Thetownend.com

‘This isn’t about politics... all I care about is raising £30k for Paolo'
           
           


  THE Swindon Town fan leading an online campaign to raise the money necessary to keep three loan stars at the club has stressed that the concept is in no way a swipe at majority shareholder Andrew Black.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/10145669.___This_isn___t_about_politics____all_I_care_about_is_raising___30k_for_Paolo_/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Here we go..

Given my £10 its not much but its something

Its good someone is being pro-active in this. Good luck to him/RAF

How tinpot

My thoughts exactly. I dont see why people are getting in a tizz about it to be honest.

Agreed. He did not have to do it. But then I actually like people who actually do something rather than just talk about it.

RAF fund almost £9.5k now. Surely that has to be worth keeping one of the players for a month?

Cant't see the problem with this. 8000 fans a pound a week for three home games = £24000. Could do it every season!

If the loan signings want to stay, couldn't they take a slight drop in wages? was just a thought thats all

Agreed, this isn't about the new board its just a good gesture from the RAF.

We did a similar thing to pay for a bunch of loans and a transfer, it worked really well for a couple of seasons.

Yep, that's right.  A fan getting up off his arse and actually doing something positive for the club.  Raising some cash and, at the same time, demonstrating that there are fans out there who are prepared to match the Manager's commitment to the cause.

You, on the other hand, spent about a second typing 'how tinpot', which took very little thought and achieved fuck all.  Well done.

Fair play to the chap organising this.  My tenner is on its way.

Meh. It's a nice gesture and all that, but I probably won't be forking out. Fans pay enough as it is without being guilted into this too. Seems like the desperate act of a charity case to me

It's a problem which wouldn't have arisen if Di Canio didn't jizz the budget on dross too

[/Semi-Joking]

How much of that is new money from the last few days...anyone know?

That's fair enough to be honest. Its a personal thing. I've not contributed yet this time round myself (yet).

Waiting for the club to say whether it intends to use the money or not. IIRC the last time the RAF was in full cry there was a little concern from the club about monies owed if a player brought in by RAF money was signed then sold on..Something like that. Clearly in this case we aren't brining new players in, but I'm sure the club need to cover things like this. I'm sure PaulD will correct me/chastise me for being totally wrong!

It's probably not good PR for the club when fans are chipping in to get loans in etc..

I will donate, but not until it's been confirmed that any money raised will go to the club to pay some wages / get a player in etc.. I feel uneasy donating and the money just ends up sitting in the bank not being used because of politics between the club and the trust.

The owners, Board, Team and Paolo, will probably get the warm fuzzy feeling inside when they see the fans care so much about the success of the club - maybe someone will match what the fans raise (Black or PdC?)

It seems pretty clear that Andrew Black feels he has sunk enough into the club. Paolo's offer is novel and he certainly deserves credit for it if he delivers, but I expect most League 1 managers would happily donate £30K to their club  if they could swap their salary for his !

I doubt PdC's salary is that much more than most League 1 managers. He comes across as the sort of manager that would have a transfer / wage kitty written into his contract before high wages. However, I imagine he's fairly well off anyway given his playing career.

Ego rather than fiscal need drives many football salary negotiations !

The RAF at the weekend was standing at around £9k I believe so £500 in a few days I think is a good start.

There has never been any arguments with stfc ref players bought in and sold as the RAF has always paid for loan players wages, but there is a clear agreement between the RAF & STFC should such circumstances arrive that the fund is used for a perm player and he is then sold on, of the top of my head a % is paid back to the fund (which would then be able to be used again by STFC).


It's been a few years since I last done anything with the RAF so cant remember it all clearly.

The fund will also not be used for such things as agent fee's, signing on fee's etc also.

This was used in previous years by previous managers for loanee's, it was setup as a way of helping when money became tight.

It nice to see the RAF being brought out of it's self imposed hibernation to potentially be used again though, fair play to Trevor in twitter land though for coming up with the idea (assume he's not on here).

Why aren't the Trust making a bigger thing of this though? Why has it taken Trevor to get the initiative going (and a comment from Paul D about the RAF a few days ago)?

Who knows as you say the trust should have taken the initiative and should have been banging the drum, I'm sure one of the trust guys who post on here can comment.

I only commented on the RAF as I was the one who used to do everything for it when I was on the trust board, I think it was my comment to trevor in Twitter the weekend that got the RAF used and brought it back to the fore..I may be wrong though :>)

Doesn't appeal to me when seeing players having their contracts paid up in full.

The idea may be well intentioned, but is it really necessary? Seems a bit of an overaction based on nothing more than di Canio stating if the board wouldn't help him, he'd stump up some cash himself.
Well, Martins and Holland have both had their loans extended and Paolo's not had to go into his overdraft, has he?
I'm not trying to negative, just struggling to see the point.

Think I'll pass on paying towards helping some rich footballer to fill up his merc, and be happy to do my bit by paying at the gate on a Saturday, and it might of been a idea to ask the club if they wanted the fans help with this 'Di  Canio player fund'  before they started as I have a suspicion that the fans hard earned is just going to sit in a bank account as I doubt Black and Co will want to use it.

Sums up my thoughts on it as well.

Sorry I haven't been banging the drum more, but I've been working every spare minute since Sun afternoon.

I had a thought on Sunday morning about using the RAF in conjunction with this...but when I came back home on Sun afternoon it had already gone into overdrive. I had mesages from old board members and BBC Wilts to contact them in response to Trevor's idea after responding to Tweets and emails, and trying to get in touch with fellow board members to keep them in the loop.

I've been in touch with Trevor since Sunday afternoon, advising him that the RAF could be used and trying to get the website updated, and tweeting links to the website and getting the word out.

Currently, I am the only board member that posts regularly on here and I apologise for not keeping the TEF updated !!

I believe the Trust Chair is doing an article for the Adver, so keep an eye out for that.

We are going to try and update the total on a regular basis over the coming days.

Over the last 48 hours we've had about £350 from PayPal donations, which I'll be transferring over to the RAF a/c in the next few days.

Good shout...another idea would have been to leave the Hartlepool prices as normal with the extra going to Paolo......it would only take one match.

i might have misunderstood the situation here but if we're close to our wage limit, what use is any extra money going to have?

I think it would count as additional revenue, which is what the wage cap is set accordingly to.

i thought one of the issues with the embargo was that we couldn't simply ask Black to put money into the club as it wouldn't be considered as turnover, isn't this more or less the same?

This is a nice idea its just i dont think the need warrents it as such.Let us be honest is it such a bad thing that paolo has to work under a tighter budget,will do him no harm to have learn to wheal and deal a bit

There are surely ways around this. Gold sponsorship of their boots or something...

I think that's exactly what happened in the end though. He released the funds early and the umbungo was lifted.

Not entirely sure myself to be honest.

Presumably if Paolo sacrifices his salary then that salary can go towards somebody else's? Or is the gaffers salary not included in the calculations?

Not that it's going to happen anyway.

I will pay for martin myself, 10 quid + 1,000 per goal is all i can afford though

Don't cancel your holiday in Margate just yet then

I think this was debated on thisis (I know) and someone looked it up - equity investment = good, loan = bad.  Something like that anyway. 

Edit: and presumably a gift would be treated more like an equity investment than a loan since it is not damaging to the club long term, which is the whole point of the cap.

When Peterborough were at this level, their chairman, MacAnthony used some sort of sponsership loophole to be able to fund more players. Not 100% sure what he did, but pretty sure he gave them a financial advantage somehow.

Agreed. The club isn't completely skint like it has been in the past, and as you say - PdC having to learn to be more selective in the transfer market and sell to buy may not be the worst thing in the world, for us now or him and his managerial development.

This is what I had also, extra sponsorship deals for players to hike wages that were not wages but extra bonus payments and also having a promotion bonus scheme which not being part of the contract as such would not come into the wage until after the season had ended hence not being on that seasons wages structure.

Fair comment. I'm not overly fussed about his managerial development though as no doubt it'll be another club who benefits. Let's get promotion!