£5m a year

seasidepaddle

seasidepaddle

Well-known member
Yes - he's not above criticism (no-one is) but who else with the town's best interests at heart is going to pump £5m a year into our football club?

It won't stop the abuse from the Twitter warriors, mind - but I suppose that's part of life in 2024.

'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind!
 
I don’t think that large sums of money are any substitute for a well run club and individuals who are committed to the cause and pulling in the right direction.

As fans, I don’t think many people ‘expect’ an owner to plough in tens of millions every year. What they do expect is that the Club is well run and that those involved actually care about the Club and maximising its potential.

Of course the cash does play a part, but the key is to squeeze the maximum out of every pound spent.

As a fan… I don’t really want to hear about how much cash is being input… (though that’s not to say I don’t appreciate it) …

I do want to hear about our innovative plans to develop the club, by capitalising on its unique strengths… I want to feel like we have a Senior Leadership Team that understands the Town and the Club and has a plan for squeezing every drop of value out of that investment to make this Club the best it can possibly be..
 
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BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I don’t think that large sums of money are any substitute for a well run club and individuals who are committed to the cause and pulling in the right direction.

As fans, I don’t think many people ‘expect’ an owner to plough in tens of millions every year. What they do expect is that the Club is we run and that those involved actually care about the Club and maximising its potential.

Of course the cash does play a part, but the key is to squeeze the maximum out of every pound spent.

As a fan… I don’t really want to hear about how much cash is being input… (though that’s not to say I don’t appreciate it) …

I do want to hear about our innovative plans to develop the club, by capitalising on its unique strengths… I want to feel like we have a Senior Leadership Team that understands the Town and the Club and has a plan for squeezing every drop of value out of that investment to make this Club the best it can possibly be..
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I think on paper our leadership team is as good as most in L1 - but clearly we are still underachieving!
 
seasidepaddle said:
I think on paper our leadership team is as good as most in L1 - but clearly we are still underachieving!
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Hopefully they are a well qualified team… I think we need more than qualifications though, I think we need people that are capable of challenging norms and thinking outside of the box.

Necessity tends to breed creativity and I think that was a key ingredient in our past success. In many ways Karl Oyston (for example) and his penny pinching antics and stubborn attitude, forced those around him to be more creative.
 
seasidepaddle said:
Yes - he's not above criticism (no-one is) but who else with the town's best interests at heart is going to pump £5m a year into our football club?

It won't stop the abuse from the Twitter warriors, mind - but I suppose that's part of life in 2024.

'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind!
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His he though,I can’t see where, certainly not on the pkaying side.Surely the club isn’t running at a loss,a club run by a successful buisness man.
 
BFC_BFC_BFC said:
I don’t think that large sums of money are any substitute for a well run club and individuals who are committed to the cause and pulling in the right direction.

As fans, I don’t think many people ‘expect’ an owner to plough in tens of millions every year. What they do expect is that the Club is we run and that those involved actually care about the Club and maximising its potential.

Of course the cash does play a part, but the key is to squeeze the maximum out of every pound spent.

As a fan… I don’t really want to hear about how much cash is being input… (though that’s not to say I don’t appreciate it) …

I do want to hear about our innovative plans to develop the club, by capitalising on its unique strengths… I want to feel like we have a Senior Leadership Team that understands the Town and the Club and has a plan for squeezing every drop of value out of that investment to make this Club the best it can possibly be..
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Correct BFC_BFC_BFC.Our club isn’t run properly
 
No owner buys a football club expecting anything other than to lose money. They buy it for other reasons (crazy if you ask me).
Like BFC x3, I'm not interested in hearing how much SS spends each season (although I to am grateful for him being a good custodian). I want to hear how our club is developing, how it an integral part of the community & watching entertaining football.
SS appears to be reluctant to invite others onto the board, thereby reducing his personal, ever increasing cash input.
This worked well with uncle Val. Had he not been involved with the Oyscums, we'd never have built the South or signed the players that took us to the PL.
Maybe this is to do with SS planning to maximise his profit on his investment (that's his profession), when he eventually sells the club (which he will one day). Whatever the reason. he is currently the sole investor, which is his choice & if he doesn't want to keep throwing his families money into the bottomless pit, maybe he needs to think about sharing the load.
 
seasidepaddle said:
Yes - he's not above criticism (no-one is) but who else with the town's best interests at heart is going to pump £5m a year into our football club?

It won't stop the abuse from the Twitter warriors, mind - but I suppose that's part of life in 2024.

'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind!
Click to expand...
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing terms

We made a 3 million profit on both Bowler and Yates

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
 
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Phil_bfc deux said:
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing terms

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
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Last March at a diolouge meeting,it showed a ten year plan where 90 million was going to be invested..Clubs a joke and some are easily taken in, I don’t buy it.
 
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Phil_bfc deux said:
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing terms

We made a 3 million profit on both Bowler and Yates

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
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Exactly, whoever bought the club would have had to do the same, I think x3's first post sums it up pretty well. We have to forget the vermin, they are long gone we need to look at what is happening now and as x3 said a week or so ago there is no oomph at the club, it is characterless.
 
We just need to find someone to put in £10-20 million each year then. Clearly £5m isn’t enough?
I do agree though that the clubs community trust is excellent and plays such a key role in a sadly deprived area.

I am sure if fans can explore their personal network and SS also we can find that billionaire to come and fund us and still act as a custodian.
 
Chunkylad said:
We just need to find someone to put in £10-20 million each year then. Clearly £5m isn’t enough?
I do agree though that the clubs community trust is excellent and plays such a key role in a sadly deprived area.

I am sure if fans can explore their personal network and SS also we can find that billionaire to come and fund us and still act as a custodian.
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He could sell the club now and not be out of pocket
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing terms

We made a 3 million profit on both Bowler and Yates

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
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To be fair Phil, I don’t think Critchley could have done the job with a £10m spend this season. He wouldn’t cope with higher value players and all we’d see is more chopping & changing. His limit is youth development level, where players do what they are told and where pure results are much less important.

The problem is staring SS in the face, but for whatever reason he is oblivious to it. It may well be that he doesn’t like fans telling him what to do, but look deeper and we actually want his investment to maximise returns.
 
If there was no one else at the time, and probably still not, wanting to buy the club then we got the best we could hope for. Unless some rich fucker with endless money comes in this will roughly be our level. Measured progress is the best we can hope for.

I don’t believe SS will do and Oyston and keep us at league one level on purpose.
 
seasidepaddle said:
Yes - he's not above criticism (no-one is) but who else with the town's best interests at heart is going to pump £5m a year into our football club?

It won't stop the abuse from the Twitter warriors, mind - but I suppose that's part of life in 2024.

'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind!
Click to expand...
I’d be wanting a better return for my £5m a year than SS is currently getting.
 
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Chunkylad said:
We just need to find someone to put in £10-20 million each year then. Clearly £5m isn’t enough?
I do agree though that the clubs community trust is excellent and plays such a key role in a sadly deprived area.

I am sure if fans can explore their personal network and SS also we can find that billionaire to come and fund us and still act as a custodian.
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£5 million could well be enough, if invested wisely. It’s easy to spend that sort of money in a top heavy gang of consultants, experts in this and that. CEOs directors etc. The club seems to have lost sight of our name,Blackpool FOOTBALL club. Our main reason for existence is to entertain the fans with good players playing good football. Not a jobs for the boys club.
 
I don't dispute the £5 mill but.. Our player wage bill is approx £6m. Does that mean without the £5m, as a business, we'd only have a wage bill of £1m? Callum Connolly alone earns £300k a year approx.
 
Its a debate that will rumble on until SS leaves the club for whatever reason he decides to leave. There will always be fans at any club who want a new owner, be that results are bad, manager choices are not what they want, the way a chairman treats fans, or in the case of a couple of clubs, the whole human rights reasons.

From a personal point of view (and most likely the view of an awful lot of fans) id thank SS for taking over the club, when most of us hadn't set foot in BR for 5/6 years. I've met people since our return that I would call very close friends, spent many weekends with them, drinking at away games, even seeing them when there is no football on. To be that's what supporting a football club is about. Yes we all want to win every week, we all want to watch entertaining football, and we all want promotion. If you think SS doesn't want that too, then give your head a wobble.

He has made quite a few mistakes, all in my opinion on manager appointments. But his reasoning for giving those people jobs is sound. Grayson, in his interview, he said he had achieved 4 promotions from this league, and gave him the job what, 3 weeks after coming in as owner. I get his reasons for this, but he also acted quickly when things turned sour inside the ground.

Appleton the same, he may well have waited too long to sack him, but, as an owner, and someone who made that decision, you want it to work, you want it to be a success, and sometimes in football owners are too quick to make changes. but he wasnt afraid to sack him, again when things got sour in the fround. We will never know if sacking him and giving Dobbie (for example) the job there and then would have worked, and there will have been reasons why he didn't go down that route. As fans we are all entitled to our opinion, but if we or he acted on every opinion each of our fans have on a Saturday or Tuesday, then god only knows where we would be now.

Critch will always divide opinion. His first full season, where we gained promotion, he could easily have sacked him after what, 10 games(?) when we were in the bottom three and looking pathetic, but he didn't, stuck with him, and look where we ended up. We are currently 9th in the league, with 11 games left, and yes, i agree its looking unlikely, but stranger things have happened with this club, and as an owner, who has put faith in a manager, who he is aware of what he does day in day out (and not just a 90 minute football match once or twice a week) and im ok with that.

He is a fan like the rest of us, and of course he will be hurting (like the rest of us) when we lose games in the manner we have done throughout the season. However, we have a club, we have a chance to meet friends, and discuss these things in a pub on a Saturday, and can enter the ground knowing its a million miles away from where it was 5+ years ago. For a man that has made his millions from tough decisions, I'm confident that the club will be just fine, and if next season it doesn't work, and Critch leaves, we will be just fine.
 
He's never going to spend "big" he's been pretty clear about that from the off so I'm not sure why some are surprised.
I thought the interview was excellent, good to hear from him and he seemed pretty determined to get back into the Championship as he highlighted the increased TV deal.
I don't think the management of the club has been good last 24 months which has caused more issues than money spending. I just hope if Critch isn't delivering start of next season he pots him early, as it's clear he won't change it this year as wants stability.
 
Albert Ross said:
£5 million could well be enough, if invested wisely. It’s easy to spend that sort of money in a top heavy gang of consultants, experts in this and that. CEOs directors etc. The club seems to have lost sight of our name,Blackpool FOOTBALL club. Our main reason for existence is to entertain the fans with good players playing good football. Not a jobs for the boys club.
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Most of us haven’t really seen or heard a great deal of the Leadership Team, so it wouldn’t be fair to judge. It’s probably still a little early for them to have had a significant impact on performances.

There’s an awful lot of charlatans and lack lustre individuals making far too much money in football and a lot of that is at the expense of wealthy owners and supporters.

The difficulty / challenge for Simon is finding a Team that cares about his investment almost as much as he does. The danger (especially in football) is that you bring in people who see the depth of Simon’s pockets as the solution to every problem, rather than challenging themselves and those around them to be more creative.

I hope that’s where we now are with this new team and that our owner gets a better return on the cash he is able / willing to put in moving forward.
 
fcblackpool said:
I wonder if Stevenage, Bristol R, Northampton Town, Oxford, Leyton O etc all have owners who pump in £5m pa. Just how do they survive?
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Bristol and Oxford quite different to the others on that list I'd suggest. The others have budgets a fraction of the size of ours.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing terms

We made a 3 million profit on both Bowler and Yates

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
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Phil, we also had the compensation money from NC going to Villa.
The decision making last season was pathetic, there is no other word for it.
Everything possible should have been done by SS to prevent our relegation, thereby increasing the income this season, stabilising our position (like shi**y PNE) in the Championship, increasing the value of SS's asset & not facing a half hearted fight to gain promotion back to where we started!
I too don't need to hear about the obvious fact of the ever increasing cost of running a football club.
 
Does he mean that is the total cost of running things a season? Or what he is personally putting in?

Because a chunk of that would be covered by ticket sales, merchandise, concessions ect. surely? If it is 5 million he is having to cover to on top of that, how are we operating at that much of a loss?

I like Sadler, but we don't exactly throw money about during transfer windows - it's typically loans and freebies. Seems mad to me that a club as frugal as us needs 5 million pound injections on top of revenue.
 
TangerinePeel said:
Does he mean that is the total cost of running things a season? Or what he is personally putting in?

Because a chunk of that would be covered by ticket sales, merchandise, concessions ect. surely? If it is 5 million he is having to cover to on top of that, how are we operating at that much of a loss?

I like Sadler, but we don't exactly throw money about during transfer windows - it's typically loans and freebies. Seems mad to me that a club as frugal as us needs 5 million pound injections on top of revenue.
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Exactly.

There is the SGTG upgrades but I wouldn't imagine that's a large figure ongoing and the East/TG projects haven't got planning yet. Apart from that we are a normal FC.
 
Who do people want to buy the club? As far as im aware there isn't a queue of multi millionaires queuing up to buy us. The Ryan Reynolds of this world are few and far between and I doubt there are many outside investors interested in a league club with small crowds based in a deprived area of the UK surrounded by "big" premier league clubs.
I seem to remember last time that the only other interested party were a consortium from Asia or something which sounded like a load of bother.
 
mropinion said:
Who do people want to buy the club? As far as im aware there isn't a queue of multi millionaires queuing up to buy us. The Ryan Reynolds of this world are few and far between and I doubt there are many outside investors interested in a league club with small crowds based in a deprived area of the UK surrounded by "big" premier league clubs.
I seem to remember last time that the only other interested party were a consortium from Asia or something which sounded like a load of bother.
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What do you mean?

I think most people (apart from a tiny minority) don’t want anyone to buy the Club and are perfectly happy with the current owner.
 
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seasidepaddle said:
Yes - he's not above criticism (no-one is) but who else with the town's best interests at heart is going to pump £5m a year into our football club?

It won't stop the abuse from the Twitter warriors, mind - but I suppose that's part of life in 2024.

'Be careful what you wish for' springs to mind!
Click to expand...
Yes, he puts good money in. However if it were me I'd want to see some return and by that I mean improvements to the infrastructure, improvements to the management and, yes, improvements on the pitch.
 
1966_and_all_that said:
Yes, he puts good money in. However if it were me I'd want to see some return and by that I mean improvements to the infrastructure, improvements to the management and, yes, improvements on the pitch.
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You would think he’d want to know the manager’s thinking and have confidence that his manager can achieve the objective. Clearly this season’s main objective has not been met. Critchley cost five million this season and will cost seven million next season at the very least when you count lost revenue from not getting promoted.
 
Just rewatched the part of the interview because my old man was just asking me about it on the phone, I couldn't remember the context of the £5m comment when I told him about it.

It followed him talking about how he'll put more in this year than the COVID year, Andy Bayes asked him if he's willing to divulge how much he'll PERSONALLY put in this year and he says:
"about 4 to 5 million"

That is crazy to me that he's having to put that in personally, is this how mad football has gone? We really aren't big spenders, transfer fee's we've paid this year:

SUMMER IN:
Norburn (undisclosed) (last year of contract)
O'Donnell (undisclosed) (last year of contract at non-league Rochdale)
Joseph (undisclosed)
Miles (undisclosed) (from Southport, 17 year old)

SUMMER OUT:
Yates (undisclosed)
James (undisclosed)

JAN IN:
Finnigan (undisclosed) (youngster from Southampton)
Sassi (undisclosed) (youngster from Burnley)

JAN OUT:
Dale (undisclosed)
Dougall (undisclosed)
Tharme (undisclosed)

Can't imagine the fee's were outrageous for O'Donnell and Norburn given their contracts in their last year, and their ages. Miles, Finnigan and Sassi have played barely any professional football and have gone straight in the development squad it looks like. Joseph was surely the biggest fee (seems strange it wasn't just part of the Yates deal), but all of these transfers have to have been covered by the Yates alone transfer fee considering we got a few million for him? In terms of transfer fee's I can't see how Sadler has had to dip into his personal funds considering the ins and outs.

Are wages really that high these days for footballers? As I said in my earlier comment, it is mental to me we'd be operating at a 4 - 5m deficit considering we run this tight of a ship.
 
TangerinePeel said:
Just rewatched the part of the interview because my old man was just asking me about it on the phone, I couldn't remember the context of the £5m comment when I told him about it.

It followed him talking about how he'll put more in this year than the COVID year, Andy Bayes asked him if he's willing to divulge how much he'll PERSONALLY put in this year and he says:
"about 4 to 5 million"

That is crazy to me that he's having to put that in personally, is this how mad football has gone? We really aren't big spenders, transfer fee's we've paid this year:

SUMMER IN:
Norburn (undisclosed) (last year of contract)
O'Donnell (undisclosed) (last year of contract at non-league Rochdale)
Joseph (undisclosed)
Miles (undisclosed) (from Southport, 17 year old)

SUMMER OUT:
Yates (undisclosed)
James (undisclosed)

JAN IN:
Finnigan (undisclosed) (youngster from Southampton)
Sassi (undisclosed) (youngster from Burnley)

JAN OUT:
Dale (undisclosed)
Dougall (undisclosed)
Tharme (undisclosed)

Can't imagine the fee's were outrageous for O'Donnell and Norburn given their contracts in their last year, and their ages. Miles, Finnigan and Sassi have played barely any professional football and have gone straight in the development squad it looks like. Joseph was surely the biggest fee (seems strange it wasn't just part of the Yates deal), but all of these transfers have to have been covered by the Yates alone transfer fee considering we got a few million for him? In terms of transfer fee's I can't see how Sadler has had to dip into his personal funds considering the ins and outs.

Are wages really that high these days for footballers? As I said in my earlier comment, it is mental to me we'd be operating at a 4 - 5m deficit considering we run this tight of a ship.
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Peel ..it won’t all be on the playing side although that will have increased.
Koko used to run the club with about two people doing 20 jobs each… Simon Sadler has had to probably increase staffing by a huge Amount…all those will bump the running costs up massively… I bet the staffing has quadrupled if not more.
 
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Towerpower99 said:
Peel ..it won’t all be on the playing side although that will have increased.
Koko used to run the club with about two people going 20 jobs each… Simon Sadler has had to probably increase staffing by a huge Amount…all those will bump the running costs up massively… I bet the staffing has quadrupled if not more.
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He discusses that in the interview how he had to basically build the infrastructure from scratch as the Oyston's left him fuck all. We're 5 years on though, surely the building of the non-playing staff will have been a gradational process. The playing side will always be the biggest burner of cash for any football club, when figures like £5m of personal money is being thrown about, I'd assume that would be in transfer fees and such.

I just think its terrifying as a Blackpool fan if the cost of running this football club is £5m of the owner's personal money on top of revenue, when it's ran in a fairly frugal way.
 
TangerinePeel said:
He discusses that in the interview how he had to basically build the infrastructure from scratch as the Oyston's left him fuck all. We're 5 years on though, surely the building of the non-playing staff will have been a gradational process. The playing side will always be the biggest burner of cash for any football club, when figures like £5m of personal money is being thrown about, I'd assume that would be in transfer fees and such.

I just think its terrifying as a Blackpool fan if the cost of running this football club is £5m of the owner's personal money on top of revenue, when it's ran in a fairly frugal way.
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As I said above other owners surely can't be putting in 5m in this division just to stand still. 5 years on and £5m a year thats £25m. Really? And I really can't see SGTG and upgrading BR costing much dint in that.

I'm probably missing something though, just don't know what.
 
zico_bamber said:
I don't dispute the £5 mill but.. Our player wage bill is approx £6m. Does that mean without the £5m, as a business, we'd only have a wage bill of £1m? Callum Connolly alone earns £300k a year approx.
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Connolly is on £6k a week? Well we’re not a well run club then
 
I’m not disputing SS saying it costs him £5m a year, if that’s what he’s says then it’s £5m a year. But I’d love to know where it all goes, and what comes in. Is anyone who can read accounts able to break it down for a layman?
Money in
SS £5m
Ticket sales
TV money
Commercial
Transfer fees

Money out
Wages
Transfer fees
Infrastructure
Maintenance
Etc

If it costs an average size league 1 club £5m a year to stand still, then football really is in a bad place
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
You don't buy a football club unless you are willing to fund it and to be frank the 5 million pound a year loans are a pittance in footballing termsntit

We made a 3 million profit on both Bowler and Yates

Anybody with real ambition would have tried to get us promoted from the Championship, as a Premier League windfall would wipe out the small loans in a second

I'm sick of hearing about this 5 million a season to be honest
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I’m sick of hearing your entitled bollocks.
 
I watch very little football nowadays only watch Blackpool big games and cup finals it’s all become very boring you’ve got Man City buying the title every year Real Madrid buying above them it’s all finished before it’s started as for us we will never compete, our two best players from last year can’t even get a game for Swansea and they are not pulling up any trees
 
So for Sadler to make money now from the club he will need someone to pay £30-35m for the club.

I don’t know what the going rate is for Div 1 teams? I did see recently that Sheff Wed were valued at £22m
 
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