https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/sport/other-sport/norwich-city-reveals-accounts-for-2018-1-5749099 A positive tone, and positive that we appear to have negotiated the summer well - but more clouds and hardship on the horizon?
As a self funding club, hardship will always be a lean academy year away. I think given the seeming control of the wage bill coupled with several saleable assets we are at least in a position of stability. Strength maybe not. The trouble with our model is that if we fail to go up, we will continue to lose our best players. We can only hope that both academy and squad recruitment continues to be successful. Bah!
"The amount of money paid to its highest earning director (Steve Stone) was £100,000 in 2018..." Is that all he was earning? It must have been more than that, I would think.
They were more positive than I thought. The nature of the beast is that most clubs have a mega millionaire or billionaire even in the championship. We need the conveyor of talent or we will die, hopefully a sneaky promotion puts all the financial woes to bed
One of the problems with Football is that the players and agents earn such ridiculous money that people assume everybody else is on the same level whereas, in reality, they are not but only get the going rate for the job they do. Whilst I have lost touch a bit in 13 years of retirement I have to say that I would have thought that £100k a year for the finance director of a smallish company with the turnover of the size of NCFC is the going rate.
So to have paid Jez Poxey an alleged figure of £417,000 was foolhardy, verging on suicidal for a small, self-funded and not particularly well-heeled club like ours?
Fortunately the wealth of the owner does not guarantee success. How many of these owners are guaranteed to pump their own personal wealth non-stop into the Club - just look 40 miles down the road - and how many who are prepared to give it a go actually succeed or give up very quickly. You need a combination of a good academy and good management to even survive in the modern day Championship and a hell of a lot of extra luck to get a sneaky promotion. On top of that I think that a lot of Clubs who get that sneaky promotion realise that their stay in the top division will be short and put the money they earn into a fund to ensure financial stability for a few seasons rather than spend it on transfer fees and wages in a vain attempt to stay in the Premiership. Unfortunately that is not the sort of reality that a lot of the supporters want to hear.
Fully agree. Whilst the role of a Chief Exec is far wider, far more responsible and far better paid than a Finance Director that sort of money is over the top unless of course you scale it down from the pay of the Chief Exec of Persimmon who just trousered a bonus of £75m.
I think there is a balance to be had between the two. There must be ambition to evolve to a better position. I think we started out OK with that plan before. Players like; Fer, Snodgrass and Howson. Good additions of younger players who could enhance the team not just for the season but moving forward. On paper Wolfie didn't look a bad gamble and attempt to take the next step. It was in my book a transitionary transfer within our theoretical means, but look at the stokes of the time, they were still spending more. The trouble I think we have had in that transfer and ones like Naismith too is the lack of significant enough relegation clauses. I accept that maybe we would miss out on theoretically established players like Naismith if these drops were too much, but as long as you stress that they will be allowed to leave if the wish in such an event (Subject to perhaps a buy out clause to at least cover the initial outlay) or even staggered wage reductions in line with club income drop. If Naismith was now on 40% of his original signing wages I reckon he would have done himself and the club a favour by now and completely pissed off. Bah!
I agree that there should be some sort of ambition to stay in the prem, but I also think that some funds should be diverted to the ground or academy. Having to go begging for money for the academy this year wound me up when we got players like Naismith. All players should have a decent wage drop if we get relegated from the prem, like they should have a rise if we get there. Either way, I think Norwich are quite suited to bringing in the hungry young wanting to prove something player rather than anything else. Either way, keep within the budget of the first parachute payment if possible for the first year. Should enable stability if relegation does follow.
