The Wycombe Wanderers owner has suggested to his furloughed (non-playing) staff that they should start looking for new jobs for when the furlough scheme comes to an end. This was on the BBC website yesterday I think.
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Chairman's update
- Thread starter cheshiregreen
- Start date
I've got £40 worth of Argyle clubshop vouchers sitting unspent downstairs. They were a birthday present from relatives back in October. I had the 2019-20 season shirt so I was saving them to buy next season's shirt. Apart from the fact that I cannot physically spend them now as they can't be used online/remotely, I don't really feel that I should spend them even if I could. So I guess that's £40 into the club's coffers (or more accurately the profit on a shirt sale not taken out of the coffers since the money went in last season). And, I guess this means that I now have to spend my own cash to get a new shirt!
Simon is no fool. I dont think he would throw more money at the club if he thought there was a realistic chance it could all be lost in a few months time.
What Balham said. SH wouldn't throw money away if he thought it was as certain as Ian seems to.
I read the statement as tempering expectations of fans, players and staff.
I read the statement as tempering expectations of fans, players and staff.
Agreed, not only is he no fool, he's clearly a very shrewd man. I read it that way too and potentially also a message to the football authorities, even the government that they have a critical situation to think through and deal with if they don't want the mass bankruptcy of a high proportion of professional clubs, much as the Huddersfield chairman indicated.Stuart House":rkzwlkag said:
Stuart House":3qj5bu10 said:
I agree.
We obviously have so much to thank him for already let alone another injection. However, it reads to me that he is asking us all to pull together.
Not to expect cash signings for G.Cooper and R.Hardie and that waiving ST refunds would be very welcome. As well as the fact that the players will need to make sacrifices and accept contracts that put the clubs interest first. Warning us that if they decide to move on, its not the clubs poor offer or lack of ambition but the player looking after themselves.
Its wonderful to have this guy in charge and how transparent he is.
As always Simon Hallett has been open, honest and transparent about the position the Club finds itself. Through his past and now new additional investment both he and Jane have put the Club in the best position it could be to withstand the ravages of the impact of the Coronavirus on football’s fortunes to secure our continued existence as an aspirational football club and an asset for the community.
I am sure supporters will rise to the challenge of raising money for the Club. The Crowdfunding initiative demonstrated that. Digging deep for shirts, other merchandise, lottery tickets, foregoing refunds and buying new season tickets and committing to iFollow will all help.
However, back in mid-April Simon warned “This is about survival of the English Football League, you’ve got to be clear here” Since then others such as the Chairman of Huddersfield and Gary Neville have warned of clubs going to the wall
In announcing ‘Football is coming back’ when confirming the Premiership was going to be back on TV, the Culture Secretary said it would “ensure finances from the game's resumption supports the wider football family”. However, out of the £400m per year that goes to the EFL from the Premier League £270m goes to nine clubs in parachute payments. In addition, the EPPP Academy system is skewed totally in favour of PL clubs. A reset button needs to be pressed on the relationship between the PL and EFL. However, that will take time to transition. Time EFL clubs do not have.
The only immediate solution, as I see it, is for the Government to fund or underwrite the lost match day revenues for EFL clubs for next season until full crowds are allowed back. At Argyle 60% of the turnover is associated with match day activities. The Government has commendably provided emergency funding for other businesses and sectors in this crisis. The 2018/19 season saw a cumulative total of 18.4 million fans attending EFL matches. As a result, the reach of EFL Clubs is huge with 62% of the England and Wales population (nearly 37m people) 40% of who fall into most deprived population groups. Many EFL clubs fall within areas the Government identified as left behind towns and regions and part of its promise of ‘levelling up’ the nation’s economy. Trusts like the Argyle Community Trust provide essential health and well being programmes for the community which would be lost with help for the parent club.
Perhaps the EFL could assist in underwriting the loans. It would be up to each EFL club to decide the extent of the loan they would want within an agreed framework. Although it is unlikely, some may prefer to balance a loan with further shareholder investment. Flexibility should be the key. As with Argyle in 2011 when in administration the pay back of the football creditor debt was over five years – that would seem a reasonable time period for EFL clubs to repay each emergency loan. Greg Clarke (now the FA Chairman) described Argyle’s repayment proposal it as a ‘leap of faith’ at the time. The same sort of leap of faith is required from the Government and EFL now.
One final thought on how supporters could help even more. Back in September last year at the Fans Forum, Simon mooted the idea of supporters owning a share of the club. I think 20% was mentioned but it didn’t gain much traction at the time. Swansea City operate with a 21|% shareholding owned by fans with a seat on the Board.
For those supporters with financial capability and cash to spare a separate share class (with no voting rights or rights to dividends etc) could be offered at, say, £100 or £500 per share and people could purchase as many as they wanted. There would be no dilution of ownership. The Club have had such minority shareholdings in the past where shares were passed down the generations. That would be a big step to becoming a community club.
I am sure supporters will rise to the challenge of raising money for the Club. The Crowdfunding initiative demonstrated that. Digging deep for shirts, other merchandise, lottery tickets, foregoing refunds and buying new season tickets and committing to iFollow will all help.
However, back in mid-April Simon warned “This is about survival of the English Football League, you’ve got to be clear here” Since then others such as the Chairman of Huddersfield and Gary Neville have warned of clubs going to the wall
In announcing ‘Football is coming back’ when confirming the Premiership was going to be back on TV, the Culture Secretary said it would “ensure finances from the game's resumption supports the wider football family”. However, out of the £400m per year that goes to the EFL from the Premier League £270m goes to nine clubs in parachute payments. In addition, the EPPP Academy system is skewed totally in favour of PL clubs. A reset button needs to be pressed on the relationship between the PL and EFL. However, that will take time to transition. Time EFL clubs do not have.
The only immediate solution, as I see it, is for the Government to fund or underwrite the lost match day revenues for EFL clubs for next season until full crowds are allowed back. At Argyle 60% of the turnover is associated with match day activities. The Government has commendably provided emergency funding for other businesses and sectors in this crisis. The 2018/19 season saw a cumulative total of 18.4 million fans attending EFL matches. As a result, the reach of EFL Clubs is huge with 62% of the England and Wales population (nearly 37m people) 40% of who fall into most deprived population groups. Many EFL clubs fall within areas the Government identified as left behind towns and regions and part of its promise of ‘levelling up’ the nation’s economy. Trusts like the Argyle Community Trust provide essential health and well being programmes for the community which would be lost with help for the parent club.
Perhaps the EFL could assist in underwriting the loans. It would be up to each EFL club to decide the extent of the loan they would want within an agreed framework. Although it is unlikely, some may prefer to balance a loan with further shareholder investment. Flexibility should be the key. As with Argyle in 2011 when in administration the pay back of the football creditor debt was over five years – that would seem a reasonable time period for EFL clubs to repay each emergency loan. Greg Clarke (now the FA Chairman) described Argyle’s repayment proposal it as a ‘leap of faith’ at the time. The same sort of leap of faith is required from the Government and EFL now.
One final thought on how supporters could help even more. Back in September last year at the Fans Forum, Simon mooted the idea of supporters owning a share of the club. I think 20% was mentioned but it didn’t gain much traction at the time. Swansea City operate with a 21|% shareholding owned by fans with a seat on the Board.
For those supporters with financial capability and cash to spare a separate share class (with no voting rights or rights to dividends etc) could be offered at, say, £100 or £500 per share and people could purchase as many as they wanted. There would be no dilution of ownership. The Club have had such minority shareholdings in the past where shares were passed down the generations. That would be a big step to becoming a community club.
Meanwhile as clubs are struggling to stay alive, the PFA are sitting on £50m of cash "in case of a rainy day". Perhaps they don't realise its p**sing down all over the EFL !
Speaking to someone from another League 2 side at the weekend the feeling was that the better supported sides would face a bigger challenge as gate receipts formed a far bigger proportion of their income and they had larger overheads and costs as their budgets were bigger.
The following quotes from the statement would tend to support that.
We are already thinking about further ways to reduce our cost base to overcome the short-term difficulties, and, once this crisis is over, we will need to be more reliant on the investments we’ve already made to generate the resources needed to achieve our longer-term goals.
In the last two years we have changed personnel throughout the club, improving capabilities, but increasing costs.
The following quotes from the statement would tend to support that.
We are already thinking about further ways to reduce our cost base to overcome the short-term difficulties, and, once this crisis is over, we will need to be more reliant on the investments we’ve already made to generate the resources needed to achieve our longer-term goals.
In the last two years we have changed personnel throughout the club, improving capabilities, but increasing costs.
Dreamgreen":iuxuycqe said:
I like that, it made me laugh. Perhaps Gordon Taylor the trade union leader with the biggest salary per union membership could dip his hand in his deep personal pocket, let alone the union's own gold reserves in order to help support his members.
Graham Clark":25w1bs7p said:
Interesting post as always Graham.
Shocking about the parachute payments.
I have a bit of a query on the above figures, surely the 18.4 million attendees is made up of the same people regularly attending, and not 18.4 million different people , ( or 37 million people.. ) So I have never thought of the reach of the EFL as massive.
I dont think the Premier League will be too bothered if the likes of Argyle don't exist, in fact they might quietly delight in it.
The London based government, on a one way journey to insolvency arn't too bothered either, so I cant see the Govt bailing out sports, I mean where do you draw the line, if you bail out the EFL you have to bail out rugby, bail out rugby and people will want to see bail outs for culture beyond sports. My best hope for govt intervention is 1 meter social distancing and stadiums running on reduced capacity soon.
I like to think the Hallets have a fair idea of the likely shape of things to come ( being privy to the likely scenarios ) and have made available the cash to get us over the line in one piece. Our problem will be if their informed projections are wrong footed by EFL decision making or the gubbermint decision making. Or a second spike.
If there is a second more lethal spike ( common with pandemics )and a second lockdown in the autumn we truly are finished. Barring that, I think we survive. All conjecture I know, just my thoughts, but I will say one thing that is not conjecture, if there is not a global change in animal farming / consumption, another serious virus will come along soon enough.
Just read the chairman's statement," last injection of cash" very worrying.
It does not matter how much money you have you cannot keep paying out, with no income coming in recipe for disaster.
However with a large loan outstanding how will the chairman be repaid?
Sell the club - but who would buy it?
Is it time for the directors to help the chairman financially?
Too many non playing staff?
Something has to change.
If football and supporters do not return this year I really feel the club could be in dire straights, along with many other clubs what a thought.
It does not matter how much money you have you cannot keep paying out, with no income coming in recipe for disaster.
However with a large loan outstanding how will the chairman be repaid?
Sell the club - but who would buy it?
Is it time for the directors to help the chairman financially?
Too many non playing staff?
Something has to change.
If football and supporters do not return this year I really feel the club could be in dire straights, along with many other clubs what a thought.
The report (in the link below) best illustrates the impact of EFL clubs in their community and what would be lost if a club folds. I would be shoving it right in front of the Culture Secretary right now to demonstrate that there is life beyond the Premiership.
The Argyle Community Trust is one of the best examples.
https://www.efl.com/contentassets/b59b1 ... al-pdf.pdf
The Argyle Community Trust is one of the best examples.
https://www.efl.com/contentassets/b59b1 ... al-pdf.pdf
I just think and hope that the exceptional circumstances of this pandemic means clubs will be afforded way more breathing room - if not outright financial help - than they might otherwise receive.
It seems to that there is often not assistance from councils/government/EFL/Premier League etc etc for clubs in financial difficulty, because it would be simply rewarding bad owners with a load of cash, offering teams carte blanche to continue overspending, and not act as a deterrent to others.
While there are clubs that have put themselves in an especially bad position to deal with this, there are many like Argyle that are effectively blameless and that surely must be recognised by creditors, leagues and institutions like HMRC. Especially when they perform such valuable functions as Graham highlighted above.
Of course there are also theatres, museums, restaurants, youth clubs and local businesses of all kinds that can probably argue much the same thing.
It seems to that there is often not assistance from councils/government/EFL/Premier League etc etc for clubs in financial difficulty, because it would be simply rewarding bad owners with a load of cash, offering teams carte blanche to continue overspending, and not act as a deterrent to others.
While there are clubs that have put themselves in an especially bad position to deal with this, there are many like Argyle that are effectively blameless and that surely must be recognised by creditors, leagues and institutions like HMRC. Especially when they perform such valuable functions as Graham highlighted above.
Of course there are also theatres, museums, restaurants, youth clubs and local businesses of all kinds that can probably argue much the same thing.
if IJN could start a crowd funding page I would donate.this club is a massive family.let's give what we can.