that were out of contract in the summer who wouldn’t have cost loads who could do a job & help bring our young players on.

There’s plenty of gems out there. Not all experienced players are on 10k plus a week. I’m only using these two as examples because they previously played for us so they’re fresh in my mind but Martin Cranie & Jacob Butterfield are obvious examples. Cranie lived at Woolley Edge all through his time at Sheff Utd, Middlesbrough & Huddersfield. I’m pretty sure coming back to us & taking on more responsibility whilst not uprooting his family would’ve been more attractive than moving down south to play for Luton. But obviously there’s hundreds of free agents knocking about summer so you wouldn’t be restricted to ex-reds.

We picked up David Perkins, Stephen Foster & you look at clubs like Preston, Bournemouth, Burnley, Millwall amongst others who’ve all recruited well when in the championship & even league one in signing cheap experienced players.

To me a much better way of running things would be to have 4 or 5 experienced pros as a quarter of the squad with three quarters of it been the young players you’re developing with the goal been to not have a huge change around of players each season. Don’t sell players with 2 plus years on their contracts unless the fees substantial & we have a replacement lined up.

We just need to get away from this idea of there’s only two ways to run a football club, our current model & one that involves massive debt. There’s plenty of experienced league one players, Scottish prem players & fringe players at championship level who we could bring in to do a job that wouldn’t be on big money but would complement our young players & even if they cost a grand more a week you aren’t paying a substantial transfer fee in the first place.

 

The only positive is the effort the players put in.

 

I, along with many more on here, very much appreciate your efforts in putting all this together.
In saying that - I couldn’t read all of it - one thing I hate is balance sheets - as soon as I see one my brain switches off.

But anyway - after reading the bits that I’ve read - two things.

1) I think you are assuming the owners or any owners are in the football business to make a profit. That might not be the purpose of the exercise - it might be that they just want to enjoy the ride - in a similar way to some folks banding together to buy a racehorse that they know isn’t going to win much - but their experience at the racers is greatly enhanced because they have a horse in the race.

2) The fair play rules states that owners CANNOT loan money to their club. The owners can however gift money to their club.

I don’t know whether this makes any difference to the conclusions that you have come to.

 

What you say seems reasonable to me. I had hoped for 3 older players myself, to strengthen our core, one at the centre of our defence, one in central midfield and one in the centre of our attack. All three in places where their calming influence would be felt most.

I can also tell you what our owners would say to the suggestion. They would say that there is no sell on for an older player, they would say that old players cost more in wages than young players, and finally, they would say that old players are more prone to injury. Who is right? Well, we will never know unless they decide to change direction. There would still be mistakes because the team would still contain young players, but beyond that we do not really know for certain. The fact remains though that the biggest indicator of the end of season places is the amount of money spent, particularly on wages, and whilst Barnsley is second bottom of the list for spending on pay, there will never be confidence in any proposed solution.