THE CREDIT crunch looks set to bite Boro's bum in January. We've all been there: belts are being tightened as the post-Christmas bills have arrived and the splurge on the plastic has to be paid for. And all the while the temptations of the January sales.
Well, Gareth, unless it really is something you really, really need and it's in the mad, mad, mad double blue cross sale or in the bargain bin rummaged through and rejected by more fashionable and well heeled shoppers, you can forget it. Unless you can get rid of a few useless ornaments in a car boot sale before then that is.
Asked about what transfer cash was in the kitty for January the boss said:
"We have to have that discussion as to exactly what we have available. We spent the money available during the Summer and I probably got more than I thought I would. With the position we are in and the way the attendances have been over the last couple of years we have to cut out cloth accordingly and do things right in January but whether we'll have millions to spend I doubt very much."
Given that the team are crying out for a proven goalscorer who can play in the Mido role as a targetman and hold up the ball long enough to make the fluid forward movement a viable option that is deeply worrying. Those players don't come cheap.
Observers of Boro's financial affairs will have noticed the Evening Gazette's exclusive report on the club's latest set of accounts. The figures for the financial year ending in June 2006 - a period covering the chaotic and dramatic glory run to the UEFA Cup final - shows the club posted an overall loss of £13.3m on a turnover of £47.98m.
The figures make for interesting reading. They show an overall wage, national insurance and pensions bill of £38.2m spread across 54 playing staff (the bulk of which are academy lads) and 128 other employees ranging from the chief executive to ticket office staff but not including matchday part-time employees like stewards and kiosk workers.The playing staff wage bill works out at about 65% of turnover - a relatively healthy proportion compared to some Premiership clubs who pour far more of the money straight into players' pockets.
The figures show that for all the glory the UEFA Cup run did not lead to a major windfall. There is little upturn in turnover, partly because gates up to the semi-final stage were bitterly disappointing and partly because TV income. negotiated on a match-by-match base, was relatively meagre. There appears to have been little in the way of commercial spin off either.
The most significant and profoundly depressing figures though are the turnovers of the Premiership's pumped up Big Four which dwarf puny Boro's financial muscle. According to the latest analysis from corporate number-crunching specialist Deloitte, Manchester United's turnover was £167.7m in the same period while Chelsea posted £152.8m, Arsenal £133m and Liverpool £121.6m. The bulk of the Glamouroply cash comes from their slice of Champions League prize pool payments plus an institutionally distorted slice of the Premier League's domestic and overseas TV rights income - figures that are unlikely to change.
The harsh reality is that Boro can not compete. At the start of the season Steve Gibson pointed out the folly of meeting Mark Viduka's wage demands and said that to stump up would mean spending almost half of the estimated £8m per annum season ticket income on one player. Clearly that is madness. Meanwhile it was reported last month that Arsenal and MAnchester United were raking in almost £3m for every home fixture. In effect they can outstrip Boro's total gate receipts in the space of a month and if that doesn't illustrate the nature of gulf between Boro and the big boys - a gulf the short-sighted, the naive and the deluded think the club can bound with a good run up and a new manager - then nothing will.
That is not to say Boro have not kept pace with the financial inflation of the Premiership. After two years in Europe and a highest ever Premiership finish Boro's figures have broadly increased in every column by about a third. The figures posted in the year ending June 2004 in the rosy glow ow Cardiff showed Boro had declared a £17m loss (although over £7m of that was accounted for by writing off player values after a change in the rules regarding recording staff as assets) on a turnover of £33m and had a £22m wage bill.
Given the continued slide in gates, the failure to cash in the Eindhoven dividend and a third successive season spent scrapping in the bottom half things are unlikely to change... and there is little point in praying for a shady White Knight to ride in from Bangkok or Bahrain because there is no profit to be had in investing in Boro. The hefty annual losses are sustainable because Boro have a very generous benefactor who is shrewdly supporting a club living beyond its means by housing it advantageously within the broader Bulkhaul empire but an outside speculator may be far more ruthless and may leverage any public pleasing spending against the assets of the club and leave it burdened with far greater and more pressing debts.
The reality is this: Boro are no longer able to keep pace with not just the silver sharing elite but also the clutch of their erstwhile competitors now in the hands of global businessmen aiming to make their new brands big players in the overseas bums on seats market. At least not in terms of plonking stacks of borrowed cash on the table. And given the mounting sub-prime crisis that may not be entirely a bad thing.
Boro's best hope for progress now is to find a new model based on academy talent and shrewd shopping that is sustainable for a club in the relegation zone of the financial table. The club are already making noises to suggest this is their preferred way forward but we must hope that such public musings are part of a concrete, well thought out strategy rather than just lip service calculated to disguise hasty - and risky - cost-cutting.
That model - youth and buying the best of young talent from outside with the intention of getting their best years first before cashing in on their resale value like a super-charged, top flight Crewe - must be one that is grounded on a vision that players, the chairman and supporters can share and understand and be proud of. If Boro are successful at putting such players in the first team and giving them a stepping stone to the Champions League then it can be a magnet for the best young talent far further afield than the current academy can operate in. It can be Boro's Unique Selling Point and the basis of a club that stands on its own two feet.
If Boro are to flourish in the Premiership's current financial climate then they need restructuring with a view to the medium term. But it must be a partnership: supporters need to appreciate the limitations of the club's economics and the possibilities of a new approach while the club needs a pro-active and inclusive PR strategy to win hearts and minds.
But first we must stay up. By all means neccessary.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »