I don't think it will be Leeds again as by all accounts the guys that have taken over are not as loaded as some were hoping. Cardiff could be an interesting one though, lets see how far the boat is pushed out over the summer once promotion is secured but again I don't think the investors are taking about huge chunks of money though. I would think Blackburn, Forest or even an outside bet of Birmingham could be next on the slide in to L1, all three are in a poor state for one reason. Of course it is not just foreigners that can bugger up a team - remember Peter Ridsdale? He does it routinely!
Tony Fernandez is not a bad owner, the fans love him and he's put his own cash in. If we get relegated and QPR don't does that mean Delia is a bad owner? I do not understand the distain on here for rich owners investing there own money. I'd take Lerner, Fernandez, Abramovich, The Sheiks at Man City, Al Fayed (only just), The Southampton owners, Whelen et al over Delia any day of the week because they have exactly the thing any team needs to improve. And its not a website for learning to cook. We would now have Hooper and Wolfswinkle here if we had some of what they could offer. I'd love it if we became some Russian oil barons play thing, we might actually win something for a change.
Carrabuh, I suppose it's a case of whether you'd trade long-term financial stability for short-term success? At the moment, everything's rosy for the clubs mentioned, but if the owner moves on, dies, goes bankrupt, whatever, where is the club left? At the moment, if Delia walks away we've still got the potential to be a mid-table Premier League side. If Abramovich moves on, Chelsea FC cannot support their current playing squad on 'normal' income alone. Each club that enters into the dependence on a wealthy backer runs the risk of being the next Pompey (who one of their posters reckons may not even be allowed in the Conference South next season), or Rangers. Having said that, I don't object to the Southampton model so much. From what I understand, Cortese (I think he's the rich one?) is putting the money in, but it's going on transfers, not wages. If your owner pays £20m to bring a player in, but then they're only on £20k a week, then I don't have a great problem with that, because if Cortese walks away, then the wage budget can be covered by 'normal' income. So whilst I wouldn't object to us taking that kind of model, it's whether the club are offered that choice. A Russian Oil Baron strolling in demanding to pay whomever whatever he wants would set off alarm bells for me, but I can understand the desire for short-term success too.
That's an excellent post DH, I've been impressed with a lot of carrabuh's recent posting, but he undid all that with his "give us a rich benefactor" post, that, I feel, was extremely short-sighted!
Prime example, Gretna up in Scotland. 2002 elected in the Scottish Football League, acquired rich owner 2004/5 won division three 2005/6 won division two, runners up in Scottish Cup, qualified for UEFA Cup 2006/7 won divison one 2007/8 bottom of SPL 2008 rich owner becomes ill, eventually dies. All money withdrawn, Gretna FC go into liquidation, club ceases to exist. Obviously this is an extreme example as everything happened in the space of six years, but it highlights the dangers of relying on one rich benefactor. The Gretna fans lived in dreamland for six years, they had league titles, a cup final, even a European run (admittedly it was against an Irish side) and then nothing. I would wager almost every single Gretna fan would have swapped all that success for six years of mediocrity in division three and still have a club.
Your right, it is an extreme example. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would not want a big financial benefactor, as long as its their money, and their money to lose, you can only win. Ibramovich will never get his money back, he knows that, as does Fernandez, the Man City Sheiks and Dave Whelan. We've got these big investors winning titles and European trophies and somebody chirps in with ****ing Gretna going bust. Portsmouth, Leeds, Coventry all got into **** because they were spending the clubs money which they didn't have. The example I would of had of a big investor going bad is Birmingham where it has been a complete disaster.
The point DH was making and that I was using Gretna as an example is that it can all go south very quickly and with little warning. You're right in that abramovich knows he won't get the money back that he had spent, but if he decides he's not going to put anymore in then Chelsea are up a certain creek without a paddle.
I'm sorry Dave but that is just little Norwich mentality. Why is it alright for Delia to put money in but no one else, what if Delia had 3 billion in the bank. Would you say "no, thanks, I'd rather we stay as we are, you keep the money". Of course not, there are more people in the World who enjoy investing in football as well as Delia Smith. I'm saying how great it would be if someone wanted to invest millions of their own money and the response is that it is incredibly short sighted. How incredibly short sighted is that!!, no comprehension or acceptance that we might actually be able to win something with a big personal cash injection. Just the negative outcome.
It's not a 'little norwich mentality' at all. Delia has put money into the club years ago, usually when it was a case of putting the money in or we'd go bust. Under Doomcaster we were a poorly run club, and without Delia's money there is no chance we'd be a Premier League side. I think we're all very grateful that Delia put the money in when she did. In some ways Delia can be compared to Fernandes this January, as he foresaw the financial issues that relegation would cause the club, and has acted to try and prevent it. Whether he's successful or not is another question, but in both cases the club were incredibly grateful. Delia was never seriously bankrolling the club, she was filling the gaps left by our own poor financial mismanagement. With more wealthy backers, in the cases of Chelsea, Man. City, etc, you are gambling the long term security of the club on the health (physical and financial) and interest of usually one person. If that persons stops the stream of money, the club in question is up the creek. When that money stops coming, the club have no way to support their huge wage bills, and suffer dramatically as a result. There are some (current) success stories, but there are also some cautionary tales. This way of running a football club hasn't been around long (Jack Walker at Blackburn is the earliest example I can think of in 1988), so we don't really know how the majority of cases will turn out. However we can look at the examples we do have: Portsmouth are a club with a 21,000 capacity stadium, who at the time of their initial takeover were a championship side. To me, they sound like as good as any equivalent to our club. Reading up, it seems that things started to go wrong when Gaydamak decided he didn't want to fund the club any more, and sold the club cheaply, taking control of some patches of land previously owned by the club with him. From then on the club were saddled with huge salaries they had no means to pay. This led to debt they've still not got out of, and they face the very real possibility of dropping out of the football league. Yes the club were spending money they didn't have, but initially that was only because they'd budgeted on their owner funding the difference. As soon as the owner decided they didn't want to play ball, they were screwed. Since the money began in 1999, Portsmouth have won the FA cup once, and been runners up once. they won the championship, and had a short stint in Europe. 14 years on and their fans might not have a league team to support. If we followed a similar trajectory, I might get to see us win a domestic cup in my lifetime, but then watch on as my club sink lower and lower down the leagues, with any chance of recovery likely to be a drawn out affair. If it can happen to a club of a similar size and stature to ours, then it could very easily happen to us. Would you honestly want our board to place our financial security in the hands of one person? That person is highly unlikely to be a fan of the club beforehand, so we become a billionaires plaything. Billionaires can tire easily and if they deciding they can have more fun sinking millions elsewhere, they'll move on. Frankly, one domestic cup is not enough for me to want us to risk everything in this way. Yes, financial backing can be done correctly, but it needs to have a genuine long-term plan, not just short-term. Say we get a backer in now, I'm happy for them to spend money on transfer fees, as long as we can cover the wages ourselves. But this isn't enough. To progress we need ground redevelopment, so I'd want this owner to provide money to increase capacity to 35,000+. That way the club can then support higher wages independently, so we can pay higher quality players. But, and this is really my point, we're already looking to do this. Already our club are financially managed well enough that we'll have no external debt at the end of the season. We're a Premier League side with an excellent wage structure. We know the club are looking to increase capacity at Carrow Road. If we continue along the path we are, in 20 years we could be a very firmly established PL side like Everton, with a genuine chance of competing for domestic cups, and European places, without external backing. If we accept an owner, we can accelerate the potential for glory, but risk not having a club to support in 20 years time. Personally, I know which option I'd rather have.
I'm advocating the owner put their own money in. Not NCFC racking up 100 million debt, I have said this about 3 or 4 times. I don't really get you're argument, you are talking about different types of investment. I'm talking about the likes of Fernandez et al who spend there own money, you are not.
Cracking post DH. Shame that we only talk about the money these days, it's all some people care about. Things have changed so much since I first started loving football. I find I'm loving it less these days.
Gandy, is money really all we ever talk about on here? The truth is, no we don't. There's just more money involved than years ago, but it is not all we ever talk about. McNally might talk about it because its his job, but so did Chase.
No.well ok, not everything we talk about. It's a forum with a lot of interesting comments of course. It does however seem to be a big part of what people discuss, and that saddens me. I'd hate a Fernandes type sugar daddy. I guess that makes me a little old Norwich fan.
I just wouldn't trust his intentions. We blew him off at City anyway, didn't we? Big investors lead to bigger wages, it escalates, road to ruin is next. I'm just happy with what we have, and how it's going. In the top twenty clubs in the EPL? That will do me.
Fair enough, don't agree its a road to ruin however. I have quite a low opinion of Saint Delia and I don't believe she's ever had any intention of selling regardless to who maybe interested or what their intentions are. Ever since the Gunn debacle I've never really trusted her.
Yes, but one type of investment, if things go wrong, inevitably turns to the other. The players are contracted to the club, not the owner. Fernandes/Abramovich, whoever, allow the club to have wage budgets vastly beyond what they make from ticket sales, merchandise, etc, and cover the difference themselves. Whilst this set-up exists, everything is fine. The problem is not whilst the owner is there, it's when he (or she) isn't. If the owner decides to stop covering the difference between expenditure and income, then the club can suddenly have a huge hole in their finances. Let me tell you a story.... The most recent figure I can find right now for our wage bill is £18.4m annually. We can currently afford this. According to the new Financial rules, 13 clubs have wage bills of over £52m annually. Therefore it's probably a reasonable assumption that the average wage bill for the type of team we'd be looking to become is around that figure. So our new rich owner, Mr Whobitya Kokov provides the funding for a £52m wage bill, £33.6m annually. Conveniently this is also below the limit of the new financial regulations, so is perfectly plausible. Whilst the charming Mr Kokov is putting money in, that £33.6m isn't a problem. Our club go from strength to strength, challenging for a Europa league place, and maybe nicking a domestic cup. However, Mr Kokov has a thing for Thai Ladyboys, and decides buying a club in that part of the world would be more fun for him, so he leaves, selling the club for whatever he can get to whoever will take it. Chances are that person won't have a lot of money. Whilst this is happening, the players still need paying, and there's a £33.6m hole in our finances. Most players are on 2-3 year contracts, and with time constraints on transfer windows, moving enough players out and in to close that funding gap is never going to happen in a single window, it'd probably take 2 years to do so. By which point, £33.6m is probably a kind estimate to the amount of debt we'd be in. Now, on the playing side, these dramatic personnel changes will have had huge impacts on the quality and cohesiveness of our squad, so there's a very good chance we get relegated. Playing in the championship vs the PL is currently a loss of around £43m in TV revenue, and that gap will increase with the new TV rights next season. Chances are any players left over from the "good-old days" when there was money won't have relegation wage cut clauses either. So, after all the work done to cut our wage bill by the first £33.6m, we've now got to find another £43m in cuts to steady the ship again, with parachute payments only easing this slightly. So again, the squad (probably still our most valuable asset) is gutted. To reduce the wage bill, players are sold for far below their real value, and all the money from sales is just going to cover debt. After 1 season in the championship, £70m+ in debt doesn't seem that unrealistic. So by this point, you've sold all your valuable players, are left with a squad of young players and rejects from other clubs, and are still hugely in debt. When we were promoted from the championship, only 3 teams made a profit that season: Watford, Leeds and Scunthorpe. The last 2 were both recently promoted, and both made money through player sales. If by this point the club are anything like a championship side, there's not going to be any profit to pay the debts off any time soon. Then people start to want their money back, the club can't afford it, so the administrators are called in. So within 3,4 years of Mr Kokov leaving, the club are hugely in debt with no way to pay it, in administration, and probably spiralling towards League 1. All for a domestic cup and a couple of games against European sides you've never heard of. It's a grim picture. As of last summer, Portsmouth had £130m in debt, from a very similar scenario. I suspect Portsmouth will be the first of many, as owners are not going to keep throwing money into a black hole, and start to want some money back. You can begin to see this at Blackburn, where the money from player sales clearly isn't all going back to the playing side. It might be ten, twenty, thirty years, but I'm fairly sure at some point the house of cards will come crashing down, and clubs like this are going to be having to face up to this scenario. Then your left with the top clubs in the Premier League being those ran like Arsenal, Spurs, West Brom, Stoke, Sunderland, Swansea and ourselves. When you bring in a rich backer, you have little control over when they leave, and when they do they inevitably leave a huge gap in the clubs finances. That gap will very quickly mean debt! This is why nearly everyone on here likes our current, prudent model. It means we'll still have a football club to support in 30 years time.
Thats quite a specific hypothesis there (and long specific hypothesis don't really work), all planned with the worst of outcomes. Benefactor wants out, stops putting the money in, Relegation, then L1, little transfer fees recouped, massive wages, paying 2-3 year contracts (which isn't the case). I also could write a story, but it would exactly be that, an imaginery made up story. Just because you chose to invest time in details (made up details mind), it doesn't make it any truer or likely to happen. I'll write a much simpler version. A rich benefactor comes in and gives us the necessary resources over the next 20 years to compete in the top leagues have a few relegations and promotions in the mean time. or A rich benefactor comes in, spends his money, sells to another rich benefactor who gradually reduces the outgoings. or A rich benefactor comes in, invests his money, we win a cup play in Europe, decides he can't carry on putting his own money in, gradually reduces outgoings over 2 seasons. or a rich benefactor comes in, lends the club money to build a new ground/stand at a very good rate, but relies on the club to pay for players. or a rich benefactor comes in and is there to bail out the 2 million a season for any shortfalls or a rich benefactor comes in and buys everyone and we win lots ands lots of trophies (will never happen mind) and he pays for everything himself OR a rich benafactor comes in spends all his money, spends all our money, we get relegated to League two, administration etc etc. Which has never happened to any club as far as I'm aware. There are far more teams who have benefitted than failed with a cash investor, Blackburn, Wigan, Man City, Southampton, Stoke, Fulham, Newcastle, QPR, Chelsea. And yet you choose the Portsmouth example as a reason not, when the vast majority have had success. Put it this way, if you're a team in financial trouble, what would you rather have coming in? I don't think they'd be seen as the enemy ruining our game then. Anyway, as far as I'm aware Portsmouth never had a benefactor, they were building the debt through poor management, the owner wasn't putting his own cash in.
