Thetownend.com

Swindon Town to halve playing budget for next season
     

Swindon Town are set to halve their playing budget for next season to just over £2m, BBC Wiltshire reports.
     

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22454081
     

If our playing budget is brought in line with other clubs in the division then our matchday ticket prices need to be brought in line with other clubs in the division too.

People were happy to pay more than other league 1 fans when the team was assembled at a higher price than other league 1 fan's teams were, but if we're paying more than those fans for the same product people will start to feel ripped off and stop coming.

Planning for the 8400 average attendance over the last two years seems dangerously optimistic, the last two seasons have contained drama pretty much non stop, the PDC factor, a couple of good cup runs, a game against Oxford and a playoff game. Realistically I think in a midtable season we'd average 7.5 or so.

Yep - and if the average does drop will that then make the wage bill budgeted for unrealistic and thus more cost cutting needed in say January?

2010/2011 we averaged 8457, and we all know where we finished in that season.

Tickets were notably cheaper that season I believe? And we sold tons of STs on the back of the previous season's success.

Was that the cheap season ticket year or was the the year before?

Also, what did we do to bring in 10k against Walsall?

Wasn't that the first game with Hart? Obviously before we all realised he was a useless twat.

Jed stated previously that next seasons budget would be similar to this one. That didn't take long to halve.

Surely we all knew he was a useless twat before he got here...

...and yes it was his first game in charge, I assume we did some sort of promotion on the day

If u work out season tickets sold and walk ups to the 1.8m for concerts, lower wage bill sale of players. there is a fair profit to be had or reivested. Looks like jeds given k mac a budgdet and fuckd off on holiday.

McCormack,De Vita,Ferry and Miller released so far.

and Joe Devera

Is there a source for this?

...because if the likes of Devera and McCormack our out of our price range, well....fucking hell...

Twitter.

Completely unfounded rumours as yet though.

Genuine Twitter or full of shit Tans style twitter?

11:45 announcement on full release list

That's...concerning. Devera would seem like an ideal value for money signing (disclaimer: I know fuck all about what our squad our paid).

If Ferry goes I'll be straight down the back of the Arkells :/

Devera was Barnet's player of the year twice. I'm not sure he'd have been as cheap as we think.

Gutted to lose then though,  even if we knew it was coming...

Orange hats at the ready??

Wonder if all the players released are budget related or the fact Kmac doesn't rate them?

Released: Simon Ferry, Raffa De Vita, Tommy Miller, Joe Devera, Chris Smith

Orange hats on, ye can take our lives but ye'll never take our Ferry

New contracts offered to Leigh Bedwell, Aden Flint, Miles Storey, Nathan Thompson

Flint of course may still go.

A club would need to pay compo for Flint, which might limit his options somewhat.

I've seen this mentioned repeatedly by many different people but I honestly can't remember this statement ever being made by Jed or anyone else at the club? Can anyone find a source please?

I'm sure the statement was made at a Q&A (ask Tans/herthab), I don't thing it referred specifically to next season.

“It’s significant funds to put it politely,” he said before, when asked if the kitty was of a similar size to recent years, adding: “Yes to be fair, yes it is but not to be spent naively or through false promises and it’s about managing it and one’s expectations."

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/10250965.Robins__new_chairman_says_kitty_will_be_handled_with_caution/

Think this is where most people have got it from

Not quite the clear statement that the budget will be identical that many have interpreted it as...

No

There was a Q&A where Jed said the budget will remain the same. However, I do not think that was referring specifically to next season.

He says budget would be similar and if Sam's report is to be believed along with the BBC reports today then £4.5m is not "similar" to £2m.

That article also says:

Though it was McCrory’s cash which acquired the club initially, he told the Advertiser that two private investors would help to bankroll the continued development of the Wiltshire outfit and that they have a financial clout roughly equating to the budget under Black.

I can understand why people interpreted it as such but in the same article he clearly talks of "financial prudence" and that money is "not to be spent naively or through false promises and it’s about managing it and one’s expectation".

I really don't think it's fair to say that McCrory promised to match the supposed £4.5m budget when he took over and has now done a complete U-turn... if anything, it'd be impossible for him to contradict himself given that's he said roughly fuck all.

We all know that the previous spending was unsustainable and was leading us into trouble, nobody was going to buy into this football club with the sole intention of continuing to underwrite huge losses. There are plenty of reasons to criticise and doubt McCrory & Co but I don't think this model of sustainability and budget cuts that are  clearly necessary is one of those reasons.

Many on here were criticising Bournemouth on the troll thread yet seem to expect us to continue in the same vein.

It all adds up, 23 match days with 8500 crowds paying on average £18 gives match day sales of roughly £3.5m, so wage budget of £2m and £1.5m for other costs.

I think it is fair to say that he said he would match the £4.5m because that is precisely what he is quoted as saying....

Paolo Di Canio was understood to have been handed a £4.5million warchest this season.

“It’s significant funds to put it politely,” he said before, when asked if the kitty was of a similar size to recent years, adding: “Yes to be fair, yes it is but not to be spent naively or through false promises and it’s about managing it and one’s expectations, calming down the big drive of this ‘we’re going to get a new stadium’.

With the caveat of the bit you didn't highlight in bold.

Add the potental of 1.8m in concerts plus 300k for caddis, tidy profit.

I don't think we'll be seeing the concert money in the budget until it's in the bank.

Does the wage budget also include all the backroom staff etc, equally costs of stadiu, management, the police, lease cars etc it all adds up!

Actually, the more I read that comment the more it does sound like a total contradiction. I'll get on my bike and start back pedalling now.

I still maintain my point about budget cuts being inevitable and necessary yet people are still huffing and puffing about it

On the ticket price calculation to work out the budget you could also add; FITC, corporate hospitality, food and drink sales, programme sales, merchandise and sponsership revenue.

Cuts maybe,halved when the chairman has stated funds will be similar though is gonna prompt a negative reaction from fans. Half isn't similar, not even close.

If we can't afford the higher budget then fair enough, I'd rather have a stable L1 club than a  defunct one.

Do you seriously think we're going to make that much profit on concerts? I mean, really?

Two words: austerity measures. We shouldn't blame Jed, we should all be blaming Keynes.

This is the bit I don't get with the new wage budget. Based on the 10/11 accounts a playing staff wage bill of £2m would get us to about break even. But this doesn't include player sales or other income (such as the concerts).

Would be interesting to get Jed to explain what will happen to any additional income above budget.

FITC is separately funded by grants and the revenue it raises itself. Insofar as it contributes to the club's budget (which I think is what you were getting at), surely it would just count as A N Other corporate customer for the matchday packages they do and for the (fairly limited) use of the ground in half-term courses etc?

That was the figure quoted on 12 concerts

So (for example) take up the option on Ferry's contract and listen to offers to buy him if needs be. Letting valuable assets go for nowt is a business model tending more to the "defunct" than "stable" side of things. Unless by "stable" you mean "full of horse-shit" :)

this is what makes me think Ferry chose to leave... I have as much business acumen as roadkill and can see that giving away saleable assets for free is a pretty fucking daft thing to do

The problem with the whole concert scenario is that in the next few years this town will have a purpose built arena at North Star, I just can't see how the CG can compete with that as a venue once it opens. So this whole concert idea can only surely work in the short term, if it works at all.

But and this is a bloody great big but, what if tou take up the option and then discover that no one wants to buy him, for all we know they could have been listening for interest and concluded the risk isn't worth it.

When you look at the number of players still under contract and the budget it was never close to adding us so high profile departures were inevitable.

I'm sure you're right. But they could still make the offer, then we could at least command some kind of fee for him, instead of just letting him wander off

In the ideal world they're showing some financial prudence and will reinvest any profit  :nod:

As they are only planning to be here short term it makes perfect sense.

If there were any evidence of considered shrewd dealings in any of this, I'd be right with you.

I honestly would not be surprised to hear that its needed to pay some debt off somewhere or that we are still paying Paolo and Spencer for the next 12 months - or something equally bizarre!

I agree... I was talking about a longer term strategy rather than a single event.

I also don't know what the finances were on his contract in terms of wages or even if he wanted to stay for all we know his wages could have been huge.

...... or that Ferry doesn't want to make the switch.

The rumours are that he wants to be closer to home. How many Scottish clubs can afford to pay transfer fees?

And on that I agree with you too. But in relation to this discussion, I don't think there is a longer term strategy, there's a short-term holding strategy to spend very little and hope they don't burn thru all the season ticket money before they can off-load the club. Which, hopefully, they should be able to do in pretty short order as currently it's actually in quite good nick. I worry whether that will still be the case in 6 months time if we don't get more long-term owners by then

Similar to something Bob "more money than you can shake a stick at" Holt would have said. Quite a few parallels in this:

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/archive/2001/08/29/Wiltshire+Archive/7372541.Big_firms_are_on_our_side/

Despite being nervous about Jed and his consortium I've stuck to facts and given them a lot of leeway. I'm not going to trust anything they do at all now, they're either utter bullshitters, don't really know what they're doing or both.

We do need to spend within our means but we also need people who can run the club properly without saying a load of guff to appease the fans (when they haven't ignored them completely).

It's not for me, but I can see the Trust membership soaring again this year.

If we had made the championship I am in no doubt that the "For Sale" sign would be in the window by now and my view is that this board are in for what they can get and by reducing the playing budget means they make the club a better proposition when wishing to sell, it's got fuck all do to with 'community' and the 'football family'.

Will ticket prices decrease as well then?

No, because that money will go into investing in the future...

[url width=460 height=276]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/1/10/1357822010164/a-pile-of-money-in-a-back-008.jpg[/url]

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Good luck with that.

Then we'd be left with Simon Ferry as a Town player.

How terrible.

Don't worry, we've still got Lee Cox.

Who is out for 6 months due to his shoulder injury

I presume we are all talking about the same Simon Ferry that was on the verge of being run out of Town by Di Canio for being a piss head.

Maybe, just maybe, MacDonald has only seen that side of him and didn't think (bearing in mind the budget he is going to have), that he was worth being one of the highest paid players at the club.

If we're going with an experienced first 11 with a reserve 11 of cheap/young players then Kmac might have been given a choice between Ferry and McCormack. If he's going to play a 4-5-1 then Navarro and Cox are already under contract leaving a choice about the third senior central midfielder.

On the flip side to that Ferry is just about the only player to change Di Canio's opinion of him which must count for something!

I think they'll hang on to the club for at least a year if they can, it'll save them a lot of tax potentially.

Unless last year's budget included Di Canio and his crew's wages and the fees to Phil Spencer there's going to be a fair way still to go to halve the budget. 

I imagine there are still a number of players left at the club who earn more than the majority of the 5 who've been let go and are certainly not worth what they're being paid.  It's a shame some of them aren't out of contract and can be let go.  Instead we're stuck with them because nobody else wants them or they've been sitting on the sidelines for months injured.   

I suppose one advantage of running a more sustainable model is that we won't attract this type of player in the future as we won't be paying enough.

I assume you are being deliberately obtuse in that it is well known that the cuts are mainly due to budget constraints and thus the point I was making was that if you play a game with a players contract that you cannot afford to keep you may likley get your fingers burnt.

Nail head, this is the point that seems to be being missed we have a lot of players under contract and thus cuts have to be made in areas where they are out of contract in the first instance.

Ferry seems to rival Paolo in the mythical status he holds for some.

Obviously from the way most of you have been talking we've been turning down approaches for Simon Ferry for the last couple of years.

I've missed this. Tell me, during January, when every league club in the country was circulated with the names of all our players as being for sale, what interest did we have in him? Was it from championship clubs or league one rivals?

£2.4m divided by 24 people = £100k each, or £2k per week average wage.

What should be more interesting is that £4.5m = an AVERAGE of around 4k a week.  Given some of the players will have barely been out of youth contracts, some of our players would indeed be pushing up closer to £10k a week than £2k a week!

It could well take a year of redress to get back in balance, regardless of owners.  Looks like it was shit or bust.  That £4.5m budget was essentially all our income for a year!  I think it goes to show why Black finally had enough, although he should have had the balls to stop it getting that high.  a £3m loss is inevitable for this season.

What we don't know about this is how much of the £4.5m went on in-and-out the door people like Esajas and Cibocchi and Magera. And of course Phil Spencer. It could be that we blew £1m on crap that never really touched the sides in terms of the first team. PDC made lots of mistakes quickly.

It might be that you could meaningfully divide that £4.5m into a £3m 'baseline' playing budget (that we need to bring down to £2m) and a £1.5m "my passion, my project, my vision, my people" Fund that we won't need next year.

This (sorry to link to the DM), gives weekly wages in each league.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2055140/Premier-League-wages-FIVE-times-Championship.html

If the average L1 wage is about £1,500/week (or £78k/year) then a 24-man squad gives you a playing budget of £1.9m.

I'm not at all sure how you get £4.5m to equal 24 players averaging £4k a week? 4000x24x52 = £4,992,000 just for a kick off, and you've not taking into account any employers on-costs in this. Not all of the clubs wages budget is going to go into the pockets of the players.

More importantly where the hell do you get a number like 24 for the squad size? Over the whole season I'm also guessing we've had something over 40 players in the squad, with an average squad size of over 30 of which probably half a dozen are 1st year pro's / kids and 2 to 4 are loans (I'm assuming that the players wages budget will also include the payments we've been making to loan players).

Add in any signing on fees we've paid to new signings (of which there have been loads in the last few years) and I don't think the average players salaries are anything like you're guesstimate. If the agent's fees come out of the same pot then you're figures are definitely completely fucked.

41 players were assigned a squad number this season, 32 of whom made at least one appearance. Of those 32, 9(ish) were loanees (Parrett, Byrne, Luongo, Coke, Bostock, Hollands, Martin, Rooney and Ward) and 3 were youth players (Waldon, Francis and L Thompson). The remainder were Risser, Caddis, Cibocchi, Smith and some youngsters. Cox was never assigned a squad number but was obviously registered to us.

That looks about right. I guess I hadn't taken into account in my earlier post that some of our registered players were out on loan which would offset some of their costs. Still I don't think it's safe to assume that £4.5m just gets split 24 ways and conclude that this means there are players taking home nearly £10k a week.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the players shipped out on loan early in the season were still being paid their entire salary by us given Di Canio's penchant for shifting people out at the drop of a pen regardless of consequences

Isn't Miller or was it Roberts (cannot be bothered to check back) according to the oracle of town rumours costing us around £10k a week what with the mobile phones and cars?

Heretic  ;D

I agree with this, that figure will also include a massive wage to PDC and reasonable sums to FP, DD, CD.

Roberts is probably our highest earner, it wouldn't be that high though. Maybe 7k..

Haven't you got the message that almost nobody on here believes these figures that a few of you continue to pluck out of your arses about how much players earn.

This is Gary Roberts who had one brief flirtation with the Championship, but spent most of his career in the lower leagues or the League of Wales were talking about right?

And you think he was in such a strong bargaining position when Huddersfield released him (because they didn't think he was good enough for the Championship) that he could demand a salary about £100k over the average Championship player's wage?

Are you suggesting that your hero Paolo was a crook or an idiot?

He turned down a new contract with Huddersfield before coming here. I spoke to some of their fans at the time who said that their chairman was paying out silly wages for League 1, so if he's turning down Huddersfield wages...

I thought Hudds released him. Carlisle were one of the sides that wanted him but we offered him far more and they couldn't compete (according to their manager Greg Abbot). I personally can't see it being £7k a week or anywhere near but like most (probably all) am only guessing.

Visocans right though, its apparently about 6k a week.

I was told this by the same person who told me about the Andy Johnson deal a week before it was supposed to happen so have no reason to doubt them.

Who also told me about luongo at the same time.

I've no doubt Roberts is a high earner but i'm still struggling to believe the figures being bandied around, although they do keep getting lower. :-)

What makes you think you know more than him or any other cunt on here about these contractual things? Other than your pious self-assurance of course.

how many assists/goals for that? Ritchie must have been much better value, Paolo must have been off eez rocka

Why should I believe that Hudds fans are any better informed about what their club pays in wages than you are about what our club pays?

I think their total spend on playing costs, including all transfers, signing on fees, agents fees, and probably the scouting network, was about £7.5m last season. Even if the vast majority of that, say £6m was spent on wages, which it wasn't, it still only works out at an average of about £215k p.a. or £4.1k a week for a 28 man squad (and they had a decent sized squad last year cause Clarke was a shopaholic of near PDC proportions).

So either Roberts was one of their top earners, which seems unlikely, or we paid massively over the odds for him.

Which is besides the point as there was no lucrative Huddersfield contract to compete with because the facts are:

- he turned down a new contract under Clarke at the beginning of the 11/12 season, with a lot of talk about him angling for a move to Wednesday or Leeds, but that never came off
- by the summer of 2012 Clarke was gone and Grayson had taken over and didn't fancy him so there was no contract offered when his old one ran out

So he wasn't exactly "turning down Huddersfield wages" as there was nothing on the table for him.

You're living in a fucking dream world if you think we're paying Roberts £7k a week. That's over £360k a year. With NI close to £400k or over 9% of the old playing budget, over 17% of the new one. And we know that one of our long serving mid fielders has just been binned off because we aren't prepared to pay him less the half that.

It's just bollocks and you must know it.

Either that or you're insisting that PDC saddled us with a massively overpaid player. Do you think he's fucking useless in the transfer market, or do you suspect he was lining Spencer's pockets in the process.

Leon Clarke was on almost 6k a week in league 2 so I don't doubt that others will be in similar money.

Is Roberts quoted somewhere saying how much he is on? Has a picture of his payslip been leaked somewhere?

With the exception of Ferry nearly all the wage figures banded about in the past couple days are nothing more than total guesswork.

I don't know ...... I can do arithmetic?

I can work out that it's unlikely that we're spending close  to 10% of the entire £4.5m budget for all playing staff on a single player.

Maybe that I've got the sense enough to know that if there was a player at the club that was out-earning the rest of the senior pro's by more than 100% then this would probably be kept pretty fucking quiet and is unlikely to be the subject of office gossip?

But mostly because I watched the Brentford game and when Roberts played that fucking nightmare square ball that cost us the third goal I didn't see Ferry run across to him and chin him screaming "you earn nearly 3 times what I do you useless cunt", which I might expect if this was in any way true.

Says who?

I'm sorry but you can't try to authenticate one statement based on no evidence by pulling out another one and comparing the two!

says me, and I can do what I like. You can make of it what you like. I don't give a shit

And the likes of Douglas et al were on similar wages in 2010.  And that's not me guessing, it's a fact, because I know the girl who used to do the wages.

 :moon:

 :iloveyou:

Used to? Did she get sacked for telling everyone how much the players were on?

See, I heard from another player than Douglas was our top earner on 4.3k basic...

All Chinese whispers I expect.

No, she got a better paid job elsewhere.  She never discussed it at the time for obvious reasons.  Didn't matter after she and all said players had left.

I think you'll find it probably still does

Brilliant this, I love the guesswork when it comes to player wages.

Keep it up.

Courtesy of the most well informed guy on here.

However you look at it the new owners have to get things right. You cannot run a club the size of STFC, with the fan base it has like a one man second hand car dealer. 

I will always support the club and attend matches. However, after this coming season my outlay for the family will be in excess of £1k. They have to DELIVER or WE will be down to I occasionally. Now by deliver I mean 1st division football as a minimum. Relegation is not acceptable for me. Won 't stop me attending but I have other priorities demanding my cash.

As far as i'm concerned financial prudence, ah prudence, where have i heard that before Reg, Levi Lapper? I remember, Gordon is a moron Brown lets spend everthing and more so as to fuck the country up an blame the Tories. I digress. However, there has to be ambition, you know a bit like Darwinian survival of the fitest. Treading water means you fall further behind each year. The longer that happens the more likely we are to end up like dare i say Oxford?

Over to you Jed & Co.

Promotion is a minimum for you?

No dipshit read the second paragraph again.

I genuinely wasn't sure what you meant by 1st division football, I thought you were talking old money, my misunderstanding.

Reading it once was enough for me.

I'd rather have kept Ferry and Devera than any 2 of Williams, Roberts, Navarro or JMac. I'd imagine if we could offload any of the latter 4 then we'd do so.
It will be interesting to see if NateDog or Flint actually sign. I can't see Macca signing. If I was Fods I'd look to go.
I think we're in for a long, hard season on the pitch and with Jed and his contemptuous non answers, lies, bullshit, deception and general slipperiness then its going to be a long season off the pitch as well. Trying to get a straight answer out of him is going to be like nailing a jelly to a wall.  

Think he meant third division in old money!
I've never thought of this league as division one. League one at a push but never division one.
 ;D

New old money. I don't quite know what to call it. I think of this as D2...

The 3rd division.

I keep on having to correct myself when I type L3.

Is the answer...Siouxie and the Banshees and Jilted John on Top of the Pops?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ww-pKVClzU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN45OjB-cCU

Forgiven my son.

this seems more reasonable

4.3 basic plus add ons would be around what's been rumoured about more recent players. It's pretty clear that di canio gave out decent contracts to players he brought in.

Or Spencer did more like.

Jeesh, Lumps was on one again.  Lumpy, unlike the socialist utopia you desire, the capitlist world we live in means that many people earn below the average, a few earn well above.  I didn't do any long studies into potential total squad sizes, length of contracts, loan vs perm signings etc.  I just took a good basic average fully paid up squad size for the season.  Using that, it is always fair to assume that someone in the organisation is on at least double that, and probably at the same level as those on or around the average (it is the same in all walks of life if you ever review the salary budgets of companies).  Individuals negotiate their own salaries and are generally encourage to keep them confidential for exactly the reasons you flippantly remark about - others finding out the variance and questioning it.  Now, you may not like that, but it is the way of our economy.

Either way, the point was very clearly being made that £4.5 is a lot of fucking money to spend on wages (either direct or to the Govt) when you only earn £5m ish in the financial year.  It is not sustainable, and a budget of £2.4m seems entirely reasonable when you work out the average pay that would come from that (be it 24, 30, 27.3456786 players on average).  Given other analysis provided it seems completely in line with the league average, which suggests a season at least of re-alignment, but not a doomsday scenario as some may paint.  At worst it is enough money to settle us into mid table.

Interesting that rumours suggested that Bristol City had a wage bill of almost £19m, although I read somewhere that O'Driscoll was told to get that down to around £10m for last season.

It has been suggested up here that Peterborough in comparison had a wage bill of around £5-£6m last season.


I'm guessing that both of those will have to seriously cut their wage bills next season, becasue unlike Wolves I don't believe they are going to be getting any form of parachute payments.

Swindon fan in piece here!

To understand the nitty gritty you need answers to pertinent questions such as.....

Did the past budget include the back room staff?
Did the past budget include PDC's wages?
Have the figures bandied about included players out on loan and players bought in on loan? Did these figures allow for how much we either got in the form of subsidies for incoming and how much we subsidised those going out...

My understanding from someone close to a player is that Ferry was the top earner BEFORE his increase on the years extension and that was £3k per week.

I know it has been reported that the increase would take him to £2.8 per week so either way I'd suggest that his minimum is £2-2.5k rising to £2.8 maybe three with the years extension.

In short it's a mine field and you need to be clear of the points in your posts to make others understand where you are coming from.

Everyone has an opinion on what a player is worth and is maybe based on their own personal income. My outlaws got by on minimal wages and invalidity payments until their retirement a good few years ago due to various reasons and scraped by in a council house, which they still live in. What their daughter and I earn seems a fortune, it's far from that but to them it is.

The bottom line is we don't have a wealthy benefactor to support us and have to live rather frugally now in comparison. The likes of Si Bhoy or whatever his popular street cred name is is a luxury we can't afford. Unless you want to pay £700 for a ST or £50 on the day.....

I remember being told around that time by a guy who sits in front of me in the DRS that O'Brien was on £240,000 a year, working out at over £4,500 p/w. Douglas was apparently on £8,000 p/w at Leeds so I'd be surprised if he dropped to £4,300 p/w with us!! I would safely guess that Roberts/McEveley are probably the highest earners we've got at the moment with the likes of Williams & Navarro not too far behind. & on the subject of Yeovil's seemingly tiny budget I'm sure Williams turned down £5,000 p/w in the summer to be the highest paid player in the clubs history or am I making that up??

Add ons would considerably boost a 4.3 basic.

So what you're saying is "I came up with a figure by incorrectly dividing the playing budget by a squad size that I just made up, and then just assumed for no good reason that someone in the squad would earn at least double that."

Fuck it I can't be arsed with the argument anymore ... you can all keep believing that we're somehow magically managing to pay players £8-10k a week, run with a squad of 30 odd players and 7-8 loans a season all for £4.5m a year. Fuck I hope none of you have control of budgets in your jobs.

I know it's not a Stunner's World Cup year but this forum could really do with a few boobs to calm it down at the moment.

this is a good idea

Lumps, what point are you trying to make?

Mine was that spending £4.5m was a lot for this level and our income, and that £2.4m is still ample to get a squad together for this league that is competitive.

I can't figure out if you agree with that but just don't like ageering with anyone, or whether you think £4.5m was not enough?

Look, it's pretty simple.  We don't need to know the details, just that the wage budget for next season is ample to avoid the hysteria some may want to peddle that all is lost.

I would still wager good money that we have some players, not many, pushing the £200k+ salary mark.  The vast bulk of the squad would be on less than 1.5k a week.

[url width=500 height=334]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3487/3949031870_4207ab1b16.jpg[/url]

My tits are better than your boobies.

There's enough tits on here already

That he's right and you're wrong.

This is my suggestion (not aimed at anyone in particular....not even Lumps....)

[url width=197 height=255]http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyY_QrNoKNGxOzbdOj3naGJU3-ehGY9K48SISWqSZ9izSFIMkf[/url]

Just for a couple of weeks, a little summer break perhaps...? :hmmm:

Lumps appears to be on a permanent blob week. I wish MacDonald was a fascist.

How about an inter counties knock out tournament?
Plenty of counties throughout our nation with lovelies a plenty. I'll throw it out there and play but not organising

I see your tits, and I raise you a rough-faced shag.

http://images.cpcache.com/merchandise/514_400x400_NoPeel.jpg?region=name:FrontCenter,id:66959412,w:16

There's actually a bird called a rough-faced shag?

That's my year made already.

That's even better than the Agile Tit Tyrant

[url width=390 height=300]http://www.antpitta.com/images/photos/tyrants/Agile-Tit-Tyrant-papallacta_3183.jpg[/url]

How about a Welcome Swallow? Everyone loves a welcome swallow

Was told today that things will develop further with regard of the board. They bit off more than they can chew and The concerns people have about lack of funds have every reason to be worried. Alot of things have gone on recently and di canio was on huge money. Certain players too. Richie the highest paid. Think he was sold to get off the wage bill as much as to get a fee.

Develop further? Any more than that?

not having a go at you arriba but there's nothing in there that we didn't already know.

I had not heard the rumour that Richie was sold to lower the wage bill.

true, but it has been disputed on here. It was just interesting to have some rumours confirmed really. Lumps would have a fit over the money allegedly spent. No wonder black fucked off. 

What did you mean by "develop further", more (bad) news to follow? Or the board changing? Or something else?

What? I thought Jed was a billionaire? He's been having us on hasn't he. Cheeky mare

  I don't know the details. Nobody does yet not even the board as they are struggling apparantly. We didn't get answers as they can't  answer them. It's a mess from what I can gather.

This is similar to what I heard and posted a number of weeks ago.  I wonder how long it will be before everything comes out in the open? Pressure must be mounting if they really are in the shit?  Worrying times.

Ah OK. Thanks. I think!

Ive always had my worries. What concernes me the most is are this lot ready to sell or are they going to leave us shit creek and have to call in the adminstrators?

This lot have always given the impression of doing the deal only because there was a deal to be done. It's always smelled like there was no money and no plan, just straightforward opportunism to do a deal that gave them a club with a repaired balance sheet and more or less no money down.

I've seen nothing - let alone the lame answers to the fan's questions (which weren't exactly Paxman-level) - to suggest that this isn't the case.

God its quiet on here today.

No news on contracts or owt I guess?

End of season is dull isn't it?

Devera to portsmouth ;)

Devera could do a lot better. I really rate Devera and its a shame we couldn't have kept him.

The are advantages of administration in our current scenario. Somebody with more than a GNVQ in bullshit inside the building would go some way to help, surely.

As we've been in administration before and are aware of the FL's view that a penalty for entering it again would be worse than a 10 point deduction,  I fail to see any advantage. The current lot appear to be out of their depth, but they have at least bought us some time. How much time and whether it's enough remains to be seen.

Where has all the talk of admin come from? Surely if things were that bad we would have reduced the wage bill even further and put the whole squad up for sale?

Effectively the whole squad is up for sale...insofar as to pay wages over the summer, will need an injection of cash. The problem is there is likely to be little activity before pre-season.

Andrew Black ‏@bertthebold 1h
My 50th birthday coincides with a possible bid for Betfair - could be the ultimate 'tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life'

 So when's he buying the club back? :I'm a complete mofleakin Deak

Four Championship clubs in for McCormack- that's him gone then!

Really? He struggled in League 1 this year at times, that really surprises me.

From Twitter, but Morshead rather than Tans. He's a strange one, can be the best player on the pitch but goes off-plan easily. Like a defensive Steven Gerrard.

I hope McCormack is a man of his word

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

I'd be disappointed to see him go, but you can't really blame him for moving up a league. No doubt that he'll be booed by the moron element whenever he returns to play against us.

Although I'm very surprised that he's wanted by that many teams in the Championship!?

Wow, his agent will certainly deserve his cut.

League 1 is his standard, I could see 1 championship wanting to take a punt on him but 4 is pretty surprising.

Can we offer Ferry a contract then?

Fair play to him if he gets his move but he's not a championship player in a million years.

If this turns out to be true then good luck to him.

He's done well here and is out of contract and free to go...

Get Ferry on the phone asap...

If you look at where Yeovil finished on just over 20% of the budget we were operating on it does bring it all into perspective just how good a job was really done.

> The crushing moment where players you release because you can't afford their contracts sign for fucking Portsmouth

Call me pierre chang

he could have done better

Or did you just take the hint Tans?

Who are we signing then Morshead?

You know more than me Mr Chang.

Ha ha

[url width=500 height=280]http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Kelso-Says-Burn-That-70s-Show.gif[/url]

You must fearful for your job with Chang becoming our new go-to-guy for breaking news

 :hmmm: Where does Mr Chang work? The mild mannered janitor at the CG? Could be.....

Chang got owned by the adver

Someone call the burns unit.