Ian Walsh on radio Wales earlier

[Badlands]

It seems to me that many on here forget what it costs to run a club of our size. The general running costs and the wages have to be paid before any talk of investing in the squad and this without parachute payments and no crowds through the turnstiles last season. A reality check by some fans wouldn't go amiss.

People tend to see the first numbers (6, 64, 105, 8) and ignore what the million following it means.
At current levels a £1,000,000 is 70 years worth of pay to most people on hourly rates in Wales. Or another way to look at it is roughly 4,500 years to cover the last published accounts.
It is very easy to call on others to foot the bill.

 

[ARQS]

I would argue that if the Yanks were interested in moving the club forward they would have bought Cooper a new striker. We could have picked up Ivan Toney for £5 million the previous season who would either have fired us to the premiership or we could have sold for a massive profit and lots of that lovely money that the yanks love so much. That Cooper wouldnt have had a to carry the can for the style of play either.

Assuming FFP allowed us to spend £5m (I don't know if it would or not).

In theory, the owners could have put in £5m for us to buy Toney, plus another £5m in wages (he signed a 5 year contract at Brentford and let's say he's on 20k a week). So a £10m investment back last Summer.

Toney does the business, we go up and sell him for £50m.

Say we pay half his wages on his 5 year contract. That's £2.6m, plus NI contributions, let's call that £3m. The owners take that back. Fair enough? That's £47m left.

They then take back the transfer fee, of course. That's £42m left. Fair enough that they do this? I think so.

The fee is rising to £10m, so let's take another £4m out of that, assuming scoring 30 league goals, winning promotion and being sold triggers most of those. The owners take that £4m out because they've paid that too. Fair enough? £38m left.

Let's say Peterborough have a 10% sell on clause. Around £5m. They take that out too. Still fair enough? £33m left.

So that £50m sale has already gone down by £17m and the owners haven't made a penny on their £5m investment. Their share value may have gone up but that's only worthwhile if they're selling. Our squad is still crap and we are still likely to go down next season when the shares would fall again. So they take £5m out as a return. Fair enough?

We've been lucky and not paid any agents fee's - that leaves the club with £28m which they give to Cooper to spend on transfers and wages.

Firstly, despite them taking a huge financial gamble, all the fans would be up in arms. "We had £50m for Toney but only spent £20m" Where has all the money gone?

What I have just described is pretty much the absolute dream scenario. And let's not forget that Brentford had a better squad than us and still only went up via the playoffs.


Next, perhaps you could tell me what happens in a world where Toney doesn't make the step up or gets injured (or we have injuries to a few other key players) or we get to the playoffs and a bad refereeing decision goes against us and we lose? What happens to that £10m they've invested? Do they just write it off?

 

[Eddie70]

This all boils down to your central point made by you and others, that the owners are doing a fine job and should not be expected to either keep the promises made to take the club forward or invest money in it unlike other owners in the league.

In 2019 87% of Championship clubs’ cash came from owner financing with just 7% from operating activities (source Swiss Ramble Twitter). Coates family are into Stoke for £170mn, Maxim at Bournemouth at £100mn.

And Yes Toney could have been injured or not performed (though that would have been a recuitment issue). But life is not risk free. I also accept that it is easy in hindsight for me to use Toney as an example but we will only take this club forward with sensible and strategic investment.

I dont even want them to invest on that scale, I have discussed above. I dont want Swansea to be on the hook to thier owners for the money that Stoke are. Howvever, the only way using the model the owners use for us to have an operating profit is continue to cut, to sell good players and gamble that they can be replaced for a fraction of the price. Now I agree we have always been a selling club and there is nothing wrong with that if the club is going forwards but it now isn't. The current team is the weakest I can remember since we were in L1 and I dont think that even the biggest yank sycophant thinks this team can challenge for the playoffs this season.

So I will ask this what does the future hold, at this time with this board.

 

[airedale]

I want to know what happened to Swiss Tony?

 

[ARQS]

I didn't say that the owners are doing a fine job because I don't think they are. I also don't like them. However, there is a world of difference between that and people thinking they should be investing money left right and centre and people thinking that they are milking the club.

I only mentioned Toney because you did. I agree that sensible investment is needed, however money that comes from outside of operating activities usually comes with a downside for the club with them paying it back to the owners at some stage, with interest. Is that what we want? To be "on the hook" as you say to these sorts of people? For them to basically loan us money without sharing any of the risk (i.e. they'll get it back eventually, irrespective of whether the player is a success). For me, the one upside to having these people in charge is that it doesn't look like they're going to have us over a barrel for the next 20 years.

The other alternative of investment is how I outlined above - the owners essentially putting some cash in with the hope that it yields a return. I suppose some sort of conditional loan. What I would say in their defence is that if I owned a team and were relying on other people to tell me whether a player was worth an investment and I had paid ridiculous money for the likes of Bony mk2, Ayew mk2, Mesa, Clucas, Baston, etc. I would be a bit reluctant to put my hand in my pocket too. Yes, that does come down to recruitment but we all know how hit and miss that can be, even with the best in the business and we are operating nowhere near the best in the business.

Ultimately, "next level" bollocks aside, the owners have no obligation to put any extra money in or to take the risk so you and I can watch Ivan Toney as opposed to Liam Cullen, for instance.

What the future holds... who knows? I think that is something that ultimately they need to decide based on sensibly assessing where we are at the moment? Personally, I think our chance of getting promoted to the Premier League has all but gone for a few years at least and we should be looking to buy young promising players who will do the business for us and then be sold on for us to invest in the next crop. To be fair it looks like we are doing that. Since they've been here, apart from Llorente and Sigurdsson, all the best returns have been on young players who didn't cost us much to sign - Mawson, James, McBurnie, Rodon... you can't really blame them for wanting to go down that route (Joseph, Walsh, Latibeaudiere, Whittaker, Piroe).

Virtually all the "established" players we've signed since they've come in have been crap.

We were at our best when we were signing cheap, young players with something to prove and playing attractive football. We have done the former and hopefully the new manager will help with the latter.

 

[Badlands]

I would argue that if the Yanks were interested in moving the club forward they would have bought Cooper a new striker. We could have picked up Ivan Toney for £5 million the previous season who would either have fired us to the premiership or we could have sold for a massive profit and lots of that lovely money that the yanks love so much. That Cooper wouldnt have had a to carry the can for the style of play either.

Assuming FFP allowed us to spend £5m (I don't know if it would or not).

In theory, the owners could have put in £5m for us to buy Toney, plus another £5m in wages (he signed a 5 year contract at Brentford and let's say he's on 20k a week). So a £10m investment back last Summer.

Toney does the business, we go up and sell him for £50m.

Say we pay half his wages on his 5 year contract. That's £2.6m, plus NI contributions, let's call that £3m. The owners take that back. Fair enough? That's £47m left.

They then take back the transfer fee, of course. That's £42m left. Fair enough that they do this? I think so.

The fee is rising to £10m, so let's take another £4m out of that, assuming scoring 30 league goals, winning promotion and being sold triggers most of those. The owners take that £4m out because they've paid that too. Fair enough? £38m left.

Let's say Peterborough have a 10% sell on clause. Around £5m. They take that out too. Still fair enough? £33m left.

So that £50m sale has already gone down by £17m and the owners haven't made a penny on their £5m investment. Their share value may have gone up but that's only worthwhile if they're selling. Our squad is still crap and we are still likely to go down next season when the shares would fall again. So they take £5m out as a return. Fair enough?

We've been lucky and not paid any agents fee's - that leaves the club with £28m which they give to Cooper to spend on transfers and wages.

Firstly, despite them taking a huge financial gamble, all the fans would be up in arms. "We had £50m for Toney but only spent £20m" Where has all the money gone?

What I have just described is pretty much the absolute dream scenario. And let's not forget that Brentford had a better squad than us and still only went up via the playoffs.


Next, perhaps you could tell me what happens in a world where Toney doesn't make the step up or gets injured (or we have injuries to a few other key players) or we get to the playoffs and a bad refereeing decision goes against us and we lose? What happens to that £10m they've invested? Do they just write it off?

If the owners put in £5million that would be
£1,050,000 from the trust
£3,050,000 from the consortium &
£900,000 from individuals.

 

[monmouth]

If the owners put in £5million that would be
£1,050,000 from the trust
£3,050,000 from the consortium &
£900,000 from individuals.

Or a 5m loan at a high interest rate to cover the risk. All this stuff whining about 'investment' every year is so tiresome. It's not my cup of tea being owned by a US investment fund that doesn't give a shit about anything but money, but the thing that would really freak me out (as it threatens the clubs very existence) would be 'splashing the cash' chasing the dream ('copyright P Ridsdale). If those owners walked away from Stoke, Muff or Beesford, they are done, finished. Just like Bolton when they lost their sugar daddy.

These Yankers put 60m of their money down, into the pockets of a bunch of cowboys, liars and con men masquerading as fans, and they won't likely ever see much of that again. That is their 'investment' in the proper sense of the word, and they lost. To expect them to chuck more spend and cost beyond what the club can generate is ridiculous. They do not care about the club as anything other than an impaired asset to be managed sustainably, hoping that the roulette wheel spins them their lucky number, but Cooper and his cowardly players just blew that at Wembley.

 

[Dr. Winston]

If the owners put in £5million that would be
£1,050,000 from the trust
£3,050,000 from the consortium &
£900,000 from individuals.

Or a 5m loan at a high interest rate to cover the risk. All this stuff whining about 'investment' every year is so tiresome. It's not my cup of tea being owned by a US investment fund that doesn't give a s**t about anything but money, but the thing that would really freak me out (as it threatens the clubs very existence) would be 'splashing the cash' chasing the dream ('copyright P Ridsdale). If those owners walked away from Stoke, Muff or Beesford, they are done, finished. Just like Bolton when they lost their sugar daddy.

These Yankers put 60m of their money down, into the pockets of a bunch of cowboys, liars and con men masquerading as fans, and they won't likely ever see much of that again. That is their 'investment' in the proper sense of the word, and they lost. To expect them to chuck more spend and cost beyond what the club can generate is ridiculous. They do not care about the club as anything other than an impaired asset to be managed sustainably, hoping that the roulette wheel spins them their lucky number, but Cooper and his cowardly players just blew that at Wembley.

I regret that I have only one like to give.

 

[MrSwerve]

If the owners put in £5million that would be
£1,050,000 from the trust
£3,050,000 from the consortium &
£900,000 from individuals.

Or a 5m loan at a high interest rate to cover the risk. All this stuff whining about 'investment' every year is so tiresome. It's not my cup of tea being owned by a US investment fund that doesn't give a s**t about anything but money, but the thing that would really freak me out (as it threatens the clubs very existence) would be 'splashing the cash' chasing the dream ('copyright P Ridsdale). If those owners walked away from Stoke, Muff or Beesford, they are done, finished. Just like Bolton when they lost their sugar daddy.

These Yankers put 60m of their money down, into the pockets of a bunch of cowboys, liars and con men masquerading as fans, and they won't likely ever see much of that again. That is their 'investment' in the proper sense of the word, and they lost. To expect them to chuck more spend and cost beyond what the club can generate is ridiculous. They do not care about the club as anything other than an impaired asset to be managed sustainably, hoping that the roulette wheel spins them their lucky number, but Cooper and his cowardly players just blew that at Wembley.

Post of the year.