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Whats stopping Notts introducing their own, without the need of the FA introducing it for them?
A club the size of Burton Albion (average att just over 3000) appear to be doing just fine living within their means. They may yoyo between L1 and the Championship but I bet we would all take that right now.
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The average attendance, in what is Australia's premier football league of 10 teams, is around 10,700. Whether their business model is good or not, the crowds are cr@p. Footy at a junior level, mainly due to the off field antics (and on field thuggery) of the rugby league and to a certain extent, the AFL players, is booming. It doesn't seem to translate to greatly improved attendances at the top level though.
Just had a look, Le Fondue is the league's top scorer.
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The FA are not to blame for us paying too much money to piss poor players, the play station manager/owner sanctions that.Originally Posted by PedroTheFisherman66
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There is indeed nothing stopping Notts implementing there own cap.
However the fans would need to get behind this notion because when it comes to signing players we will lose many targets to clubs offering better wages.
There in lays the problems of no universal wage caps.
If I remember right I suggested on this board, under the Trew era,that the club should budget its season for crowds of 4,000.
The objective of this would mean if we were successful we would have bigger crowds and could invest the extra cash generated if need be.
Avoid us from ever becoming bankrupt again ( unless crowds dipped below !)
Promote coaching within the club, if we couldn't go out and buy the best players , then we coach better to make to make what we have available better !!
I think the post got ridiculed at the time , I believe lamenting that such a policy projects a lack of ambition...!!!x
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This is what Donald has done at Sunderland. Budget for crowds much lower than they have had all season. Allowing investment during the winter transfer window. They've also been able to look ahead to next season and set a minimum transfer budget, based on the extra income. Obviously they're on a bigger scale, and can generate much more money than us. But its a model that is working for them.
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You make good points Pedro. Also, we as supporters need to decide what we want lower league football to look like in the future. There's a lot of hand wringing when we lurch from one financial crisis to another, people are yet again worried that we will go bust. But take it back a few years to under the Trust, when the club was living on a money in money out basis, and the complaining (and vitriol) was incessant. Lack of ambition, we need an owner with money, etc etc. Then once the debts were racking up again,it was lets flog the club to a 'rich' new owner. Then another crisis, then the Trews, then another crisis, then Hardy.
Even if we look to the start of this season, supporters on here were desperate for Hardy to splash the cash, and were delighted when he did at the start of the season. When that didn't work out, there were long threads with shopping lists of players he should bring in in January (despite us all knowing that he was already bank rolling the club). It now appears that throwing those additional millions at the club may not save our league status, and who knows, might mean that we go out of business.
If what Hardy has said about the wage bill is true - and I suspect it is - it's more than trebled since when we were being self sufficient. That's not sustainable in the long term and especially not in non-league of course.
Lower league football is in crisis, virtually no clubs are viable businesses. Mark Stallard made a really good point about this on 5 Live at the weekend. When successful business people come into a football club, their business acumen which made them successful goes out of the window and they run football clubs in an entirely different way. Then clubs end up with wages and bills not being paid (which is happening at a number of clubs), lurching into financial crisis, followed by fire sales of clubs to anyone who'll have them.
Something will have to give. Whatever happens would need to be agreed across all lower league clubs if it's to change this constant merry go round, but I cant see it happening.
Do supporters want a rich owner with even deeper pockets to buy success (and b*gger all the other struggling clubs) or do we want a fundamental change in the way lower league football operates? I'd be really interested to know what people think.
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Cher. Don't be fooled by lower or non league football and the funding. Many non league clubs will be paying players as much as we do. Salford, Ebbsfleet, Harrogate are throwing money at it to try to get into the league but they have owners with real money. Check your PM too.
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It sure would help if these clubs would come along and offer better wages to most of our squad.
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I'd like to see a club that promotes youngsters through the ranks, watch them develope, then eventually move on, rather than sign 30 somethings looking for that last contract.
A club that doesn't constantly harp on about projects and 5 year plans, chasing dreams and putting themselves at risk.
A club that has a smaller squad with better players, rather than a larger squad of lower quality players. Use our youth system to fill the gaps rather than loans. Better our own players talents than other teams.
We have an average attendance that would have us within the top ten attendances in L1, so why are we getting our finances so badly wrong. Notts certainly do have the capacity to be doing a lot better than they are, if only they were to employ the right people in the right positions (Which has been an issue long before AH arrived).
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The sad thing is the acute disparity between Premier clubs and players and lower league clubs. Yes it's market forces but the salaries of most Premier league players is eye watering. One week's pay could solve all Notts' problems. Gordon Banks had to sell his medals. That puts things in perspective. Running any business demands tight controls. Stallard is right, some owners just lose all reasoning. I know one of those. Anyway, any takeover news, speculation?
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