Another Dike article

It is difficult when we are losing matches though. Given that most clubs don’t follow the same principles and also given that our income is lower than at a guess, 50 other clubs, it is more likely than not that if we spend what we bring in, we would fall to the mid/ top half of league one.

that wouldn’t be satisfactory to BFC fans and then the ownership would get grief - I wouldn’t fancy that as owner of Barnsley FC and I suspect that’s where Patrick Cryne was coming from.

I agree that the principles are spot on and as you rightly point out, it is the recruitment that is giving us the competitive advantage at the moment, but it’s very easy to support the principles at the moment when we are winning football matches, less so when we are not (myself included who have been unfairly critical of our board in the past). I think Patrick Cryne felt the burden of wanting the club to succeed hence his comments, it’s probably how most of us would react in his privileged position.

 

He,s been a fantastic signing but we were playing quite well before he came and i think the constant press headlines that make out he,s single handedly dragged us up into the play off positions are a bit disrespectful to Val and the rest of the boys who have been absolutely outstanding to a man this season...

 

I agree and tbf I think he does too.

 

Yeh i agree, comes over as a genuinely nice guy...

 

I've just been back and had a look at the threads from the day he signed for us. There's a couple of cracking comments. One poster even likened his touch to that of Jean Yves-Mvoto.

 

Are the club using all the extra publicity to further revenue streams? It seems theres another story around Dike every few days, could this extra attention be utilised to increase revenue from sponsorship and merch sales across the pond?

Would seem we are getting mentioned in places we have never before so are we looking to tap into that market?

 

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but Barnsley FC, during PCs tenure, could have reduced the budget, reduced outgoings, remained in the black and remained in business without a cash injection from the owner. Maybe not at first, when the contracts to which the club had an obligation had been signed by another party, but certainly going forward.

When you're the one signing off on the outgoings you can't then claim you HAVE to supplement the income to meet those outgoings. Well, if income doesn't even pay the rent you do, but that wasn't the case. PC chose to.

I fundamentally disagreed with that approach, but what really annoyed me was that inference that we were all in debt to him for doing so. No. If you choose to spend more than you've got, and it's your decision not ours, we're not indebted to you for anything. The opposite as far as I was concerned as it was needlessly putting the future of the club in a precarious position where it was reliant on a benefactor.

I realise there were many people wanting him to spend his own money, even expecting him to, and that is clearly unfair, but ultimately it was his decision.

We’re now in an entirely different situation. We're being run as a business. Very well at the moment. Everyone at the club deserves praise for the way they've conducted themselves and the way they've responded to the fan base during lockdown. Paul Conway shutting up and leaving it to Dane has certainly helped but at least he's recognised that. So I've got what I wanted. But, unlike at any other time in our history, we're not being run by Barnsley supporters. We're being run by businesses men and women. And ultimately, any profit the club might make won't be used to benefit the club, it will be taken out as profit for the owners. That doesn't make them bad people, that's what business is about, making money for themselves and their families, creating jobs for others. But when the customer cares so much for the business itself, like in football, making a profit from that business is at odds to everything we want.

 

I completely agree with you that the club should not spend more money than we bring in. 100%. It is basic and it is obvious and thank goodness that's the principle our current owners are working to. They've brought the application of simple principles to the running of the Club. They're also playing within the rules as far as I can see. We're not in danger of administration like many other clubs and we've survived the pandemic ....so far.

The other thing they've brought with them is clarity of purpose and clear objectives. It's also clear that the owners, and Dane, and Val and the Management Team and Players are all joined up. They all know what their individual contribution to the team effort should be. For any organisation that's a very powerful thing.

Our owners are business people. Like many others I've been confused about their real ambition for us. It's now clear that they're looking to build a "stable" of clubs across Europe to generate money / profit and we are one of those clubs in that stable. I have no problem with that because if their broader business plans benefit our club then I will always welcome their involvement. If they make a lot of money out of our club, that's not an issue to me on condition that some of that money is pumped back into the club for its long term future and within the rules of the game / FFP etc. As you've said, life is grey and it forever raises questions which sometimes we don't have answers for. One of those questions is ....what will they actually do with the ££££ if we ever do make the premiership whilst under their direction?

We actually don't know what they'll do.

"Everything we achieve, the profit will go to them".
We don't know that. That's another one of those grey areas. As a Barnsley fan I clearly wouldn't like it if they didn't re-invest but I'm not going to make a judgement on that until it actually happens / doesn't happen. It clearly would not be a good thing if there was no re-investment in the club if we started making money. However the time to judge will be then and not now. If they get richer through this "venture" that is no different to what happens with other successful football clubs. It's about what happens afterwards that counts..........and there's the grey popping up again.

If they do re-invest in the club and that goes hand in hand with a few people having a (very) comfortable retirement I'm OK with that. I'm OK with that because as a fan they will have made us more sustainable and they will have overseen progression by taking us to the next level, and if they sell, we would have to trust them to sell us on to someone who could maintain the progress we've made.

As a fan, achieving sustainability, winning games and taking us to the next level is what we dream about isn't it?

 

Players contracts have to be considered based on worst case scenario for me. Not present if promoted, but future. Parachute payments, which last for 2/3yrs depending on when relegation takes place. Based on the final yrs amount, With Bonuses applied if staying up.

That is based on guaranteed income. not gung ho, long term unaffordable wages. Eg Sunderland and Hull.

Blackpool, ( Didn’t like the Oyston model btw as he milked the profits to the detriment of the club) and I’ll stand corrected, WBA. Had a wage structure that wouldn’t allow the massive debts to build up. A club run on a sound financial footing I believe.

 

Agree with that , if investors come to our club and improve us, our infrastructure without sacrificing our future to debt we could struggle with and ultimately not survive then Any rewards they deserve.
With what I’m getting from the owners is that any profit comes from their endeavours and investment and if somes going to the club for improvements and personnel then there’s no way would I begrudge them a profit .
If they can see a way to improve us and profit at the same time without making us insecure I’d say more power to their elbow .

 

Maybe @YTBFC can shed more on it. l reckon the clubs Twitter account as increased in followers since his arrival, a lot of Americans seem to be responding to tweets. A Dike tweet gets a lot more likes, retweets etc than the other posts from the club. We might have opened the door for a few more highly rated young Americans in future.