It is not Bloom, Barber or even Burke...... It is FFP

[upthealbion1970]

Regardless of the whether FFP works for the league, Tony had already implemented his own FFP on us.

He is only willing to p*ss so much of his own money away on the club, the vast majority of which he wants solid assets in return (stadium, training ground, hotel). He is determined not to drive this club into debt and to the edge of extinction again.

I personally am very grateful for what he has given us, for the manner in which he has given it to us and for the reasons he won't give us any more than we absolutely need (whether FFP restricts him or not).

If the price we pay for his generosity and stewardship of the club is that a few fans go into complete melt down because :
A manager walked away because he had a hugely inflated opinion of his own abilities;
Another manager walked because, it seems, he has a hugely DEFLATED opinion of his abilities (to get a team to the play offs given the obstacles he has faced is a hell of an achievement);
We stay for an extended period in the second tier of English football;
...and the alternative is to gamble EVERYTHING on getting to this promised land called the PL, where most clubs are still losing money, then I'm with Tony, not Anton, Randy or Malcolm.

Well said that man

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

I can believe that. Someone posted a graphic showing championship clubs' income for 12/13 on here a few weeks back, which included parachute payments. Ours was higher than Burnley's, even with their 8m parachute payment, and certainly higher than Palace's.

Is it players or staff that are on more than they should be ? I think people would gasp if they knew what players earn a week and actually nothing adds up if you think we could not afford to keep Glenn or Conway....

Something is not right, but what is it ?

 

[dazzer6666]

Regardless of the whether FFP works for the league, Tony had already implemented his own FFP on us.

He is only willing to p*ss so much of his own money away on the club, the vast majority of which he wants solid assets in return (stadium, training ground, hotel). He is determined not to drive this club into debt and to the edge of extinction again.

I personally am very grateful for what he has given us, for the manner in which he has given it to us and for the reasons he won't give us any more than we absolutely need (whether FFP restricts him or not).

If the price we pay for his generosity and stewardship of the club is that a few fans go into complete melt down because :
A manager walked away because he had a hugely inflated opinion of his own abilities;
Another manager walked because, it seems, he has a hugely DEFLATED opinion of his abilities (to get a team to the play offs given the obstacles he has faced is a hell of an achievement);
We stay for an extended period in the second tier of English football;
...and the alternative is to gamble EVERYTHING on getting to this promised land called the PL, where most clubs are still losing money, then I'm with Tony, not Anton, Randy or Malcolm.

Thank you for this, spot on.

 

[skipper734]

£22 million for that lot, found wanting.......... twice! Just goes to show despite refinancing, how well our friends up the road have done.

 

[Vegas Seagull]

Burnley had a wage bill of £15.6 million last year, Palace's was £12 million (before promotion bonuses) and Derby was about £14 million. The Albion's was £22 million.

Good stats, anyone know how ours is distributed!?

Is that players wages only...? If so who paid 22 players a £1m a year when only 6 or 7 are with it?

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Good stats, anyone know how ours is distributed!?

Is that players wages only...? If so who paid 22 players a £1m a year when only 6 or 7 are with it?

Not forgetting Loan fees, signing on fees, Agents fees, settlement of contracts the list goes on....

 

[Gritt23]

I am disappointed with Oscar as he has basically just quit when things got tough.

I don't see it that way. Have things "got tough"? Not from the fans it hasn't. We're not fighting relegation. If 6th is "tough" then we really are dining at a very posh table indeed.

Perhaps wrongly, and with very little foundation at all, I have always seen Oscar as a man of respect, honour, and determination. We've finished top 6, which is a very credible achievement, and I don't think there has been anything other than support from the stands. It's only "got tough" if the Board are giving him a hard time that 6th is NOT good enough, but not signing the players that he needs to achieve more.

It seems to me, that he has come to the same conclusion as Gus, that reaching the play-offs is our glass ceiling under current financial restraints. Maybe he doesn't feel he is getting what he was promised as far as players, or maybe he feels the Boards expectations cannot be met with the players they deliver.

What we need to do is accept what are realistic targets given the realism of the financial constraints. We can't lose £14m a year, we need to cut our cloth accordingly, but clearly something for Oscar wasn't as we painted it to him last summer.

 

[The Terminator]

I think it might be west brom

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Is it players or staff that are on more than they should be ? I think people would gasp if they knew what players earn a week and actually nothing adds up if you think we could not afford to keep Glenn or Conway....

Something is not right, but what is it ?

The CEO is on £480K. Those figures are for all the staff, players, coaching, background admin and bosses.

 

[el_ciddy]

Our "recruitment dept." has been shockingly bad this season, whoever is recommending the dross we've had should go, he's clearly failed miserably.

Send them to corp entertainment or a 1901 lounge to regale people with their comedic efforts and thoughts behind Lita, Obika, Spainish Rod and giving away a first team starting spot to lingaard.

 

[Silverhatch]

The biggest ever Euromillions win in this country is £160m. If you'd won this and taken on project Albion you'd have **** all left by now! Tony Bloom is a shrewd man and a gambler, as the media are fond of pointing out, but his biggest punt is on whether the limp-wristed, spineless, administrators and guardians of football will have the balls to carry out their threats re: FFP. If they do then the Albion's approach will probably result in an even more competitive football club. If they don't then it'll be mega-interesting to see how TB plays his hand.

As pointed out by everyone, we still need to find a manager/coach who can really get a tune out of a pretty talented, but injury-hit, squad. The club is still work in progress and there will probably be tweaks, changes going on all the time. The structure is probably right for a modern football business. The problem is that the guardians of British football appear to be self-interested dinosaurs.

 

[el_ciddy]

The CEO is on £480K.

Unfortunately the more he saves the club the more he will get paid.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

At the risk of raising hackles in a few quarters, here's a certain Uruguayan speaking to The Independent last April.

"People think it [Financial Fair Play] will make teams more equal, but it will make things worse. Ten teams will be spending fortunes over three years of parachute payments and 10 teams will be under Financial Fair Play rules. So there will be two Championships: the ones that have been in the Premier League, and the rest. So you’ll have to be unbelievable – very smart at recruitment, players playing at their best, lucky with injuries, and then be a good team on the pitch."

Somehow Oscar got us to sixth place without many players playing at their best, and without any luck as regards injuries, so he deserved our greatest respect and thanks for that. But the phrase that jumps out at me is "very smart at recruitment" - and that's where we fell down. While we wait for our new training facilities to churn out some Wilfried Zahas and Nathaniel Clynes, we have to be even better at unearthing value.

"Smart" was finding Spanish Dave and persuading Vicente to come over, recognising that Bridge and Upson could be major contributors at this level, spotting Solly March and getting in Rohan Ince. But the opposite applies to some of our other acquisitions - Obika just filled a shirt and a space on the bench. We might as well have put Ernest in the number 22 jersey. Due diligence doesn't seem to have been done on Kemy, whom Oscar pretty quickly decided wasn't worth the effort. And getting the right player for your team pattern matters. CMS was successful in a system completely unlike ours, but we have simply refused to play to his strengths. And look how well Sam Vokes has done playing with another striker at Burnley.

Since we are at the wrong end of the FFP restrictions, we can't afford to waste any of our playing budget. And that certainly means we don't bring in players that our next head coach doesn't know and doesn't want.

 

[Stat Brother]

Unfortunately the more he saves the club the more he will get paid.

Now I'm really confused, unless you are saying:-

Barber earns more money than he generates/saves.

How the hell can it be unfortunate that Paul Barber is, day to day, running the club as efficiently as possible, under Tony's direction?

 

[el_ciddy]

Huh? I'm just saying he'll be able to keep negotiating a higher remuneration package if he keeps finding ways to reduce costs for the club. I'm concerned some of his methods are detrimental.

 

[jimhigham]

We stay for an extended period in the second tier of English football ...and the alternative is to gamble EVERYTHING on getting to this promised land called the PL, where most clubs are still losing money, then I'm with Tony, not Anton, Randy or Malcolm.

Just a thought but since we got out of the old Third Division South we have seldom spent an extended period in any division. I think five is about as much as we generally manage before we get all itchy and fancy a change of scenery. We have already spent three in the championship.

If history tells us anything, it tells us that we are going somewhere soon.

 

[father_and_son]

Just a thought but since we got out of the old Third Division South we have seldom spent an extended period in any division. I think five is about as much as we generally manage before we get all itchy and fancy a change of scenery. We have already spent three in the championship.

If history tells us anything, it tells us that we are going somewhere soon.

The alternative to going up or down previously was to change the name of the division, so if we stay here too much longer the FL will have to step in with a restructuring!

 

[Brightonfan1983]

It seems that we've been wasting wages on players that the manager didn't want.

That multi-million pound gap is a lot of players...

 

[KZNSeagull]

At the risk of raising hackles in a few quarters, here's a certain Uruguayan speaking to The Independent last April.

"People think it [Financial Fair Play] will make teams more equal, but it will make things worse. Ten teams will be spending fortunes over three years of parachute payments and 10 teams will be under Financial Fair Play rules. So there will be two Championships: the ones that have been in the Premier League, and the rest. So you’ll have to be unbelievable – very smart at recruitment, players playing at their best, lucky with injuries, and then be a good team on the pitch."

Somehow Oscar got us to sixth place without many players playing at their best, and without any luck as regards injuries, so he deserved our greatest respect and thanks for that. But the phrase that jumps out at me is "very smart at recruitment" - and that's where we fell down. While we wait for our new training facilities to churn out some Wilfried Zahas and Nathaniel Clynes, we have to be even better at unearthing value.

"Smart" was finding Spanish Dave and persuading Vicente to come over, recognising that Bridge and Upson could be major contributors at this level, spotting Solly March and getting in Rohan Ince. But the opposite applies to some of our other acquisitions - Obika just filled a shirt and a space on the bench. We might as well have put Ernest in the number 22 jersey. Due diligence doesn't seem to have been done on Kemy, whom Oscar pretty quickly decided wasn't worth the effort. And getting the right player for your team pattern matters. CMS was successful in a system completely unlike ours, but we have simply refused to play to his strengths. And look how well Sam Vokes has done playing with another striker at Burnley.

Since we are at the wrong end of the FFP restrictions, we can't afford to waste any of our playing budget. And that certainly means we don't bring in players that our next head coach doesn't know and doesn't want.

Quite. A fine post.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I don't see it that way. Have things "got tough"? Not from the fans it hasn't. We're not fighting relegation. If 6th is "tough" then we really are dining at a very posh table indeed.

Perhaps wrongly, and with very little foundation at all, I have always seen Oscar as a man of respect, honour, and determination. We've finished top 6, which is a very credible achievement, and I don't think there has been anything other than support from the stands. It's only "got tough" if the Board are giving him a hard time that 6th is NOT good enough, but not signing the players that he needs to achieve more.

It seems to me, that he has come to the same conclusion as Gus, that reaching the play-offs is our glass ceiling under current financial restraints. Maybe he doesn't feel he is getting what he was promised as far as players, or maybe he feels the Boards expectations cannot be met with the players they deliver.

What we need to do is accept what are realistic targets given the realism of the financial constraints. We can't lose £14m a year, we need to cut our cloth accordingly, but clearly something for Oscar wasn't as we painted it to him last summer.

What I meant was tough from his perspective. If the stories are to believed then he quit because he could not get what he wanted in the transfer market and had to work under tight financial constraints. I agree with your positive comments about Oscar I think he's great and did a great job within the financial restraints.

I am however disappointed that rather than try and forge ahead despite our situation he chose to leave. Of course I write this without knowing what it was that OG wanted and what TB had said was going to happen next season.

Given that I consider both Oscar and Tony to be decent men I find it sad they could not find some middle ground from which they could move forward.