It's been a number of seasons this 8 million argument has been made. Is it going to be 7 million a season for ever and ever? Their business model is flawed.
It is, but they are putting their money behind it aren't they? As I said, criticise them for many things, but you can't criticise them for putting money in that they likely know they aren't going to see again.
Could cut the wage bill from £5m to £2m imagine the reaction then? John Flatman outlined at the last forum, the owners had made a conscious decsion to keep as much budget on the football side as physically possible and prop up the loses. The other options are start cutting costs including the playing budget, increase turnover - which they are doing with commercial sponsors and plans for the fan zone.
Other options would be to increase revenue streams that hasn't happened during their many years as our owners. It's crazy all the land we own, that we do so little with it.
Plans in place for a fan zone Posted record revenues in sponsorship deals First ever boxing event Split footballing operations off separately from commercial by restructuring Again not perfect but look at the amount of times we've run incentives with ticket prices the uptake has been pathetic it's a 2 way thing, I personally know some lads that sit at home watching on a dodgy firestick and turn up to oakwell when it's a big Derby game and shout get some brass spent, Fair do's money is tight for folk I get that but it's a bit rich telling owners to spend more when they can't be bothered turning up even with heavily discounted tickets
They are letting us go bust just very slowly keep having to pump £8 million a year in cover their numerous and continuing errors in running the club and sooner or later the money dries up. Then what
Would you be happy for us to break even then ? We are currently running at a defecit of between 5-6m down from 8m, so if we cut the playing wage bill down from say 5m to bottom end L1 (Crawley range)/ L2 circa £2m and close the academy down. Those actions would mean we wouldn't need the owners to put in money in return for equity and we'd just about break even. So I guess the question is simple really would you be happy on a bottom end/L2 playing budget? If not what's your solution? You do realise if we were sold we'd still have the same overheads give or take vs turnover so essentially new ownership would still need to cover the loses same same scenario
Its not just investment that's needed, its proper football people that we need too. The owners are throwing millions at this club every year but still getting it badly wrong.
I agree and for what it's worth I don't buy into the philosophy that we are trying to implement, we could do miles better but they haven't got bottomless pits and have already propped us for millions
Fair whack of that was on upgrading the away stand and facilities to be fair but they will always struggle as they can’t get more than 9k ish in the ground
The problem is the current trend is downward despite the millions pumped in. Each season of the current ownership the team has finished in a lower position in the league than the season before the squad has been weaker at the start of every season than the season before the quality of the head coach as gone down, the number of saleable assets within the squad has gone down in both quantity and quality not good for a selling club. I don't mind the owners putting money in I just want that money to be spent improving things not cover the numerous and continuing errors in the running of the club made by the owners and their minions.
On the contrary, they've been preventing us from going bust since removing Conway/Lee from the Board.
Short term yes long term no. Unless the position of the club improves either on the field and or in the boardroom the money will dry up eventually.
Run the club better would be a start cut out the self harm. More money would be nice of course either from current or new investors but only if that money went on improving the situation not on keeping a failing plan rolling on to disaster. Change is needed, question is are this board and their minions capable and willing to make the changes required because at the minute the club is going backwards and the rate of the backwards movement is speeding up.
So you want them to spend more money, meaning the club is insolvent, requiring them to put more money in, which you disagree with because it means we'll go bust?
I said more money would be nice IF it was used to improve the situation not to continue with the failing plan in place at the moment. Like I said change is required to improve things. Carrying on like we are at the moment is not an option long term.