50 years of underachievement has a simple answer, a series of owners/shareholders regularly insisted on, quite legally, maintaining dividends, even when that meant selling players.Roker Park was never maintained, let alone improved apart from covering the Fullwell end, the facilities were left to crumble, literally in the case of the Roker end.*SAFC, since 1958, has been owned by businessmen who regarded having shares in the club as no more than prestige, and when supporters moaned about the standard of play, they simply sacked the manager to appease supporters and take the focus of the real mis-manager`s.Legislation forced the move from Roker Park, and Bob Murrays first reaction was to try and sell the club (For £2 million), like a hot potato, as was the norm, don`t ask how the SOL was financed, but to the credit of Bob Murray he provided a gem.Murray made a net £3 million profit when he sold to The Drumaville lot who made a £40 million profit when ES (who accepted the £89 million debt they left) bought 100% of the shares.ES is the first owner EVER who is competent at increasing the value of his investments, he has transformed SAFC, the business, into a highly efficient one. I have no idea what hie eventual intentions are, but he cannot afford relegation, not just because of the lost Sky money but the immediate loss of sponsorship income.Supporters can moan about players and managers (we do, and why not?), but it`s the owner who plays the tune, and in ES we have the best chance of hearing the music we all like, but it will be on his terms, like them or not.
There is no point being a highly efficient business if the team are doing zip mate because that highly efficient business will begin to flounder and like the rest ES will have it away on his toes. Football clubs can not be run as a business, Arsenal are the closest I can think of in the PL who have tried that and they are failing by their previous high standards. It's all well and good having good sponsor deals and raking in millions in profit but, if those profits are not used to improve the team (our facilities are very good at present) then what is the point. The majority of clubs are in debt and I'm not talking a couple of grand on a visa card either it is massive debt even Utd who are arguably one of the biggest clubs in the world are drowning in debt yet they still find money to invest in the team when required. I said at the beginning of this season that we should be looking to spend around 50 to 60 mil just to give us a fighting chance this season, yes other clubs have done it much cheaper and good luck to them we invested 22ish mil in a couple of players when everyone knew we needed 5/6 quality players in from defence to attack. My big worry this season is we go back to being a yoyo club, bouncing between the fizzy pop and PL with a different manager every 2 years or so and players using us as a billboard to move onto bigger and better things. There is profit in that due to parachute payments, player sales, wage cuts etc that is the only way a club like us without big investment will turn a profit, you have to speculate to accumulate apparently, we haven't speculated that much so are not accumulating on or off the pitch.
The cheque book has to come out in January and I think we need 2 or 3 players straight into the first team
We will be hearing the music next summer alright with the concerts, but which division will we be playing in?. This might sound daft but take the capacity to 63,000 that is more revenue then give MON massive spending money, and also have more concerts and John williams, Ennio morricone, Andre ruie could play here and bring in a few more million.
It's bums on seats that generate revenue, not how many seats you have. 63,000 sounds brilliant, but we're averaging around 40,000 at the moment and that means a near half-empty stadium.
I think the cheque book will come out in Jan. Its spend 20m in Jan and stay up or lose 20m+ in July by going down. The club are not stupid. (well lets hope not)
Agreed LIV i hope he's got £25m + downing is nailed on by all accounts but its not our main need, darren fletcher? I'm really struggling to think of someone we could go for! Back in for dempsey perhaps, we were 1-6 to sign him at one point before we got gazumped?
Short appears to be an adherent of the financial fair play rules and I honestly don't see much being spent in January. If Wickham gets a few games and looks good we may not have to buy a striker and can focus purely on a centre mid.
Wickham looked well yesterday, he could certainly hold the ball up for fletch imo, need to shift sess to accomodate it though
