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alex field

there must be wages available

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g''day all.

After hearin worthys comments on saturday, and how many times he said ''know what i mean''(8 times), i was thinkin that we have the smallest squad we''ve had for ages, surely there must be money available for wages to poss keep crouch til the end of the season.

I doubt we could afford transfer fees, but there must be some money in the budget to pay wages for a copuple of decent players. Also harper was valued at around 300k-400k, a decent investment if couldnt get hucks. Crouch til the end of the season and harper, i don''t think thats out of the question.

Well done to the lads and worthy on saturday for another excellent win.

otbc

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The money MIGHT be there. It really depends if we were making a loss before we let these players go, which may well be the case. Don''t expect anything I would say. And also, don''t forget Villa haven''t scored in years and may want Crouch back at their place.

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We as a club have losses accumulating from £4,000,000 mark year on year and while in the 1st division we certainly dont have the money to be as foolish as were Leeds, where ambition was the by-word and Prudence flew out of the window. For all thier spending they achieved nothing. They have talked that they are looking for a financier with multi-million assets. How unrealistic can they be? When and if we achieve promotion this year and immediately right off the outstanding debt. So we no longer have to furnish it. Then consolidate ourselves in the bottom half of the prem for about two or three seasons, having successfully brought on the young promising players from the youth scheme. We will still have a limited crowd potential of 25000 at £15 a ticket average amounting to £375000 per week gate receipts if sold out for about twenty weeks amounting to £7,500,000 over the year, with a twenty five player squad on £10000 a week each for fifty-two weeks a year a cool wage bill of £13.000,000 realistic, Maybe we will be lucky and only have to pay a wage of £5000 a week and generate a small profit of £1000000 enough to pay the behind the scenes staff including the manager, perhaps! Not a very good way to run a business is it? If we all ran our businesses in that manner then there would be many redundancies. Then we would''nt have the funds to pay for the tickets to fill the seats at the football matches. A vicious spiral that we can not afford to contemplate!

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Let''s try and grab a bit of reality here. In the past there has been frequent mention of a wage bill for the players, circa £5m pa, based on turnover of circa £10m pa. That doesn''t seem too illogical, based on the Football League proposal for a wage cap based 50% of turnover.

However, that works out to less then £100,000 per week for the whole squad and, with a squad of 25, gives you an average of £4,000 per week per player.

Against this background, the suggestion that "the wages must be there", and paying someone in excess of £10,000 per week, seems wrong.

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So are you saying then that we should all be happy with 16 experienced pros, 1 reserve keeper and 4 promising kids?

I dunno about the rest of the fans, but i wouldn''t. All you figures are guesses. The highest earner suposedly is mulryne on bout 5k, it then goes down to players who earn 1k or less probably. Just because we go to the prem doesn''t mean everyone will straight away be earning 50k a week.

I agree that if we went up, we should consolidate the financial position, similar to west brom, but it is gonna take a little investment, i.e crouch til the end of the season, possibly harper. It doesn''t make sense that there is no money after the clearout of the last year or two, players like emblen, llwellyn, russell, nedergaard, kenton, libbra, hegginbottom, that must be combined total of say 30 - 40k a week at least and who replaced them, 4 kids on under 1k a week and edworthy, brennan and francis.

There must be cash available!!!

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actually norwichs wage bill is more like 6 mill not 13 i doubt any players is on more then 6000pw , you also don`t include monies from the resterunt (almost 1mill) tv rights (about 1/2 mill) shirt sponsership (over 1 mill over 3 years) exec boxes, hiring out stadia for shows and meetings, club shop, advertising, potential income from land assets eg the car park and selling it for flats. most of the losses each year is down to maintaing the debt at around 1 mill per year in interest, something eased by the seceritisation loan. the new stand will earn almost 1mill extra and the academy gets a load of donations.

the club must attempt to gamble on huckerby because it could get us into premiership, if it fails you have the back up of selling one or 2 from green, drury, francis or McVeigh

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Sorry gazza i disagree with you, we''re not askin for a big transfer fee to get hux (nice as it would be), just an investment of 200 or 300 k, which would give us a big chance of promotion. It is within our grasp. Another big income that we seem to be forgetting is the new stand will bring in 3 or 4 thousand 8 game season tickets, thats 300 or 400k, and covered any wages invested in crouch or harper.

Come on this is surely being realistic enough for a club with our potential at the moment

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Alex

I''m not saying I''m happy with just 16 pros and a few youngsters at all. Additionally, whatever the actual wage bill, averages can be misleading, so some players will be on higher than £4,000 per week.

If my recollection is correct, I seem to recall the club saying on several occassions, that we are lossing money with a £5m pa wage bill. Additionally, overall levels of expenditure, (of which wages are the significant percentage), have to be reduced to be in line with levels of income.

Remember also, just because players like Llewellyn have left, doesn''t mean that there have been significant wages savings, as these contracts still had at least 12 months to run and the contracts had to be paid up, not necessarily in full, in order to get the players concerned to agree to leave.

All I''m saying is, if our weekly wage bill is circa £100,000 per week, to sign up one player on £10,000 per week, plus, is a significant risk.

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I agree with you Gazza, and no that doesn''t mean I''m happy with 16 pros either!! I would think that both Crouch and Hucks are out of our league in terms of wages and fees, so I''m going to get used to that idea now - then if we do sign either/both of them it''ll be a nice christmas present!

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Reading between the lines here, always a dangerous thing to do, I suspect Worthy is implying, if all three loans were to return to their clubs, then he will require further loans to see us through to the end of the season. I don''t think many people would disagree with that assessment, and, perhaps, the underlying issue is whether there are sufficient funds left in the loan budget?

As any club can only have 8 loans in a season, and no more than 4 loan players at any one time, we will already have used half of our allocation come December, although we could still keep Crouch, because of his age, for the remainder of the season, assuming both clubs are in agreement. So we could have 4 /5 more loans.

For what it''s worth, I feel Harper is the most realistic chance of a permanent signing, as his wages are unlikely to be as high as Crouch or Huckerby, having only just been promoted to the Premiership with Portsmouth. Whether Worthy is interested in making him a permanent signing, only time will tell.

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In answer to your poser, to me it sounds just as bad, i''m sorry to say. I had''nt forgotten the fee from Sky assuming that we got promotion, I was more concerned about the secured loan of £15 million that has a fixed interest return that is due to be paid back in full at a fixed date; it is primarily for, as I am aware the new stand; a six million pound venture which is a neccessary requirement of the newer safety standards and could be put off no longer. Some of that repayment money was to come from a sale of property which was used as a forward projection to secure that loan: we now see that that sale has sadly fallen through. It is now from a much weakened position that we go into a property market that is in decline. This decline will not be missed by newer prospective buyers and it is very likely that the forced sale will not bring in the revenue necessary to meet the forward requirements of the secured loan. There will be, as far as I can see a clause in the loan agreement that will back refer to that deal as it was at the time of signing. It is also likely that it will effect a penalty if the conditions in the initial agreement is not met. It is never very wise to spend money that you hope to get on the strength of over optomistic forcasts for the future. Foot ball, except for about three premiership clubs will not be as lucrative as it has been over past years, except for those three, most of them carry heavy debts that Sky TV will have noticed. It therefore is not beyond imagination that the SKY deal will reflect this situation in the revenue they are prepared to put up for the future, where the top three clubs will further flex their muscles and demand a greater share of that money so that the super stars they employ will be able to demand even greater rewards than is the norm now. Don''t forget a super league is not yet out of the question with all the implications that this holds for those who will continue to operate then, as its poor relations with even tighter purse strings. Sorry to be such a pessimist! Mate!!

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There''s a degree of logic in many of your points, but, IMHO, I have to disagree. (Please see my posting to the "Huckerby / Green Swap" thread on this site.

The securitised deal of £15m is repayable over 15 years, roughly £1m per year, and is largely offset against future season ticket sales., although some will be attributable to the land sale.

The original £6m deal with Wilson Connolly was before the site had planning permission, which has since been obtained, thereby enhancing the value of the site.

Although the original deal has "time expired", we can take comfort that the club are talking to other developers and seeking to maximise the site value.

If a subsequent deal is less than £6m, I''d be very surprised, but time will tell.

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Thanks for that gazza, I may be wrong, but the interest I believe you are saying, is to be furnished by ticket sales at a million per year, how about clearing the debt where does that figure come from if the 6 million for the development site is not forthcoming? also that money will not be available to pay wage demands for the better players that will have to be available to increase the squad size and to keep us in this or the prem. With changing face of football in the next few seasons and with the unheard of possibility of going down. That million needed for the debt interest while being paid will not be available for team development. I''m interested in what is your assessment of the financial breakdown over the next three seasons. Imagining a concervative scenario.

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Beelsie

It''s almost impossible to answer your final point, as much will depend on whether or not we get promoted. The financial differentials between the Premiership and the First Division, due to Sky, are, in my opinion, unhealthy for the overall state of the game.

That said, there is nothing we can do about it and we have to live with it. All we can focus on is our current position and seeking to live within our means, the best we can. That doesn''t mean I like the position, that''s just the way it is.

As for the £15m long term loan, it''s some time since that was announced, so I can''t recall the precise repayment details. However, I do seem to remember there being reference to the debt, plus interest, being due in equal installments over the life of the year, so, if this is correct, the £1m pa refered to previously, isn''t interest only.

Initially, I had concerns about the size of the new £15m arrangement. However, it seems it covers not only the cost of rebuilding the South Stand, but also previous debts and projected trading losses at the club over the next year or two. Either way, approximatley a third of this will be covered by the land sale adjoining the ground, which must be a far better position than having to rely soley on future season ticket sales to refund the ongoing debt liability.

Additionally, it''s probably better to have a formal arrangement as this, probably at a very competative rate of interest, than have a sizeable chunck on short term overdraft facilities at the bank.

Not sure if that helps to answer your concerns. The debt is rather big, but the Board do seem to be approaching this in a positive and controlled manner and there has been no mention of forced player sales or adminstration. We should be thankful for that at least

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Gazza, i entirely agree with your reference to the Sky input. It does seem like a bidder with enormous capital potential that will always be swayed by one thing, the making of money rather the moral ethics of retaining the whole market. With a different marketing strategy it has enormous potential to spread the revenue around to do good for the whole game. Not just the top multi-million pound outfits. With those type of bandits being the biggest subscribers to our national game it does not look promising for the lower league outfits who will have no big investor input, or us for that matter.
I would also add my support for our boards apparent management of the finances. It is possible with good luck to finish with an even better deal than previous arrangement for the property and land sale. Is there a potential that city might retain the development and manage it successfully and thereby increace its market value. I agree also that short term overdraft interest would have been a killer and this long term loan is certainly a more cautionary rute to follow. I am afraid that money in football will continue to get tighter for the poorer relations of football , we seem to be teetering too and fro on the borders of distant solvency.
The one thing that looks promising is the coming to form with a blaze of sustained attacking football for a whole 90 minutes.

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