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Hartlepool massively fucked.

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    #26
    Making this the National League financial problems thread. Last week Macclesfield failed to pay January wages

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...ary-wages.html

    Dagenham and Redbridge's majority shareholder resigned as chairman on Friday, refusing to invest any more in the club, apparently having burnt through a £1.3m investment since last January.

    https://www.daggers.co.uk/news/-L4LPoBIJiKIHQ2ovPZt

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      #27
      You can add Torquay United to that list, though their problems are slower-burning.

      The Dagenham one is surprising, if only for the amount of money they've burned through and the amount of time in which it would appear they've done it. This "investment" was put in this time last year, so they've been losing more than £100,000 per month if it's a year, and that's presuming no other income whatsoever. Bear in mind that they were relegated at the end of the 2015/16 season so they'll have got a parachute payment from the Football League for last season. So, where is this money going? No-one at that level (except for Billericay or whoever) is paying anything like that sort of money for anything.

      It's possible, though, that all these full-time clubs in the fifth tier isn't necessarily a good idea. But no-one seems to be questioning why, say, Hartlepool United need >£100k a month above all other revenues just to keep a float or Dagenham can burn through £1.3m in "investment" within twelve months and come out of it with nothing to show for it apart from a sudden need to hack and slash at costs. The whole situation is insane.

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        #28
        Yeah, but try suggesting that automatic promotion from non league to league football has been as detrimental to non league clubs as to the several league clubs destroyed by it, and you'll get howled down in protest. At least if you say it here.

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          #29
          It's worth Googling Glenn Tamplin at Billericay at the moment. It's all starting to unravel.

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            #30
            Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
            Yeah, but try suggesting that automatic promotion from non league to league football has been as detrimental to non league clubs as to the several league clubs destroyed by it, and you'll get howled down in protest. At least if you say it here.
            Not exactly the same thing, but the FA’s restructuring of the nonleague pyramid is at least partly based on the idea of mandatory promotion - so, if you win a division (and presumably have the requisite ground grading), you must accept promotion. Some clubs don’t want to do this because they know going to a higher level will force them to overstretch themselves. The FA are seemingly not interested in those sorts of concerns.

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              #31
              I'm not sure if you're supporting or countering my point, there

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                #32
                Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                Yeah, but try suggesting that automatic promotion from non league to league football has been as detrimental to non league clubs as to the several league clubs destroyed by it, and you'll get howled down in protest. At least if you say it here.
                Correlation not causation isn't it? Basket-case clubs in the football league get into financial difficulties and also get relegated from the league. I disagree that the football league would be enhanced by the likes of Hartlepool propping up the league while Burton and Stevenage win the Conference over and over again.

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                  #33
                  And how many more clubs might get into difficulties if there were no relegation/promotion making things a bit more interesting at the end of the season?

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                    #34
                    It's not relegation that fucks these clubs up, it's the subsequent brainfarts of the people who make the financial decisions at these clubs.

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                      #35
                      Each set of specific circumstances are different, but relegated clubs from the Football League do get a substantial - in terms of the level of football at which they're playing - parachute payment (50% of the "basic award" made to L2 clubs in the season after relegation). What I find the most troubling of all is the vast amount of money that these clubs are losing and the rate at which they're losing it. It's becoming difficult to believe that there isn't an outbreak of sketchiness going on all over the place at that level of the game at the moment.

                      I don't believe in stopping promotion and relegation from the National League, by the way. The old system was a closed shop and strangled the life out of the APL when it founded in 1979. The evidence of vast increases in crowds following the abolition of re-election is pretty clear. It seems to me that what is needed is a greater degree of commonality between the FL and the NL over the entire financials of clubs in L2 and the NL, rather than the current system, which feels rather like the FL turning its back when a club is relegated, which feels like them effectively saying "that club isn't our problem any more." The FL is very proud of the fact that none of its clubs have gone bust since Aldershot in 1992, but that can't be said for the couple of divisions below them, and has included long-standing former FL clubs.

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                        #36
                        And for those that haven't been keeping up to date on the latest from Billericay...

                        http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/1591...mail_offences/

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                          #37
                          Does the PFA step in and temporarily help pay wages at all levels or just FL?

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                            #38
                            According to this, the PFA only represents PL and FL players:

                            https://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-l...ot-paid-wages/

                            There is a Non-League Footballers Association, but I've not heard of them having done this before and I can't believe they'd have the financial wherewithal to be able to do so.

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                              #39
                              Related question: does the PFA membership include all professional footballers, or only those playing at or above a certain level?

                              Labour relations in baseball are massively influenced by the fact that the union only includes major league players, and not the thousands of players in the minor leagues or independent leagues (all of whom are professional).

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                                #40
                                Clubs for whom promotion to the league didn't work out: Scarborough, Maidstone, Boston, Rushden & Diamonds, Kidderminster, and now Macclesfield and Dagenham

                                Clubs for whom relegation from the league certainly didn't help them: Newport, Darlington, Stockport, Halifax, Hereford, Chester, Torquay (probably), Hartlepool

                                Non-league clubs that "died trying": Telford, Bromsgrove, Northwich

                                Clubs for whom promotion to the league was a success: Wycombe, Yeovil (maybe), Burton (although perhaps it's too soon to say), Fleetwood (ditto)

                                Clubs who aren't much better prospects than the club they replaced: Morecambe, Crawley, Stevenage, Accrington

                                The club that is always used as the clincher in discussions about promotion/relegation from the league: Wimbledon

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                                  #41
                                  Originally posted by My Name Is Ian View Post
                                  And for those that haven't been keeping up to date on the latest from Billericay...

                                  http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/1591...mail_offences/
                                  Seems fine to me. He said he didn't want to get gangsters involved.

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                                    #42
                                    Cheltenham belong on the success list. If promotion to the Football League hadn't existed, they would have had a spell of a few years at their best ever level and then likely settled back to being a very unremarkable semi-pro side. But because that out-of-the-blue run of success took Cheltenham over the hump into the Football League, it was transformative. They are now an established pro club, a completely different and much more significant operation to their history up to the 90s.

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                                      #43
                                      Clubs for whom relegation proved a springboard for a wholesale clear-out and revitalisation: Colchester, Exeter, Lincoln, Luton, hopefully and eventually Orient

                                      Clubs who are still alive, getting good gates and doing basically fine: Wrexham, Tranmere

                                      Clubs who've bobbed up and down between the divisions without it killing them: Barnet, Dagenham (until now), Cheltenham

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
                                        Clubs for whom relegation proved a springboard for a wholesale clear-out and revitalisation: Colchester, Exeter, Lincoln, Luton, hopefully and eventually Orient

                                        Clubs who are still alive, getting good gates and doing basically fine: Wrexham, Tranmere

                                        Clubs who've bobbed up and down between the divisions without it killing them: Barnet, Dagenham (until now), Cheltenham
                                        Cambridge in that top row, too.

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                                          #45
                                          Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                                          Cambridge in that top row, too.
                                          And Carlisle, albeit (thankfully) a very quick but necessary turnaround. In successive seasons after several years flirting with relegation (and one year of course, proposing to relegation and jilting it at the altar after saying the 'I' of 'I do') - relegated from 4th, won Conference play off, won 4th division title, came close to making 3rd division play offs.

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by Bizarre Löw Triangle View Post
                                            Making this the National League financial problems thread.

                                            And things are not going well at York City -

                                            http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/sport/yor...igured_losses/

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                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
                                              And Carlisle, albeit (thankfully) a very quick but necessary turnaround. In successive seasons after several years flirting with relegation (and one year of course, proposing to relegation and jilting it at the altar after saying the 'I' of 'I do') - relegated from 4th, won Conference play off, won 4th division title, came close to making 3rd division play offs.
                                              Yes, Cambridge's turnaround was very long (9 years) and initially painful (administration and sale of the stadium), not helped of course by the ITV Digital fiasco from the mid-2000s. Perhaps it helped that the massive bills hitting Cambridge came in the relegation season, rather than after?
                                              Last edited by Kevin S; 06-02-2018, 15:22.

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                                                #48
                                                The most financially incontinent league in English football is the Championship: anyone fancy a shot at arguing that we should make the top flight a closed shop?

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                                                  #49
                                                  How long before Colin Murray presses the explosion sound effect?

                                                  But yes, that's true. I don't think the 2016-17 finances have been compiled yet but for three of the four seasons to 2016, the combined Championship wage bill was 101% of the division's turnover, and a total debt of more than double the annual turnover.

                                                  Of course the reason they do this is in order to try to reach the Premier League, so we just need to create a system whereby they can't reach the Premier League and, hey presto, they'll stop pissing all that money away.

                                                  But that's only after Norwich have made it to the Premier League, of course.
                                                  Last edited by Kevin S; 06-02-2018, 15:47.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Yeah alright. Clubs wouldn't dope financially in vain attempts to reach the promised land. And teams wouldn't feel the pressure to just prioritise the league, making the cups serious competitions again.

                                                    And all the tedious discussions about who will go down will be avoided.

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