Every fan

Absolutely spot on!

last night was a shambles really. I’m all for having fans forums, but they should be run way better. I was sat on my phone with it practically touching my ear because I could barely hear a thing. Would it not hurt to invest in proper microphones? Why was it broadcast via Facebook? There was only 300 people max watching I noticed.

Questions should be pre prepared. The long rambling speech by the first bloke was embarrassing.

I understand the state of football & finances & how hard it is for us at the minute, that goes without saying. But they can’t be allowed to get away with hiding behind that for the constant poor decisions they are making. It’s just a downward spiral at the minute with bad decision after bad decision. When is it going to stop?

I keep going back to expectations & supporters accepting where we are in order to really progress. The club aren’t helping, & they were at it again last night putting out unrealistic targets & completely contradicting themselves. An established championship club in 3 years? Absolutely no chance, them days are long gone. & they pretty much admit that with Mister Flatmans rant about finances. Their unrealistic expectations aren’t doing anything to help. They need to temper expectations, admit it’s going to be a while before we are equipped to put on a serious promotion push, we are in a period transition, & the best we can do is accept this, ensure we have a period of stability & continuity, ensure we keep the manager beyond this season, accept the likes of Phillips & Connell will have to be sold, probably in January or next pre season. Integrate players from the academy, who are unlikely to be consistently any good immediately.

In short, acceptance is key.

 

I was there when he said it I can’t remember what year as it was a long while ago but it was at a supporters trust meeting in the exec suit

 

Losing £8m a year as a third tier club is not the norm.

Nothing said on the finances should come as a surprise to anyone who gave the accounts more than a cursory look.

Barnsley FC under the current ownership model will lose money year on year. Most league one clubs lose money, however the scale of losses at BFC is not normal. Admittedly not at the levels of a Wednesday but considerably higher than many others. When fingers are pointed at the likes of Wednesday and Wigan we are currently very similar, trying to spend our way out of the division highly reliant on wealthy benefactors.

Running a third tier football club rarely results in a profit, virtually all clubs at this level have owner support. However, running a business where the deficit is equal to turnover is also rare.

Plenty of mistakes have been made running the club, many highlighted on this thread, but my fundamental challenge is the focus of spending on the field. We seem to have a transfer policy out of kilter with the playing needs, lots of players identified in midfield, a virtual drought of left sided players and loan players who, at the current stage of the season, appear to add little to the squad.

Cutting first team player budget of £11m could be achieved by having far greater linkage between recruitment and the first 11 enabling the reduction in the bloated and skewed playing squad.

Thankful the directors are putting money in but better decision making could significantly reduce the financial support required.

 

Am I the only

I can't see how either got GBE given that they came from lower league clubs in France/Portugal. MDG had 31 Ligue 2 appearances when we signed him, with no international appearances at any level. Nwakali has 4 appearances for Nigeria, but was signed from the Portuguese 2nd division and before that played in the Spanish 2nd division. Neither have any European competition experience, significant international experience or came from top leagues in Europe.

 

Brilliant post, totally agree with everything you say, always thought we'd chop down the squad size the summer gone it's way too big and contributing to costs.

One thing that's really stuck out for me based around Jon Flatmans overview of the finances is the massive costs other than the first team
Our wage bill for the first team is £5.6m, Jon alluded to the fact that the football side costs £11m a season surely that can't be right that were spending £5.4m on the academy and staff costs, if that's the case then that seriously needs addressing based on what it's delivering/delivered that's a split of 51 to 49% 1st team vs other playing costs.

 

But how much longer are they going to keep doing this? I disagree, my view is we are in trouble, I don't see how they can continue putting in such significant sums when we're in the third tier. Lots of work to do off the field but this mess cannot continue.

 

I was thinking the same, audit of the academy over a 5 year period, has it made or lost the club money? Shut it down if its making an unacceptable loss. I feel like we pick up many players around 16/17/18/19, but we could do that without an academy.

 

I think that these days teams like City and Liverpool hoover up so many kids as a scatter gun approach, and parents fall for it every time - "my son plays for Man City academy", when in reality he's in a pool of about 80 kids of which only a dozen actually play competitively for the academy team. The club might be better off looking at the kids released at 16 from these clubs and get them into our u23s and forget the academy, kids and their parents don't want them to play for Barnsley, soon change their mind when they don't have a club at 16.

 

I, for one, am very grateful for our owners stepping up with cash to keep my club afloat. Think we need to cut them some slack.

 

If we don’t get it right on the balance sheet there won’t be anything for you to watch.

 

I don’t see why the women’s and men’s teams can’t wear different shorts but it’s worth pointing out that none of the women who care about such things might have needed dark shorts during that match. It’s a few days/one week a month, pointing to a singular match where the players wore a light kit doesn’t mean it’s not a problem for them during other games.

 

George…..it’s down to them by DECISION MAKING to do that buddy hence most of my posts on this thread are pointed towards that.

They can’t and won’t keep throwing money at it. It’s unsustainable.

You get the recruitment right you get bigger transfer fees.

You get the fan experience right….you get more money in.

Football is a terrible business, always has been since SKY was introduced back in 1992.

Other clubs make better decisions than us currently.

I’d love us to do the Lincoln model right now but that needs good planning.

Can I ask you a question?

What was your thoughts on the sacking of Neil Collins and the complete mess with Thalhammer whilst going into the playoffs without a manager?

That decision they made potentially cost us an extra 8m by winning the playoffs.

Granted we were poor going into them. How many other clubs do this with a pending semi final.

It’s crazy when you actually sit back and think about it.

I think you may hopefully understand my point a bit clearer on the decision making part just by using one flaw I mentioned about them back in May.

 

You’re looking at fifteen outfield players in the kit on a matchday - there’s a very low probability that none of them were menstruating at that time. Whether or not they were bothered is a different question - are any of them actually? Plenty of clubs in women’s football - man United, Leeds, Arsenal, real
Madrid, regularly wear white shorts. With the quality of feminine hygiene products, sports underwear and potentially some compression shorts as well, is it really likely that leaks would still occur all the way through? It seems plenty of female players don’t think so.

Regardless, this excuse re the red shorts is nonsense. If the ladies team want to wear red shorts at home for that reason, I’d support it.

It doesn’t mean the men’s team also have to. Man City women wear a darker blue shorts with the sky blue shirt at home - the men’s team still wear white.

If the women were uncomfortable in white shorts (which to be honest I doubt somewhat), then a concession on this was of course correct.

There was absolutely no reason to do the same to the men’s team and youth teams though - and using this as an excuse is disingenuous in the extreme.

I have asserted that we have red shorts just because JAQ wanted that - and it is nothing at all to do with the requests or needs of the women’s team - and I’ve seen or heard nothing that would disprove that.

 

I hear you, but it’s not a charitable operation. According to Gally they are pumping funds in because, like us, they have fallen in love with the club. I have worked in business for most of my working life, at a senior level, and can honestly state that I never met anyone who was willing to keep absorbing serious losses out of affection for the business. I recognise that football is a different kettle of fish, but still. Yet I have never managed to figure out the real reason for their involvement in the first place. It continues to be a mystery to me.

 

The majority of clubs outside the Prem are in a similar position as BFC. The problems are wider than Sky TV. The governing bodies in England, the FA & EFL don’t govern and at International level FiFA and UEFA are self-serving and aren’t prepared to change what makes them financially comfortable. Just look at the debacle of giving the World Cup to Qatar. The Premier League controls football in UK because they hold the purse strings. The biggest cost to a club is players wages. The PL gets most of its money from Sky & TNT both of whom are in hock to the betting companies. Sky & Co could not pay their concessions to the PL on the subscriptions alone. Reducing player’s wages would solve the problem but it won’t happen. If the governing bodies were to ban betting on TV and other media it would lead to less money to clubs and lead to countries like China, Saudi and others breaking away and forming their own association enabling them to pay higher wages. Just as it has with golf. Football in Europe and England particularly is elitist with the ‘haves’ receiving the lions share of funding, which means the ‘have nots’ feeding on the scraps. Until the disproportionate allocation of funding is fairly addressed things will not change.

 

I've just finished watching all of the event, and fair play, they've made themselves available, have answered all questions without ducking them and I hold the genuine belief they want to do well and improve things.

What I don't get from them, and it could be they don't want to share it or they didn't express it effectively is how this 3 year ambition is going to occur. What the plan is, what the strategy is, what the feeder strategies are and so on.

It's all very loose and when you compare intent with what you see... Well, they don't feel congruent at this point.

The thing with strategy, you either have to be the best, quickest or you have to be different to everyone else. They suggested the latter, but I don't see our notional model (it feels too scattergun to be a model) being especially different. And if you do something different, you've only got a short time to make it work before its copied by wealthier, bigger entities and you are outperformed again.

If they want promotion above all else... The only way is outcompete in the short term and throw money at it rather than drip feed to subsidise losses (though 8m is a big old drip!). That still doesn't guarantee anything, but it increases your chances of success. Alternatively you play a longer game, maybe evolve to academy youth as a majority with a few older heads to guide them and wait for that to click. Or you play a game that nobody knows when it may come, of tick along, break even, be in fighting shape when things turn to rubble and you're suddenly the strong among the weak.

My feeling is that if there is a strategy, it seems to be called hope.

 

If lower league clubs were given more funding, the likelihood is that funding goes in the pockets of players and agents. Players wages is the biggest problem.

I've not seen it mentioned but reported in 2023 (for 2022 ye) sky lost £111m. They reported ye 2023 a few days ago and quoted losses of £224m.

The crash is coming.

 

Not seen it yet but one question would be why does the club employ more people than Barnsley council?..

 

What we've all witnessed.. and still are.