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Icecream Snow

"The Championship is for Sale"

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From today's Athletic, which has a breakdown of the state of each Championship club

https://theathletic.com/2956329/2021/11/17/the-championship-is-for-sale/

According to Kieron O’Connor, the football finance expert behind the Swiss Ramble Twitter feed, Championship clubs have lost a combined £2.5 billion over the last decade, which is what happens when you spend £1.16 on wages for every £1 you earn, as the clubs did in 2019-20.

So, they are all “for sale”, to one degree or another, as nobody can afford this level of attrition forever — their accountants, families or investment committees won’t let them — but, clearly, some are a lot more for sale than others.

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Derby sounds like a huge mess. Insolvency specialists Quantuma are running the club, but they are borrowing money to do it, and there's £50m debt on the books that can't be written off. (I don't know why exactly it can't be written off, the article doesn't go into any further detail than that).

Edited by Icecream Snow
found alternative article

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Perhaps time for some to take stock and thank our owners for keeping us financially secure, stable and competitive in relative terms.

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Makes you almost will a few clubs to fold to show how real it is to operate in this way.

Trouble is, people accept it as there's no real ramifications in place.  Also shows that the self sufficient model is possible, despite the naysayers.

Honestly, what have Derby got for their money?

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1 minute ago, TheGunnShow said:

Clearly Bury wasn't enough of a warning case.

Bury is a bit of a different one really. They never gambled beyond their means to get to the prem. They got unlucky with their owner getting ill or something didn't they?

In answer to "what did Derby get" they got a leg up at a go at promotion to the Premier league and very nearly achieved their plan. That could very easily be Villa or Leeds in their place if their gambles had failed.

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13 minutes ago, Google Bot said:

Makes you almost will a few clubs to fold to show how real it is to operate in this way.

Trouble is, people accept it as there's no real ramifications in place.  Also shows that the self sufficient model is possible, despite the naysayers.

Honestly, what have Derby got for their money?

Boom boom! Unless it was unwitting...🤩

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6 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

Bury is a bit of a different one really. They never gambled beyond their means to get to the prem. They got unlucky with their owner getting ill or something didn't they?

In answer to "what did Derby get" they got a leg up at a go at promotion to the Premier league and very nearly achieved their plan. That could very easily be Villa or Leeds in their place if their gambles had failed.

They gambled beyond their means, not aided by a fit and proper test that didn't do its job, but at a lower level. You could also add Bolton to that list, even though they just about survived.

EDIT: Perfect. This link explains clearly how Bury did it under Stewart Day until economics caught up with him.

Series of grinding failures that left proud, historic Bury in ruins | Bury | The Guardian

Edited by TheGunnShow

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Found an alternative Athletic article on Derby's debts

"Mel Morris, the former owner, has just decided enough is enough after injecting over £200 million into Derby since 2014. The club owes almost £30 million to the tax man, £20 million to a US investment firm, £10 million to other clubs, former staff and other individuals who come under the “football creditors” bracket, who must be paid in full, and a similar sum to the usual cast of hundreds who have provided food, office supplies or their time to the club.

And even after drastic cuts to the playing budget over the last 18 months, the club is still losing about £15 million a year."

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25 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Perhaps time for some to take stock and thank our owners for keeping us financially secure, stable and competitive in relative terms.

It certainly is. You could make a case for saying that NCFC is the most ambitious club in the country, aiming for PL status without bankrupting the club. It is probably impossible, but they're getting closer to it than any comparable club.

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57 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

Derby sounds like a huge mess. Insolvency specialists Quantuma are running the club, but they are borrowing money to do it, and there's £50m debt on the books that can't be written off. (I don't know why exactly it can't be written off, the article doesn't go into any further detail than that).

You can't write off debt to HMRC or football debts (transfers). They are also expected to pay 25% of non football debts or face further sanction.

There is also the issue that they don't own their ground or training ground. They also owe Morris £100 million to which he is also entitled to 25%, unless he voluntarily forgoes it.

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But in the end this is no different from the Prem.  The income is bigger in the Prem, but so are the outgoings.  Clubs are normally loss making.

 

Football clubs in England are largely toys for very rich people.  Spending your money on a football team is no different from spending it on multiple houses, buying an Island in the Caribbean, a yacht costing £200m, owning a racing team, you name it.  This is what some of the ultra-rich do. 

 

The amusing thing is that football fans have come to expect it, they talk about an "investor" when really they mean someone who's just willing to come in and pour in loads of money without expecting any return (except possibly eventually selling out to some other sucker who'll just do the same all over again).

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1 hour ago, Icecream Snow said:

Derby sounds like a huge mess. Insolvency specialists Quantuma are running the club, but they are borrowing money to do it, and there's £50m debt on the books that can't be written off. (I don't know why exactly it can't be written off, the article doesn't go into any further detail than that).

I believe FA rules don't allow football debt to be written off. With the very good reason that one failing club could trigger a contagion.

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Meanwhile Chelsea are tripling season ticket prices (£1200 to £3900). Very nice of the owners to put the club 1bn into debt and charge it's supporters double.  Good job the fans took ownership back when the ESL announcements came back eh?  

State of the game, fans should make a real stand against all this BS - no matter how big or successful their clubs are.

Edited by Google Bot

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1 hour ago, hogesar said:

Perhaps time for some to take stock and thank our owners for keeping us financially secure, stable and competitive in relative terms.

On the contrary, maybe our owners can also take time and historical stock and thank Mr Bowkett, Mr McNally and initially Mr Lambert for steadying the ship in the 1st division, followed by our successive promotions and including 3 years of being competitive in the 'Top Flight'  from 2011/14. Which alas only short term, also made NCFC sufficiently financially secure, stable and competitive in relative terms, therefore allowing our Majority Shareholding Duo (and Mr Foulger) the fortunate full repayment of their much appreciated loans to the club......  

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Take one look at the state of La-Liga right now and its pretty clear where the future of English football lies. The football here is generally the most well supported and watched, which affords us a lot more rope than the rest of Europe, but it requires the dial for TV revenues to be ever turning upwards - with clubs are always willing to gamble more than what they have for success.

The championship will clearly fall before the prem does, but when the prem goes it will be falling the hardest of all. And I'm sure absolutely nothing will be done before it does.

Yes La-Liga is miles off the PL right now, but the introduction of stable financial measures will undoubtedly make them stronger in the long run.

Fortunately we are in a greater position to handle a collapse than the majority of the PL / champs. It would probably improve our standing in the English football pyramid. 

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From the BBC - But God knows how Reading spent so much

According to figures at Companies House Reading posted losses of £42m in the year to 30 June, 2020, £30.1m in the previous year and £21m in the 12 months to 30 June, 2018 - a total of £93.1m

The EFL has averaged the club's losses for 2019-20 and 2020-21 to give the lower figure of £57.8m, but that still triggered a sanction.

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3 hours ago, hogesar said:

Perhaps time for some to take stock and thank our owners for keeping us financially secure, stable and competitive in relative terms.

But still a travesty that we sailed close enough to the wind to feel compelled to lease a corner of our ground for a £1m lump sum.

Surely in hindsight the fans would have had a whip round to prevent that, it is fifty quid per season ticket holder.

Felt like an appalling commercial ecision then, and feels even worse now. 

Edited by TeemuVanBasten

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Funny how we blame foreign owners and SKY for this mess but in reality it was an English bloke called Jack Walker who bought success for his club. And the rest followed. As soon as money became available to all a couple of years later, Harding and Gibson entered the fray.

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I don’t believe Prem clubs are relying on TV money going up in future. Aren’t most of them relying on wealthy owners being willing to subsidise them?

 

So unless something changes to stop the prem being a way for ostentatious displays of wealth for people with truly ridiculous amounts of money, I don’t see why it won’t all continue, along with other things like sale of yachts for hundreds of millions aimed at the same sort of people...

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1 hour ago, TeemuVanBasten said:

But still a travesty that we sailed close enough to the wind to feel compelled to lease a corner of our ground for a £1m lump sum.

Surely in hindsight the fans would have had a whip round to prevent that, it is fifty quid per season ticket holder.

Felt like an appalling commercial ecision then, and feels even worse now. 

Yeah. No denying we've been close to financial problems but on the plus side we've made the required decisions or changes whether that be structural, personnel or financial to avoid the sort of problems we've seen at Championship level recently and likely to come.

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4 hours ago, TheGunnShow said:

Clearly Bury wasn't enough of a warning case.

Sadly, the lower league and non league clubs that are happy to get over 5k gates will just be seen as small fry by the top two divisions, especially by clubs that consider themselves on loan from the premier league or whatever you want to call it. They'd probably just argue that those fans will eventually drift to the next nearest club, oh well... 

You don't get many clubs like ours, that actively support local non league clubs and have built up relationships with them. The likes of Kings Lynn, Wroxham, Lowestoft (ok, ok I know they are south of the border) amongst others.

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1 hour ago, canarybubbles said:

Nothing to do with the thread, but I assume you are a Beefheart fan, Icecream Crow?

It's from a song by the Smashing Pumpkins

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13 hours ago, Icecream Snow said:

It's from a song by the Smashing Pumpkins

Ah, OK, I didn't know this song. I assumed your name was a reference to Beefheart's final album, 'Ice Cream for Crow'. I doubt if they're related because this sounds nothing like Beefheart.

EDIT: Stupid me! Your nick is Icecream Snow, not Crow. Sorry.

Edited by canarybubbles

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