I've read quite a few people on here talking about Luke Steele and Bobby Hassell's contracts and saying that they need to take a cut in wages because 'we can't afford them anymore', 'the club had a lot more money then' and 'times are much different now'. Have I got a ridiculously short memory? Only I can't remember this time just a few years ago that we had gates of 20,000, were selling players for £10m every couple of months and had a budget to rival Man City's. All I remember is a club that was in League 1, got promoted on small gates and has just about survived at the foot of the championship with small gates and a tiny budget every year since then. Exactly what year was it that our budget was so huge that even with a cup run ending at the quarter finals on TV at a packed man city and with player sales around £4m plus a bigger average attendance than the previous season we are having to make drastic cost cutting measures to reduce our wage bill?
No, that's your imagination. Luke and Bobby are earning millions and they've been holding the club back for years. We'd be Premier League without them. But seriously, ask David Flitcroft.
Whilst I don't necessarily disagree or agree with you, it does spring to mind that we have sold a decent player most seasons recently and maybe we budgeted for that before but not in future..., then again!
I'm not an expert on such matters but off the top of my head I would suggest the following: I believe (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wide of the mark)... ...attendances have slowly decreased over the last few years thus generating less money. ...television money has decreased thus the club receives less money from the broadcasters ...we are trying to live within in our means and that we are no longer or are less subsidised by our owner. Also we don't know how much these players were on. I'm assuming that Steele was made a very good offer to join us a few years back when the purse strings weren't as tight and now we can't or more likely won't offer as much as before. I feel it's even simpler in regards to Hassell - he's no longer a first team regular and thus is only going to be offered what a squad player would get.
I think for Hassell in particular, he's become less and less important to us as the years have gone on. So him being on £x 3 years ago was ok as he was one of our best players, now he's a squad player at best his wage should be reduced to reflect this. With Steele I can only assume we're paying him a fair whack and Flicker thinks we can get better value for money with a different keeper if he decides to leave. Maybe he thinks Alnwick is ready for the first team having watched him train for a year.
The only significant difference is a few years ago Cryne was putting extra cash in then a couple of years ago that stopped the club declared that it wanted to live within its means - Robins went and we got Hill who had a brief to keep us up on the cheap instead of the previous managers who had been told to get us up the league. Since then we have been on a cost cutting excercise - Steele and Hassell are probably the only ones left with older contracts that may well be out of line with the rest of the squad now. I dont think its a case of we cant afford Steele and Hassells wages more we cant afford to have them out of line with the rest of the squad. Dont forget Hill kept telling us Steele was top earner. I can understand us giving Sir Bobby a much reduced 1 year deal as he is now not a first choice player but likely to be on the bench most games As more money now goes to the Prem and less to the league clubs wages for clubs outside the prem are falling I can understand a significant reduction for Steele - I assume Flicker thinks he can get another keeper for quite a bit less, what I cant understand is why only a 1 year deal, unless someone thinks Lidakevicius will be ready for the first team in a years time.
I am not bothered about which players perform for us next season, as long as they do perform. Individuals mean nothing to me. Ever since the advent of agents on the game, it matters not a jot to me, whether Luke Steele plays for us or not.
Whatever the financial situation of the club it must not ever be put at risk as in the admin days. Having said that the previous owner put us in that position for what I would call trivial debt burdens compared to what many other clubs went through before going into that situation. As we know a great change is coming to football as regards players wages although it doesn't seem it with the riches on offer in the top leagues of some european countries but the prospect of individuals plundering 99% of a clubs takings and putting the financial burden on the supporters etc has to cease and FIFA have at least made rumblings. Towards the goal but I shan't hold my breath waiting for them to sort it out. The Germans seem to be doing ok in the current situation and spend less on wages with regards to the percentge of revenue and their structure needs to looked at for any lessons to be learned . However whilst we as a club should not carry the fight on our own it is important that we don't get engulfed in debt and the income v the wages is tackled to a sensible level.
And yet he's said that if he sells and we get back to the premiership then he wants his £6m back. £3m a year x 2 years = £6m. Where did the money come from for all the other years? Also we have been told for quite a few years now that 'we broke even' and 'we made a small profit', 'we're the only club to be operating in the black' I think they are all very odd things for the club to say when in actual fact we made a £3m loss and had to have a cash injection of £3m to try to balance the books. And as I said before, Luke Steele signed a contract just 12 months ago yet people on here are saying 'times are different'. What I'm saying is I do not understand how we can possibly be so much worse off financially now than we were 12 months ago.
Cryne was doing what all owners do, investing in the club. Call it what you will - bankrolling, underwriting.... Putting money in to make the club secure and the team competitive. He obviously doesn't have bottomless pockets and other aspects of his affairs are 'complicated', so this has been reined in to create a solvent business. This reduces our spending power that had been available for the previous seasons, hence we don't have the money we used to. It's quite straight forward and has always been openly discussed, as has the repayment of 6m should the club be promoted and gain the PL riches. Quite right too, it's not 'owed' as such. It's okay if you don't remember or were not aware of stuff, but try not to get so agitated. I know virtually nowt, which is why I ask obvious questions.
Let's all just pretend I never said that shall we? Ok? Good. Time flies when you're a barnsley fan. When was it? The end of the 2010/2011 season that he extended?