http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33848322 He's not wrong. We were penny pinching two years ago, but now I think Lansdown has tried to open the books a bit and has realised that the Championship has left us behind. With that being said, it goes to show that we've been naive in this league once again. If most fans know that Championship teams are throwing around silly money what did an owner of a football club expect? I think we've made a number of clever signings so far, and I'm hopeful that we'll see more, but the fact that the manager looks pissed off, and the owner feels the need to come out and moan about prices too is worrying.
Success on the cheap ! When is Sir Steve going to wise up on this ? You wait until the right moment to sign the player, then you pay what is required. As Cotts has said, our right moment was when last season finished. Lansdown will not put us into the Premiership by being hesitant or losing courage when the moment arrives. Its an expensive business these days running a football club - just ask Abramavich "There is no point breaking the bank, we've got to build a squad of good players that we can keep for a long time." - well that rules out the loan market then
Remember chaps - we have to work within the constraints of Financial Fair Play. It's irrelevant how much cash SL has - essentially he cannot use it without us falling foul of the rules. He's quite correct in his assessment that "football is not a proper business" but he should have known that going in. The wages that football players earn is out of control.
Strictly speaking, yes, Lansdown cannot pump tens of millions into the club in one go. However, FFP is easy enough to get around through sponsorship. The likes of Cardiff have spent years in the Championship spending money they simply don't have because they've been able to fiddle their books. All clubs do it. I'd wager that Bristol City currently do it, as our market value is near the bottom of the league, and I reckon we probably make little pennies compared to other teams in this league. FFP basically means that clubs have to put income into the club before being able to spend. The stadium is a part of that plan. If attendances rise, it means the books can be fiddled further. Whether Lansdown would want to operate at a further loss is up to him, I guess.
I tend to agree with SL and it has been very obvious that the change in operating conditions in the Championship during the intervening years since our heady days of near promotion have gone absolutely insane. Does that automatically mean that the quality of players, or the entertainment level, have risen at such a rate or is it that the greed factor is now infecting the entire league system? How long is it before we hear that the financial madness has reached down to all levels of the game of football and that the entire sport cannot remain sustainable? Before you can determine your future you have to know what you are dealing with today and I think our club has fallen off the rails in that respect. When the final seal of promotion reached us in the late part of last season the planning should not only have begun but been implemented. Bristol City appear to have missed that salient point during the summer and, despite the clear managerial acumen of SC and the business prowess of SL, we are apparently struggling financially to compete with the bigger fish in our new pond. Never claiming to be a football expert I still think that I, and most of the 606 posters, knew what to expect when we were promoted and this leaves me confused as to what the club management predicted. I often wondered how some clubs survived the transition to a higher level and in a lot of cases it was the greater revenue from a bigger stadium that led the way. Unfortunately our virtually completed stadium renovations, and the larger crowds it will draw, are not going to help us this season and unless someone rewrites the "Acme Book of Less Expensive Football Management" to show us the way then I wonder what will happen going forward? When the future is clouded with doubt it can ruin the best intentioned plans and my thought train here is that if you want something really badly then you have to know how you will get it, and I'm not quite sure that is the case with us. Let's just hope that everything works out because that's what we all want and maybe someone needs to realise and accept the rules of competing at this noticeably higher level.
Sounds like a very naïve opinion to me and one that may make SC question whether this is where he wants to be if a bigger club comes knocking on his door, once the sacking season starts. When the likes of Middlesbrough are reportedly offering £12m for Jordan Rhodes that's what we're up against. It was never going to be a cheap league to compete in but we sound ill prepared, as usual.
Do the FFP rules exclude clubs that steadfastly stick to the regulations (like us) or is it designed more for the clubs that tend to hang around the expensive import section of the supermarket or find things falling off the back of lorries? Nudge nudge wink wink.
I'd argue that the increased off-the-field revenue will help us much more financially than higher attendances (unless we see a day where we're getting 25k per week).
