Thank you Mick. I wish you'd come back as I just wanted to know if the financial calculations apply to the here and now, next year in the Championship or post relegation.
Yesterday I could have stuck my fiver on Jonjo as first scorer at 18-1 and come away with £90. However on seeing that Jonjo first scorer and Charlton winning 2-1 was 80-1 I allowed the greed instinct of a potential £400 to cloud my normally cautious judgement.
I think the £30 million Premiership "carrot" had a similar effect on the Charlton Board and the prudence and good housekeeping of the Curbishley / Varney years went up in smoke as we gambled on trying to get a bigger return just as I did yesterday on a smaller scale.
If Peter Varney was overruled when pointing out the folly of this recklessness then it could well explain his decision to call it a day. I'm sure that he would have been unhappy with wages equating to 100% of Turnover and would you want to hang around to watch greedy clowns destroy 10 years of your hard work?
I think it is vitally important that the Board of Directors is able to be freely criticised by posters on this forum without fear of rebuke if it is appropriate and a valid point is being made.
The bottom line is Dowie, Pardew and, to an extent, Parkinson are to blame for spending millions of pounds on rubbish – the likes of Richard Murray just had to take the word of the manager at the time that the player in question was a good acquisition.
A good case in point is Souleymane Diawara who was the subject of the now infamous soundbite ‘the best defender you have never heard of’, one of Richard Murray’s more recent ill-judged moments.
But Pardew, Dowie etc are not responsible for the upkeep of the club’s finances. Yes, I am sure Murray, like us, is staggered by how shite our squad is and how Pardew, in particular, in the last two years, brought in a dozen or more players, none of whom can be deemed a definite success. I can imagine our league position right now has left RM and others, like us, dumb-founded.
Yet the point remains that nobody, including Richard Murray, Peter Varney and Derek Chappell should be above criticism. There was never any guarantee the players Dowie brought in would save us from relegation after Curbs left and, equally, getting out of the Championship via the attic, as opposed to the basement as seems likely now, is never easy.
Pardew and Dowie have certainly damaged our finances by acquiring poor players but they did not negotiate the individual contracts, or the salaries, or how these should have fitted in with Charlton’s anticipated annual income.
So, it is obviously not Alan Pardew’s fault salary levels are, allegedly, around 100% of turnover or that the club is so financially hamstrung its manager can’t select a player, even if he wanted to, for fear of owing an extra 100K or that money is so tight we can’t appoint a new management team.
That responsibility lies with the club’s administration and it is vital that there is clear accountability in any business in any sector.
I might add I think Mick Collins handled the completely unfounded suggestion that he might have ‘made up his quote’, and thus the indirect inference about his professionalism, with a great deal of restraint. Journalists and writers are always an easy target when they publish content that an individual takes umbrage with and simply wants to dismiss due to its possible connotations.
I think a few of the Charlton adminstration’s employees, wannabees and hangers-on are going to need to adjust some of their preconceptions as time moves on.
Interesting Len, because my mind has been working the same way. I was and still am trying to piece it all together and working out why PV left is part of a ruddy great hole in my jigsaw. I wonder however if it was less the case that the board members were being 'greedy', rather more that it was seeking ways to finance it's debt. I don't think I had really understood just how catastrophic our financial position actually was, it was more a case of my moaning that they didn't have enough money to spend. I really wish that the board had been a lot more open with us and not subjected us to deceptions and false promises. We might have united and battled together for a common purpose rather than end up with dwindling numbers of supporters and disillusionment. I really hope we can get that spirit going even at this eleventh hour.
[cite]Posted By: stilladdicted[/cite]Interesting Len, because my mind has been working the same way. I was and still am trying to piece it all together and working out why PV left is part of a ruddy great hole in my jigsaw. I wonder however if it was less the case that the board members were being 'greedy', rather more that it was seeking ways to finance it's debt. I don't think I had really understood just how catastrophic our financial position actually was, it was more a case of my moaning that they didn't have enough money to spend. I really wish that the board had been a lot more open with us and not subjected us to deceptions and false promises. We might have united and battled together for a common purpose rather than end up with dwindling numbers of supporters and disillusionment. I really hope we can get that spirit going even at this eleventh hour.
Yes greed was perhaps the wrong word but whatever the reason the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow appears to have overridden all sensible, rational, prudent business practice.
It makes for really depressing reading. In all hindsight the biggest result we will have this season is to not go into administration and to start life in Div 2 without a 15 point deduction. Sad days but the gamble was taken in trusting Pardew to spend wisely and get us back up to the prem which did not come off.
i think that come march we may take the administration route if things haven't picked up.I got slagged off by Oggy a few days ago for saying the same but after reading Mick's article I wonder what oggy thinks now ?
Christ things are looking pretty bleak. One minute we are going to be second richest club in the world and now there is serious talk of administration with hard evidence to support such an argument.
[cite]Posted By: northstandsteve[/cite]i think that come march we may take the administration route if things haven't picked up.I got slagged off by Oggy a few days ago for saying the same but after reading Mick's article I wonder what oggy thinks now ?
Steady, Steve ........ after more than 2 years of posting regularly, I don't make a habit of slagging off individual posters on this board.
My comments a while ago were based only on what both Richard Murray and Derek Chappell said recently at their two seperate meetings with supporters.
Neither made claim that the picture was financially rosy - but both said in as many words that debt was structured and under control. The fact that the ratio of wages to income has increased, as reported by Mick Collins to approaching 100%
would also reflect reduced turnover in various commercial activities of the club, reflected for example in lower numbers of matchday ticket sales and people now actually attending matches - and the knock on effect from club shop sales and caterin, etc..
Supporters are also not spending because of their own issues with the impact of the credit crunch and higher inflation - in short, many don't have the disposable income they once perhaps enjoyed.
RM and DC also said that Charlton's finances were in comparatively better shape than many clubs in the Championship.
Maybe it would please more people if I inferred they were lying ....?
Guys - because an accountancy firm like PWC or Deloitte's have come up with some figures that say our wages are 100% vs turnover, that would have been last year. i do not think that is the case any longer. Having had my own conversations with people in the club, (in a meeting room at VFR before anybody asks) it is clear that this season we were around £4-5m short of the money required due to drop in revenues across the board, and because of this certain admin staff and playing staff numbers had to be cut and will continue to be.
However, the shortfall for next season, SHOULD we stay up will have already been figured out and so RM and DC are not lying - and there are MANY clubs in this division that spend more each week than they earn ... as happens in the Premiership too - so everybody needs to relax a little.
However, IF we do go down, then yes, expect all the top wage earning players to be sold or moved on because we will HAVE to do that also. The club WILL be spending money this month - but don't be surprised if a couple of big wage earners don't go also (namely Weaver and Zeng Zhi).
I don't know why anybody thought Charlton were making money??
Thanks Mick for posting, ignore the odd ill-informed comment.
I'm just staggered and depressed, in a week i'm going to have to collect £9.50 holiday tokens in The Sun, that someone like Christensen, who hasn't even featured for our RESERVES that much, has been earning that sort of money.
And people wonder why fans are not forking out anymore......
oggy don't take this as a dig mate what I am saying is that more and more let's call it leaks /details are coming out of the club and it seems things are gettin very smelly.I just wondered following Mick's article what you take on things were.I have no problem with you what so ever,in fact I wish I had your positive outlook,I would have a lot more hair than i do at present.As I posted last night I will take having a club regardless of the division right now,as it is better than no club at all.
Do the accounts show the total playing staff wage bill (the figure that is now allegedly close to 100 per cent of the turnover) ?
Kent CCC agm coming up in Ashford in eight weeks time. I always go and we get to quiz the treasurer on the annual accounts, which show exactly how much was spent on the playing staff the prevous season (as a global figure, of course, not broken down player-by-player)... is it the same with CAFC, or not ?
Kent CCC also in deep financal crisis, by the way, and ground redevelopment plans now abandoned. The difference is, of course, that Kent remain that anomaly in this day and age - an old-fashioned members' club and not a PLC. So there are not quite the same issues with the board (we even quaintly still call them 'the committee') as we , the members, can vote them all out if we want to!
[cite]Posted By: northstandsteve[/cite]i honestly didn't think we had any players on more than £5k a week,im shocked
From what the Palace management have inferred Mr Hudson is on well north of 10K per week and they refused to pay that sort of money.
Sharon, ZZ, Fortune, Weaver, Holland and Iwelumo were/are on wages not too away from that amount as well as senior pros who have played in the Premiership, excepting Big Chris whose wages were inflated because he was a freebie.
Bougherra and Reid were on well above 10K, probably nearer 20K, and Diawara, Faye, JFH and Traore would have been on not far off 20K if not more.
[cite]Posted By: nigel w[/cite]Do the accounts show the total playing staff wage bill (the figure that is now allegedly close to 100 per cent of the turnover) ?
Kent CCC agm coming up in Ashford in eight weeks time. I always go and we get to quiz the treasurer on the annual accounts, which show exactly how much was spent on the playing staff the prevous season (as a global figure, of course, not broken down player-by-player)... is it the same with CAFC, or not ?
Kent CCC also in deep financal crisis, by the way, and ground redevelopment plans now abandoned. The difference is, of course, that Kent remain that anomaly in this day and age - an old-fashioned members' club and not a PLC. So there are not quite the same issues with the board, as we , the members, can vote them all out if we want to!
Worrying times for both my teams although I'm not a member of Kent CCC I've followed them for as long as I have Charlton.
Ambrose contract is up in 6 months. ZZ will most likely be sold soon. Can see Weaver being sold as well, not even on the bench on Saturday...bruising of the hip, likely story.
But seriously I think we need to shift deadwood and resort to Curbs old policy of signing young angry and hungry players.
That Tudor jones fella could be worth a punt after all
But seriously I think we need to shift deadwood and resort to Curbs old policy of signing young angry and hungry players.
That Tudor jones fella could be worth a punt after all
I thought I read on here that Burton was on £6k a week. He joined us as his other option was Cheltenham or someone and they were only offering £3k or something similar. So why did we offer double? And we wonder why we a potless :-S
I'm a little intrigued by "Supaclive's" statement. In fact, it's so extraordinary that it's tempted me back into the conversation, as it's either a contender for the worst piece of PR ever, or finest tune ever played on the fiddle while Rome burns.
In consecutive paragraphs it tells people that certain admin staff will be rendered unemployed, yet people should "relax". It also poses the (loaded) question "I don't know why anyone thought Charlton were making money?" Er, nobody thought they were, trust me. Something else they didn't think was that they were paying a million quid to a young man they'd already paid a quarter of a million pounds for, to whose club they were committed to £150,000 more and who they couldn't afford to put in the side, even if he were to be good enough. And the reason they raised a quizzical eyebrow at it, was that it was their television subscriptions and season ticket purchases that provided the money for this piece of lunacy in the first place.
Equally, while they didn't think the club was rolling in filthy lucre, they weren't aware, although the figures were in the public domain, that virtually every last penny they earned was going straight out of the door in the form of wages. The accountants who compiled that report questioned whether any business could survive with a gap of larger than 60% - we're at almost 100%. That's not my opinion as a football hack, it's an expert accountant.
Similarly, there's this cheery notion that we'll "sell the bigger wage earners". Not unless someone comes in with a better contract offer than the one they've got, we won't - we won't even be able to get them off the books. They'll just sit here and collect their cash, and then when the contract is up, they'll go for nothing. Once they've signed that deal, Charlton are at the mercy of the market - if nobody wants to buy, the contract has to be honoured, and that means paying huge wages until it ends. It doesn't take an expert to realise how hard it is to negotiate financially when you're in a weak position, and to apply that logic to Charlton's current plight. We need the players to leave, and the market senses that desperation and adjusts its offers accordingly. It's a vicious circle, and we, I fear, are right in the middle of it.
There are really good people at Charlton behind the scenes - the way Matt Wright dealt with my request for a quote from Richard was so much more efficient than you'd get at many other clubs - that when someone suggests people should "relax" because there will be admin staff cut, I find it more than a little insulting. Both to the intelligence of the people being spoken to, and to the hard working nature and integrity of those staff who might just find themselves out of a job. And while they're staring out of the windows at The Valley, getting nervous, there's a young bloke parking his convertable BMW, who unwittingly sums up all that's gone mad with the current game. If it wasn't so sad, it would be laughable.
Comments
Yesterday I could have stuck my fiver on Jonjo as first scorer at 18-1 and come away with £90. However on seeing that Jonjo first scorer and Charlton winning 2-1 was 80-1 I allowed the greed instinct of a potential £400 to cloud my normally cautious judgement.
I think the £30 million Premiership "carrot" had a similar effect on the Charlton Board and the prudence and good housekeeping of the Curbishley / Varney years went up in smoke as we gambled on trying to get a bigger return just as I did yesterday on a smaller scale.
If Peter Varney was overruled when pointing out the folly of this recklessness then it could well explain his decision to call it a day. I'm sure that he would have been unhappy with wages equating to 100% of Turnover and would you want to hang around to watch greedy clowns destroy 10 years of your hard work?
The bottom line is Dowie, Pardew and, to an extent, Parkinson are to blame for spending millions of pounds on rubbish – the likes of Richard Murray just had to take the word of the manager at the time that the player in question was a good acquisition.
A good case in point is Souleymane Diawara who was the subject of the now infamous soundbite ‘the best defender you have never heard of’, one of Richard Murray’s more recent ill-judged moments.
But Pardew, Dowie etc are not responsible for the upkeep of the club’s finances. Yes, I am sure Murray, like us, is staggered by how shite our squad is and how Pardew, in particular, in the last two years, brought in a dozen or more players, none of whom can be deemed a definite success. I can imagine our league position right now has left RM and others, like us, dumb-founded.
Yet the point remains that nobody, including Richard Murray, Peter Varney and Derek Chappell should be above criticism. There was never any guarantee the players Dowie brought in would save us from relegation after Curbs left and, equally, getting out of the Championship via the attic, as opposed to the basement as seems likely now, is never easy.
Pardew and Dowie have certainly damaged our finances by acquiring poor players but they did not negotiate the individual contracts, or the salaries, or how these should have fitted in with Charlton’s anticipated annual income.
So, it is obviously not Alan Pardew’s fault salary levels are, allegedly, around 100% of turnover or that the club is so financially hamstrung its manager can’t select a player, even if he wanted to, for fear of owing an extra 100K or that money is so tight we can’t appoint a new management team.
That responsibility lies with the club’s administration and it is vital that there is clear accountability in any business in any sector.
I might add I think Mick Collins handled the completely unfounded suggestion that he might have ‘made up his quote’, and thus the indirect inference about his professionalism, with a great deal of restraint. Journalists and writers are always an easy target when they publish content that an individual takes umbrage with and simply wants to dismiss due to its possible connotations.
I think a few of the Charlton adminstration’s employees, wannabees and hangers-on are going to need to adjust some of their preconceptions as time moves on.
Yes greed was perhaps the wrong word but whatever the reason the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow appears to have overridden all sensible, rational, prudent business practice.
Pardew for signing a player he then never played and the board for 1 letting him and 2 allowing the clause
Steady, Steve ........ after more than 2 years of posting regularly, I don't make a habit of slagging off individual posters on this board.
My comments a while ago were based only on what both Richard Murray and Derek Chappell said recently at their two seperate meetings with supporters.
Neither made claim that the picture was financially rosy - but both said in as many words that debt was structured and under control. The fact that the ratio of wages to income has increased, as reported by Mick Collins to approaching 100%
would also reflect reduced turnover in various commercial activities of the club, reflected for example in lower numbers of matchday ticket sales and people now actually attending matches - and the knock on effect from club shop sales and caterin, etc..
Supporters are also not spending because of their own issues with the impact of the credit crunch and higher inflation - in short, many don't have the disposable income they once perhaps enjoyed.
RM and DC also said that Charlton's finances were in comparatively better shape than many clubs in the Championship.
Maybe it would please more people if I inferred they were lying ....?
.
.
However, the shortfall for next season, SHOULD we stay up will have already been figured out and so RM and DC are not lying - and there are MANY clubs in this division that spend more each week than they earn ... as happens in the Premiership too - so everybody needs to relax a little.
However, IF we do go down, then yes, expect all the top wage earning players to be sold or moved on because we will HAVE to do that also. The club WILL be spending money this month - but don't be surprised if a couple of big wage earners don't go also (namely Weaver and Zeng Zhi).
I don't know why anybody thought Charlton were making money??
I'm just staggered and depressed, in a week i'm going to have to collect £9.50 holiday tokens in The Sun, that someone like Christensen, who hasn't even featured for our RESERVES that much, has been earning that sort of money.
And people wonder why fans are not forking out anymore......
Just imagine what McLeod, Hudson, Gray are on :-|
Kent CCC agm coming up in Ashford in eight weeks time. I always go and we get to quiz the treasurer on the annual accounts, which show exactly how much was spent on the playing staff the prevous season (as a global figure, of course, not broken down player-by-player)... is it the same with CAFC, or not ?
Kent CCC also in deep financal crisis, by the way, and ground redevelopment plans now abandoned. The difference is, of course, that Kent remain that anomaly in this day and age - an old-fashioned members' club and not a PLC. So there are not quite the same issues with the board (we even quaintly still call them 'the committee') as we , the members, can vote them all out if we want to!
From what the Palace management have inferred Mr Hudson is on well north of 10K per week and they refused to pay that sort of money.
Sharon, ZZ, Fortune, Weaver, Holland and Iwelumo were/are on wages not too away from that amount as well as senior pros who have played in the Premiership, excepting Big Chris whose wages were inflated because he was a freebie.
Bougherra and Reid were on well above 10K, probably nearer 20K, and Diawara, Faye, JFH and Traore would have been on not far off 20K if not more.
That's where the bloody money goes....
Worrying times for both my teams although I'm not a member of Kent CCC I've followed them for as long as I have Charlton.
Ambrose and ZZ are around £20k and Hudson 12k
Value for money I'm sure you all agree
So that would free up £60k a week
But seriously I think we need to shift deadwood and resort to Curbs old policy of signing young angry and hungry players.
That Tudor jones fella could be worth a punt after all
I thought I read on here that Burton was on £6k a week. He joined us as his other option was Cheltenham or someone and they were only offering £3k or something similar. So why did we offer double? And we wonder why we a potless :-S
All totally wrong. All far higher figures than they are actually getting. FACT
In consecutive paragraphs it tells people that certain admin staff will be rendered unemployed, yet people should "relax". It also poses the (loaded) question "I don't know why anyone thought Charlton were making money?" Er, nobody thought they were, trust me. Something else they didn't think was that they were paying a million quid to a young man they'd already paid a quarter of a million pounds for, to whose club they were committed to £150,000 more and who they couldn't afford to put in the side, even if he were to be good enough. And the reason they raised a quizzical eyebrow at it, was that it was their television subscriptions and season ticket purchases that provided the money for this piece of lunacy in the first place.
Equally, while they didn't think the club was rolling in filthy lucre, they weren't aware, although the figures were in the public domain, that virtually every last penny they earned was going straight out of the door in the form of wages. The accountants who compiled that report questioned whether any business could survive with a gap of larger than 60% - we're at almost 100%. That's not my opinion as a football hack, it's an expert accountant.
Similarly, there's this cheery notion that we'll "sell the bigger wage earners". Not unless someone comes in with a better contract offer than the one they've got, we won't - we won't even be able to get them off the books. They'll just sit here and collect their cash, and then when the contract is up, they'll go for nothing. Once they've signed that deal, Charlton are at the mercy of the market - if nobody wants to buy, the contract has to be honoured, and that means paying huge wages until it ends. It doesn't take an expert to realise how hard it is to negotiate financially when you're in a weak position, and to apply that logic to Charlton's current plight. We need the players to leave, and the market senses that desperation and adjusts its offers accordingly. It's a vicious circle, and we, I fear, are right in the middle of it.
There are really good people at Charlton behind the scenes - the way Matt Wright dealt with my request for a quote from Richard was so much more efficient than you'd get at many other clubs - that when someone suggests people should "relax" because there will be admin staff cut, I find it more than a little insulting. Both to the intelligence of the people being spoken to, and to the hard working nature and integrity of those staff who might just find themselves out of a job. And while they're staring out of the windows at The Valley, getting nervous, there's a young bloke parking his convertable BMW, who unwittingly sums up all that's gone mad with the current game. If it wasn't so sad, it would be laughable.