Price of Football (Twitter) 2017/18 $tudy

[Son of Cod]

Pretty interesting stuff. Click it see more graphs.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1131543043834896387

Anyone know if this is legit? Really pleased to see we're actually close to being sustainable.

 

[SoutheySWFC]

He's highly thought of as an authority on Football finance, Uni of Liverpool I believe.

Prefer Swissrambles stuff mind

 

[Son of Cod]

He's highly thought of as an authority on Football finance, Uni of Liverpool I believe.

Prefer Swissrambles stuff mind

Ah okay cool, cheers for that.

 

[Conker]

Yeah I regularly query him on stuff, his graphs can be a little confusing because he’s not exactly clear of what he’s incorporating sometimes.

One thing it does show is how understated Lincoln spending is though, not having a pop at it but they have got away with a lot of the GOING FOR IT Bantz these past two seasons, especially after paying a reported £6 billion on Akinde in the summer.

 

[shoddycollins]

I can't hear myself think over the sound of Kenny End furiously rubbing one out to this down the other end of the A6

As for ourselves... I'm more confused now than I was before!

 

[Chris FGR]

Colchester lost £3m? I'm surprised at that, do they not own their stadium?

 

[F!RTHY]

$tudy.....see what you did there!

 

[Gladders]

He gets all the figures from the annual accounts and seems to know his stuff, however the way he interprets some of them can be misleading I guess.

Especially the average wage chart. Where is he getting the figures from for numbers of players etc?

Obviously the total wages is accurate from the clubs that publish the figures but that is not just players, but does give a good idea. Lincoln spending over 4m on wages in 17/18 so god knows what they spent this season (though they have the income to justify that spending). It's a shame all clubs aren't transparent with this information though, be nice to see all 24 clubs on there.

 

[Conker]

He gets all the figures from the annual accounts and seems to know his stuff, however the way he interprets some of them can be misleading I guess.

Especially the average wage chart. Where is he getting the figures from for numbers of players etc?

Obviously the total wages is accurate from the clubs that publish the figures but that is not just players, but does give a good idea. Lincoln spending over 4m on wages in 17/18 so god knows what they spent this season (though they have the income to justify that spending). It's a shame all clubs aren't transparent with this information though, be nice to see all 24 clubs on there.

Consider he’s got Mansfield at £0 for player cost and player signings, it’s indeed very confusing.

 

[Gladders]

Consider he’s got Mansfield at £0 for player cost and player signings, it’s indeed very confusing.

As you dont release full accounts I guess he doesn't have that info?

 

[Conker]

As you dont release full accounts I guess he doesn't have that info?

Then he needs to say that in the graph surely?

 

[JJ1532]

It's difficult to properly gauge football clubs, because so many are split up into multiple companies. I know Crewe Alex have one major parent company, but the assets like the club, the academy, the stadium, are all managed separately.

Also, these figures can often be distorted by various factors. I'd imagine Exeter's huge profits came off the back of windfalls in player sales. What's their year to year +/- without that?

The graph to me shows what a sorry state league 2 is in financially, even if the info is a little out of date. Exeter's profit is down to player sales, pretty sure Stevenage(Ben Wilmott) and Port Vale massively benefitted from that too. Newport had their crazy cup run.

When only 8 clubs made a profit and unsustainable/unpredictable reasons helped at least 4 of them, things don't look all that good.

 

[dedwardp]

Colchester lost £3m? I'm surprised at that, do they not own their stadium?

No, we rent it from the council. I think it used to be £300k per year for the first decade (which ran until last summer) and then became a percentage of ticket revenue. We run all of the operations at the stadium in terms of the 365-day a year corporate events and so on and I wouldn't be surprised if we were to try and buy the stadium in the next few years as the council will be getting less than they budgeted for as a percentage of ticket gates.

As JJ says in the last post though, the club is just one of a number of businesses through the holding company and it will have been structured in whatever the most tax-efficient way is of running them.

 

[MaineRoad_96]

One thing it does show is how understated Lincoln spending is though, not having a pop at it but they have got away with a lot of the GOING FOR IT Bantz these past two seasons, especially after paying a reported £6 billion on Akinde in the summer.

Ours worked though.

Seriously it just goes to show how unsustainable it all is. If those figs are for 17/18 then our expenditure was off the back of the FA Cup run which was a once in a lifetime event. We have got a new training ground so maybe some of that is reflected in the loss, which is something more tangible than spending it on paying Jorge Grant to stand around looking disinterested.

 

[Conker]

Ours worked though.

Seriously it just goes to show how unsustainable it all is. If those figs are for 17/18 then our expenditure was off the back of the FA Cup run which was a once in a lifetime event. We have got a new training ground so maybe some of that is reflected in the loss, which is something more tangible than spending it on paying Jorge Grant to stand around looking disinterested.

Like I said I was not having a pop so quit the defence mechanism and stop craving a pat on back, Lincoln were worthy winners.

 

[Gladders]

Then he needs to say that in the graph surely?

Ring up and complain

 

[MaineRoad_96]

Like I said I was not having a pop so quit the defence mechanism and stop craving a pat on back, Lincoln were worthy winners.

Jesus I was joking.

 

[Conker]

Ring up and complain

Give me the hotline number and I will

Jesus I was joking.

Bet ya was

 

[Tarzan]

Also, these figures can often be distorted by various factors. I'd imagine Exeter's huge profits came off the back of windfalls in player sales. What's their year to year +/- without that?

Sorry to pick on this one particular part of your post, but it's hardly a distortion. Developing players through our excellent academy then getting value from them as players on the pitch and then, possibly, monetary value from them if they're sold on is what's pretty central to our business model.

You could ask if that's sustainable as we see more and more young players swept up by Premier League clubs before any meaningful compensation is due. You could equally ask whether a more money than sense owner writing cheques until the ink runs out is sustainable either. I know which model I'd prefer to exist under though.

 

[JJ1532]

Sorry to pick on this one particular part of your post, but it's hardly a distortion. Developing players through our excellent academy then getting value from them as players on the pitch and then, possibly, monetary value from them if they're sold on is what's pretty central to our business model.

You could ask if that's sustainable as we see more and more young players swept up by Premier League clubs before any meaningful compensation is due. You could equally ask whether a more money than sense owner writing cheques until the ink runs out is sustainable either. I know which model I'd prefer to exist under though.

Dude, you're preaching to the converted. My club have ran this way for 30 years.

What I simply mean is, what are your profits and losses on a lean year? Academy talent isn't always the most stable. We've got through many peaks and troughs, as I expect you will. Maybe unsustainable was the wrong word, as we have made it sustainable for a long time.

But it's unpredictable. You've produced arguably the 2 of the best players in your history in Watkins and Ampadu. But can you bank on producing Ampadu's and Watkins' calibre players every few years to keep yourselves going? We've produce that calibre player 4-5 times in 30 years. Can you do it every few years?

 

[Mark kavanagh]

Vale made a million profit and nearly went down, I'm sure the supporters would have been thrilled seeing this

 

[Tarzan]

Dude, you're preaching to the converted. My club have ran this way for 30 years.

What I simply mean is, what are your profits and losses on a lean year? Academy talent isn't always the most stable. We've got through many peaks and troughs, as I expect you will. Maybe unsustainable was the wrong word, as we have made it sustainable for a long time.

But it's unpredictable. You've produced arguably the 2 of the best players in your history in Watkins and Ampadu. But can you bank on producing Ampadu's and Watkins' calibre players every few years to keep yourselves going? We've produce that calibre player 4-5 times in 30 years. Can you do it every few years?

Sorry for the slow reply.

Assuming no income from player sales, cup runs, that kind of thing, our income is relatively stable and the business is profitable. However, that’s only because aside from all of the fixed costs associated with running a football club, the one moveable part is the playing budget and, in the past, the size of that has been largely determined by whatever’s left over. The issue though is whether that’s a competitive budget compared to the rest of the division.

Some of the money from recent player sales has and is being used to enhance the playing budget over a few years. I believe that our base budget, that is the unenhanced budget, would see us flirting with relegation if that’s what the league table was based on. We could chuck all of the transfer money into the playing budget in a one off push for promotion but that’s probably too risky a tactic for us to consider. It’s worth noting though that player sales income hasn’t just gone towards increasing the playing budget. It’s also been used for things like training ground and stadium improvements as well as some being held back for a rainy day.

To answer your question more specifically, whether it’s sustainable in the longer term we simply don’t know. It’s worked for the last 10 years or so but one fear I have is that at the root of this model is the academy and we’re seeing more and more examples of Premier League clubs sweeping up all of the young talent before they’re old enough to attract any meaningful compensation, because to them it doesn’t really matter if only 0.05% of them actually make it.

 

[Indian Dan]

Not wishing to piss on your chips, but I’d expect you to fall away next season. Can’t keep on selling your better players and expect to get adequate replacements on the cheap.

 

[Tarzan]

Not wishing to piss on your chips, but I’d expect you to fall away next season. Can’t keep on selling your better players and expect to get adequate replacements on the cheap.

True, but that's the same for any club and, like it or not, pretty much all lower league clubs are selling clubs.

Take Jordan Storey who played only a handful of games for us and we sold him for £750k (he didn't even actually come through our academy fully). I think most would have liked to have kept him but he was clearly too good for L2 and we were able to use that money to offer much better wages to a number of new players than we'd have been able to.

I guess it's all about trying to strike a balance and we don't always sell just because a bid comes in, Ollie Watkins being an example.

 

[Conker]

Exeter seem a reasonably well run L2 club, steady above average crowds for this level, where the significant stadium improvements from player sales? That’s something to be proud of if that’s the case.

 

[Tarzan]

Exeter seem a reasonably well run L2 club, steady above average crowds for this level, where the significant stadium improvements from player sales? That’s something to be proud of if that’s the case.

The new side stand was done essentially at no cost to the club in return for land being given over by the city council to a developer to build student flats behind the Big Bank (the council own the land our ground is on).

The club did make some improvements to the basic design and facilities using money from transfers though. The away end was, I believe, funded entirely by the club using transfer income.

 

[valefan16]

Vale made a million profit and nearly went down, I'm sure the supporters would have been thrilled seeing this

Why do you think we protested Smurf out the club!

 

[Trapdoor]

Not wishing to piss on your chips, but I’d expect you to fall away next season. Can’t keep on selling your better players and expect to get adequate replacements on the cheap.

We've been doing this every year since 2009 pretty much.
We don't rely on windfalls and player sales to run the club. In hypothetical years where we're have no sales we should be +/- £0 for that year.

 

[Indian Dan]

Which kind of proves my point. You’ve dillied and dallied at getting out of L2 but, ultimately, fell short.

I think the side you had the season before last was very good - better than last season - but it wasn’t built upon. Eventually, the replacements will be next to useless and you’ll struggle. I admire the sustainability ethos but it won’t get you promoted any time soon.

All my opinion, of course. I could be talking absolute bollocks.

 

[Trapdoor]

I dont think you need a particularly amazing team to get out of L2. A little bit of consistency goes a very long way down here.
Last time we were under private ownership, we got relegated to the conference and the owners got sent to jail for fraud. At least we are in control of our own destiny these days.