Being competitive in the Championship

Everyone would like to see Barnsley FC competitive in the Championship, but how much should the owners be prepared to invest in order to make that happen. Let us ignore the supporter base for a moment, and the difference in Revenues that having a larger fan base means, and let us just look at the losses that Championship teams' owners have funded. I have chosen to look at the 3 years to the end of the 2018 season because 3 club have yet to submit their 2019 Accounts, and I have excluded things like selling the ground for a false profit in order to reduce those losses. These are the losses that owners funded in that period for teams arranged in the order that they finished last season:

Cardiff City -£67m
Fulham -£73m
Huddersfield Town £9m

Leeds United -£12m
West Brom £34m
Derby County -£60m
Middlesbrough -£31m
Bristol City -£40m
Notts Forest -£38m
Swansea City -£44m
Brentford -£18m
Sheffield Wed -£66m
Hull City £38m
Preston -£4m
Blackburn Rovers -£22m
Stoke City -£23m
Birmingham City -£59m
Wigan Athletic -£6m
QPR £5m
Reading -£55m
Millwall -£13m

Luton Town -£12m
Barnsley £12m
Charlton Athletic -£22m

Clearly, if you want Championship security, an owner has to be prepared to fund huge losses over a long period of time. There is no let up either, because if an owner does not match the investment being made by other owners, the quality in the team begins to go backwards. So, just how much would you be prepared to spend each year if you owned the club, assuming of course that you had the money to do it. And please do not tell me that the money is an investment that you will eventually see a return on, unless you can show me how you make that return, because even promotion to the Premier League would not give that sort of return. Just look at the top three clubs in the table if you do not believe me.

Everyone has an answer. The owners should spend more of their money. They are bad owners because they want the club to be self-sufficient. Anyone can have a successful club, if only they spend more money (lets forget about FFP), its easy, just so long as you are not picking up the tab, and spending someone else's money has always been easy, hasn't it. But now the hard questions. How much of your own money are you prepared to put into the club in order to fund your ambitions.

In 2019, Barnsley's match day income for the season was just over £3m. That compares to profit from the sale of players of £4m. The club made more money from the sale of players than it did from selling tickets to its fans. So how much would you be prepared to put into your club in order to fund your ambitions. If the price of admission was doubled, it would generate £3m. Would you be prepared to double your investment. How about tripling your investment to generate an extra £6m. Would that mean that the club could hold on to a few more players who would otherwise have to be sold. It is still nowhere near the investment of some of the owners listed above, but at least you would be making a more realistic contribution, or does that not matter, because it is not your club. It is their club, and you just pay to watch them play.

There is a huge problem here. Whose club is Barnsley FC. We all spend huge amounts of time on here, time spent in diagnosis of what has gone right and what has gone wrong. When the club is successful, the club is our club, and we commit our undying loyalty towards it. When the club is not successful, it is their club and we threaten to withdraw our financial support. But whose club is it?

Well, I do not have the same problem as many do with this question. I do not own any shares in the club and never did, but nevertheless, it is my club because of the time I have spent supporting it and caring about it. I love it when it is successful, and I grit my teeth and carry on when it is not. I support it in a very limited way financially, by buying a seat for the season, each and every year. But I do more than that. I care, and I care enough to continue to support it through the bad times, as well as the good. I care that It might not be there in the future if I stop supporting it. I am not the owner, and it is not my club in that sense, but nevertheless, it is my club, and it will be my club until me or the club draw our final breath.

But what does all this mean. Are our owners good owners, or not?

Well they have a plan, and they are quite open about that plan. That plan is different to the plan of most of the clubs in the Championship, but it is a plan. It requires less investment, but it requires a hell of a lot of patience. I would be astonished if they said that they would not sell my club to a new owner who was willing to pay their price. That new owner would have to be someone with a different plan. Someone with very deep pockets indeed. How likely is it that Barnsley Football Club could attract a potential new owner of that description?

 

I get your point. Honestly I do. I just think they need to be better at it.However, we're stuck with them for now so that's that.

 

What is their motive for buying the club?

What is the Council's for holding a 50% stake in the premises?

 

I would like to know the answer to both of these.

Why us? Why Barnsley football club?

And I’d like the council to keep whatever they own, until the council and fan base can trust these owners.

 

Apologies if being thick, are the figures with a - in front a deficit or profit? ie we made 12million?

 

Can’t help wonder if it was sold to them as a free hit, but with the land available with potential, that coupled with them thinking wow look what we got at NICE got excited.
Obviously there’s a big difference between South Yorkshire and theFrench Riviera, but did their excitement/confidence take over.
Edit: and the council see it as a land grab so are protecting the asset?

I sometimes just wonder with these guys is that the real thing they are mainly guilty of is believing their own hype and abilities.

 

There are all kinds of financial scams you seem to be able to get away with in football. You only have to look at the Glaziers, Ken Bates, Oyston etc to see how easy it is to take money out of a club. Wouldn't be surprised if Conway is the highest paid employee of the club. It was rumoured that Ridsdale paid himself a salary of £1m pa and his mate Walker £375,000 pa. The debt is the company debt so any problems just go into admin like Wigan.

 

The figure with - in front are losses, or Barnsley made £12m in that period. It includes the sales of a lot of good players and realisation of the interests that we retained in John Stones (Everton to Manchester City) and Mawson (Swansea to Fulham).

 

So Leeds lost the same as Luton and WBA made a £38 million profit. Interesting stat. I assume WBA were still getting parachute money? If not, that's how a club should be run - make money and get promoted at the same time.

 

Conway would have been paid by the club when he was deputising as CEO. However, the total of director's remuneration is reported in the annual accounts, and although individual amounts are not, that total is not enormous. In fact, the annual accounts report the amount of share dividend (£nil) and all other ways that the directors/owners might extract money from the company/club. They are not doing any of those things. You might wish to cast aspersions of dishonesty around, but like it or not, our owners are not dishonest. In fact, you only have to look at how little we supporters contribute to our club finances to know the real reason the club struggles to compete in the Championship.

 

We supporters contribute over £3 million a year so it's a bit of an insult to say "how little" we contribute. Its £3 million more than the board have invested since they took over and I daresay it's more than Preston fans invested in their club and they haven't done too badly.

 

There are contributors on here who would be paying players upwards of £20k per week. The total revenue collected from fans pays the wages of just 3 players at that rate of pay.

 

Motive - They want to improve the club and sell it on for a profit. They are business people. They are investors. If they invest more, then they need to sell the club for even more in order to make a profit.

Council - The reason that the club got into Administration in the past was that they borrowed more from the bank than they could afford to repay. The loan was secured on the clubs only asset, the ground. The bank saw that the only way that they could get their money back was to force the club into Administration. The Administrator is tasked with realising the club's assets, including the ground in order to pay secured debtors. The Administrator will try to find a buyer in order to allow the company to keep trading, but his main task is to turn assets into cash. The Council/the Cryne family did not wish to see the future of the football club that carries the town's name to be put into doubt again. If they took away the only asset that the club could pledge against a loan, the club would never be able to borrow in the commercial loan market again. The Council/the Cryne family is enforcing proper financial management upon the club. It can only borrow from its owner.

 

Be interesting to hear from the owners their view on the current situation and whether there is any flexibility in terms of the approach adopted thus far. For example a couple of experienced players to guide and encourage the youngsters may be beneficial. After yesterdays brave and committed performance which once again demonstrated the fine margins between success and failure stability is needed now and I hope the owners will demonstrate that in the forthcoming weeks with their actions.

 

Don't hold your breath. Probably seeking out their next club to buy

 

Excellent post.

 

Very good post.

 

How do you think the 'player retail' plan will be affected by Covid-19? Not sure we will see club's shelling out even the relatively small amount Brentford did for Pinnock in the foreseeable future. I believe there will be some serious soul-searching amongst Conway et al.

 

Sorry RR - I don't believe there is anyone on here who would advocate paying players £20k+ per week. I haven't seen a single post suggesting that.

 

clubs not club's. Paranoid about apostrophes