Sheffield Wednesday

Nano said:
I don't just want to be a midtable championship club forever and while I appreciate Gibson will probably prevent us dropping down the leagues I also think he will prevent us from climbing any higher.
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Neither does any other team in the league so this is a bit of a Veruca Salt reaction. Maybe you need to accept that Championship is now your level and stop living in the previous glory years.

Also, try to think where you might be if Gibson stopped pouring his own wealth into the club purely for spending beyond the income level and ran the club on a break even basis.
 
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Nano said:
Just a reminder that using the extreme examples at either end of the options is just silly and there are many good, stable owners between the worst and the best and the chances of us getting a "worst" is much lower than all the other options. I'd expect for a start that if Gibson were to take over he'd do his due diligence on them. He is a fan, not just a businessman and would want us to be in safe hands.
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Come off it mate. No such thing as nuance. Pick your side and dig in forever (shakes fist)
 
Brian Marwood said:
Neither does any other time in the league so this is a bit of a Veruca Salt reaction. Maybe you need to accept that Championship is now your level and stop living in the previous glory years.

Also, try to think where you might be if Gibson stopped pouring his own wealth into the club purely for spending beyond the income level and ran the club on a break even basis.
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I have several issues with Gibson that means I don't think he is the messiah like I maybe once did. There are certain options an owner could take to run the football club but he is choosing bits of all of those options at once and it means we are not getting success or value for money or a sustainable club.
1. He could be really ambitious and risk things not working but giving us a good chance of promotion by spending a lot of money. The risk is things don't work and we end up in L1.
2. He could plod along in midtable forever running the club semi-sustainably by selling our best players to cover our losses but ultimately in a way that guarantees that we lose money every year and at some point the luck runs out and you get relegated anyway or Gibson's money runs out and he can no longer cover the losses.
3. He could run the club to break even and not have any ambition of promotion and accept that you will probably find an equilibrium much lower down the pyramid that you'd like.

These options are there and if the owners were clear that we were going to be very ambitious which is why we have to charge high prices to cover our costs then that could be acceptable as a fan. If you are going to do the other two options then you can't be charging the highest prices in the league which is what Gibson is doing.

There is a difference between wanting to be a PL club and doing something about it and there is a difference in how you treat the fans while you are doing it. I don't think we offer good value to fans when we charge top of the league prices for a team with budget ambition.
 
All the complaining about high ticket prices and keeping transfer funds for himself..

The club is losses are CIRCA £13m a year, funded by one man and one man only. We have a competitive budget both wage wise and transfer funding.

To cover £13m loss we would need to add £500+ to the cost of our current ticket prices and increase out attendance by 20% at the same time.

Yes ticket prices are at the high end and we could probably have better strategy to attract new people to the ground week after week.

What do we see as a fair ticket price?

Not to mention what has already been written off. Yes we have made mistakes but Gibson owns them and funds them. Yes he could have spent it better and made better decisions. He has not got board like the guy at Sheff Wed nor does he have deeper pockets than many of the teams above.

HH to Ipswich, a team that been relegated and had parachute payments, not to mention owned by a multibillion dollar pension fund.

On price of football and can’t remember the exact numbers but Wrexham turnover last year was £27m. That was a record for league 1 , by a multiple of 3 and was on par with top end championship clubs. I am sure this will go up and beyond ours this year.

This is what we are competing against?

If we sell even to a rival, a much richer rival but can strengthen a few other positions then we are better for it.
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
All the complaining about high ticket prices and keeping transfer funds for himself..

The club is losses are CIRCA £13m a year, funded by one man and one man only. We have a competitive budget both wage wise and transfer funding.

To cover £13m loss we would need to add £500+ to the cost of our current ticket prices and increase out attendance by 20% at the same time.

Yes ticket prices are at the high end and we could probably have better strategy to attract new people to the ground week after week.

What do we see as a fair ticket price?
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Every club in this league loses money. We are not a special case. Every other club barring one manages to charge less than us… Why?

The_Big_Woodowski said:
Not to mention what has already been written off. Yes we have made mistakes but Gibson owns them and funds them. Yes he could have spent it better and made better decisions. He has not got board like the guy at Sheff Wed nor does he have deeper pockets than many of the teams above.
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Exactly, his mistakes, which we are all paying more for. By virtue of ticket prices. How can you not see this?

The_Big_Woodowski said:
If we sell even to a rival, a much richer rival but can strengthen a few other positions then we are better for it.
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That’s assuming the money will be made available, it seems the Latte Lath, Jones, Rogers, Akpom, Matthews & Coburn money hasn’t. What makes you think all of Hackney/VDB’s will?
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
All the complaining about high ticket prices and keeping transfer funds for himself..

The club is losses are CIRCA £13m a year, funded by one man and one man only. We have a competitive budget both wage wise and transfer funding.

To cover £13m loss we would need to add £500+ to the cost of our current ticket prices and increase out attendance by 20% at the same time.

Yes ticket prices are at the high end and we could probably have better strategy to attract new people to the ground week after week.

What do we see as a fair ticket price?

Not to mention what has already been written off. Yes we have made mistakes but Gibson owns them and funds them. Yes he could have spent it better and made better decisions. He has not got board like the guy at Sheff Wed nor does he have deeper pockets than many of the teams above.

HH to Ipswich, a team that been relegated and had parachute payments, not to mention owned by a multibillion dollar pension fund.

On price of football and can’t remember the exact numbers but Wrexham turnover last year was £27m. That was a record for league 1 , by a multiple of 3 and was on par with top end championship clubs. I am sure this will go up and beyond ours this year.

This is what we are competing against?

If we sell even to a rival, a much richer rival but can strengthen a few other positions then we are better for it.
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Not sure we are competing with Wrexham, that's pretty selective.
We finished 10th and up to today (and I know things might move these next few weeks), that's where we're heading again.
Millwall, Bristol City etc finished above us, maybe it's now those kinda clubs we're competing with?
If so, our pricing ought to reflect that and if it doesn't, expect far lower attendances than has become the norm these last few years.
 
Ref Wrexham - their wage bill is now well above ours, they have just bought Coady who wages will probably be close to £3m a year, to persuade him to leave Leicester for Wrexham - our highest earner is probably on half of that. We are not competiing financially with them as they are spending much more.
 
Scrug said:
Every club in this league loses money. We are not a special case. Every other club barring one manages to charge less than us… Why?



Exactly, his mistakes, which we are all paying more for. By virtue of ticket prices. How can you not see this?



That’s assuming the money will be made available, it seems the Latte Lath, Jones, Rogers, Akpom, Matthews & Coburn money hasn’t. What makes you think all of Hackney/VDB’s will?
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Scrug , not sure how to do the fancy snippets individually like you have done. But hopefully my old fashioned way will make some sense.

1. Ticket prices: I don’t know the inner finances of every club. But what I do know is that we do have a very competitive wage budget and transfer budget for the division. Excluding parachute payment clubs and probably including some of those with.

I am not saying we have the pricing policy right, and we could maybe reduce but how would that affect our competitiveness? I don’t know.

Again I will ask what do we as fans see as fair price for tickets?

And what would that do to our revenue and ultimately competitiveness?

If we where second cheapest what would expectations be?

2. Gibsons mistakes; maybe we are paying more, maybe not, what is your evidence to support this.

It’s very easy to call out mistakes with hindsight, but at the time it’s much more of a challenge.

When we got relegated and brought in monk (personally I didn’t want him at the time) and we spent a fortune, you can’t say it wasn’t with the best of intentions.

When we got promoted, signed Gaston, Valdez, negero and many others with a proven pedigree , how many thought it was a mistake?

We spnuked a load of money to hit Europe and win a cup , within that we had many success and as many failures. We were not complaining at the time.

Many other appointments and signings in his tenure that you may or may not like of agree with, but all with intention of taking us forward. That I have no doubt.

In one respect people are saying Gibson has no appetite for us no more to hit the top, no ambition, won’t fund the next promotion push and is only losing £13m a year. Our FFP position is good due to sales so should shot another lump at competing with billionaire pension funds and oil states.

Where had all the LL and Roger’s money gone, he is drawing it out of the club. Forgetting he had written off £200m + in last 30 years.

He is a businessman and very successful, I can’t see him not been all in to succeed, but with a calculated risk against potential reward.

What are we expecting him to risk his fortune and his life’s work to save us fans an extra £30 of our season ticket of whatever it is to bring us to the 10th most expensive in the league?

Gibson has lost hundreds of millions, which I am sure if he wanted could have invested wisely and made hundreds of millions on top of his investment.

Nobody is perfect and nobody I have met, well with exception of my wife didn’t make mistakes.

Would you rather pay less and be in Sheff weds position?Barnsley? Bolton, Morecames position?

3. How do you know all the money from them sales has not already been spent accounted for?

We sell a player for say £20m and want to see the same amount on expenditure in permanent transfers.

Who knows what we spent on loans in Jan? And what we needed to pay in agent fees and sell on’s?

Perhaps from the LL money we had to pay the rest of the fees for , and I am making this up, for Azaz of whoever? We buy on tick and receive on tick .

We also need to consider cashflows, maybe Gibson can cover at times and other times he can’t… we don’t know details but make assumptions and criticise based on these as if fact.

Did we overspend in Jan? Either cash flow or FFP, or what Gibson can afford to subsidise in Jan in gambling on promotion and now need to cut cloth?

We don’t know and will never know. All I do know is that as a club and fan base all want same thing and we all have ideas on how it should be done better.

I pay my season ticket money and buy a beer each wk, but my income for club regardless is minimal.

Over my life we have had ups and downs and will continue that way as can’t compete with oil states and multi billion dollars corporations, so will enjoy the ride and hope Gibbos investments and strategies eventually hit the jackpot and we get a little more success.

I. The mean time enjoy the ride and hope the strategy works
 
Scrug said:
This bollix again.

There are plenty of owners who have come in and been great. But for some reason, seems like we’d be destined to have a Venky or a Chansiri would we?

Gibson apologists are absolutely insufferable.
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You are insufferable!

I like Gibson and I like what we are trying to do.. I like what we’ve tried to do and I like what we’ve done under Gibson.

The wheels came off in 08 and we’ve been trying to steady the ship ever since.
Strachan was dreadful
Mowbray did a great job
Karanka had money thrown at the project
Monk the spunk did a number on us
Pulis played some awful football (for me)
Woodgate had to tread water
Warnock was great
Wilder built on Warnock’s work
Carrick did well despite what fans say
Edwards.. looking forward to it tbh

That’s a pretty decent hit rate.. we made some mistakes along the way but then we got things right aswell.

This summer was always going to be tough.. but there’s signs of us doing.. something very interesting. Looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.

We’ve got a good coaching team, we’ve had good recruitment and we have some really good players. Get the right players in and we should give a good account of ourselves. The championship is so tight.. anything can happen.
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
Scrug , not sure how to do the fancy snippets individually like you have done. But hopefully my old fashioned way will make some sense.

1. Ticket prices: I don’t know the inner finances of every club. But what I do know is that we do have a very competitive wage budget and transfer budget for the division. Excluding parachute payment clubs and probably including some of those with.

I am not saying we have the pricing policy right, and we could maybe reduce but how would that affect our competitiveness? I don’t know.

Again I will ask what do we as fans see as fair price for tickets?
And what would that do to our revenue and ultimately competitiveness?

If we where second cheapest what would expectations be?
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But other clubs who are charging less also manage to have a competitive budget! I just don’t understand why we have to pay so much to remain competitive and other clubs don’t. I’ve never gotten an answer on this. MSF won’t ask it, it’s never addressed. It just gets accepted as ‘well that’s what we have to do’.

I suspect it’s because we have to pay players more to come to Middlesbrough. But every time I say this, I get harassed and told how attractive a club we are, despite many managers/players/pundits saying this is the case.

I would say £30 for walks ups and £550 for a new season ticket is fair. We would sell more tickets and likely break out at the same as we are anyway.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
2. Gibsons mistakes; maybe we are paying more, maybe not, what is your evidence to support this.
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In the ticket prices…

The_Big_Woodowski said:
It’s very easy to call out mistakes with hindsight, but at the time it’s much more of a challenge.

When we got relegated and brought in monk (personally I didn’t want him at the time) and we spent a fortune, you can’t say it wasn’t with the best of intentions.
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I agree, but it’s a mistake that’s cost us nonetheless. It was also another mistake to sack Southgate when he had us 2nd in the league and going well, something I’m certain he did because attendances dipped.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
When we got promoted, signed Gaston, Valdez, negero and many others with a proven pedigree , how many thought it was a mistake?
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Nobody, sacking Karanka without another manager lined up was the mistake.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
We spnuked a load of money to hit Europe and win a cup , within that we had many success and as many failures. We were not complaining at the time.

Many other appointments and signings in his tenure that you may or may not like of agree with, but all with intention of taking us forward. That I have no doubt.
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Like I said previous, I don’t think he’s a bad chairman. I just don’t think he’s the only one that could run us. I don’t doubt he wants the best for the club.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
In one respect people are saying Gibson has no appetite for us no more to hit the top, no ambition, won’t fund the next promotion push and is only losing £13m a year. Our FFP position is good due to sales so should shot another lump at competing with billionaire pension funds and oil states.

Where had all the LL and Roger’s money gone, he is drawing it out of the club. Forgetting he had written off £200m + in last 30 years.
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Yes, written off £200m owed to himself. So he’s basically lost his own money, and is having the fans contribute to getting his back. If I was running a failing pub due to my decisions and put the prices of pints up to claw back money. People wouldn’t come.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
He is a businessman and very successful, I can’t see him not been all in to succeed, but with a calculated risk against potential reward.

What are we expecting him to risk his fortune and his life’s work to save us fans an extra £30 of our season ticket of whatever it is to bring us to the 10th most expensive in the league?
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I expect him to be fair to the demographic of Teesside. We are the most deprived area in the country and we pay more than the majority of clubs, some even in the premier league.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
Gibson has lost hundreds of millions, which I am sure if he wanted could have invested wisely and made hundreds of millions on top of his investment.

Nobody is perfect and nobody I have met, well with exception of my wife didn’t make mistakes.

Would you rather pay less and be in Sheff weds position?Barnsley? Bolton, Morecames position?
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This is the same as assuming we would get bad owners. Whos to say we would be worse off? Why would we be a Morcambe? Why wouldn’t we be a Burnley, or a Southampton? We don’t know, we seem scared of change.

Yes, it could go wrong. It could also be wonderful. All I know is at the moment treading water for so long has priced me out of watching the club I love.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
3. How do you know all the money from them sales has not already been spent accounted for?

We sell a player for say £20m and want to see the same amount on expenditure in permanent transfers.

Who knows what we spent on loans in Jan? And what we needed to pay in agent fees and sell on’s?

Perhaps from the LL money we had to pay the rest of the fees for , and I am making this up, for Azaz of whoever? We buy on tick and receive on tick .
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Well, if you look back at my other posts, I suggested that the rest of those fees had been swallowed up and have had several posters jumping down my throat to tell me they hadn’t. Including some on this thread who have since called me insufferable.

There’s so much flip flopping around it’s hard to keep track.

But what the sales have left us with is FFP wiggle room. Gibson is able to invest more if he wants to. He doesn’t, fair enough, that’s his prerogative. Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.

The_Big_Woodowski said:
We also need to consider cashflows, maybe Gibson can cover at times and other times he can’t… we don’t know details but make assumptions and criticise based on these as if fact.

Did we overspend in Jan? Either cash flow or FFP, or what Gibson can afford to subsidise in Jan in gambling on promotion and now need to cut cloth?

We don’t know and will never know. All I do know is that as a club and fan base all want same thing and we all have ideas on how it should be done better.

I pay my season ticket money and buy a beer each wk, but my income for club regardless is minimal.

Over my life we have had ups and downs and will continue that way as can’t compete with oil states and multi billion dollars corporations, so will enjoy the ride and hope Gibbos investments and strategies eventually hit the jackpot and we get a little more success.

I. The mean time enjoy the ride and hope the strategy works
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I really hope it does too. I want nothing more than to see this club succeed. But I have seen a clear decline in league position and connection with the fans, yet an increase in the cost of watching it. How can I be happy with that?
 
Bloody hell. Another thread that turns into a Gibson argument.

Bunch of children.
 
I've been reading things over the last few months about Gibson pocketing transfer funds. So, had a quick look over the last 3 windows. Most fees are undisclosed so.its very difficult to get accurate figures.

Jan 24
Azaz = 2.5 mill

Rogers 15 mill
Crooks 1 mill

We left thst window +13.5 mill

Summer 24
Neto 1.5
Burgzorg 2.5
Morris 4
Hamilton 2
Conway 5


Minus 1.5 million

Jan 25
Matt clarke 500k
Izzy 4
Lath 20

Whittaker 7
Edmondson 700k

Plus 12.5 mill

Summer 25
Coburn 4


Alfie jone 3
Kante 2.5

Roughly plus 11 mill over last 3 windows. But this doesn't take into account loans fees they will be hefty and apartently this brittain deal isn't dependent on a sale so that's another 3.5 mill.

Gibson is funding the day to day running of the club about 11 mill a year and asking the recruitment to fund itself i don't think (unless I've missed transfer or 2) he's taken any of the transfer funds received
 
While recognising Gibson has made numerous mistakes since 2006, to attend a game is very expensive and the club seems to have forgotten how poor Teesside is you have to look at the big picture - where football is now.

The money in the game is obscene, but 90% of that is swallowed up by greedy players and agents. Unscrupulous owners. FFP has hamstrung many clubs apart from those already at the top ......and not playing by the rules or finding ways to circumnavigate them has become the norm.

Football really, is sh*t. Uncompetitive at the higher levels. Gibson is playing by the rules, complying as he should, and unfortunately has us as a top end Championship challenger. We need that bit of luck, players who are signed who really help the team. Could be next season, the one after......

Meh.
 
The issue is the wages demanded by players at all clubs.

In 1995 we paid Juninho £13k per week rumoured to be the highest in the Premier league - today we would have pay at least £250k per week to get him i.e £12.5m per year. I think of £20k per week as a bog standard Championship wage and a total players wage bill of £25m as very ordinary. An ordinary Championship Club is struggling to generate £25m in revenue. And of course there are other staff to pay and other bills with running a football club. The £12m a year trading loss at Boro is probably typical now and someone has to pay it. The owner at SW obviously does not want to pay £12m a year into the Club. i can see a few more Championship clubs having a similar problem, 2 are getting publicity sponsorship money and 4 are getting parachute money, but what about the other 18, another one has received celebrity money and we know another one has definite financial problems. Parachute payments are inflating Championship wages and transfer fees paid, because most of the Clubs want to compete with the the parachute clubs who are getting an enormous subsidy.
 
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ITV news did a piece on Sheff Wednesday last night, but they didn't explore the underlying causes. It was just the owner isn't doing this and that and fans protest with black and white footage from the 1950s and fans with rattles and rosettes.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Likewise Morecambe.
The independent regulator cannot come in quickly enough - licensing club owners so that they as well their clubs could face sanctions if they break their agreement. The interim regulator is going around the country over the next few months meeting sets of football fans to explain his role and powers and discuss situations and concerns for the fans at their clubs.
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Can he sort out our injury problems?
 
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