Paul Barber: Why the Albion lose £1m a month

[hans kraay fan club]

It's YOUR fault for not having twins

Its actually my wife's fault - if she'd crossed her legs for about another 8 hours, on 9th August 1998, I'd be paying £200 less for the two lads' tickets this season...

 

[El Presidente]

Its actually my wife's fault - if she'd crossed her legs for about another 8 hours, on 9th August 1998, I'd be paying £200 less for the two lads' tickets this season...

I'd deduct it from her housekeeping.

 

[bhawoddy]

Interesting, very interesting.

I wonder what that means.



To be honest it's not FFP that is the problem, in fact that is very commendable and in the ideal world would go further.


The real devil in the whole set up is parachute payments, which urgently need to be scrapped or reformed.

If the payments cannot be scrapped, then clubs that draw on them need to be handed a strict transfer embago. No longer can we see situations where parachute payments can be used to bring in new players ( ie Wayne Bridge to Reading ).

I see parachute payments need to be available to stop teams going bust, but the penalty for actually drawing on the money needs to be strict.

Any parachute money not drawn on could go to charity. Everyone would be a winner.

I wonder if you would be saying the same thing if BHA were receiving them??

 

[Brighton Mod]

Fair comment. I'm not sure it tells us anything new though.

Maybe it's too much to ask, but given the transfer fees received from selling players I wonder if we are on course to have dramatically reduced the loss.

The concern expressed by some was that we were making a loss of approx £1million per month through to the last year end. Given the player sales and the assumption that the operating profit before player sales is improving does that still mean we are losing £1million a month.

A secondary question is if we are still losing £1m after everything Paul Barber has done to try and reduce this and the player sales, how can this be sustainable.

Tony Bloom has already invested £200million plus, does he really want to invest a further £12million every single year? No one would blame him if he said no at some point.

So is there a plan to break even in the near future or is it hang on as best we can until we reach the premiership?

Does Tony Bloom really have £200m to invest in an investment that is currently going nowhere. Performance aside and our position in the league, £200m is an awful lot of money, where is this coming from, no business would have this amount on its balance sheet and for this to be personal money would be extraordinary. I would suggest that the current situation, as reported, is not sustainable and if we are to take what Paul Barber has said to be true we are never going to be a contender for promotion. Thus TB is putting in £5-7m a year to stay in the Championship, what for. If I was TB I would be thinking about selling the club as it has everything that is needed to be a Premiership club, excepting that we don't have enough finance and can't afford a top striker. Fait a compli, I think.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

I would suggest that the current situation, as reported, is not sustainable and if we are to take what Paul Barber has said to be true we are never going to be a contender for promotion.

It is like the past two seasons never happened.

 

[SAC]

bottom line is we are one of the most expensive clubs in the country, and losing 1m a month, something is wrong somewhere, and it does seem that adhering to FFP does not make a jot of difference.
putting pressure on fans to stump up more is just going to alienate some and they the club will lose them, after working so hard to get them.

Agree.

The post from PB explains the hardship of life in the Championship but doesn't give us any details, which considering he was claiming to be transparent, is quite disappointing.

Are the losses made by Brighton similar to other mid table (?) clubs in this division or are the losses higher? How is this possible with the ultra high ticket prices and high number of ST holders?

Is £1 million a month loss acceptable to TB or is he expecting this to be reduced and if so by how much and how is this going to be possible?

 

[Gary Leeds]

If I was to win the euro millions and offer the club say £50 million for their rare iPhone covers and tax disc holders could that cash then be used by the club to buy players? Especially if they were to put the said items available for sale on the clubshop at £50k each. Can the FL turn round and say you can't sell them for that price if someone is willing to pay that price for them? If the FL can say that then surely the same would hold for charging £45 for a shirt when you can buy the same shirt a lot cheaper.

There is a massive loophole in FFP and the likes of QPR and Forest have found it, it will just be time till we find out what they have found will hold up in a court of law

 

[dingodan]

Fair play to him for continuously trying to explain the situation to the fans.

Please let's not make him write to us a third time.

I am not an expert of football administration. I could make an effort to try to get my head around it, but I'm not really inclined to, because:

Tony trusts Paul. I trust Tony. So I trust Paul.

I happen to trust Paul anyway because he does clearly know what he is doing, and he takes the time to make sure that the fans have confidence in what he is doing, not just because Tony does, but because they know and understand what is going on and what he is doing and why.

He's bloody brilliant, now can we please leave him alone to continue his good works?

 

[Driver8]

There is a massive loophole in FFP and the likes of QPR and Forest have found it, it will just be time till we find out what they have found will hold up in a court of law

I don't think there is a massive loophole and Forest and QPR will find that out the hard way.

 

[mreprice]

So how were Palace and Burnley promoted in the last two seasons?

I think we forget that TB is as good at calculating the odds as anybody on the planet. His people will have done the sums of exactly how much an extra £5m does to our chances of promotion. And I bet the answer is not much. In the past two years several clubs have lost £20more than us and not made the playoffs, while Palace and Burnley have gone up spending a lot less than us. There is zero chance of TB not spending money that has a positive expected return.

On that topic people also think that the premiership leads to massive profits but that also isn't true. Costs go up as well as revenue. Heaps of teams continue to lose money in the premiership.

Finally people vastly underestimate how much a good player costs. Ulloa - apparently a bargain - will be effectively costing Leicester around £80,000 a week once they amortise the transfer fee (and he is worth nothing to them at the end of his contract). I am sure if we spent that sort of money on a player with five premiership goals all hell would break loose.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

You have to balance the options;

1. Go for it spend money and hope for promotion and the pot of gold it brings.
2. Prudent spending to keep the club solvent but not diminishing ambition.

I believe we tried option 1 under Gus and it failed we are now engaged on option 2. I honestly believe that we will eventually reach the Premier based on player ability rather than big spending.

As soon as we find a player of ability we flog them on to the first club to make a decent offer. Have absolutely no doubt that the same will happen when the academy production line starts rolling.

Can't see any serious option other than 1. unless there's a plan to re-distribute FFP fines from those that most openly flaunt it to those that do most to adhere to it.

 

[halbpro]

As soon as we find a player of ability we flog them on to the first club to make a decent offer. Have absolutely no doubt that the same will happen when the academy production line starts rolling.

Just because that's the situation now, doesn't mean that'll be the situation if we get more players coming through from the academy. Also it doesn't really seem to have hurt Southampton to sell on players that came up via their academy system.

Can't see any serious option other than 1. unless there's a plan to re-distribute FFP fines from those that most openly flaunt it to those that do most to adhere to it.

The problem with option 1 is what if you don't go up? Importantly what if by exceeding FFP restrictions the club is put under a transfer embargo? Surely that only makes the situation worse?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The problem with option 1 is what if you don't go up? Importantly what if by exceeding FFP restrictions the club is put under a transfer embargo? Surely that only makes the situation worse?

Conversely, if you try and tread water forever in the same division on a (comparatively) shoestring budget then you only need to get it wrong once and you're seriously struggling in a downward spiral of falling gates and mass exodus of half-decent players - with no parachute payments to soften the fall.

 

[halbpro]

Conversely, if you try and tread water forever in the same division on a (comparatively) shoestring budget then you only need to get it wrong once and you're seriously struggling in a downward spiral of falling gates and mass exodus of half-decent players - with no parachute payments to soften the fall.

Oh sure, but that's why it's not a binary choice. It's a very difficult balancing act between investment, losses, debt, infrastructure improvements, on pitch performance and the effect those said performances have on fans. They're a horrible spider's web of interconnected factors, and I'm impressed that anyone's ever managed to unravel all the threads and find a formula that just about works.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Let's hear it then. Your starting point is where we are currently: in the Amex with c22,000 season ticket holders, a strong squad commanding decent wages and ongoing operating losses.

Tell us where the club should be and how you would get it there.

Stop wasting money on midget strikers and gone LARGE on an adequate replacement for Ulloa (or have got FFS back on loan). Break the bank if you have to and be fired up the Championship to the Premier League RICHES

 

[Brighton Mod]

It is like the past two seasons never happened.

I think the important word in my post is 'current' not the 'past two seasons'. £5-7m for a lowly placed championship team is not worth it and brings nothing to the benefactor, if indeed that is what TB is.

 

[Brighton Mod]

Oh sure, but that's why it's not a binary choice. It's a very difficult balancing act between investment, losses, debt, infrastructure improvements, on pitch performance and the effect those said performances have on fans. They're a horrible spider's web of interconnected factors, and I'm impressed that anyone's ever managed to unravel all the threads and find a formula that just about works.

Burnley....

 

[El Presidente]

Burnley....

Palace

 

[nwgull]

Palace

Mornington Crescent!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Cut through all of Barber's words ( and saying " bleating on " does not imo show supporters a lot of respect for legitimate questions ) the bottom line is the players are paid far too much money for what they do. That is the major factor and issue in English football and until that is addressed the whole system will forever be f*cked