Attendances and January Window

[Billy The Fish]

Agree no uncertain windfalls are or should be relied on for budgeting.

will also (eventually) get a small Tribunal sum from MK re. Boateng. I assume the fee for Jay Stansfield has however been earmarked for the Academy?

How much longer does the club have to wait for this tribunal to arrive at a decision ? It's ridiculous that they are this slow.

 

[Alistair20000]

There is a 700k trading deficit. I understand that based on current spending, the money in the bank will be depleted by the end of next season without more windfalls. Fingers crossed for another payday from Ollie.

That suggest Keith’s 2017 projections are some way off course. Hopefully he will update them for the AGM

 

[Martin Lawrence]

That suggest Keith’s 2017 projections are some way off course. Hopefully he will update them for the AGM

Not way off, just changed I suspect.

 

[Exehausted]

Not way off, just changed I suspect.

With the greatest respect Martin I would agree that the projections are someway off. From having a projected £1 million plus in the Bank in May 2022 to very little in May 2021 is a big difference. Does the trading loss of £700,000 include the extra £500,000 allowed for in the playing budget or is it on top of that? If the money runs out at the end of the 20/21 season then we have to be very careful with who we retain/re-sign at the end of this season. This will sound harsh but I think we will have to reduce the amount of full time pros that we have by at least 7. The youngsters that are out on loan and who do so well in the Cup games they play for us must be allowed to come to the fore. We will have to resist signing players with big reputations at this level and therefore big wages and rely on the Academy. I'm sure that they won't let us down. Better to go down a steep slope at the end of this season than fall off the cliff at the end of 20/21.

 

[Red Devon]

Think I’ve found someone Sam Smith today’s heartbreaker....on loan at Cambridge from Reading, highly rated by Lewis Ward in the commentary box today and getting rave reviews from Cambridge fans on the socials.

 

[Boyo]

There is a 700k trading deficit. I understand that based on current spending, the money in the bank will be depleted by the end of next season without more windfalls. Fingers crossed for another payday from Ollie.

What's the breakdown of the £700k additional spend? If it's all playing budget, then it's really alarming to think that in a baseline budget year we would have to shave off £700k.

 

[Snoop Fog]

How much are we expecting for Boeteng? Surely its not going to be more than 200k?

 

[IndoMike]

How much are we expecting for Boeteng? Surely its not going to be more than 200k?

200k?????
20k more like it.

 

[Red Devon]

How much are we expecting for Boeteng? Surely its not going to be more than 200k?

In pence you mean.

 

[grecian-near-hell]

What Martin has highlighted is that for us to compete unfortunately we are still a trading club, we develop young talent put them in the shop window sell them and move on to the next talent for the next deal. The increase in attendances is good and probably means we are currently about 100k to the good for this season but what would that get us one player maybe two, or extend our time before we run a deficit budget. If attendances slump the finances move the other way and our budget deficit comes to roost sooner.

If some of the windfalls come in then that could help in the short term, extend the budget deficit time scale, sign some normally unaffordable player/s for a season or two to help generate greater income through the gates and get some success, but at the end of the day we are not going to get away from the fact that our income will need to be bolstered by player sales.

What I would like to see happening is a scouring of the non leagues, premiershite, and championship offloads/fringe players and signing some of these potential players, like we have done with Luke Smerdon and to some extent Randell Williams and Lewis Ward bring them in alongside our academy players so that they can help keep the gravy train moving, but faster, similar in a fashion to what Brentford have done but without ditching the academy. It sounds like we are getting the resources available to monitor the talent that is out there we just need to bring it in and on for the benefit of ECFC