Minority Report 2019-20 Annual Accounts

Well I am sorry to have tried your patience Mr Rain! However if you re-read my post I am really saying that the accounts suggest that your long-held interpretation of the situation is correct. I also acknowledged the fact that little is likely to change. So I don't think it's a debate that goes on (or round in the washing machine, for that matter!). It's purely a question of whether folks like to see players develop and come on, only to see them flogged off the minute their quality begins to emerge, safe in the knowledge that 'bank balance' and 'cash in hand' paint a rosy picture! That's a question about which we all have to examine our souls! To be honest there are probably more concerning matters in the world right now - whether the fear of coronavirus will scupper the Cheltenham Festival next week, for example!

 

thanks for the analysis.
re your post above... n'er a true word has been said.

 

Excellent post. The issues is not that I want success and I want it now. The issue is that their definition of success is from player trading not results.

 

Well it has, because I haven't seen anyone on this board suggest we chuck millions at players and play roulette with the club's future. It says a lot more about how much the OP bothers to read other people's posts if he feels that way IMO.

It isn't a choice of Man City or Bury, it is something in between most fans are wanting.

 

Points noted.
However whilst people might not be suggesting throwing millions at players and thereby playing roulette with the clubs future, some of the alternative options suggested on the clubs transfer policy would be tantamount to doing the same thing.

I dont know how much consideration the OP gives to the posts of others. it doesn't matter really. What I see in his posts on the clubs current approach is an opinion which is crying out for people to be more rational in their thinking.

I do get your comment re Man City and Bury. Probably the best way to sum up what would be a sensible approach which I would agree with.

However, in general, what I don't get is destructive criticism without foundation aimed at both players and other individuals in the club.

 

So, as some of us keep asking, why are they involved?

 

James has a 20% minority stake and possibly an emotional attachment. He could walk away but it maybe emotionally harder for him than the others.

I’m sure in the fullness of time we’ll find out.

 

Your post disappoints me. As someone with a background in finance, you should know that the first requirement for any business is to trade profitably and remain solvent. Businesses that do not do that either go bust or they rely upon a constant supply of fresh capital. In his reply to me, Fonzie suggests that he has the answer. He suggests that keeping our investment in players the same, and by inference keeping our player pay expenditure the same would have ensured our survival in the Championship. I will not dwell upon the effect that a few injuries would have had upon his solution, but I will refer you to our total pay budget as compared to the rest of the clubs in the Championship. In season 2017/18 (our previous season in the Championship), our total pay as per the accounts was just £10.6m. It was the lowest total pay figure in the Championship. The next lowest was Millwall at £13.4m, with Preston above them at £14.6m. The highest pay figure for clubs not benefiting from parachute payments were Cardiff, Fulham and Middlesbrough, with pay figures exceeding £48m. Now if you believe that the more that you spend on pay, the better players you get, how do you expect Barnsley to compete in the Championship with a pay figure that is almost £3m lower than the next lowest, and almost £38m less than the highest.

I am sorry to react like this, but I believe that your background in finance requires you to act responsibly, even on here.

 

Alleluia.

 

This....
"Our owners probably have spent a fair amount in replaceming what has left. But their idiocy in trying to spread that cost across many players in the hope that there'll be a gem in there has basically cost us relegation".
Im sorry but signing so many players had one aim.....not to build a team but to sell players. They then wanted to axe the same playing staff (that they had built) within 5 months.
Ps I have a long career in finance and business.

 

You seem to struggle with the concept of a middle ground. Never in my post did I suggest going into a season with a skeleton squad. I simply said that having a squad of 35+ professionals is foolish, and as we are traditionally the lowest wage payers in the division, then we have to be clever with our money. We shouldn't be blanket buying anyone who may generate us a profit in 6 months time. We should be prudent, and by spending that little extra on wages to 6 or 7 quality players, instead of 15 young punts we will surely then be in a better position to stay in the division - thus having more of a chance to get our hands on the 6 million pounds that is then given to us as a Championship Club. This can then be reinvested, and as the club establishes itself, more progress can be made.

At the minute the cycle is thus....

Promotion.
Sign a load gambles.
Relegation
5.5 million less in income.
Soil ourselves at this and sell our prize assets
Have enough quality left to gain promotion.
Repeat.

If we then establish ourselves in this division, we will be constantly getting the 6 million pound yearly income. We can then shop in better places for our 'new heroes', and when we do sell these players, we will be getting higher transfer fees as they will be established Championship players.

I can't get my head around the size or our squad, and the amount of players we are paying as a club - when we aren't big payers as it is. It doesn't matter what we pay compared to others - what matters is how well we spend our money and how it benefits us.

 

Agreed - AVFC had a billionaire owner for a while; seems like years ago since Randy left, yet in their accounts yesterday (the same ones I mistakenly quoted their wage bill) it seems they were still throwing him £30m sweeteners for gaining promotion long after he left.

Imagine Chien & Conway walking, us achieving a miracle under new owners, then having to drop them the odd £10m or so due to some golden-goodbye clause. This board would be in meltdown then!

 

All of the clubs that are losing so much money in the Championship, that are building up debts through having to finance those losses. All of those clubs have access to that £6m annually. That money goes nowhere when it comes to financing the pay of quality players capable of improving a clubs performance in that league.

 

We ought to refuse it then if it goes nowhere. Let's not bother.

In the meantime, we can continue to pay our 35+ professionals an absolute pittance and hope that we make 250k profit on a couple of them.

What a club.

Edit: I don't particularly care about other clubs and how much they're losing. I care about us.

 

If you do not have owners who are willing to keep funding the losses, and our owners said from the very first that they were not willing to do that, then you have to try to compete in a different way. Patrick Cryne pioneered that way, and our new owners bought into it. They believe that the club can compete over the long term through the policies they are using, but the road will not be without its twist and turns, its ups and its downs. Barnsley is my club, and it will always be my club. I will be renewing my season ticket whatever the short term outcome of one season. What others do is up to them.

 

Seeing as you are still under the impression that I want the owners to bankrupt the club, it is simply pointless replying to you - you appear unable to read what others write.

Have a good day Mr Rain.

 

If there's one thing to take away from the published accounts, it's that the difference between the Championship and League One in financial terms is the ability to have turnover above wage levels, which is a fundamental measure within the football industry. Even with player trading and reduced contractual terms in League One, the loss of distributed income from the league is too great for us to overcome, and we operated at 105% of wages to turnover. This is peanuts compared to the Championship clubs throwing everything at trying to achieve Premier League status, but it fundamentally prevents us from being able to operate on a self-sufficient basis without generating a surplus from player trading.

Where I see that our current strategy fails is that it doesn't appear to place enough emphasis on Championship survival as a key priority. The recruitment strategy adopted this season (essentially quantity over quality/experience) carries too great a risk of immediate relegation, and the prolonged time taken to appoint Struber and lack of activity in the January transfer window suggests to me a lack of urgency in achieving this as the number one priority. It's not a case of spending beyond our means, or even spending more than we did this year, but a case of using the available resources more wisely than we did.

Additionally, its now debatable as to whether we prioritise the fundamental strategy of playing your best available team. The freezing out of Pinillos, Cavare, and Thiam based on their impending contract expiry points to a policy where giving an inexperienced player more Championship games ahead of them is viewed as financially better than playing players with expiring contracts (essentially, a player's resale value is deemed to be better if he's marketed as having x Championship games to his credit, regardless of his readiness/ability to perform in those games). This isn't a stated policy, but is my interpretation of the fact that we're content to let two of them rot in the U23's during a period when we need all available resources to be working towards survival. Not picking them because you prefer other players is fair enough. Not picking them based on long-term financial considerations is something else entirely, and I'm not convinced that we're doing the former based on what I've observed this season.

From a financial perspective, we're also damaging our ability to profit from the young talent we sign if we fail to adequately develop them as players. We've potentially damaged several of our squad's development (and subsequent resale value) by continuing to throw them into situations in which they were likely to struggle. Andersen is the obvious one, but he's not the only one.

As far as the club's value is concerned it should be obvious to everyone that a struggling Championship club operating within its means is worth more than an equivalent one playing in League One. The impression I get is that we didn't tweak our overall general strategy, to sufficiently prioritise this. Survival in the Championship is always going to be a challenge for a club of our size, but I see this season as a missed opportunity to give it our best shot within the financial constraints under which we operate. We may get lucky and stay up. If so, I hope we learn from the experience.

 

I never mean to disappoint people but it happens more often than maybe it should.

I don’t think we are that far apart. My view was that the club could tweak the strategy to reduce the vast squad to a slightly higher quality/stability.

At no point do I think ‘Spaffing’ millions on players is the answer, potentially a more focussed budget could work.

Ultimately Barnsley FC will always struggle in the Championship. Typically 6 clubs have parachute payments, another 6 to 10 with billionaires using their clubs as vanity projects, leaving us to fight at the bottom end of the table. That doesn’t mean the only policies are either bankruptcy or signing lots of unknown youth players.

We may disagree but that’s doesn’t mean one of us is right. I’m sure we both want the best for Barnsley FC, we have marginally differing views on how to go about it.

 

Fair enough and thanks for the clarification of your position.

 

Does it mention whether the club pay rent fir the ground and if so how much and who to ?
TIA