Wow (again!)

Our trading policy is to buy young, improve and sell on. We have developed that policy as a way of paying for that losses that we make on normal trading. It is no longer possible for the club to break even if it does not sell players and replace them with players who they buy more cheaply. Your call for a change in policy results in the club losing at least £1m per season. I am asking you these questions in order to determine the full extent of the losses you believe are reasonable, because the gap between League 1 and the Championship is so large currently that a significant investment would be required to bridge it. I want to know from you how much you think we should spend in order to bridge that gap. If you are unwilling to answer that question directly, It bears out what I said in my opening statement. That people simply ignore what they do not understand.

 

My opening remark was that people ignore what they do not understand. The above statement admits to having no knowledge of players as well as having no knowledge of finance, and yet you see yourself as ideally positioned to tell me that the clubs strategy is wrong. Let me put my cards on the table here. If I could think of an alternative strategy that I thought could work, I would be sharing it with you and the rest of the BBS at this very moment. I can't. All the other strategies that I have considered result in the club competing on the same basis as every other Championship club, and losing the £9m per season that they lose. If you know where we can get £9m per season from in order to refinance the club, then that becomes a viable alternative, but I cannot.

 

How can I give you figures based on how much a player might cost, how much we have to pay them, and how much we’ve just banked from another sale? Ridiculous question

It’s a football forum, not a visit to my accountant!

 

The article published by the BBC claims that the average losses in the Championship are £9m per season. How close would you be willing to go to this sum in order to be competitive in the Championship. How would you raise the capital neccesary to cover those losses. Surely you do not expect us to be competitive if we do not spend the same money.

 

I don’t expect us to be competitive if I’m honest, not at this level. I fully understand what were up against.

I would just like to see us resemble a football club that’s worth watching and at least looking like it’s trying to compete

**** will hit fan if we’re not competitive in league 1 when we get there.

Out of interest, out of all the players we’ve signed under this regime, how many have flourished? What’s the ratio?



I

 

Bedtime for me. Work calls

 

Wow! I ran a business exporting to over 100 countries for 35 years. As others have said, you appear to enjoy debate, but only when people agree with you. I can prove beyond doubt that the club's strategy doesn't work, at least in the short term. Just look at the league table for a second and chuck the balance sheet on the fire.

As for "no knowledge of players", are you honestly saying that in order to have an opinion on the club's strategy, I have to be able to name names? Wow!

 

Thing is all the clubs but us go bust and who's left to play against!

 

No, what I am saying is that if you question the strategy of the people who run a business, you should be able to justify the questions that you ask. You say that you ran a business that exported to 100 countries for over 35 years. If I said that you could have run that business more effectively than you did, you would expect me to be able to justify that claim. As someone who has run a business, you must realise how hard that is. You must have sympathy with others who put their heads above the parapet, who take the hard decisions that allow the business to continue to be effective and profitable in a competitive world. You will know the pressures that profitability, debt and the Balance Sheet impose. And yet you show none of the empathy that your experiences should produce in you, and when I ask you to face up to those difficult decisions, you refuse to do so.

Running a football club is a tough, high pressure environment. I certainly would not want to do it. It is an environment where almost every fan thinks he could do better than you. Earlier this season I wrote five pieces that attempted to show how difficult the environment of the Championship is. Earlier this week, in his Radio Sheffield interview, Paul Conway supported the evidence that I produced in those five Talking Finance pieces. Yesterday, the BBC produced a piece that supported the evidence that I produced in Talking Finance 2. There is still a reluctance among the supporters of Barnsley Football club to face up to reality. All I am trying to do is get the few who read my stuff to do that. It has to be said that it would be only a small step, but changing opinions is a series of small steps.

So given your record in business, are you prepared to face up to the reality of football business, especially in the Championship. Or will you continue to spin the lie that there is a magic wand that can be waved to change short term outcomes.

 

Hi Red Rain can i just ask, Im sure under one of your publications on finance, im sure i read that (and this may be as a league 1 club), we had to sell a net of £1million, in player/s every season to be sustaianable, is that right?

 

Why will we not be competitive in League 1. Instead of approaching everything that our owners do in a negative frame of mind, why don't you try to change your assumptions. Why don't you assume that their decisions were taken for the long term good of the club and try to make sense of them on that basis, rather than the impossible short term basis of a single season. Why don't you try to reshape your thought processes in a positive way, a way that ignores the short term problems and looks at how club fortune might be improved in the longer term, the 4 years that the young player contracts cover.

 

That statement related to the accounts of 2017/18 season, when we were a Championship club. We just about broke even for that season, even after we made a profit on transfers of just over £1m.

 

That just about sums up your complete utter lack of respectful debating skills. Who do you think you are?

 

Thank you. i guess that means though, that this is not applicable now?

 

Clean sheets are king!

 

Because we’re paying to watch what’s on offer this season. if your mate Conway wants to do a ‘buy now, pay when we start winning games’ scheme then let me know.

I don’t normally have a negative view, but I’m making exception for this lot.

 

Why did you just pick out part of what I wrote. Why didn't you quote the whole sentence. Why didn't you quote the whole post. Me thinks you picked out 3 words just to make me look bad. I think I will leave it there.

 

Fair enough.

 

Good idea, but if I may have one more word. I honestly enjoy reading your football tactics posts, I really do, and I've commented on them at times. But financially you seem incapable of accepting that there may be another way to the one that is so obviously failing miserably. But as you say, let's leave it there.

 

I'm sorry, but in order to leave you with the last word, you have to say something a bit less controversial than that. This subject began when I alluded to people commenting on things that they do not have a proper understanding of (finance). I actually do have a good understanding of that subject, and I feel on home ground commenting upon things that I do understand. To say that I am incapable of accepting another view assumes that I know nothing of the subject and am writing as a complete layman, which is not the case.