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where over abition and over spending gets you.

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Gretna...lets not worry about how deep Mr Doncaster''s pockets are and lets worry about how we can keep our heads above water.so many teams are going that way now, all the clubs in debt at this present moment by more than 3m per quarter are:cardiff,                doncaster               herefordcharlton,              walsall                   wycombebristol city.          southend                stockport countyscunthorpe          leeds                      rotherhamipswich               oldham                   grimsbynorwich              tranmere                 brentfordcolchester           brighton                  bradford plymouth           northampton            lincolnplymouth            swindon                  burysouthampton       millwall                   barnet                          gillingham                notts county                          bournmouth                          luton                          port valeis prudence a bad thing or are we just keeping our heads above water?

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[quote user="buddhaboy"]Gretna...
lets not worry about how deep Mr Doncaster''s pockets are and lets worry about how we can keep our heads above water.
so many teams are going that way now, all the clubs in debt at this present moment by more than 3m per quarter are:
cardiff,                doncaster               hereford
charlton,              walsall                   wycombe
bristol city.          southend                stockport county
scunthorpe          leeds                      rotherham
ipswich               oldham                   grimsby
norwich              tranmere                 brentford
colchester           brighton                  bradford
 plymouth           northampton            lincoln
plymouth            swindon                  bury
southampton       millwall                   barnet
                          gillingham                notts county
                          bournmouth
                          luton
                          port vale

is prudence a bad thing or are we just keeping our heads above water?
[/quote]

 

Indefensible!!!

 And we''ve sold so many players for a temp financial fix along the way too. What happened to the Parachute payments? Where are our investment returns? We''ve received more in the last few years than most if not all those teams, where has all the money gone????

 

 

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[quote user="buddhaboy"]not my pointim saying is it worth getting ourselves into a perlious position and do a gretna....[/quote]When I went to my first Norwich match many years ago, we were compared to teams like Spurs, I know it''s all gone sadly wrong in recent years but comparing us with  Gretna! Surely even little old Norwich should draw comparisons with bigger clubs like Cheltenham, or am I showing a tad more ambition than is good for me?

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[quote user="ricky knight"]I dont see many any over ambitous clubs amongst that lot, perhaps that tells us something.[/quote]

Disagree there Ricky.

Read down the list again, quite a number of those clubs have either built, or are building new stadiums, or are challenging for promotion, if not both. Leeds, Doncaster, Charlton, Walsall, Southend, Ipswich to name a few

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Southampton raised a damn site more than we did from the sale of just 2 players.  Cardiff have just sold Gunter for a good fee, they also got decent money for Earnshaw.  Charlton got close to £20m for Bent.  Leeds took nearly £30m for Ferdinand, £9m for Woodgate.  Is it remarkable that we are all in the same boat or do you accept that it isn''t quite as black and white as x + x = x to spend on players.

Football finances I would imagine are a damned site more complex than you think.  Read the club accounts for all of the above if you can be bothered.  100 pages + for each club I would imagine.  Why 100+ pages, becuase it is bloody complicated.  Why are people so blinkered.

We are doing OK to maintain a balanced and manageable debt when so many others are falling under the weight of their own financial burdens.  Gretna will be out of business soon if they aren''t already.  They will be the first of many, especially in the current financial climate.

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What do you mean it''s indefensible? Championship clubs operate at a massive loss each and every season, we have a 15m debt which is being paid off, all the money that we have earnt from player sales etc is going towards the safety of our club, would you rather we started splashing out millions on players left right and centre and stop paying that 15 million debt? therefore putting the future of Norwich City football club at risk? If Norwich started to spend money which they can''t afford too, then went bankrupt, everyone would start complaining how stupid the board are, so in other words they can''t win! We got a nice new Jarrold Stand which cost a lot of money, and people are forgetting that before Norwich went up the club had huge debts, the premiership money would of helped ease those debts. I''d rather have a football club with a financially secure future, then a football club with an financially insecure future but with some expensive players! (which would have to get sold anyway). Leeds would have received 30x more than what Norwich have received in the last 13 years, and yet are now 30 worse off than Norwich, that is a credit to our board for not giving in to idiotic fans who complain we don''t spend enough money!

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May as well just fold the club now if all you want to do is survive , more and more clubs in the Championship are getting investment if we dont do the same eventually we will go down . You cannot keep spending next to nothing and bringing in the very low calibre of player that we have here now and expect anything other than to struggle , the pot of gold is the Premiership and even teams like Ipswich have realised to get there its going to cost , we need to move with the times.

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I don''t see 44.8million of Liverpool debt in your list or Man U 1.32billion in debt. I think you''ll find debt levels are higher than 3m per quarter at most clubs

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So we are talking here about the Gretna whose attendence figures for their last home game was 501......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/7279287.stm

Compared to Norwich City who have announced excellent season ticket sales AGAIN and whose last gate was 23, 471

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_1/7285089.stm

Come on! Don''t be fooled by this tin pot board!

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Leeds didn''t see a penny of all the money they got for Ferdinand et al-these players were bought on borrowed money and "leases" and the repayments were secured on Champions League qualification-which would have just about kept their heads above the water. They "went for the dream" as Peter Ridsdale so memorably said and it all went wrong, they are a classic case of a club answering the demands of their fans and overextending themselves, now they are in the old 3rd Division, look odds on to spend another season there and remain deeply in financial trouble with no prospect of an investor ever coming to their aid, despite what Ken Bates thinks or hopes.

The Premiership is seen as a "promised land" financially but the truth of the matter is that you need to be there for 2-3 consecutive seasons before the good income really starts to bear fruit. Look at Reading-this is their second season up there and John Madeski is admitting he is not wealthy enough to continue to help finance them (and he makes Delia and Michael look positively pauper-like) and is actively looking for a new investor-they are a good club, good stadium and facilities, great location...but no-one is knocking their door down looking to invest.

I would think that our promotion to the Premier League cost us a small fortune in upgrading facilities, player wages rises and bonuses and everything else associated with it. Its easy to think that if we "raise" £500''000 by selling a player, that means there is £500''000 to spend on another one-but they money paid is never in total or up front, and the fees are those quoted y the press, not the club. You or I might bring home "x" pounds per month income, but who thinks, well, I have earnt £2000 this month, that plasma screen TV is £2000, so I can buy that now. Simplistic as  hell but the same should be applied to football clubs and their income.

Gretna''s running costs and wage bill will be tiny compared to ours-so there is no comparison. I don''t know the circumstances, but are they about to go out of business because they have not been able to sustain the growth that the club has made in recent years?

We could push the boat out as people are demanding, but how are we going to pay the loans back? Banks and financial institutions don''t sit and wait for their money, yes, lets spend £6-£8 Million on players this summer and get promoted-wheres the cash coming from, how are we going to pay the wages, signing on fees and agent fees, and how about when whatever remains of the current squad demand parity? Its all very well to say "tin pot board", but whats the answer and what should they REALISTICALLY do to counter those accusations?

And "seek investment" is not the answer, because it isn''t there and isn''t coming any time soon. And no, they haven''t been turning people with large cheques away, people in football make sure that approaches are very public as they are made. Its not forthcoming, so, without it (and it would need to be massive, just to pay off-not ''pass on''-the debt. Where is it and how do we get it? And, without it, how do we progress?

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Very good points and very well madeOld Shuck [Y] As Johnny Nash said "There are more questions than answers".

One thing though - we continually refer to League One as "the old Third Division" and I don''t think it''s comparable. We don''t refer to the Premiership as the old First Division because it''s nothing like it. The break away Premier League changed everything. It''s not part of the Football League and never will be. It''s a league where the top players in the world play football. It would function anywhere and is not really our league any more. It doesn''t really belong to this country in the same way the old First Division did. The Championship is nothing like the old Second Division either and in time it could once more be the top division if the Premiership decided to abolish promotion\ relegation.

 

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I don''t think anyone is asking the club to be "over ambitious" - just to spend more money that they do have on the team and not elsewhere. It is just as bad not spending enough money as it is spending too much and will ultimately have the same result if it continues. To be fair, it is a difficult balance to get right and not many do. But we haven''t and I think we will pay the price (ahem) for that at some point in the near future.

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[quote user="Graham Humphrey"]

I don''t think anyone is asking the club to be "over ambitious" - just to spend more money that they do have on the team and not elsewhere. It is just as bad not spending enough money as it is spending too much and will ultimately have the same result if it continues. To be fair, it is a difficult balance to get right and not many do. But we haven''t and I think we will pay the price (ahem) for that at some point in the near future.

[/quote]

Sorry Graham but we have spent money.  Sure not as much as received in sales but we have spent.  The thing we are curremtly paying the price for is Peter Grants unhappy reign.  He brought in a lot of players who unfortunately were not good enough.  These players have incurred agents fees, insurance costs, wages, signing on fees etc. 

I agree that we have to spend money in the summer on quality footballers to prevent this happening again.  But whatever we do, we have to make sure we operate within our financial means.

With the financial climate as it is at the moment I can actually envisage some clubs disappearing altogether.

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[quote user="ricky knight"]6 out of 35 thorpe i rest my case, i did say not many, not all.[/quote]

Let me add to that Cardiff (new stadium), Bristol City (promotion), Colchester (new stadium), Plymouth (promotion, fairly new stadium), Southampton (new stadium), Brighton (new stadium).  Thats 12 out of 35 Ricky.  Don''t know about the rest.

Its also worth considering that Stockport have one of the richest men in the country owning their club.  Worth an estimated £900m....

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Brighton have needed a new stadium for years they have no home, Cardiff is knackered forced on them, cochester outdated, dont see this as ambition but must do situation, hardly see any you have stated as over ambitious, saints sold all there best players, so i stick to my claim, not being ambitious can get you in as much sxxt as over ambition.

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We are also paying for the board''s ineptness.....as well as Grants and Worthy''s last few months. The wasted parachute payments....yadda yadda yack yack, etc, etc......who actually cares? We get what we deserve, a Welsh 80 ton pave-maker centre forward on loan, half of Scotland''s football failures, placebo bids for the occasional decent player and yet, can still fill the stadium without so much as a whimper......and it''ll go on, and on, and on.....because we are happy with our lot....aren''t we!

I''m surprised that Carrow Road isn''t at the base of a crater - with all the spin that''s been emitted and transmitted.....

We showed a ickle bit of ambition - when Huckleberry an'' Crouching Lager hidden Drag-on and the Cooper man came.....now we have nothing in the larder, but copious amounts of food and wine and "Hoorah Hoorah lovely spread......and lashings and lashings of Ginger Beer......Football? Football? Why do we need that here?.......

"The assets are the support.......they''re content with what''s on offer......so there''s actually no real need - to empty the coffer......s."

 

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[quote user="Mello Yello"]

We are also paying for the board''s ineptness.....as well as Grants and Worthy''s last few months. The wasted parachute payments....yadda yadda yack yack, etc, etc......who actually cares? We get what we deserve, a Welsh 80 ton pave-maker centre forward on loan, half of Scotland''s football failures, placebo bids for the occasional decent player and yet, can still fill the stadium without so much as a whimper......and it''ll go on, and on, and on.....because we are happy with our lot....aren''t we!

I''m surprised that Carrow Road isn''t at the base of a crater - with all the spin that''s been emitted and transmitted.....

We showed a ickle bit of ambition - when Huckleberry an'' Crouching Lager hidden Drag-on and the Cooper man came.....now we have nothing in the larder, but copious amounts of food and wine and "Hoorah Hoorah lovely spread......and lashings and lashings of Ginger Beer......Football? Football? Why do we need that here?.......

"The assets are the support.......they''re content with what''s on offer......so there''s actually no real need - to empty the coffer......s."

 

[/quote]

Exactly.  You`ve got to chuckle though that the best examples from the board luvvies of clubs we shouldn`t be copying in being "over-ambitious" are Leeds- who spent £100m in a ridiculous gamble on continued Champions league qualification- and Gretna!

The kind of paranoia dominating our club has had us closer to relegation than promotion even with the parachute payments and transfer income.  And there is still a fair possibility that Leeds will be above us again before long.  Perhaps people should have a good think about the financial impact of relegation for the club.....  And consider how our board would most likely react to it.  Is it likely to be a full-on, driven and ambitious attempt to get straight back up, or yet more belt-tightening, over-caution and extreme prudence (on the pitch anyway....)?

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[quote user="jimmy500"]

Southampton raised a damn site more than we did from the sale of just 2 players.  Cardiff have just sold Gunter for a good fee, they also got decent money for Earnshaw.  Charlton got close to £20m for Bent.  Leeds took nearly £30m for Ferdinand, £9m for Woodgate.  Is it remarkable that we are all in the same boat or do you accept that it isn''t quite as black and white as x + x = x to spend on players.

Football finances I would imagine are a damned site more complex than you think.  Read the club accounts for all of the above if you can be bothered.  100 pages + for each club I would imagine.  Why 100+ pages, becuase it is bloody complicated.  Why are people so blinkered.

We are doing OK to maintain a balanced and manageable debt when so many others are falling under the weight of their own financial burdens.  Gretna will be out of business soon if they aren''t already.  They will be the first of many, especially in the current financial climate.

[/quote]leeds were 180m in debt.cardiff are owing 24m and have to go to high court.charlton lost a lot of money through financial backers and advertisers backing out.and yes, we are ok at the minute. im just saying dont expect ridiculous amounts of money to spend in the future.it wont happen.

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[quote user="buddhaboy"][quote user="jimmy500"]

Southampton raised a damn site more than we did from the sale of just 2 players.  Cardiff have just sold Gunter for a good fee, they also got decent money for Earnshaw.  Charlton got close to £20m for Bent.  Leeds took nearly £30m for Ferdinand, £9m for Woodgate.  Is it remarkable that we are all in the same boat or do you accept that it isn''t quite as black and white as x + x = x to spend on players.

Football finances I would imagine are a damned site more complex than you think.  Read the club accounts for all of the above if you can be bothered.  100 pages + for each club I would imagine.  Why 100+ pages, becuase it is bloody complicated.  Why are people so blinkered.

We are doing OK to maintain a balanced and manageable debt when so many others are falling under the weight of their own financial burdens.  Gretna will be out of business soon if they aren''t already.  They will be the first of many, especially in the current financial climate.

[/quote]leeds were 180m in debt.cardiff are owing 24m and have to go to high court.charlton lost a lot of money through financial backers and advertisers backing out.and yes, we are ok at the minute. im just saying dont expect ridiculous amounts of money to spend in the future.it wont happen.[/quote]indebtedness and/or loss making in football clubs is only a problem where the board of directors are unable to service these debts or guarantee them.   in this regard, football finances is no different to the way companies are normally run.   many clubs in the 90''s and early 00''s got into trouble becuase they borrowed heavily and then became unable to service them, such as leeds.  NCFC during the last 10 years has also borrowed millions of pounds, and predicted they would be able to service this debt - something like £1m a year isn''t it.  with gates of 25000, it was reasonable to expect NCFC should be able to service this debt.  however, since our prem demise, and at the same time, the rewards from being in the prem has virtually doubled, and many speculators from around the globe has sought to grab a slice of english football, hoping to acrue the rewards from its growing worldwide popularity.   consequently, the prem is now the best funded and probably the most successful league in the world.the big top 4 english teams are all owned by foreign billionaires and its inconceivable they would ever be unable to service their debts and go bust, purely because their rich owners would guarantee the debt - you would hope.   likewise, many prem teams, and now also many champs sides are owned by rich benefactors who invest funds from their personal fortunes in the playing squad.  so, with relegated sides receiving £15m in chute payments, you also have the likes, of hull, bristol city, stoke, burnley, wolves, QPR, ipswich, leicester, coventry and soon to be soton - who are in a better financial position than norwich.   thats more than half the division with more clout than us.  whats more, these clubs - even if they post an operating loss, will not be financially in trouble, since their boards of directors will cover the losses.  so indebtedness only becomes a problem where there is no guarantor in place - like a consortium of investors or rich benefactor who own and run the club.however, with so much money sloshing around, the price of players and their wages are rocketing - as you would expect, so new entrants into the market will find it difficult to ''buy'' success cheaply.  roeder found in the jan window that effectively he was priced out.  the fact is, we cannot compete financially with these teams, unless the directors of NCFC choose to do likewise, and follow the speculative investment route.   the goalposts have moved radically over the past 4 years, and its likely that city is operating at a loss - even to cover a paltry small squad of retained pro''s and a multitude of loanees.i''m not happy with the finances of english footy - and its promotion of the prem over the other leagues is surely anti-english in nature and spirit - but then murdochs are not english - but while the rewards are there, speculative investors will chase them.  certainly, the champs has the look of a south sea bubble around it, cos only 3 teams can win the prize of promotion to the prem - but there looks to be no shortage of investors around.  many want to buy on the cheap (when tradionally run clubs are financially in trouble like coventry and soton) but thats about it.  i imagine delia bought cheap from chase, and unless a miracle occurs and our slow bleeding demise reverses, its looks like she''ll be forced to sell cheap when she goes.  the only way the bubble can burst, is if the TV revenues dry up, either as a result of a worldwide economic slump, or english footy fans choosing not to subscribe to sky etc.  if that happened, many would get their fingers burned.  coventry''s new investor says coleman will get £10m in the summer - realistically, thats not enough to plan for a top 6 side, with other richer consortiums around and teams with £15m chute money.  so, imo, theres no prem ambition at naarrrwich anymore - anyone who entertains it is a fool.if roeder got £10m i''d whoop - but he''ll be lucky to £3-5m tops.  £3m or lower, will be the budget for a team looking to survive first in the league.  tellingly, roeders latest comments in the evening news suggests you don''t need to spend lots of money to be successful, which is true, but also rare.   the most successful teams in any league in the world are usually amongst the biggest spenders and attract the best managers etc.  money can''t guarantee you success, but its more likely to over the longer term, and also you''re less likely to suffer the failure of relegation.  so imo, we are not ok at the mo, we have the smallest squad in 40 years, and probably insufficient funds to build a credible prem chasing club in the summer.  unless roeder and clark can work their magic  on a new squad and get them to regulary overperform, we''re likely to encounter another average season, with a flirtation at the wrong end of the table.  and if we don;t soend sufficent money, then why do NCFC deserve otherwise???

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no prudence is a good thing, I mean it''s done us proud, got us to the bottom half of the Championship hasn''t it? Thank God our board has been prudent with the money from 200000 season ticket holders, parachute payments and selling all our best players. Thank God that our club is so well run and can give us such great confidence for the future.

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[quote user="Barclay_Boy"]no prudence is a good thing, I mean it''s done us proud, got us to the bottom half of the Championship hasn''t it? Thank God our board has been prudent with the money from 200000 season ticket holders, parachute payments and selling all our best players. Thank God that our club is so well run and can give us such great confidence for the future.[/quote]

The restyrunts and Eventguard are well run.....

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