Paul Barber speaks out on bus price increase etc

[El Presidente]

Couldn't agree more. FFP in theory is a good idea IF the savings etc were generated by sensible wages, agents fees and the like rather than simply asking fans for more cash.

That won't happy given the nature of the labour market in which we are competing.

The principle of adding on travel costs to fans is okay by me, I personally don't think Tony Bloom should subsidise it, but what does aggrieve is

1: Not all fans use transport, so are now paying a substantial sum for an irrelevant service, and
2: The late announcement of the decision, given that the costs were known some time ago by the club.

Great work by the way Walt, keep it up.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

When you consider that the total club saving from the new bus charge is probably about £300k, then consider that is just over half a year of Ryan Harleys wages......

I hope the club make sure their signings really count this year, we certainly cant afford to carry passengers, and certainly need some kids coming through.

I see what you did there in the last sentence, v. good.

 

[Winker]

i know your're technically right, but theres no provision to actually make that the objective is there? like having wages and other playing side costs capped at a % of revenue?

on the other hand, they have excluded things like capital expediture, for stadiums and training facilites exempt from the sums right? for most clubs this travel thing isnt an issue as they never had a subsidy, so we are an edge case the rules didnt allow for.[/QUOTE]

We are probably the only club in the Football League that subsidises transport for fans (?). We should therefore demand that these costs are removed from the FFP calculations. Unless of course they already are and the club are just using FFP as a smokescreen to reduce its losses at our expense.

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Its a bit coincidental that the maximum permitted loss in the cHampionship is £8M isn't it?

And the permitted loss is only £3m UNLESS the owner puts in more equity.

There are no restrictions on wages in the Championship and failure means a transfer ban from DEC 2014 and a fine if you overspent to try and reach the Prem

 

[Gwylan]

Good point, they should do away with this subsidy nonsense and give Southern trains a headache as it seems to me they are the main beneficiary

I must say that I'm baffled by our willingness to give Southern a helping hand. I travel through Victoria every day and, despite the thousands of commuters, Southern check all the tickets and, despite the crowded tube station, so do London Transport. The station must handle many times the number of spectators at the Amex, yet seem to manage the ticket checking OK.

It is hard to understand how we have the greatest attendances, one of the highest prices and yet are told our playing budget is the 14th? in the league. Somewhere the maths does not add up unless 80% of the other teams are not complying by FFP.

Is it really that hard? Eleven of the teams in our league (think it's 11) are given a massive subsidy by the PL - that's difficult to compete with. At least two of the other teams, Leicester and Forest are owned by people considerably richer than TB. There's also the fact that some clubs, Leicester (again) and Leeds ran up massive debts and walked away from them. And finally, we've had one season as the best-attended club in the division - there are some clubs with 20+ years of around 25,000 to 30,000 gates. None of us know the exact figures, but my guess would be something like 11th to 15th highest wage bill.

 

[El Presidente]

Let us hope that at the end of the season every team is transparent when it comes to FFP ie all figures are shown by every club. Then we can compare us to say QPR and Peterborough. It is hard to understand how we have the greatest attendances, one of the highest prices and yet are told our playing budget is the 14th? in the league. Somewhere the maths does not add up unless 80% of the other teams are not complying by FFP.

Parachute payments exist for four years, so in theory up to 12 clubs could benefit from a £9-18 million head start over the Albion each season.

In addition FFP only comes into existence next season, so other clubs have been making substantially larger losses than the Albion. To put it bluntly, for each extra 1,000 fans attending over a season in only makes a £400k difference to revenue, so we would have to average 45,000 more fans per match over Reading, Wigan and QPR next season just to match their income.

 

[robbie c]

£3 a game extra will be offset by either one pie or one pint less than usual.....
Using the NCP model less catering revenues will lead to increased pie and pint prices halfway through the season which will be offset by another pie and pint less than usual....
Vicious Circle and £8m loss continues

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

The next step will be photo's on Season Tickets and when your ill or on holiday they wont let another member of your family or friend go in your place and the club sells your seat. My view is if you have paid for the seat then you should say who uses it. Ok you take responsibility for their behaviour so are careful who you let use it. If they do this I for one will not renew my season ticket. It has already been muted that this will happen in the next couple of years. The club really are playing with fire with the supporters

The club will go beyond photo ID on season tickets in a couple of years , there will be no need to swipe the smartcard as you'll only get in after a retinal scan and DNA verification.

 

[The Brighton Buzz]

The club will go beyond photo ID on season tickets in a couple of years , there will be no need to swipe the smartcard as you'll only get in after a retinal scan and DNA verification.

You Jest my good man.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

You Jest my good man.

I only hope that Paul Barber doesn't read my post or else we're all buggered when he introduces it

 

[clapham_gull]

FFP = Financial Fair Play ?

More like Fans Fortunately Pay.

That appears to be the attitude and hopefully when the reality bites in the football industry it will revert to the original meaning.

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Parachute payments exist for four years, so in theory up to 12 clubs could benefit from a £9-18 million head start over the Albion each season.

In addition FFP only comes into existence next season, so other clubs have been making substantially larger losses than the Albion. To put it bluntly, for each extra 1,000 fans attending over a season in only makes a £400k difference to revenue, so we would have to average 45,000 more fans per match over Reading, Wigan and QPR next season just to match their income.

All very true but the losses clubs incur normally come from buying players rather than day to day costs even including wages. Spend £2M on 3 players and you will make a loss if you are not generating the money to buy them. All the clubs we seem to be slagging off ran into difficulty trying to buy their way up the league. The question is did /do our £8M losses come from transfers or running costs - If its transfers/wages then its a bit unfair to expect fans to stump up extra but its even worse if you veil it in transport, staff redundancies and ticketing charges.

If the £8M loss is from day to day running costs then I doubt we will hit target this season and TB will have to put more money in because its not going to come down by £5M unless we sell 2-3 players

And the parachute payments get eaten up by paying off the premiership players and their wages while they adjust so its hardly an advantage to them over us

 

[El Presidente]

All very true but the losses clubs incur normally come from buying players rather than day to day costs even including wages. Spend £2M on 3 players and you will make a loss if you are not generating the money to buy them. All the clubs we seem to be slagging off ran into difficulty trying to buy their way up the league. The question is did /do our £8M losses come from transfers or running costs - If its transfers/wages then its a bit unfair to expect fans to stump up extra but its even worse if you veil it in transport, staff redundancies and ticketing charges.

If the £8M loss is from day to day running costs then I doubt we will hit target this season and TB will have to put more money in because its not going to come down by £5M unless we sell 2-3 players

And the parachute payments get eaten up by paying off the premiership players and their wages while they adjust so its hardly an advantage to them over us

Not sure I agree. Transfer costs are amortised over the contract life, so CMS 'only' costs the Albion £500k a year on his £2.5m fee.

 

[Gwylan]

And the parachute payments get eaten up by paying off the premiership players and their wages while they adjust so its hardly an advantage to them over us

That's not the point though. The original question was how come our wage bill is so low if we're raking in so much money from spectators. As El P and I pointed out, other clubs have parachute payments and, if you're saying that some clubs have PL level wages and we don't, that supports what we were saying.

 

[El Presidente]

FFP = Financial Fair Play ?

More like Fans Fortunately Pay.

That appears to be the attitude and hopefully when the reality bites in the football industry it will revert to the original meaning.

TB subsidises each seat sold at the Amex by £15 a match.

 

[clapham_gull]

TB subsidises each seat sold at the Amex by £15 a match.

But he won't be allowed to in the future will he ?

We know what the problem is.

We can move who makes the losses up but that isn't the point.

 

[andy1980]

TB subsidises each seat sold at the Amex by £15 a match.

Do you ever worry its not Blooms money? I have so much respect for him, for what he has done, but there is always that question in the back of the mind.

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Not sure I agree. Transfer costs are amortised over the contract life, so CMS 'only' costs the Albion £500k a year on his £2.5m fee.

I take the point but with wages thats still going to be a lot of money and 2-3 players could easily hit £3M when you also consider...Agents fees and sweeteners which won't be amortised over the contract life?

The players still have to be paid for immediately (the selling club doesn't wait) and if you sell any players to make way for the new player what happens to their book value

 

[Chicken Runner61]

That's not the point though. The original question was how come our wage bill is so low if we're raking in so much money from spectators. As El P and I pointed out, other clubs have parachute payments and, if you're saying that some clubs have PL level wages and we don't, that supports what we were saying.

Because we are not raking in money from spectators thats the problem (i suspect) the point being if our wages are low and we haven't gone that mad in the transfer market we should be!

El P was saying we are at a disadvantage because say Reading has parachute payments (and we don't) so their income is greater but that advantage disappears when they pay premiership wages to players in the championship

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

The players still have to be paid for immediately (the selling club doesn't wait) and if you sell any players to make way for the new player what happens to their book value

1) Not necessarily, it could be a staged payment deal.
2) The same as happens when any business sells an asset; if you sell for less than the book value you've made a loss.