Financial restrictions at the Albion hampering the playing budget?

[The Large One]

Martin Perry was instrumental in having the stadium built on this site. I don't really understand why these additional transport costs have come as a surprise to him. Surely this would all have come out in a feasibility study years ago?

You have to bear in mind not everyone paid their train fare, nor for a travel voucher. In fact, the majority didn't.

'Dishonest' was a word often used on here to describe that practice.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Martin Perry was instrumental in having the stadium built on this site. I don't really understand why these additional transport costs have come as a surprise to him. Surely this would all have come out in a feasibility study years ago?

How much have rail fares/bus transport costs spiralled since those feasibility studies were done?

 

[Titus]

This is just scaremongering. Sales of just about everything has exceeded expectations at the Amex. Beer, food, tickets, shop sales, they are all well above expectations. There is nothing to worry about. FACT!

 

[Lush]

Isn't the first year in a brand new stadium a learning curve for everyone - including Tony Bloom?

He wanted the Amex to have the best and be the best, but it may be that it some areas costs are out of control compared to customer experience/income generation. Other contracts (Azure?) may need to be renegotiated based on sales and performance. After the first full season it's naturally time to take stock. A new chief executive will lead that process. Nothing to see here.

 

[somerset]

......these budgetary constraints MAY have impacted upon the playing budget given to Gus, restricting the club's ability to offer competitive salaries to players, and we have lost out on the signings of Mattocks and others.
.

If this does prove to be true, it will be the one thing at this stage which will make Gus consider offers..... but I would assume we will hear Gus in the press soon if this is the case.... he doesn't normally hold back when he has something to say.

 

[The Large One]

This is just scaremongering. Sales of just about everything has exceeded expectations at the Amex. Beer, food, tickets, shop sales, they are all well above expectations. There is nothing to worry about. FACT!

I don't suppose the sales figures are the problem.

Assuming there is a problem.

 

[BigGully]

We have to balance the books, and if that means we play at the bottom end of this division, then so be it, if it means we play League One, then so be it. We must take our expected earnings - which due to our high level of ST sales is far more predictable than for many football clubs - and cut our cloth accordingly.

We should not be running the club on the basis that TB covers the losses over and over again, until he runs out of money, and then we find someone to replace him.

No, if everyone else is spending unrealistic sums, and that's the only way you can sit in the top 10 of this division, that is not a good enough reason to do that ourselves.

Aaaaahhhh but thats the normal business template, but this is football.

I fear that both scenarios whether we get subsidised by TB or cut our cloth accordingly is to a point unsustainable.

Our stadium needs to be full, it wouldnt be if we cut our cloth accordingly.

Our stadium needs to be full, it can only happen with healthy subsidy from TB.

 

[piersa]

so much conjecture with what appears to be no proof at all. I say wait for someone at the club to announce something or wait for the company accounts. Is it a ltd company?

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

so much conjecture with what appears to be no proof at all. I say wait for someone at the club to announce something or wait for the company accounts. Is it a ltd company?

The Club and the Stadium Company are both ltd companies.

 

[drew]

Everyone seems to be jumping the gun here. The last season at the Withdean saw us gearing up for a move to Amex which would include all the costs of employing a new management structure and a host of other things where running costs were probably incurred relating to the Amex long before any income was derived from it. It was also clear that there was a concerted effort to ensure promotion so that the first season at the Amex would be in the Championship. I would be interested to see what the weekly losses were in the previous 3 seasons at the Withdean. I'm no financial guru but I think it would be foolish to suggest the club are in trouble based on the accounts from the last season at Withdean.

 

[Simster]

You have to bear in mind not everyone paid their train fare, nor for a travel voucher. In fact, the majority didn't.

'Dishonest' was a word often used on here to describe that practice.

Hold on, we've moved on from this. It seems the club will recoup £650k from travel vouchers this season, but it sounds like Martin Perry is suggesting that is barely a half of the amount the club is paying in transport costs - didn't he say "well into 7 figures"?

How much have rail fares/bus transport costs spiralled since those feasibility studies were done?

Now this is possibly true, but I'm still struggling to believe a shortfal of "well into 7 figures" can be attributed to any such spiralling costs...

I know it seems to be a crime to suggest people should travel by car these days, but I think that is effectively what is costing the Albion money. At any other stadium in the country, like it or not a huge number of people will travel by car and park in public roads. There is no cost to the club when that happens. But at The Amex, they've made such a song and dance about banning cars, they have to pay for 25,000 people to travel by train and bus.

Well, I don't think there is much of a choice at that location to be honest and there was always a culture during the campaiging years that we were to tow the party line that it was Falmer or bust. If the club is having to pay well over £1m a season on unforeseen transport costs, then I'm not sure that the location will prove to be the right one in the long run. I hope I'm wrong as it's a bit late now!

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

We have to balance the books, and if that means we play at the bottom end of this division, then so be it, if it means we play League One, then so be it. We must take our expected earnings - which due to our high level of ST sales is far more predictable than for many football clubs - and cut our cloth accordingly.

We should not be running the club on the basis that TB covers the losses over and over again, until he runs out of money, and then we find someone to replace him.

No, if everyone else is spending unrealistic sums, and that's the only way you can sit in the top 10 of this division, that is not a good enough reason to do that ourselves.

True. Transport and administrative costs will play a part and should be managed as efficiently as possible of course, but player wages will always be the single largest outlay. Look at Portsmouth - all that money going to the likes of John Utaka and Tal Ben Haim (who is still costing the club around £20k a week that they haven't got) without even any infrastructure improvements to show for seven years of Premier League TV cash.

Half the Championship have been running an unsustainable financial model and will have to confront their debts sooner or later - much sooner if they don't get promoted. The financial fair play measures may help, of course, but some clubs will try to find a way round them. So I agree with Gritt23 - ambition is essential, but not at the expense of the club's future.

Having said all that, I was once told by the manager of a club that was then in the Championship that their long-term plan was to stay solvent and watch all their rivals go into inevitable administration and fall past them thanks to all the points deductions they were bound to incur. Only of course, those administrations never occurred as weathier owners were found to pump in more money. And the club that intended to stay in the black and not push themselves over the edge trying to compete? Plymouth Argyle....

 

[The Large One]

Hold on, we've moved on from this. It seems the club will recoup £650k from travel vouchers this season, but it sounds like Martin Perry is suggesting that is barely a half of the amount the club is paying in transport costs - didn't he say "well into 7 figures"?

True, but how well would a levy of £70 have gone down?

We're paying a contribution towards the travel costs. I think that the club is being pretty generous on this score.

I know it's an obligation the club has to fulfil (get the majority of fans to the ground by sustainable means), but I'm just curious as to how many other clubs offer cheap subsidised transport for the surrounding four or five miles.

 

[severnside gull]

This is why threads go to 60 pages... I heard from a source close to the club that they were astounded by how much revenue they had generated and that the money-making potential at the new stadium far exceeded their original forecasts. The club undoubtedly haemorrhaged cash at Withdean but banking 18,000 season ticket sales and all the ancillary revenue at The Amex (including two decent cup runs and a few televised appearances) had put the club in rude health despite start up costs.

Rose coloured spectacles aside this makes some sense although I can see the logic expressed in the OP that operating costs have escalated (more sales staff and more stewards) which could easily have been misjudged. If that is the main reason behind Brown's departure however, I am surprised Hebberd is still there.

However, the ongoing expansion (which will incur continuing extra day-to-day operating cost committments) continues. If expansion was not cost positive I can't see why we would be quite so keen to accelerate the completion of the ground or to continue to invest in additional sales staff.

Offset that however, with the delay in the training facilities.....that should give the conspiracy theorists pause for thought. Is it because we can't afford it?

The Palace/Southampton/Portsmouth/Reading fans on here will be in a feeding frenzy sniffing blood......PROOF THAT THE BUBBLE HAS BURST AND WE ARE GOING TITS UP!

HOWEVER, Gus's biggest moan all season was that "we gave League 1 players a chance" and "we have a relatively low playing budget" with "players still on League 1 wages" etc. Not being able to compete at the top of the Championship in terms of wages seems to indicate that we are not actually overspending (or at least not massively so) in relation to the season before. I am sure someone can tell us what are the percentage costs for player/management budgets compared to other salary and wage costs but my instinct says that the likely areas of added cost are the least expensive relatively speaking.

The extra tiers of management and coaching staff we have installed will be costing significantly more but that started to be put in place the season before and should surely have been factored-in. Any company operates future cashflow and income and expenditure forecasts as a matter of course. I can quite believe they may have drifted a little but to be honest I would be surprised if it was that much. That said, something has gone awry behind the scenes or Brown would not have left quite so hastily. Note though that he was replaced with someone probably costing even more slary/bonus wise and the additional spend in behind the scenes infrastructure seem, if anything, to be accelrating not stopping. My first wild guess when Brown went was that he had screwed up the catering contract (unbelievably easy to do and incredibly often actually done) and it was not providing the income stream it needs to. I would never be surprised if news leaked out that we were re-negotiating the contract and obviously if the accounts allowed a significant income from this source there is a potential problem.

All very confusing and clearly all has not been well behind the scenes. I am certain we are losing money week by week.Is there a football club that makes an operating profit? What I am not certain about is that it is any more than the business forecasts allowed. Logically you would expect it to be "within limits" when you factor everything in.

Bear in mind too that it would take a massive fail in forecast income to impact greatly on the playing budget which is generally ring-fenced relatively speaking. My thoughts have always been that we would focus on free transfers from the top leagues or players we could develop ourselves in order to focus cash resources on enhancing player wages to a more competitive level. One marquee signing a season to focus fans on buying season tickets and leave it to the manager to get it right on the pitch. Talk of spending £5m or even £10m this season on transfer fees seem unlikely to have ever been in the budgets (unless Tony thinks they will guarantee us promotion - lets wait until January for that!).

 

[Bold Seagull]

Agreed. The Amex is enough for me. I'll take mid-table Championship football forever more quite happily.

Quite happily agree with this, it is important to be ambitious and hope to do better year on year, but not at the expense of ridiculously chasing a chance in the top flight.

I know it seems to be a crime to suggest people should travel by car these days, but I think that is effectively what is costing the Albion money. At any other stadium in the country, like it or not a huge number of people will travel by car and park in public roads. There is no cost to the club when that happens. But at The Amex, they've made such a song and dance about banning cars, they have to pay for 25,000 people to travel by train and bus.

The stadium only got planning because of a sustainable transport proposal. I'm sure the club would be delighted to be able to turn the adjacent field into a car park, but the local authority were never going to permit that. You've made it sound like a decision by the club, when in reality it is a result of planning policy.

 

[Lush]

You have to bear in mind not everyone paid their train fare, nor for a travel voucher. In fact, the majority didn't.

'Dishonest' was a word often used on here to describe that practice.

I did. Which means that it's everyone else's fault if Gus leaves, not mine.

 

[Simster]

True, but how well would a levy of £70 have gone down?

We're paying a contribution towards the travel costs. I think that the club is being pretty generous on this score.

I know it's an obligation the club has to fulfil (get the majority of fans to the ground by sustainable means), but I'm just curious as to how many other clubs offer cheap subsidised transport for the surrounding four or five miles.

Oh for fucks sake, you really do come across as an absolute club STOOGE at times. WHAT exactly is so UNFORESEEN about transport costs? There is nothing "generous" about the club paying for this at all. The fact is that £30 is all the market will bear. If they could get us to pay £70 each, that is exactly what would happen. But they can't, because that would make season tickets too expensive.

Ultimately this is beginning to sound like an absolutely massive f*** up by Martin Perry. Moaning that unforeseen transport costs are well into 7 figures a year forever more, sounds like gross incompetence of the highest order.

 

[beorhthelm]

travel costs... how can they be tracking this reliably? i get that people havent purchased vouchers as expected, many using the train are buying a ticket or eligible to travel on their rail season tickets. i dont know how buses are working, presumably you still have to pay not just show a ticket?

 

[itszamora]

I wouldn't be too surprised if this is true - the wage bill must have rocketed this season.