BFC Accounts 2021

If football clubs were all run as businesses then player wages would come down. However, there are too many owners that see it as a play thing and don’t mind losing money if it brings on pitch success. You only need a few of these clubs to offer more wages than they can afford to completely distort the wage market.

 

Our owners won't lose money. Barnsley F.C is funded by investors who have been fooled by an elaborate investment model. They'll just be asked for more money or new investors will be enticed with a clever sales pitch. It will seem too good to be true. The problem comes when these investors want to see a return in their investment. There simply isn't one.

 

To be honest, I expected this figure to be higher, given the number of players on the books that we seemingly don't really want

 

The problem with football ownership and management is this. Everyone could manage the business better. Even the man in the street knows more about the game than they do. Most of the time, the man in the street is benefiting from hindsight. He does not know the facts so he is guessing. He ignores any financial consequences. He simply knows instinctively. He firmly believes that the people inside the club are totally incompetent. Actually, in most cases all of that simply is not true, but it is more fun if you take a long run up before you aim your kick.

The business plan is to buy young players, improve them and sell them on. It has worked well for many many years, but the club is living through extraordinary times. The bottom has dropped out of the transfer market, and the business plan has stalled. That is not the fault of the owners, and nor is it the fault of the management. No-one saw COVID coming, and it is hard to see any alternative strategy that works if you want to run the club as a business and not as a charity, at least in the short term. I believe that the players signed at the start of this season were signed down to a price, and not up to a quality. In spite of the cash surplus the Balance Sheet says we had, I believe that the cash surplus was already spoken for. Most of the analysis that has been done in this thread has been a search for a stick to beat them with. I understand that the misappropriation of the £750k has left a bitter taste, but that will be sorted out through the courts. It is one thing to be upset by past actions of the owners, and another thing to potentially destroy the club that I have supported for 56 years in order to get even. As I see it, with the transfer market is in disarray, and because the club has no assets to act as security for a loan, there is only one potential source of the additional capital that will save us from Admin. Of course the owners must see the logic of that, and I guess that they are a long way away from doing so at the moment, but they are currently our only way out.

I shall not be joining in any campaigns to get the current owners out, because they are campaigns without an alternative strategy or source of capital. I shall be buying my season ticket as normal for the 2022-23 season, my 56th season supporting my team. I am not an anarchist and I do not believe any good can come out of anarchy. I did not begin supporting my team because I expected success, and I never assume that a lack of success represents failure. It is nice to win things, but it is the icing on the cake, and not the cake itself. Others will feel differently, and that is up to them.

 

It's ironic, but the thing that could potentially do for us are players on long term contracts that clubs below us can't afford and don't want to pay a fee for.

If we need to cut the wage bill in the summer, we can offload out of contract players which will be Palmer, Halme (though we have a year option), Adeboyejo, Miller, Hondermarck, Wolfe, Thompson and probably a couple of the development squad who haven't got near the first 11.

But we're still stuck with Oulare, Leya Iseka, Christie Davies, Benson, Kitching, Cole, Oduor and of course Thomas, Schmidt and Kane.

Though one or two might evolve to be decent at league 1 level, if they haven't been bunted out on loan.

 

I think the signings of Benson and Kane sum up my frustration with the current model. All it does is add cost and hinders the development of players already in the u23s or first team squad. I suspect those two are on higher salaries than Palmer and Wolfe, yet the latter two are arguably better players (Wolfe in particular, and I'd say Palmer was doing well until the whole team fell off a cliff) and we're going to let them go for nothing.

 

Oh, and maybe a lesson learned is that if a Premier League club are willing to sell a player for a fee that we can afford, chances are they are a year or two off being ready for the Championship.

 

I think its telling that if you look at who we've sold on at a decent profit since these owners came in, it's only Moore and Brown. Moore was signed right at the beginning of their tenure, and I suspect identified before and Brown had come through the ranks. Granted, we've got the collapse of the transfer market, but this has been on the horizon for some time, indeed, it's been offered as one of their reasons for buying us... to wait for the collapse of others and be in a better position thereafter as a result.

And despite all the issues of covid, they've just carried on buying more and more. A bloated squad with only a handful of quality. Most of those that we don't even own.

It's such a mess.

 

And I think there's been an increase in players running down contracts and leaving for free. But it's not really a market we've looked at, but I suspect other clubs trying to establish themselves at this level on limited budgets like Luton and Blackpool will have.

 

We brought Cole and Collins in on frees. But I think you're right, we've been caught up in paying fee's and largely wasted most of that money. I suspect we're going to have to depend on free transfers and youth development even more as we just don't have the reserves to keep the wasteful player acquisition conveyor belt going.

And I suspect loans too.

 

Agreed. That's why I've stopped going, despite having a season ticket. I think the business plan should be to try to win football matches.

 

I don't share the pessimism behind the players we have on the books. If the owners make up the shortfall the club will have no reason to sell players in League 1. In which case it would be a decent team in League 1. The problem comes if the owners intend balancing the books with the playing squad that has depreciated in value.

That said, I don't think we'll go down. Bassi and Oudina might be our get out of jail free card.

 

Have the owners ever said that they would never put any of their own money in, if needed? I've honestly not seen that anywhere. I know in their initial presser when they "bOuGhT" the club they said they wouldn't do anything crazy...

I do appreciate that the owners behaviour doesn't indicate they would put their own money in, but I haven't actually heard or read that they wouldn't.

 

Me neither. I'd like to know if Fairies signed all our players too and found the money to pay up contracts and compo for clubs and Head Coaches?

 

Arguably this is all still while we're at the bottom end of the Championship wage scale too.

Compared to most Championship clubs our wage bill is well controlled as a % of turnover (as far as the standard set by football clubs goes, at least), but we're effectively paying League One wages while in the Championship. Our ability to reduce the wage bill in League One next season (barring another miracle escape) will be limited, as you've pointed out previously, and certainly not in line with the drop in revenues.

 

If I recall correctly this was most recently confirmed by Khaled in the Q&A, where he stated that this was the case.

 

Houdini might be better to try and conjure our way out of trouble....

 

I think we can do it. 7 wins 6 losses or 9 wins and 4 losses.

 

Possible, but not probable.

 

Thanks, is there a transcript of that video?