This is great. Not only can you explain how football works, you can explain how the finances work too.
We’re lucky to have you on this board
Thanks to the OP - really interesting and great to take the time to share on here.
Genuine question re: the DNA / playing budget - would people rather we had to sell a player for £1million each summer or have DNA? From what has been said it seems like that is the choice - DNA wasn't replacing money that Milne/the Board were putting into the playing budget from their own pocket, it seems to have replaced the Hayes income so we can maintain the levels we had last season.
Personally, I would rather have the DNA support and be in a position where we can hold onto talents such as McKenna (or at least hold out for a fair fee) rather than feel the need to sell for a cut-down price in order to maintain the status quo.
Also, very interesting about the debentures (only in Scotland) and the third UEFA competition and considerations around that - be interesting to see if enough of the "smaller" nations can vote something through that allows them to be more competitive and gain more co-efficient points or if the big nations will block it. As much as we like to pretend to be in the know about both these sorts of things and sabre-rattling about what the club could/should do, it is good to understand some of the realities.
The new TV deal will be intriguing too - seems the club is keen to ensure fans through the turnstiles if they are happy to cut down on the number of televised games and seek better KO times.
I've heard similar before re: the commercial side of revenue at AFC being very competitive - especially through match-day hospitality (as much as some of us may moan about it, I think the RDS plays a huge part in this and was quite ahead of its time).
Here's a pretty random thought that I thought I would throw out there.
What if our multi millionaire chairman and / or the multi millionaire board members gave a small fraction of their millions to the playing budget due to them being "real" fans, like the rest of us, instead of asking the fans, who already pay for season tickets every year, to subsidise things?
Or, and even more random thought, is that if they don't want to give a tiny percentage of their wealth to the club they supposedly love, why don't they move to the side and let someone else in, who might....
Does anyone genuinely believe that £600k of DNA money is allowing us to compete with the top teams? Really?