Sheffield Wednesday facing administration

[Easy 10]

As a Wednesday fan, I'm frankly astonished and dismayed by some of the reaction posted by Brighton fans on here.

Please, if you have any questions about our situation, fire away and I'll do my best to answer them, but take into account that none of this is the fan's fault and ultimately it is us who will suffer if the club does enter administration or worse.

As Terry says (hi btw ) we have signed 'high profile' players this summer, but we released more than we have signed and one of the players we released was one Mr Francis Jeffers. I think you can guess what kind of wedge he was on.

As for Mellor, well he's only on loan and apparently only agreed to join us because of Irvine. Maybe, just maybe, we're not paying his full wages?

As for the board, there about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. They own 30% of our shares (which given our share spread is actually a majority) so even if we wanted to get rid of them at AGMs or EGMs we can't. There's no one (really) to replace them anyway so we're stuck in limbo.

We did have a ray of hope in Lee Strafford who was Chairman until May, he's now been replaced by Howard Wilkinson who seems to at least have his heart in the right place and a sensible head on his shoulders.

We've just got to hope and pray an investor is crazy enough to buy us now rather than getting us for less than a quarter of the price post administration, or something else equally miraculous happens.

Nobody is blaming the fans, it goes without saying that none of this is your fault.

However, much like Palace, your club has maintained itself at an artificially high level with a squad of players you could not afford. Its one thing to shed some of those players and finally get them off the wagebill, but when you're keeping some of your better ones (Tudgay) and making further additions who will probably be too good for this League (Mellor), then sympathy starts to run a bit dry.

We've had to sell most if not all of our better players to stay solvent over the last 10 years at this dump. We've lost captains, we've lost highly rated youngsters, we've had good players on loan we've tried to sign but who've moved on, and we've struggled to compete in the transfer market because of the strict wage structure at the club (and the crappy ground of course). We've had a revolving door of some utterly TOILET lower-league dross at the club, with the odd nugget of a player thats invariably been sold and kept us afloat and meant we've not stiffed our creditors.

It just pisses some people off when big clubs like yours, with huge turnovers, run up debts to all and sundry as well as the taxman, then expect sympathy when itall catches up and the shit finally hits the fan. Cardiff, Palace, Pompey, Wednesday, have all basically taken the piss chasing the dream, some to a greater degree than others, and now its time to pay up or face the consequences.

 

[Poyningsgull]

I went into a shop the other day to buy a chocolate bar for 50p. I used to buy a larger bar for a £1, on credit, but I never paid for it.

I explained to the shopkeeper that I had no money to pay him back his £1, so I would now only want the 50p one, so could I have the 50p bar on credit...?

He said ....."f**k off".

I think he was quite right too.

Sounds like a load of old Aeros to me..

 

[cjd]

Sounds like a load of old Aeros to me..

Hi...........hope all's well with you. Say hello to your 'neighbours' in G block from me.

Wish I hadn't moved...LOL..!

 

[Gritt23]

Nobody is blaming the fans, it goes without saying that none of this is your fault.

However, much like Palace, your club has maintained itself at an artificially high level with a squad of players you could not afford. Its one thing to shed some of those players and finally get them off the wagebill, but when you're keeping some of your better ones (Tudgay) and making further additions who will probably be too good for this League (Mellor), then sympathy starts to run a bit dry.

We've had to sell most if not all of our better players to stay solvent over the last 10 years at this dump. We've lost captains, we've lost highly rated youngsters, we've had good players on loan we've tried to sign but who've moved on, and we've struggled to compete in the transfer market because of the strict wage structure at the club (and the crappy ground of course). We've had a revolving door of some utterly TOILET lower-league dross at the club, with the odd nugget of a player thats invariably been sold and kept us afloat and meant we've not stiffed our creditors.

It just pisses some people off when big clubs like yours, with huge turnovers, run up debts to all and sundry as well as the taxman, then expect sympathy when itall catches up and the shit finally hits the fan. Cardiff, Palace, Pompey, Wednesday, have all basically taken the piss chasing the dream, some to a greater degree than others, and now its time to pay up or face the consequences.

Exactly.

Maybe we shouldn't have sold Dean Saunders for £60k to Oxford to keep the bank happy, we should have just rolled the debt through administration and carried on regardless. Little did we know what the rest of football would be doing over the next 25 years, we thought you had to cut your cloth according to your income, and stay afloat no matter what.

Football has become an embarrassment financially. It has never had so much cash swilling around in the trough, and yet it is hugely in debt, and doing nothing about it except shafting innocent creditors. It's a disgrace, and must stop, but won't do until someone fails to get away with it.

 

[Uwinsc]

As a Wednesday fan, I'm frankly astonished and dismayed by some of the reaction posted by Brighton fans on here.

Please, if you have any questions about our situation, fire away and I'll do my best to answer them, but take into account that none of this is the fan's fault and ultimately it is us who will suffer if the club does enter administration or worse.

As Terry says (hi btw ) we have signed 'high profile' players this summer, but we released more than we have signed and one of the players we released was one Mr Francis Jeffers. I think you can guess what kind of wedge he was on.

As for Mellor, well he's only on loan and apparently only agreed to join us because of Irvine. Maybe, just maybe, we're not paying his full wages?

As for the board, there about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. They own 30% of our shares (which given our share spread is actually a majority) so even if we wanted to get rid of them at AGMs or EGMs we can't. There's no one (really) to replace them anyway so we're stuck in limbo.

We did have a ray of hope in Lee Strafford who was Chairman until May, he's now been replaced by Howard Wilkinson who seems to at least have his heart in the right place and a sensible head on his shoulders.

We've just got to hope and pray an investor is crazy enough to buy us now rather than getting us for less than a quarter of the price post administration, or something else equally miraculous happens.

I for one wish you good luck. Hope you sort it out.

 

[Reading Seagull]

NicNac - I'm keen to stress that I agree 100% that this is not the fault of the fans and it is the fans who will very unfairly feel the pain..

BUT

Sounds like a case of, ''We need to sort this problem out....unless its my club''.

At a time when every football fan in the country agrees we need to sort out the finances of the game - the system continues to reward those who are most at fault ! Fair enough you released players etc....but the only reason you can pay the wages of the new ones is because you DID NOT pay your tax bill.

Why should we as Albion fans have to put up with playing in the bottom two tiers, a dump of a ground and no decent transfer activity while you enjoy Premier League / Championship football, an amazing ground and high profile signings because your board can't be bothered to pay tax bills

Surely you can understand why we are upset

 

[severnside gull]

It's a tough one isn't it.

Just look at us with a benefactor who has spunked £90M on a new stadium. What would happen if he got into trouble and needed a return? Just how "ring fenced" would it be and might we be in the shit as a result?

And how about all of our fans demanding in recent months that we bring in a £1M+ striker. Could we afford it? Would we get into problems? Did the fans demanding it think about that or indeed care?

Yes we have been "good boys" in the past. Some might say we have been niaive. But are we immune from getting ourselves in the mire again and having spent big in relative terms do we have any right to be holier than thou?

I have a real thing about clubs going into administration and "cheating" their non-football creditors by paying a few pence in the pound THEN GOING BACK TO BIG-SPENDING with no more chance of it being sustainable than before and with no intention of repaying their past creditors in full. THAT is immoral and I hate it and get angry about it.

Could it happen to us? Never say never. I don't know how far behind we are in paying the tax man if at all but if the football authorities had the balls to declare HMRC as preferred creditor ahead of other clubs/players you would see an instant and wholesale change in the way that they manage their affairs.

All of that aside Wednesday are nowhere near as culpable as the likes of Leeds, Portsmouth et al. They are making the right noises about potential suiters having to be focussed on the long term financial stability of the club and they have an ex-Albion man at the helm in Wilkinson so I hope they get their bills paid and move forward.

 

[Easy 10]

And how about all of our fans demanding in recent months that we bring in a £1M+ striker.

SOME fans, severnside. Some.

Most of us older than 14 were recognising just what a bone-headed thing this would be for a tinpot 3rd division club to do.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Exactly.

Maybe we shouldn't have sold Dean Saunders for £60k to Oxford to keep the bank happy, we should have just rolled the debt through administration and carried on regardless. Little did we know what the rest of football would be doing over the next 25 years, we thought you had to cut your cloth according to your income, and stay afloat no matter what.

Football has become an embarrassment financially. It has never had so much cash swilling around in the trough, and yet it is hugely in debt, and doing nothing about it except shafting innocent creditors. It's a disgrace, and must stop, but won't do until someone fails to get away with it.

There wasn't an option to go into administration and pay back creditors 1p in the £ , it was a case of pay up by the deadline or the club dies.

 

[severnside gull]

SOME fans, severnside. Some.

Most of us older than 14 were recognising just what a bone-headed thing this would be for a tinpot 3rd division club to do.

 

[SheffieldBlues]

Sheffield Wednesday, I understand were advised to delay their tax payments over the summer when income was low. This was apparently something we hadnt done in the past, but was in fact common practice amongst other clubs..however now the HMRC are having none of it as both ourselves and PNE found out.

Having said that I am no fan of our current board who have failed to come up with any innovative solutions since our fall from the Premiership, we are used to board room politics disrupting investment talks and driving one of our more innovative chairman from the club. If its not that then its the sale of our best players. I think this has probably been one of our first pro-active summers in years with the board realising that unless we retain our cash for a promotion push then the club will be even less sustainable in the long term if we languish in this league.

We have made a great deal of signings over the summer, however, our wage bill has actually decreased with Alan Irvine seemingly the main reason why the likes of Morrison and certainly Mellor wanted to join (PNE are paying a large chunk of his wages by the way). It was widely reported that within a more difficult climate for players a lot of players have actually had to "get real" with their wage demands..there is no way the likes of Teale or Morrison will be on anything like they were last season whilst Jones, Coke, Otsemobor arent big wage players. I think we are operating on a wage budget of 4-5million this season which is in line with a top league one club.

The official line is that the shock of relegation has caused this problem and over the year things will iron themselves out...we'll see. But its clear were going to keep treading water as a club unless we get investment before or after adminstration..preferably after.

 

[SheffieldBlues]

Nobody is blaming the fans, it goes without saying that none of this is your fault.

However, much like Palace, your club has maintained itself at an artificially high level with a squad of players you could not afford. Its one thing to shed some of those players and finally get them off the wagebill, but when you're keeping some of your better ones (Tudgay) and making further additions who will probably be too good for this League (Mellor), then sympathy starts to run a bit dry.

We've had to sell most if not all of our better players to stay solvent over the last 10 years at this dump. We've lost captains, we've lost highly rated youngsters, we've had good players on loan we've tried to sign but who've moved on, and we've struggled to compete in the transfer market because of the strict wage structure at the club (and the crappy ground of course). We've had a revolving door of some utterly TOILET lower-league dross at the club, with the odd nugget of a player thats invariably been sold and kept us afloat and meant we've not stiffed our creditors.

It just pisses some people off when big clubs like yours, with huge turnovers, run up debts to all and sundry as well as the taxman, then expect sympathy when itall catches up and the shit finally hits the fan. Cardiff, Palace, Pompey, Wednesday, have all basically taken the piss chasing the dream, some to a greater degree than others, and now its time to pay up or face the consequences.

To be fair, Wednesday did nothing other than fall out of the Premier League, we hadnt really been chasing anything..bad decisions were made when we were originally relegated thats where this debt came from and its about 10 years old. Anyone of any real quality at Wednesday has been sold to service the debt, thankfully having a few decent youth players has saved us from signing players from League two in the championship. There has been no "push for the premier league" as seen with Palace and Cardiff.

Wednesday this summer have had two choices, a) scrape together enough money for a strong squad to go up and get the bank to support us in the short term or b) downsize drastically, losing even more revenue in the long term and go into adminstration anyway.

 

[withdeanwombat]

I think this has probably been one of our first pro-active summers in years with the board realising that unless we retain our cash for a promotion push.........................

Retain WHOSE cash ?

 

[SheffieldBlues]

Nobody is blaming the fans, it goes without saying that none of this is your fault.

However, much like Palace, your club has maintained itself at an artificially high level with a squad of players you could not afford. Its one thing to shed some of those players and finally get them off the wagebill, but when you're keeping some of your better ones (Tudgay) and making further additions who will probably be too good for this League (Mellor), then sympathy starts to run a bit dry.

We've had to sell most if not all of our better players to stay solvent over the last 10 years at this dump. We've lost captains, we've lost highly rated youngsters, we've had good players on loan we've tried to sign but who've moved on, and we've struggled to compete in the transfer market because of the strict wage structure at the club (and the crappy ground of course). We've had a revolving door of some utterly TOILET lower-league dross at the club, with the odd nugget of a player thats invariably been sold and kept us afloat and meant we've not stiffed our creditors.

It just pisses some people off when big clubs like yours, with huge turnovers, run up debts to all and sundry as well as the taxman, then expect sympathy when itall catches up and the shit finally hits the fan. Cardiff, Palace, Pompey, Wednesday, have all basically taken the piss chasing the dream, some to a greater degree than others, and now its time to pay up or face the consequences.

Retain WHOSE cash ?

Cash coming into the club over the season I would expect.

Im not saying its the right thing to do, but clubs have been delaying tax payments until later in the season for a while until now. As I also said, the club made cuts but has had to find a balance between allowing ourselves a good chance of promotion and cutting costs..if we remain in this league we would be heading towards adminstration in the long term anyway.

Besides, I wouldnt expect a supporters of a club such as Brighton who have had their own money troubles to be gaining the moral high ground. Wednesday seem to be gambling as promotion is a must to avoid administration I wouldve thought.

If our former chairman is to be believed, the club has been running on more or less an even keel, but relegation lost the club revenue in the short term. The bank had supposedly supported the club in their delaying of the tax payments and have agreed to lend the club the money needed in the short term too. Whether its the co-op bank or a wealthy benefactor most clubs rely on money from somewhere at times.

 

[Brovion]

...
Besides, I wouldnt expect a supporters of a club such as Brighton who have had their own money troubles to be gaining the moral high ground. ...
.

Almost every club in Britain has had money troubles at some time. The reason why some (indeed I think most) Brighton fans adopt 'the moral high ground' is that we paid our debts, and what we see now is an increasing number of clubs exploiting the system to run up debts, restructure and start again leaving a trail of shafted creditors in their wake. Often all it costs them for seasons of profligacy is to sacrifice a few points when the shit finally hits the fan. And what pisses us us off more is the big clubs 'get away with it' with the new organisation being able to start at exactly the same place in the pyramid occupied by the old one, whereas the smaller clubs are wound up, ejected and forced to start again several levels lower than where they were. Consequently whenever we hear the old refrain "so-and-so are in trouble" our response is a mixture of sympathy, cynicism and exasperation.

...Whether its the co-op bank or a wealthy benefactor most clubs rely on money from somewhere at times.

Absolutely true, and the only reason we aren't in money trouble at the moment is because we've got a wealthy benefactor. Looking back at the history of professional football it's unlike any other business in that it's always relied on fans putting money in to keep their own 'business' going in a way you wouldn't do if say a local shop was in financial trouble.

Although I'm one of the 'hawks' I really don't want to see you go into Administration. Unlike Portsmouth (who just blithely carried on) you are at least taking steps to tackle the problem as opposed to just signing more players and hoping for the best. Good luck!

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

As I also said, the club made cuts but has had to find a balance between allowing ourselves a good chance of promotion and cutting costs.

But that's crap isn't it. Those aren't the only options. Why is "allowing ourselves a good chance of promotion", potentially paid for by creditors, a valid option?

Why not the option of "we cut our costs in order to pay back our debts and we may drop down a few leagues for a few years but so be it because we funded the good times with money we couldn't afford. We had the good, and sadly now we have to suck up the bad. We'll be back, but for now, we'll have to slum it because we just don't have the money and we need to pay back our debts". Was that an option you considered?

What gives a club massively in debt the luxury of the choice? That's what angers people like me.

 

[Garage_Doors]

gambling as promotion is a must

There lies the problem, if you gamble you can lose.

And if you lose there is no reason to feel hard done by.

SW gambled on not paying tht tax on time when it was due because "thats what othere clubs did" Thats a cop out and a sheep following mentality rather than doing the right thing by the rules.

So they "gambled" and they lost, and now their whinging it not fair.

 

[SheffieldBlues]

At the end of the day, Im not coming on here looking for symapthy. You guys have shown an interest in whats happening at Hillsborough and I have given you an insight into the noises coming from the club.

Im no fan of how the club has been run since we left the premiership, its been a shambles with very little action in the boardroom over the last ten years. But I do take issue with being labelled as a Pompy or Cardiff or even Leeds..who have or are going to real extreme based upon 1 or 2 seasons increasing their wage budget by vast amounts where ours actually decreased. Any team who has spent any significant time in the Premier League struggles financially when they come out of it (before the extended parachute payments existed) and the wrong decisions were made that first season we went down. The supposed "good times" weve supposedly had must be at least ten years ago and Wednesday have had to cut their cloth accordingly since...this debt has caused us problems, including rumours of admin for the last five years. If the bank told the club to delay the tax payments in order to focus on promotion (as thats the first step for them to ever get any money back) then the club will do it I guess.

 

[SheffieldBlues]

There lies the problem, if you gamble you can lose.

And if you lose there is no reason to feel hard done by.

SW gambled on not paying tht tax on time when it was due because "thats what othere clubs did" Thats a cop out and a sheep following mentality rather than doing the right thing by the rules.

So they "gambled" and they lost, and now their whinging it not fair.

No ones whinging its not fair, that was the reason they gave for breaking from their usual stance of paying tax on time. As other clubs were shown leniency and they were in a tight spot, they were advised to do the same in the short term.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

No individual fan is responsible SheffieldBlues and despite the moaning on here from some of us, we do appreciate the perspective. But the fact remains that if a club dump their creditors in order to protect their position in the League, then other clubs have the right to get very upset about it. SW haven't done this - yet - but they might. They are showing signs of that. And that would wrankle because it's a false position gained at the expense of other clubs who try to work within their parameters (even if those parameters are lucky enough to include a wealthy backer) and not just dump debt "to allow themselves (and therefore not others) a good chance of promotion". Why do you deserve it any more than any other club? If you do go bast and phoenix, you deserve it less than clubs that haven't dumped their debt.