I wonder what the wage bill is? Say 20 players earning on average 20,000 a week, thats 21 million gone already in a year!
For arguments sake double what you have said take off another £13M for back room/ground staff etc and that would still leave £20M in the coffers.[/quote]
Horc, you’re usually one of the good posters on here in my opinion, but you’ve fallen into their trap on this.
It’s nowhere near £60 million that a club like Wigan earns in a season. We’ve had people on here saying the BBC have said it is, here’s the link etc, but they haven’t read or understood the piece properly – and to boot, it’s two years old.
We’re taking £30 to £40 million max from last season – and that’s information from PA Sport, who are the recognised authority in sports MI.
If you double the wage bill estimate by Bidstrup and add £13 million, you’d end up £13 million or so in the red, which after gate receipts and sponsorships, would bring you to break-even if you’re lucky. (I estimated the wage bill to be around £30 million as a nice round figure – as you need to take into account player bonuses which can be a frightening amount of money – that would bring you to break-even)
We have to sell to free up any money, a simple fact, and everytime I say it, I get slated: it’s not greed, it’s not lack of ambition, it is survival and stability. That’s what yellow water Bruce off, as he knew he’d never keep a team together from season to season, and it’s why Whelan touts at every opportunity. As Bruce found out, if you want to buy big, you have to sell big.
Look at Portsmouth – £44 million in debt. If they received £60 million, plus gate receipts and sponsorship, and with the profits they made from selling half their squad, they’d be in a healthy position. They’re not. If this take-over involving Peter Storrie doesn’t go through, they’re going into administration in the very near future – and that is a fact. They’ve even resorted to offering contracts to people like Eugene Bopp – who was released from Crewe – just to cut their wage bill. Their new Arab potential-owner has pulled out as he’s seen the costs involved in running a football club.
Unless you are Real, Barca, Arsenal, or Man U, possibly Liverpool and Milan, nobody makes money. Ask Mike Ashley, ask Briatore at QPR, ask Dodi’s dad at Fulham, ask Gaydamak the ex-Pompey owner, or even ask Sir David Murray, the owner of Rangers – who have virtually a 50% share of anything financially viable in Scottish football, and who is a classic example of buying a club on messages from the heart, then a few years down the line realising you’ve made a very expensive mistake.
Now Setanta have gone tits up, payments this season are not going to take the Apollo Nine-like rise some people on here are quoting.
It aint rose gardens.[/quote]
Below is a copy of what I originally posted in reaction to a post that said we don’t get £60M we are not too far off with our estimations and understanding of the situation.
’We were mid table, so we were one of the better mediocre clubs so we probably got £36-38m.
Add that to the £25m in transfer fees we have recieved in the last few months.
Add all gate receipts, hospitality, advertising, sponsorship and not forgetting Egg rent, and the total must be approaching £75M
Even with a ludicrous wage bill,we must now be at least breaking even after the odd transfer or two.’
We are a selling club and always will be, to an extent I quite like getting these bargains and selling them on for massive profits, especially when they are duffers like LAV.
