As Nancy fans protesting against Conway and co

When a business needs investment and the business that is Barnsley FC clearly does the owners of the business will invest either by putting their own money in or borrowing or raising money by having a share issue and inviting investment or sometimes they even sell the business to people who have the funds to invest why is Barnsley FC different. If I bought a business and a few years down the line that business needed further investment I'd find a means to raise the money for the investment because if I wasn't prepared to do that why bother buying the business in the first place. If the owners continue down the road they are currently taking eventually its ends in a very bad place for Barnsley FC. The business needs investment ànd if it doesn't get the investment it will go the way of other businesses that are staved of investment and die.

 

Why did they buy us then? where is the ROI on their initial investment coming from? because it's not coming from selling the current squad and it's certainly not coming from selling a league one club that doesn't own its own ground and got relegated with the lowest points total in championship history which is a distinct possibility. IMHO
they either have an ulterior motive for buying Barnsley FC or made a suicidal error of judgment when buying the club thinking it would be a cash cow and they could just milk it whenever they wanted to.

 

No I don't read my post I specifically.said they wouldn't make money from selling the current squad and wouldn't make money selling a L1 club that doesn't own its own ground. So if that's the case and they aren't prepared to invest to try to achieve a level of success that would see them being able to "take a dividend" What was the attraction in Barnsley FC. So like I said in the post in my opinion they made a large expensive mistake buying Barnsley FC because they thought they would be able to milk it or because they had plans for the land that due to the much discussed covenant they can't proceed with. You ask would I like to see them loan the club money that would depend on the terms on which it was lent and also the affordability of the loan, would I object to a small loan on favourable terms that wouldn't risk the club's future the answer is no I wouldn't object on the other hand if it was a loan like the one they took out at Nice then yes I would object strongly.

 

I have to agree. In my inexpert opinion I don't see them taking millions out of the club. Neither did I expect them to put millions in.
I do see them, however, making a catalogue of bad decisions that show no signs of doing anything but damage to the club. Those decisions nearly got us relegated the season before last, will see us disastrously relegated this season with less money left in the coffers.
Nothing they've done has improved our overall standing as a club. In terms of trust, financial strength and league placing they've significantly weakened us.

 

Apologies and warning for a fairly long post in three parts on the context to Nancy's position on and off the field and why I think it is highly relevant to ours.

1) Finances and Transfer Regulation

French football is regulated by a unit called 'Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion' or DNCG which has wide-ranging powers in relation to the regulation of clubs and is responsible for maintaining 'financial fair play and viability' - it seems a good thing on balance and its role and interventions are far, far earlier than in the English leagues.

At the end of each football season, the DNCG reviews the accounts of all the teams in the top five divisions in France. Clubs found to be in breach of rules can have a number of punishments enforced upon them including transfer embargoes or limiting the number of first-team players. DNCG powers of sanction range all the way up to expulsion from the league.

AS Nancy were one of a number of clubs in Ligue 2 reporting a loss in their most recent accounts (2019/20) and so came under DNCG review. A lot of the other clubs with operating losses were able to offset these with transfer profits. AS Nancy and a couple of others didn't, with Nancy being the only ones whose 2019/20 loss took them into a cumulative deficit position (or negative equity as it might more recognisably be described).

Now it's worth noting that the 'negative equity' position was only c. E1m but under the DNCG rules that resulted in a ban on bringing in new players for a fee; loans and free transfers still being allowed. This position was not new to Nancy in Summer 2021, it had been in place during the previous season too.

For those saying that there is little similarity between our own position and Nancy's it's sobering to think that their operating deficit in 2019/20 was roughly the same as our own in 2018/19. It's just that we were able to offset some of that by player sales. Indeed Nancy made an overall surplus after player sales in 2017/18 and so it is just the last two years' financial results that have impacted.

However, as I say, intervention is much earlier and more stringent under the DNCG with the aim of things not spiralling out of control in the way many clubs have in eg England. Sobering to think that for example the level of financial performance that Nancy are being hit with embargos for probably came about a month or two into Chansiri's tenure at Wednesday!

Sobering also against complacency in our own position is to think that:-

a) In their respective 2019/20 accounts, Nancy have the same amount of cash in the bank as Barnsley at c. £750k;
b) Nancy's balance sheet in their 2019/20 accounts is, at E12m, still worth DOUBLE that of Barnsley's and with NO reliance on estimated player values in that E12m;
c) If relegated (they are 6 points adrift with 15 games left), Nancy will lose centrally distributed income of around E4m going into a (partly semi-pro) league which they should almost certainly win and bounce back from at the first attempt; when relegated Barnsley will lose income of around £6.5m and be in a tough league in which imho it will be very, very difficult to bounce back from at the first attempt.
d) Barnsley is much more reliant on gate receipts which are around three times higher than Nancy's and thus much more liable to be impacted by relegation in this respect also.

2) On-Field Performance

Again far from the narrative I’ve seen in a couple of posts above, Nancy weren’t on their backsides performance wise either. Indeed last season they finished 8th out of 20 in Ligue 2.

Moreover, from the point where the paid transfer fee ban was imposed, their form actually improved and their PPG of 1.57 from then until the end of the season would see them comfortably ensconced in 6th place in 2021/22 and just a handful of points behind the promotion race if continued into this season.

So the explanation for the huge on-field performance decline again lies fairly and squarely with the summer 2021 activities of these owners.

On-field competitiveness had been maintained by the previous approach of a mixture of loanees from bigger French clubs, homegrown talent and experienced free transfers. This was abandoned to be replaced by the lethal combination of youth teamers from Ostend, data driven lower division frees, inexperienced loans and cast-offs from elsewhere in the owners group (eg Simoes, Thiam). This was added to with a couple of players which Ostend bought and then loaned to Nancy (rightly incurring the ire of other Ligue 2 teams) but what isn’t as widely reported is that there was movement of experienced Nancy players the other way on a free, further weakening them.

So, yes, I think the Nancy fans are right to blame these owners for the on-field performance and again the comparisons to us are near and present. Even more so when you think that despite the transfer fee ban, Nancy, unlike Barnsley, still have one of the biggest operating budgets in Ligue 2, certainly top half, if not top 5.

3) The Way They Do Things

Not to go overboard on this but we’ve experienced the way they do things with the West Stand debacle, vouchers, lack of owner communication etc and the owners seem to have replicated this at Nancy too. A couple of examples:-

a) Despite their league and financial positions the club president (effectively the CEO), our friend Mr Ganaye, only works part-time for Nancy and, by all accounts, spends more time at Ostend, where he is also president, meaning amongst other things that communication with Nancy fans has been lacking. (Not GG’s fault I’d say that he’s stretched so thinly).

b) AS Nancy has a good training facility which has been traditionally at the heart of the local community. This season, access for local youngsters has reportedly been restricted.

c) The owners have arbitrarily downgraded the AS Nancy women’s team.

Fair play to Nancy fans for recognising how bad these owners are at running football clubs and taking collective action - I understand that the protest yesterday was co-ordinated by five of their fan groups working together. I wish them every success.

 

I reckon £500 million a year would get us into the Champions League within 5 years. It would probably go horribly wrong but God what a ride it would be competing with Manchester City for signings instead of Accrington Stanley. Just imagine how pissed off the blunts and fowl fans would be not to forget our friends from up the M1 at Bellend Road it would be so worth it watching the meltdowns when we signed the world's top players. So what if it all went tits up in a few years we'd have fun before it did and I'd rather have fun before it goes tits up than suffer like we are now only to end up with it going tits up anyway. I hate the board but I'd take their money to enjoy the ride. **** FFP let's have some totally irresponsible spending that makes Wigan and Boltons efforts look like responsible investment. I want success no matter what the cost. This isn't serious btw but I just wanted to see if your head would explode with self righteous indignation before you reached the end of the post.

 

Wasn't Herbie Kane fetched in to replace Mowatt if he went earlier in his contract?

 

Thanks for the opening comment - it is a bit easier to find some of the French info though as they publish the headline financial statements of all L1 and L2 clubs in one document together which is interesting.

On some of your points I've responded below.

I'm not sure what the question is here - yes they bought the club around that time and so knew that the fee embargo was in place. They received no extra punishment.

I think my post makes it clear they had a half decent squad assembled under the embargo which finished the 2020/21 season well and so no, the different way they adopted for 2021/22 wasn't 'the only way'. They changed the approach in the summer, it wasn't dictated to them. As I also pointed out, the operating budget was still competitive and so they could still have been an attractive club for eg good free transfer players at that level.

Again this was covered by my saying that (a) players went both ways, eg Kenny Rocha Santos; (b) and again to re-iterate, the operating budget of Nancy remained competitive and (c) there was no embargo on signing frees and loans from other clubs, they weren't limited to signings from Ostend. Perhaps more pertinent to their league position now is the question, what kind of team has the loans from Ostend left them with?!

Like any club some players will have been out of contract but again I think the rest of your question is covered by my post. In terms of the wage bill. the DNCG sign off the budget and it remained competitive for the middle reaches of that division at E15m. I don't know what the criteria for getting the fee embargo lifted are but DNCG could have imposed more punitive sanctions such as limiting wages and/or the size of the squad if they were unhappy with the budget set, but didn't.

Not entirely clear what the 'all this' is that you are referring to but on the assumption of it being the turning of a playing staff finishing 8th into a rock bottom one whilst the same trading parameters and operating budgets prevailed then, yes, very clearly they did it all in the last Summer.

I'm not sure how much weight is too much? But I would largely agree with you on these fronts with the exception of ultimately for me it is the owners who make the appointments and should set the tone. And it is a common complaint across certainly Nancy and Barnsley that the silence is deafening from Conway on key issues.

We'll just have to (legitimately) disagree on this. Around £6-7m will be needed from profits on sales, wage reductions and released wages from contract expiries to balance the budget as it currently stands, even before probably a, say, halving of matchday revenues. Imagine what little quality will be left in this squad after £8m+ of sales(as you say at well below what some may think is market value)/cuts; a squad that has won two games all season and been outplayed by Bolton and Ten-Man Barrow. And that's before freeing up any resources to fund any new players at all! Feel free to bump this post in a year's time but my concern is that without a fundamental change in outlook and approach we will be in a relegation battle next year.

I don't want to get into protracted debate as (a) I've got to work tomorrow and (b) I just think that stylistically and in the way we view things we are probably very different and never the 'twain shall meet. To me 'Rome' is burning now, the fire was started some time ago and I have little retro-sympathy for these owners. However tough or not any of the situations they got into was, in each case it was not unknown to them and in each they have made it at best no better and in most cases, worse.

 

@Exile Great post pal, I agree Rome is burning.

 

Not quite so bad if you chant it with the French pronunciation i.e .'non-see'

 

Come off it Loko! Any entrepreneur knows the risks. Public listed companies rely on shareholders who effectively are investing in a company and expect dividends each year and share values to rise when the company is well run and circumstances are favourable and the business going through good times.
By the same token, when times are tough, then shareholders lose out no/ low dividends & share values drop. In short investing for a high return is a risk.
The same principle applies to privately owned companies i.e. the higher the return the greater the risk.

You appear to condone the idea that these people are trying to buy businesses 'risk free' and profit when things are going well but do not expect to have to take a hit when things are not going well. In the case of this consortium, buying going concerns like Nancy and Barnsley (in the case of BFC even that is debatable that they have actually paid for it) they are running them into the ground. So of course they SHOULD, like any responsible owners invest in lean times to succeed.
They might well have stated from the outset that they would not loan money, but exceptional desperate times calls for desperate measures and any business owner needs to be flexible and adapt strategies to grow never mind survive.
If, as you say, the current owners are never prepared to invest (loan) money to the business to see it through the bad times then, frankly, there is no long term future for any of the businesses they own. Like all investments the higher the potential profit the higher the risk. Any real business person knows to succeed you have to invest. These owners simply want to take all the profits 'risk free' , instead, letting others carry the burden i.e. the fans, and employees, and small businesses should the worst case scenario - administration - happen.

Perhaps we'd all be better off if Conway and Co had stuck their money in a building society or savings accounts and not buy companies they clearly don't know how to run. I'm sure though, that they would not be happy with the low returns they would get on their investment but least it would be 'risk free' and BFC and other clubs would not have been victims of their ineptitude.

Rant over

EDIT: IMHO Loko, the point I am making is...
1 Investment and competence means likelihood of success.
2 Only one of the two means less likelihood of success but still possible in the right circumstances
3 Incompetence and little or NO investment guarantees failure.

Which of the three situations do you think we are in?

 

Football does not behave the same way!! Really?? Sorry that is nonsense. As each year passes that becomes less and less true. Ultimately, like all business ventures, success or failure long term ultimately comes down to money ... BTW I edited my last post perhaps you have not seen it..

1 Investment and competence means likelihood of success.
2 Only one of the two means less likelihood of success but still possible in the right circumstances
3 Incompetence and little or NO investment guarantees failure.

Which of the three situations do you think we are in?