The end of football as we know it?

[One Team In Keynsham]

22 minutes ago, 054123 said:

There is a colonel of truth in this.

For years we have been told that the wages footballers receive (whilst Seemingly increasing at an alarmingly fast rate) were simply market forces at play and reflected the burgeoning incomes of clubs.

Guess what, football suddenly can’t afford to pay these wages anymore. Just like airlines, hotels and many other industries that are struggling.

I have every sympathy for them as ‘workers’ but to be honest football is just football, it was popular before tv and will be popular long after.

Im sorry that in amongst all of this footballers have suddenly found themselves on extraordinary wages.

Sanders, Tom Parker or Bogey?

[Spoons]

Laughable that people want the government to bail out football clubs paying players ££££ each week. 

Seriously premier League has received billions over last 20 years, maybe they should have put some of it away for things like this! 

I don't want £1 going to football clubs, every Penny must go into NHS etc. 

[JoeAman08]

1 hour ago, Matthew me said:

So we help the clubs that are still signing players and asking for handouts???

Not a chance. That's total and utter madness 

If clubs can afford to sign new players and add to their wage bill, they shouldn't be asking for funds! It's totally sickening to believe people who've lost their jobs, companies and loved ones will have to get on with it.... While we consider paying football wages .

Take a deep breath and consider the reality of that. It's beyond madness 

Wealthy owners need to pay! Not us

Business goes on. Signing players is investing in the club. Other companies are still hiring people or paying for advertisement. You can’t just say you can’t sign anyone because of covid. Especially lower league clubs where contracts are usually 1 or two year deals. They will lose more money if relegated. Just because it differs from how most businesses run it doesn’t make it exempt from similar problems and competition. 

[054123]

47 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Except in the Championship for a number of years, wages alone have exceeded turnover- and perhaps in the bottom two divisions in various cases as well- market forces to a point but even when times were good wages as a whole, and at the majority of clubs at this level have been in excess of turnover- that's an artifical bubble.

Precisely. I do honestly have sympathy with the situation that Covid-19 is causing a lot of individuals, however I have a lot less where where footballers and football overall is concerned.

[054123]

31 minutes ago, One Team In Keynsham said:

Sanders, Tom Parker or Bogey?

Sanders every time

Never liked Parker, I felt he held Elvis back

[DaveInSA]

I think I heard on the radio last week that when the PL was formed, the EFL rejected a clause that would give them 25% of the PL revenues...

...that might be handy right now

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

13 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

Business goes on. Signing players is investing in the club. Other companies are still hiring people or paying for advertisement. You can’t just say you can’t sign anyone because of covid. Especially lower league clubs where contracts are usually 1 or two year deals. They will lose more money if relegated. Just because it differs from how most businesses run it doesn’t make it exempt from similar problems and competition. 

It's a hard one because one article I saw suggested 49% of companies had no hiring plans this or next year- don't know if it was the full sample size or if it was extrapolated from say one company from one sector, one from another etc- could be sector top heavy for some ie 80% of a sector won't hire.

[Matthew me]

14 minutes ago, JoeAman08 said:

Business goes on. Signing players is investing in the club. Other companies are still hiring people or paying for advertisement. You can’t just say you can’t sign anyone because of covid. Especially lower league clubs where contracts are usually 1 or two year deals. They will lose more money if relegated. Just because it differs from how most businesses run it doesn’t make it exempt from similar problems and competition. 

You can say "don't sign players" if you're skint and want someone else to pay for it

[One Team In Keynsham]

Just now, Mr Popodopolous said:

It's a hard one because one article I saw suggested 49% of companies had no hiring plans this or next year- don't know if it was the full sample size or if it was extrapolated from say one company from one sector, one from another etc- could be sector top heavy for some ie 80% of a sector won't hire.

Better be careful what you say here, otherwise our resident forum statistics and sampling expert (sic) will be all over you like a bad rash.

[Mr Popodopolous]

6 minutes ago, DaveInSA said:

I think I heard on the radio last week that when the PL was formed, the EFL rejected a clause that would give them 25% of the PL revenues...

...that might be handy right now

 

This and this might be relevant! A familiar name in situ at the PL at that time...

[Bar BS3]

3 hours ago, TonyTonyTony said:

It sits comfortably with you that Man U are bidding close to 100 Million on Sancho, Chelsea have spent>200M on players - Bales salary is hundreds of thousands of pounds etc etc etc, yet they cant fund a survival package for the national game ? It would be a PR disaster for the PL if they sat back and did nothing. The taxpayer is a line of last resort - the game needs to step up.

This. 

I was surprised at the early replies, suggesting it's not for the Premier league to help out. I'd say that's exactly where the help should be coming from imo, with the money they get given. 

Way more so their responsibility to save the foundations of football, than the government, who need to be concentrating on helping the NHS and the average working person. 

[pillred]

4 hours ago, Matthew me said:

This is wrong.

People want the government to pay footballers salaries at a time when nurses earn £25k per year. Get a grip. 

It's not tax payers money that should be paying for footballers to play. It should be spent on the NHS and the true hero's of this pandemic 

Why don't they start by asking the wealthy owners to pay!!! Same as they did with virgin and Branson?

Scrap the FFP for a year and let owners fund it!...

Failing that, players have to take a pay cut.

Delay vat returns for a year

Do a deal with sky to broadcast all matches on tele instead of net.

Sell of naming rights, 10 year season tickets, etc etc 

Thanks for saying that, I was going to post the same thing myself, it would just be plain wrong to use taxpayers money from people earning a few hundred a week to fund even league one players on thousands, would hate to see any club go to the wall but maybe after this sanity will prevail wage wise for footballers. but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[2015]

1 minute ago, Bar BS3 said:

This. 

I was surprised at the early replies, suggesting it's not for the Premier league to help out. I'd say that's exactly where the help should be coming from imo, with the money they get given. 

Way more so their responsibility to save the foundations of football, than the government, who need to be concentrating on helping the NHS and the average working person. 

Yes, in theory it should be, but you don't see Tesco or Asda caring about Somerfields going bankrupt. It's a business, unfortunately Manchester United's responsibility is to focus on Manchester United and not the likes of Wrexham or Boreham Wood.

[Sir Geoff]

1 minute ago, 2015 said:

Yes, in theory it should be, but you don't see Tesco or Asda caring about Somerfields going bankrupt. It's a business, unfortunately Manchester United's responsibility is to focus on Manchester United and not the likes of Wrexham or Boreham Wood.

You beat me to it. When did you last see Sainsbury’s bailing out the corner shop.

 

[Bar BS3]

5 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Yes, in theory it should be, but you don't see Tesco or Asda caring about Somerfields going bankrupt. It's a business, unfortunately Manchester United's responsibility is to focus on Manchester United and not the likes of Wrexham or Boreham Wood.

Iddividually, of course not, but there's no reason that 5-10%, for example, of the Premier league TV revenue pot couldnt be allocated to a support fund for lower level football. 

Not sure what the practicalities are, but it's no less an option than the government bailing them out with our money, that has many other things that it needs to help with. 

The only difference it would make to Premier league clubs is a little less profit, or time to slightly trim back the outrageous sums they spend on transfer fees and wages. 

IMHO. 

[2015]

4 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

Iddividually, of course not, but there's no reason that 5-10%, for example, of the Premier league TV revenue pot couldnt be allocated to a support fund for lower level football. 

Not sure what the practicalities are, but it's no less an option than the government bailing them out with our money, that has many other things that it needs to help with. 

The only difference it would make to Premier league clubs is a little less profit, or time to slightly trim back the outrageous sums they spend on transfer fees and wages. 

IMHO. 

Essentially though if you are saying Prem League TV revenue then that comes down to the subscribers which are football fans, maybe if people stopped subscribing and actually watched games live at the stadiums it would help these non league clubs out a bit more? It isn't just the Premier League and the clubs to blame it is also the 'fans' who subscribe to the sports channels which feed the league with ludicrous money. There are too many reasons why the clubs earn stupid money and armchair fans which have quadrupled over the last 20 years shoulder part of the blame, imo.

Maybe if the non league clubs put themselves in the shop window a bit more like Accrington Stanley did in giving out free shirts within a certain postcode it would help them, but they simply cannot compete when so many people would prefer to just watch Liverpool vs Arsenal on tv than go and watch Bath City vs Eastleigh live.

[IAmNick]

Bail the clubs out, but in return have them become part fan owned.

Also, who cares if a lot of clubs lose money and need help? It's a failing of our society that we judge things on one factor only: Whether it makes money. Local clubs are a valuable local resource and service for people.

There are plenty of things which are very important which don't or will never make money, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable for other reasons. You have local theatres and venues who need help, but the ones at the top are making loads.

The piece that doesn't sit so well with me is them being in private ownership and taking the money - so as I said, if you take the money, proportionally they should to some degree become owned by their local communities. 

And then of course change the rules to prevent the ridiculous situation we're in where the top pay extortionate salaries, are owned by people with disgustingly immoral amounts of wealth, and the rest starve

 

[ExiledAjax]

4 minutes ago, IAmNick said:

Bail the clubs out, but in return have them become part fan owned.

Also, who cares if a lot of clubs lose money and need help? It's a failing of our society that we judge things on one factor only: Whether it makes money. Local clubs are a valuable local resource and service for people.

There are plenty of things which are very important which don't or will never make money, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable for other reasons. You have local theatres and venues who need help, but the ones at the top are making loads.

The piece that doesn't sit so well with me is them being in private ownership and taking the money - so as I said, if you take the money, proportionally they should to some degree become owned by their local communities. 

And then of course change the rules to prevent the ridiculous situation we're in where the top pay extortionate salaries, are owned by people with disgustingly immoral amounts of wealth, and the rest starve

 

If clubs are resistant to fan ownership - and there may be certain things in their constitutions, or the constitutions of their holdcos, that prevent this, then at the very least I'd be looking to get clubs, or at least the stadia, declared as assets of community value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_of_community_value

Some clubs and stadia are already listed as such, and it provides some protection, in the form at least of notices, communications, and moratoriums on the sale of these assets.

If a condition of receiving government cash was the application and listing of the stadium as an ACV, then this may at least provide some comfort.

[Bar BS3]

12 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Essentially though if you are saying Prem League TV revenue then that comes down to the subscribers which are football fans, maybe if people stopped subscribing and actually watched games live at the stadiums it would help these non league clubs out a bit more? It isn't just the Premier League and the clubs to blame it is also the 'fans' who subscribe to the sports channels which feed the league with ludicrous money. There are too many reasons why the clubs earn stupid money and armchair fans which have quadrupled over the last 20 years shoulder part of the blame, imo.

Maybe if the non league clubs put themselves in the shop window a bit more like Accrington Stanley did in giving out free shirts within a certain postcode it would help them, but they simply cannot compete when so many people would prefer to just watch Liverpool vs Arsenal on tv than go and watch Bath City vs Eastleigh live.

I completely agree in general, but the whole issue at the moment is that nobody can go and support/attend any game. 

[2015]

1 minute ago, Bar BS3 said:

I completely agree in general, but the whole issue at the moment is that nobody can go and support/attend any game. 

Lets be fair though, a majority of Non league clubs have been teetering on the edge for a long time now, it's only now where money is tight in general that there is now a huge issue. This has been coming for a long time.

[JoeAman08]

49 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

It's a hard one because one article I saw suggested 49% of companies had no hiring plans this or next year- don't know if it was the full sample size or if it was extrapolated from say one company from one sector, one from another etc- could be sector top heavy for some ie 80% of a sector won't hire.

I am not sure of any stats so thanks. I am just saying that there are other companies spending on things such as new staff, advertisement etc. The economy has slowed but it has not stopped. Clubs need to sign players to help them bring in revenue. The debate about how footballer are paid is legitimate but no one foresaw a global pandemic. Many industries have been caught out by it. Where I work we had bought millions in stock. Are we to be punished because we spent that money? We won’t sell it all at once. Football spends millions on players to survive like businesses buy stock or supplies. The world has let the entertainment world earn more than doctors, teachers, carers etc. That isn’t on football and there should be aid for struggling clubs who have done no wrong.

48 minutes ago, Matthew me said:

You can say "don't sign players" if you're skint and want someone else to pay for it

Don’t look at it as players. Look at it as employees. Clubs need players to stay in business. They haven’t chosen to not have fans there. I am not suggesting Chelsea get bailed out or even Bristol City. But there are clubs like Accrington down to clubs like Weston that generally pay salaries only for players that they need to have a business. They want fans there. They want to be sustaining themselves but they can’t as the government has prevented it. Also keep in mind for every player, coach or exec there are probably another 5-10 employees at the club that need it to stay in business. 
 

Again, I believe the PL should be helping. Also it does not have to be a “bail out.” It can be zero interest loans. I am sure there are other ways to help as well but they and their staff all pay NHS and taxes to the government as well. They do their part and it wouldn’t be right of the government to just ignore that industry just because 5-6 clubs can profit hundreds of millions. 

[ashton_fan]

I would have thought they'd have to abandon FFP for this season as all clubs will make a massive loss.

It will be just our luck that we're top of the league at Christmas and the season is abandoned either directly because of the virus or because so many clubs are unable to continue.

[Bar BS3]

7 minutes ago, 2015 said:

Lets be fair though, a majority of Non league clubs have been teetering on the edge for a long time now, it's only now where money is tight in general that there is now a huge issue. This has been coming for a long time.

I'd say the bigger issue is that smaller clubs rely on gate receipts to survive, whereas the Premier League clubs don't. 

[2015]

1 minute ago, ashton_fan said:

I would have thought they'd have to abandon FFP for this season as all clubs will make a massive loss.

It will be just our luck that we're top of the league at Christmas and the season is abandoned either directly because of the virus or because so many clubs are unable to continue.

Won't happen. Clubs cannot afford to lose anymore revenue by not playing matches.

[Mr Popodopolous]

11 minutes ago, ashton_fan said:

I would have thought they'd have to abandon FFP for this season as all clubs will make a massive loss.

It will be just our luck that we're top of the league at Christmas and the season is abandoned either directly because of the virus or because so many clubs are unable to continue.

Might happen but Football League and clubs have agreed to something else- though that may have to change given the Test events now aren't happening.

They have agreed to change, but abandon? Not yet.

Is all on the Football League website.

[Matthew me]

This is NOT a serious proposal...

Just imagine teams in the Prem and champ had to adopt and support a lower league team for the next six months. Loan players, staff etc...

Who would we adopt? Cheltenham?

Imagine the goodwill and bonds between fans from the lower clubs 

[TonyTonyTony]

4 hours ago, 2015 said:

Yes, in theory it should be, but you don't see Tesco or Asda caring about Somerfields going bankrupt. It's a business, unfortunately Manchester United's responsibility is to focus on Manchester United and not the likes of Wrexham or Boreham Wood.

Is Wrexham a competitor of Man U?........no, so your example is not accurate enough. Is football purely a business or more than that? It’s more isn’t it of course. A bit of solidarity is needed here from the PL (and FA) to support the game. 

I pay for sky sports, which has played a large part in funding the Premier league which is a fantastic “product” - would I continue to pay for it if I saw small teams going out I’d business while the PL clubs continued to pay 50. Million quid for a player? I’d be disgusted and turn my back and I suspect many would. That is the calculation I suspect the PL are making

[Snufflelufagus]

For me the obscene wages in the Prem are surely a good thing for the tax payer? Someone mentioned Phil Foden had gone from £30000 a week to £150000 a week. Well that means in theory he is now paying about £55000 grand a week in tax which equals 2 'extra in theory' Nurses salary.

[downendcity]

9 hours ago, Snufflelufagus said:

For me the obscene wages in the Prem are surely a good thing for the tax payer? Someone mentioned Phil Foden had gone from £30000 a week to £150000 a week. Well that means in theory he is now paying about £55000 grand a week in tax which equals 2 'extra in theory' Nurses salary.

....... Or the state benefits for the players and staff of clubs that go bust!

[oldstandrobin]

18 hours ago, Tipps69 said:

A Sunderland share holder has the nerve to complain & want help? They have been one of the worst run clubs for years!

As I have said before, poorly run clubs shouldn’t be entitled to any help whatsoever! Birmingham are asking for help, having just sold Jude Bellingham for £30m! Why should anyone have to give them money when they should of seen the necessity of what is happening?

Add these clubs to the above, Bolton, Blackpool, Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, Wigan and there are lots more clubs out there! Why should these clubs be entitled to handouts because they couldn’t look after themselves properly. These clubs have been living beyond their means for years & even in the Championship, 13 clubs have a wage bill that is at least 100% of their turnover while Readings wage was 226% of their turnover in the last accounts! While some Championship clubs still haven’t handed in their accounts while they continue to figure out how to do some creative accounting AGAIN!

Why should these clubs be entitled to any help? Yes it’s sad that we could lose them but who’s fault is it? No one has forced Bolton or Wigan or Sunderland or any club to pay beyond their means! And maybe this could be enough of a wake up call to our own supporters who constantly insist that SL has no ambition because he won’t sign player x, y or z! While he continues to pump his own millions into the club that he has no ambition for!

It’s time for clubs, owners, players & supporters to wake up because the money fairy seems to of given up!

Nail on Head. Excellent post.