I keep thinking about Neerav trying to appease us last year with his comments about not being able to spend all the Mads / Kitching / Collins / Duff cash as easily as folk thought due to the installment nature of the agreements. And I thought about the constant reminders about them having to stump money in just to keep us going. So I did some really crude maths, admittedly knowing sweet FA about the intricacies of transfer payments. Mads: £3m (ballpark) * Paid in one lump sum - £3m. Kerching * £1m a year for 3 years. Sounds OK. Keeps us solvent, maybe allows other income to fund squad development. * Monthly payments over 36 months = about £83.5k per month. That might go a long way towards non-playing staff salaries for the month, or a long way towards playing salaries ? Also assume there would be some kind of APR addition. The above is for a three year term. So if the installment plan was over the course of their new club contracts, so for a four year example: Mads: £3m (ballpark) * Paid in one lump sum - £3m. Kerching * £750k a year for 4 years. * Monthly payments over 48 months = about £62.5k per month. Would we really negotiate anything more than a four year repayment? There must be some sort of risk factor involved with buying clubs future financial worthiness? And the last sum. The much talked about '£8m received' in total. Some say £10m, but lets assume £8m for these sums. Three year installments: * Paid in one lump sum - £8m. Kerching. Financial stability pretty much assured given our operating model. * £2.6m a year for 3 years. * Monthly payments over 36 months = about £222k per month. Four year installments: * Paid in one lump sum - £8m. * £2m a year for 4 years. * Monthly payments over 48 months = about £167k per month. We have 'other' transfer activity. Sponsorship revenue, ST revenue, matchday revenue, merchandise (negligible, we don't own the shop but I doubt we gave it away), TV money, and other commercial income; catering etc. 1) Do they really need to keep pumping money in at the rate they do? (I am eternally grateful if that is the case) 2) Why do we struggle to get players through the door?
Good questions. My take on it would be, the biggest obstacle when accepting instalments is you don't have that money in the bank for a 'transfer fee' as such, so you have to keep balancing the wages, rather than having a bit of instant spending power. Even though that transfer fee trickles in, I reckon it creates a bit of a false economy. We should 100% be pushing for money up front for players in our situation. If clubs want to pay £3m for a player then pay it. If they want instalments, then that figure should be far higher. So we should be saying to clubs £3m up front or £5m if over multiple instalments. I took the following figure from Capology 'Barnsley's Total Gross Payroll for the 2024-2025 League One Season was £4,134,200, or £79,504 per week' So if that figure is anywhere near correct, even instalments from those transfers should be pretty much covering the wage bill. So considering TV Money, sponsors, merchandising. Where is the black hole in the finances in the other outgoings?
Generally, repayments are over the course of a players contract, but obviously parties can agree different terms. Essentially we've been paying more in wages than we can afford in the hope of transfers subsidising our excesses. This falls flat when we have a player (especially if we've paid a fee) leave for free. You've potentially paid a fee, you've paid wages you can't afford and you get zero... While having to find a replacement that may cost a fee, may have an agents fee, maybe signing on bonuses. For all the talk of a conveyor belt strategy generating income from selling players... We've not been that good or consistent at it. I'd hope we can get our cost base under control, but given the hoarding of centre halves and central midfielders... I'm not sure that cost control will be this season. There are good signs we've got longer contracts for better players, but financially, they only pay off if you sell with a lot of that contract still in place, so we'd need to sell Phillips and Connell within the next 2-3 windows ideally.
We struggle because we stringently stick to the financial rules, a lot of clubs are feeling the pinch now and some clubs who aren't "innovative" in bending the rules are starting to receive embargos and FA charges. ie WBA are being watched for their spending. Man City 115 charges FC... I don't know how Chanceri is getting away with it though. We did well to get c. £8m and I think it's making the difference in regards to us not merely being a midtable League 1 side. There's some clout behind a few L1 teams this year,I just hope our board have the strategies needed to outdo the likes of Brum and Rovrum and their Chelsea style squads
Another factor could be if we are paying for people upfront and not in installments. I have no clue either way but could see where a smaller club being offered £3k a month over 3 years may prefer to not bother.
