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[Albion] Email Update from Paul Barber



Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
55,575
Back in Sussex
I know some don't get the emails, so just sharing in case anyone missed this...

Following the Prime Minister’s statement on Tuesday evening and new covid-19 restrictions being put in place across the country - some of which will continue to directly affect the football club - I wanted to update supporters on how this affects the prospect of you returning to watch matches at the American Express Community Stadium.

Alongside fellow Premier League and EFL clubs, scientific experts, and government advisors, led by the Sports Ground Safety Authority, we have spent the last few months developing new guidelines and a code of conduct for your return to stadiums up and down the country. We used these for the pilot event we staged at the Amex back in August.

The guidelines have been designed to keep you and your fellow fans safe, and there is already evidence from European leagues, who have adopted similar measures for the return of fans, that they are entirely effective. Very importantly for us, they have also had the seal of approval from the 2,500 Albion fans who attended the Chelsea friendly, with the overwhelming majority feeling entirely safe.

In light of that progress, and after a considerable amount of hard work from the club’s staff and excellent co-operation from the fans who attended the pilot event, we had hoped to be safely welcoming fans back to the Amex for league games next month. Indeed, I remain convinced that our controlled environment is, and would be, safer than many others people are experiencing at the present time.

Like everyone else though, we are very concerned by, the rising coronavirus infection rate, not least because winter already places huge demands on the NHS. We have always maintained the safety of players, staff and fans is paramount and so, while we are very disappointed to see plans for fans returning to games paused, it is necessary for us to maintain perspective.

That said, the importance of re-starting our business at the earliest opportunity cannot be under-estimated. Clubs at all levels need the support of their fans for sporting, community and financial reasons. We are doing all we can to support ourselves, to pay our own way, and to be good citizens but the financial pressure on all clubs is mounting, and the status quo is simply not sustainable for any of us.

As an industry, the cost of playing behind closed doors cost Premier League clubs some £700m last season, and it is currently costing football clubs at all levels around £100m per month. With this, the livelihoods of many thousands of people in our industry, along with even more in the numerous industries that support us, and the communities we all serve, are now under real threat.

Unfortunately, at this point, we cannot say when we will be able to welcome you back to the Amex. The Prime Minister has suggested that current restrictions may have to stay in place for six months, but we remain confident and expectant that fans will be able to return to watch games sooner, even if it is in smaller numbers than might have hoped for a month or so ago.

So, please be assured that we will continue to work on and refine our plans for your safe return to games as soon as possible. We will also continue to support the Premier League and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s combined efforts to find an urgent solution that works for the football industry at all levels while also supporting the Government’s efforts to control the virus.

Your support - moral, financial, and sporting - for our club through this terrible national crisis has been unwavering, and we are extremely grateful. And, when the time comes for you to return, we will need you to continue to play your part by following whatever guidelines are in place at this time to keep you, your families and friends, and our staff as safe as possible.

Football is not the same without fans, and the football economy is unsustainable without you. We know how much you are missing meeting up with family and friends at games, and how much you are longing for your normal routine of going to the match. We are also well aware we are currently relying on your goodwill to support the club through the toughest and most unpredictable of times.

Separately, and to ensure you are fully prepared for your return to watch matches, we will be writing to you to outline more details of how the likely balloting process will work, and how you can link together with family members and friends.

In the meantime you have my word that we will do all we can to help colleagues up and down the country convince Government that we can safely stage matches with fans present; that, supported by our chairman and board, we will do all we can to protect 2,000 local jobs directly and indirectly sustained by our club; and in the meantime that we will continue to focus on the football to ensure we build on our solid start to the new season.

Thank you, once again, for your patience, for your encouragement, and for your countless messages of support. It means a lot to all of us.

Best wishes,


Paul Barber
Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman
 


Ecosse Exile

New member
May 20, 2009
3,549
Alicante, Spain
Bloody hell, that was a long way of saying "sorry guy's, but it's down to the government, hopefully see you before the end of the season cos we're gonna be skint if this keeps going"
 




Pondicherry

Well-known member
May 25, 2007
1,027
Horsham
More thinking to be done by the higher paid players maybe?

Exactly. Its a bit rich anyone in the Premier League (and lots of Championship clubs as well) complaining about finances when the players earn more in a week than most people do in a year. The only thing making Premier League football not sustainable at the moment is player (and staff in some cases) wages. Indeed, player wages in the Premier League could sustain the whole of the football league pyramid in England if the TV money was distributed more evenly.
 


banjo

GOSBTS
Oct 25, 2011
13,233
Deep south
If the players chipped in I’d happily still carry on paying my reduced season ticket money in the hope once this is all over I’d have my club still in business to support. Just to add I’m fortunate enough to be able to do so.
 




Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,674
Location Location
Our overall income for season 2018/19 was around £144m (with TV broadcasting accounting for the lions share of that, obvs). About £18m of that was matchday income, or about 12%. Assuming these figures haven't altered drastically, I would hope we could absorb a 12% drop in income, particularly when you consider what that drop would be if we got relegated.

I'm not making light of this BTW, I appreciate the club has made losses overall even in the PL. But its worth having some perspective on what impact losing matchday income actually has on a PL club - a 12% hit ts manageable all the time we are getting TV money in. I've seen and taken part in idle speculation over theories that with the scale of TV money these days, clubs in the PL could afford to play in front of empty stadiums with no fans present. Unpalletable as we now know that is, this crisis is kind of proving the point.

This obviously does not apply to EFL clubs.
 


raymondo

Well-known member
Apr 26, 2017
5,386
Wiltshire
Exactly. Its a bit rich anyone in the Premier League (and lots of Championship clubs as well) complaining about finances when the players earn more in a week than most people do in a year. The only thing making Premier League football not sustainable at the moment is player (and staff in some cases) wages. Indeed, player wages in the Premier League could sustain the whole of the football league pyramid in England if the TV money was distributed more evenly.

It certainly feels like its time for some rebalancing - the lower league clubs must be suffering badly, while some fortunes are still being spent this season in the Premier League, on both new hires and new contracts.
 


Lower West Stander

Well-known member
Mar 25, 2012
4,753
Back in Sussex
Exactly. Its a bit rich anyone in the Premier League (and lots of Championship clubs as well) complaining about finances when the players earn more in a week than most people do in a year. The only thing making Premier League football not sustainable at the moment is player (and staff in some cases) wages. Indeed, player wages in the Premier League could sustain the whole of the football league pyramid in England if the TV money was distributed more evenly.

Agreed.

Any other business with the fixed costs (mainly wages) to turnover ratios that football clubs have wouldn’t last 5 minutes.

I’m also not very thrilled about the fact that the 2020/21 season ticket I paid up front for in February is staying in the club for another year. Feels like we’re subsidising player wages.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 






raymondo

Well-known member
Apr 26, 2017
5,386
Wiltshire
Our overall income for season 2018/19 was around £144m (with TV broadcasting accounting for the lions share of that, obvs). About £18m of that was matchday income, or about 12%. Assuming these figures haven't altered drastically, I would hope we could absorb a 12% drop in income, particularly when you consider what that drop would be if we got relegated.

I'm not making light of this BTW, I appreciate the club has made losses overall even in the PL. But its worth having some perspective on what impact losing matchday income actually has on a PL club - a 12% hit ts manageable all the time we are getting TV money in. I've seen and taken part in idle speculation over theories that with the scale of TV money these days, clubs in the PL could afford to play in front of empty stadiums with no fans present. Unpalletable as we now know that is, this crisis is kind of proving the point.

This obviously does not apply to EFL clubs.
Thanks for the data, that's really interesting. Possibly for the lower leagues, those percentages could be reversed.
 


Super Steve Earle

Well-known member
Feb 23, 2009
8,313
North of Brighton
Agreed.

Any other business with the fixed costs (mainly wages) to turnover ratios that football clubs have wouldn’t last 5 minutes.

I’m also not very thrilled about the fact that the 2020/21 season ticket I paid up front for in February is staying in the club for another year. Feels like we’re subsidising player wages.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

But the money isn't necessarily staying in the club for another year. If we get the go ahead to play in front of fans in November December January or any of the season, the ballot starts and if we get a ticket, the money in the pot gets drawn down to pay for it.
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,347
Faversham
Achieving the word count for the dissertation at uni wouldn’t have been a problem for our Paul

It would if I were marking. The Introduction should not be 90% of the whole. It's an F from me, I'm afraid.
 




Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,674
Location Location
Thanks for the data, that's really interesting. Possibly for the lower leagues, those percentages could be reversed.

Admittedly this is just back-of-a-fag-packet stuff based on the numbers I have seen for 2018-19, and maybe our resident DULLARD [MENTION=31]El Presidente[/MENTION] could put me right, but as long as the broadcasting rights continue at the current levels, and we don't go down, then along with the rest of the PL clubs its not yet financially critical to get fans back into PL stadiums IMO.
 






Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patreon
Oct 8, 2003
49,347
Faversham




Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,674
Location Location
Exactly. Its a bit rich anyone in the Premier League (and lots of Championship clubs as well) complaining about finances when the players earn more in a week than most people do in a year. The only thing making Premier League football not sustainable at the moment is player (and staff in some cases) wages. Indeed, player wages in the Premier League could sustain the whole of the football league pyramid in England if the TV money was distributed more evenly.

I certainly agree with the principal. But the BILLIONS the PL draws in from broadcasting rights from here and all over the world dictates that the stars of this massively successful "product" will receive an extremely large chunk of it.

Tom Cruise earned about $75m for Mission Impossible: Fallout. It was a worldwide box office smash. Now you may or may not think he was worth that kind of wedge from that particular movie, but thats what his worldwide pulling power brought in for Paramount Studios, hence his sizeable reward. You don't see anyone saying that he should share a chunk of that with the cast of Emmerdale and Mrs Brown's Boys, do you.
 









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