Not sure if already posted (football thread)

Absolutely bang on.

 

Stop talking sense, this is a slag the owners off thread.

 

Am I misreading it? I thought we were asking for compensation if we are relegated without playing 46 games. That seems fine to me - or should we just accept that kind of financial hit while Leeds and WBA potentially get £100m apiece without fully earning it?

 

I'm probably misreading it. I assumed, as the restart of the championship has been announced, that relegation without playing the 46 games was no longer an option.

 

You may be right, but I had the impression that fully concluding the season was still an aspiration at this stage.

 

I do not think that this is a new letter. It is the same letter that went to the league last week, and is just being interpreted differently because some newspaper wanted a different slant on the story. In other words, it is the same letter that said that if the league was not finished and if we were relegated on the basis of games played to date, that there were teams not being relegated because the league had not gotten around to punishing them for breaking FFP rules, and then covering up their cheating by selling their grounds for inflated prices to connected persons. Barnsley owners and management are not complaining about being relegated. They are complaining about being relegated whilst some clubs have broken the league rules, and are escaping punishment for doing so.

I have always been consistent on this. I do not want my club or its owners to spend money recklessly. I do not want them to make the players that I watch into millionaires if that puts the continued existence of my club in doubt. There seems to be a view on the BBS that owners are there to spend all their money in subsidising my football club, and when all their money is gone, by selling the club to some more fools with more money than sense, who will do the exact same thing. I do not know where the idea came from that this is a viable business strategy, but it isn't. It is the road to ruin for successive owners, and eventually for the club. The FFP rules recognise this to be a fact, but the league has been negligent in failing to apply these rules, and to punish the clubs who break the rules. That is all that the letter is pointing out, and the slant that is being applied is one constructed by the newspaper concerned.

 

I don’t understand the hatred of the owners. Does it all stem from the fact that we sold our best players because we always do that. I know some people hoped they wouldn’t as the owners are supposedly personally wealthy but they’re doing the same as we have always done and are keeping us within the FFP rules and ensuring the books are balanced, something that we all want. I’d rather be rubbish and not in debt than rubbish and in debt or even good and in debt. There’s nothing wrong with the letter that has been sent but people hate it because it was our new owners that sent it.

 

It's not selling the best players - that happens. I understand the reasoning behind that. It's replacing them with lots and lots of poor, untested kids. Then sacking the manager. Then releasing a 21 word statement. Then going silent and not saying anything to the customers, sorry fans. But speaking to the press. Then trying to buy another club. Then another one. All whilst still not communicating anything to us.

 

Hmmm...But haven’t they done exactly this with the sub-standard wholesale player gambles they signed up prior to the start of the season that have shown they weren’t of the desired quality to sustain championship survival? This after selling most of the promotion winning spine of our team? I’d say that was pretty reckless imho, no?

 

They've only run it well in that they're keeping the spending sustainable. But they've failed entirely with their player sales and recruitment. An absolute shower.

 

The letter has merit. If clubs are relegated following the remaining games being played behind closed doors, then the integrity of the league has been compromised. The point made about losing the crowd's impact when you have home advantage is valid, when the team you are playing had that advantage earlier in the season. I know this applies to all clubs, but it depends on what games you still have to play. I honestly don't think Conway expects to get this money if Barnsley are relegated; he's just hoping they re-think the question of relegation if there's a chance of legal action put forward by all the relegated clubs from the Championship, League 1 and League 2.

 

I don't think any club should be taking the additional financial hit of relegation in the present circumstances. That's why the season should have been scrubbed. Giving relegated clubs some sort of parachute payment would be an alternative.

 

Agreed. And if one good thing can come from the global pandemic, it might be a more realistic financial approach in professional football. The bubble had to burst sooner or later and this is the chance to change things for the better. Maybe a salary cap or even stricter FFP rules and return the game to where it should be.

 

When we sell a player, it is because he wants to go. His contract is approaching its end (usually 1 year to go), he has been asked to negotiate a new contract and he has refused to do so because he thinks (quite rightly) that he can get more money elsewhere. We are attempting to strike a deal with the player that is beneath his current market value in the pay market. Whether that market value is a false value, and is simply that high because another Championship club is willing to break FFP rules to pay said amount is another question. I will let it rest for now that his market value elsewhere is more than we can afford to pay. The fee that we negotiate for the player will be in line with the player's value in the pay market. If the fee that we receive is £3m, then the player will expect to receive that sort of sum over his 3 year contract. That is, he will expect to be paid at a rate of £1m per season (about £20k per week), that being the rate of pay for a player who is worth that sort of transfer fee.

If we went out and tried to spend the whole of the fee the fee that we receive on one play, replacing like with like, we have to be prepared to pay the player a rate of pay that we could not afford for the player we sold. We have to be prepared to pay the market rate, the rate set by clubs who themselves cannot afford to pay without getting into FFP trouble. We need an alternative strategy. We need a strategy that subsidises the losses that the club makes on trading and that does not make those losses worse by increasing our wage bill. We need a strategy that means player improvement and sale at a profit becomes part of our trading strategy. We need our current trading strategy.

Unfortunately, that strategy means that we struggle to compete on the field with clubs who are prepared to cheat on the already generous FFP rules. Should the league apply those rules properly, or should our owners be as illogical as all the rest, and cheat the rules as well?

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/...barnsley-sound-the-alarm-of-financial-failure

are we going under ?

 

Looks like it. Anyone that's renewed wants feeling up.

 

It made it pretty obvious the owners didn't intend putting any of their own money forward.

 

Sounds like an offer?

 

That’s nothing new though.

We’ll be fine, they’re just trying to minimise the losses from relegation.