BladesPod: Finance special with Price Of Football's Kieran Maguire

[Beans]

Afternoon all,

Very pleased to have PriceOfFootball.com's Kieran Maguire join me to talk about United's finances and how we run ourselves as a business as a whole. Kieran is a football finance expert who you may have heard on Football Heaven recently, or Benjamin Bloom's podcast, or Not The Top 20 - and I'm incredibly grateful that he gave up over an hour to talk to me in more detail about the Blades.

We covered a ton of stuff, including:

- how United compare to the rest of the Championship
- strengths and weaknesses of the Blades as a business
- the prize of promotion
- United's value
- the ownership situation (as much as we could - not much in the public domain there)
- how important are crowd sizes
- the impact of playoffs on the Championship
- whether we may need to sell players if we don't go up
- Birmingham's points deduction, and which other teams are in the danger zone

Really enjoyed recording this and learned a heck of a lot.



iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/bladespod/id1309198119?mt=2

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wLq5qaiQ123cLHHMnTixJ

 

[AWetFlannel]

Blades related material in the international break that isn't complete garbage?

My life is complete.

 

[itsinyerblood]

Need to find a dedicated moment, but will write more once I've listened. Should prove to be insightful and worth every Blade's time to discover more about the Blades and football in general.

 

[Beans]

Blades related material in the international break that isn't complete garbage?

My life is complete.

I try

 

[Antonb]

Just slyly listened to it at work. A very interesting podcast. Thank you for the time and effort to do these , there great.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Very interesting regarding football and other clubs generally. Also club value and the commercial income explanation.

Nice to see someone totally independent backing up the views and opinions of some posters on here, because much of this has been discussed at length with the sensible opinions matching his.

Neither owner called a cunt either. Which was nice......

 

[Bath Blade]

Help! Keeps saying “This Podcast is temporarily unavailable” when I try to listen through iTunes.

 

[BushBlade]

Help! Keeps saying “This Podcast is temporarily unavailable” when I try to listen through iTunes.

What are you trying to play it through. I’m on an iPhone and just clicked ‘play in browser’. Worked fine.

 

[Beans]

Neither owner called a cunt either. Which was nice......

I cut that part out...

Help! Keeps saying “This Podcast is temporarily unavailable” when I try to listen through iTunes.

Huh, that's annoying. I saw a couple of other podcasts have this problem recently too but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to why. Apparently if you unsubscribe / delete the episode and then resubscribe/redownload, it should work...

 

[Melbourne Blade]

Nice one Beans, listening on the way into work. Please tell me there's another Benjamin Bloom special scheduled "if" we reach the promised land? Also is it true that you actually play the guitar intro live while recording?

 

[8lade]

Absolutely cracking listen, great questions and a very learned guest.

 

[coolhandluke]

Very interesting regarding football and other clubs generally. Also club value and the commercial income explanation.

Nice to see someone totally independent backing up the views and opinions of some posters on here, because much of this has been discussed at length with the sensible opinions matching his.

Neither owner called a cunt either. Which was nice......

" Nice " ?????

Financial shenanigans .....football ....... Blades and no mention of the Desso ? It's a 'kin cover up .

Disgraceful Beansy, disgraceful

 

[Bath Blade]

I cut that part out...



Huh, that's annoying. I saw a couple of other podcasts have this problem recently too but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to why. Apparently if you unsubscribe / delete the episode and then resubscribe/redownload, it should work...

It was an issue with trying to listen to through the podcast app while on 4G (had the same issue trying to listen to NTT20 last week). Worked fine when I got home and was on wifi, although the wife wasn't quite as keen on listening to your podcast when I tried to put it on in the kitchen.

 

[itsinyerblood]

Hi Ben.....finally took the opportunity to listen and digest.

Kieran Maguire's 'plain english' approach in translating jargon into something that can be understood by most football fans is incredibly helpful.

You asked a few essential questions that should have enabled even the densest blade to appreciate that the finances that enable football to continue bare no resemblance to any other form of business. Even as a club that's at what might be referred to as the 'right' end of the financial spectrum, we're still juggling the finances to the extent that we invest so much in Chris Wilder's ability to wheel and deal, and in the process stretch a pound far further than it might be considered possible.

Getting to the premiership takes on an altogether more important relevance to how we're valued, what it might mean to who then views United as a club worth investing in, and what it provides the manager with regarding who he chooses to buy. Of course, we'd have to compete on Prem terms with wages and fees rising to astronomical heights, but it might also give us the chance to consolidate our place at the top table. which brings us back to Wilder and how he adapts to the dynamics of Premiership life. All very interesting and entertaining, and given that we're within a hairsbreadth of reaching the Prem it's not beyond any reasonable assumption to imagine that the club are already considering the ways in which the Blades will need to change to adapt and survive at this level.

Once more, great listen Ben and your feature adds to what is surely one of the best, if not the best, fan's forums around.

PS. I tried valiantly to avoid any mention of Wednesday and their situation, but they really do face a worrying future if they continue to be owned by the loon who currently uses wendy as his own personal fiefdom. The differences that separate the likes of United and the Owls is quite stark, and although I don't gloat about this, it should act as a sobering antidote to those wendy fans who mistakenly think that all's well over at S6.........maybe their fans think that all they have to do is repeat the same relentlessly stupid mantra and no one will notice just how desperate their present and future really is.......give it time I say, then all will be revealed. UTMB!!!

 

[Sheffsteel]

PS. I tried valiantly to avoid any mention of Wednesday and their situation, but they really do face a worrying future if they continue to be owned by the loon who currently uses wendy as his own personal fiefdom. The differences that separate the likes of United and the Owls is quite stark, and although I don't gloat about this, it should act as a sobering antidote to those wendy fans who mistakenly think that all's well over at S6.........maybe their fans think that all they have to do is repeat the same relentlessly stupid mantra and no one will notice just how desperate their present and future really is.......give it time I say, then all will be revealed. UTMB!!!

I also find some of the viewpoints coming from our neighbours at S6 quite bizarre.

2 examples
1: Histotically we’ve seen clubs over spending, gambling many millions at the roulette table and losing. There’s been loads of public support towards a Portsmouth, Bolton etc. Some Chairman are totally irresponsible and it’s like giving a teenager a credit card with no spending limit. FFP has been brought in to curb this, basically it’s like putting a spending limits on a credit card. It sounds a very sensible idea and since FFP hardly any clubs have gone into admin, so it’s been a success.

So it’s weird that most Wednesdayites want to scrap this safety to prevent massive debt. They have no concerns about their club building up 100 to 200 million of debt with the owner. It’s as though if the debt is with a bank then it’s real but if the debt is with an owner then it’s automatically ignored and written off.

2: They have a new Chairman that has immediately announced he knew nothing about football but wanted to buy a club for his 10 year old son, massively increased prices, massively increase corporate boxes and sponsorship, changed the kit (got rid of the stripes), delayed the production of the kit so it wasnt available until after Xmas, changed the badge, sacked loads of the back room staff and employees, messed up the clubs birthday the other year, set up false companies to pay for advertising, has his name and photo plastered all around the ground, falling out with fans and unstable behaviour/ weird comments in fans forums. tricked fans into buying season tickets by not mentioning they were in an embargo so couldn’t buy players, front loading their income asking fans to pay for PL season tickets years in advance (thats like a gambler losing all his money, then asking his mates to lend him money so that he can gamble again), refusing to sell any players to balance the books saying he thinks if his players as :family”, getting involved/ buying players using guidance from a player agency, delaying the submission of the current accounts.

Looking at the above then surely the alarm bells would be ringing, this type of owner wouldn’t last 2 minutes at Bramall Lane but because he’s said he’s ambitious willing to spend whatever is needed for promotion, said he’s not bothered about profit and loves their club, said he’ll never sell his club for any price unless the fans want him out Then because of this they all think he’s the Messiah and the best Chairman ever.

Without FFP Wednesday could easily become the next Portsmouth and no doubt their fans would all say they’ve been taken for a ride by this nasty Chairman and no doubt there wouid be public support for SW with cries that it;s the leagues fault for letting someone like Chansiri run a football club. You couldn’t make it up.

 

[ElephantBlade]

Afternoon all,

Very pleased to have PriceOfFootball.com's Kieran Maguire join me to talk about United's finances and how we run ourselves as a business as a whole. Kieran is a football finance expert who you may have heard on Football Heaven recently, or Benjamin Bloom's podcast, or Not The Top 20 - and I'm incredibly grateful that he gave up over an hour to talk to me in more detail about the Blades.

We covered a ton of stuff, including:

- how United compare to the rest of the Championship
- strengths and weaknesses of the Blades as a business
- the prize of promotion
- United's value
- the ownership situation (as much as we could - not much in the public domain there)
- how important are crowd sizes
- the impact of playoffs on the Championship
- whether we may need to sell players if we don't go up
- Birmingham's points deduction, and which other teams are in the danger zone

Really enjoyed recording this and learned a heck of a lot.



iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/bladespod/id1309198119?mt=2

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6wLq5qaiQ123cLHHMnTixJ

I enjoyed this. Very informative and interesting.

 

[itsinyerblood]

I also find some of the viewpoints coming from our neighbours at S6 quite bizarre.

2 examples
1: Histotically we’ve seen clubs over spending, gambling many millions at the roulette table and losing. There’s been loads of public support towards a Portsmouth, Bolton etc. Some Chairman are totally irresponsible and it’s like giving a teenager a credit card with no spending limit. FFP has been brought in to curb this, basically it’s like putting a spending limits on a credit card. It sounds a very sensible idea and since FFP hardly any clubs have gone into admin, so it’s been a success.

So it’s weird that most Wednesdayites want to scrap this safety to prevent massive debt. They have no concerns about their club building up 100 to 200 million of debt with the owner. It’s as though if the debt is with a bank then it’s real but if the debt is with an owner then it’s automatically ignored and written off.

2: They have a new Chairman that has immediately announced he knew nothing about football but wanted to buy a club for his 10 year old son, massively increased prices, massively increase corporate boxes and sponsorship, changed the kit (got rid of the stripes), delayed the production of the kit so it wasnt available until after Xmas, changed the badge, sacked loads of the back room staff and employees, messed up the clubs birthday the other year, set up false companies to pay for advertising, has his name and photo plastered all around the ground, falling out with fans and unstable behaviour/ weird comments in fans forums. tricked fans into buying season tickets by not mentioning they were in an embargo so couldn’t buy players, front loading their income asking fans to pay for PL season tickets years in advance (thats like a gambler losing all his money, then asking his mates to lend him money so that he can gamble again), refusing to sell any players to balance the books saying he thinks if his players as :family”, getting involved/ buying players using guidance from a player agency, delaying the submission of the current accounts.

Looking at the above then surely the alarm bells would be ringing, this type of owner wouldn’t last 2 minutes at Bramall Lane but because he’s said he’s ambitious willing to spend whatever is needed for promotion, said he’s not bothered about profit and loves their club, said he’ll never sell his club for any price unless the fans want him out Then because of this they all think he’s the Messiah and the best Chairman ever.

Without FFP Wednesday could easily become the next Portsmouth and no doubt their fans would all say they’ve been taken for a ride by this nasty Chairman and no doubt there wouid be public support for SW with cries that it;s the leagues fault for letting someone like Chansiri run a football club. You couldn’t make it up.

All very sobering thoughts..........the League has long been held responsible for not devising forensic ownership rules, so anyone wishing to buy a controlling interest should put a chunk of money into an account - let's say for Championship clubs the figure is £50-75 million - that can only be accessed by co-signatories, thus establishing the intentions of said owner and hopefully sorting the wheat from the chaff.

What you've highlighted is that our 'friends' over at S6 are often fiscally illiterate, so whatever moan or whinge they use to protest the unfairness of the real world, they should be immediately dismissed as the ignoramuses that they clearly are. their current ownership situation should be causing a 'sane' owl sleepless nights, but as long as the berk who owns the club says there's no fire, when quite clearly there is, then they'll sleep walk into a future where devastation awaits them.

 

[Sid1978]

Help! Keeps saying “This Podcast is temporarily unavailable” when I try to listen through iTunes.

What are you trying to play it through. I’m on an iPhone and just clicked ‘play in browser’. Worked fine.

I had the same issue - connected to WiFi and all downloaded fine... So I'm guessing it's something to do with the size of the file?

 

[Sid1978]

PS Great podcast Beans

 

[I should coco]

Looking at the above then surely the alarm bells would be ringing, this type of owner wouldn’t last 2 minutes at Bramall Lane but because he’s said he’s ambitious willing to spend whatever is needed for promotion, said he’s not bothered about profit and loves their club, said he’ll never sell his club for any price unless the fans want him out Then because of this they all think he’s the Messiah and the best Chairman ever.

Loads on here want some wonder foreign owner to spunk some moneh. Any moneh.

McCabe is despised because 'all he has done' is to put £40+ million of his own money in, to cover losses. He has not spunked money on trophy players so 'he has to go'.

Sadly we have at least as many stupid short sighted fans, as the S6 lot.

Cue lots of posts about 'speculate to accumulate' and how we need just a few million for one big push and of course Robson's shitshow cash splurge season of 2007/08 is long forgotten.

 

[Dnblade]

Great listen again...Downloaded it to listen this morning on the way up to the North East with work...It's as I thought really,the club running at a loss and the owners making up the short fall...Don't get that Brum got an extra point for good behaviour,can we have about 6 added on for our good behaviour and running wthin the rules.

 

[Fanny magnet]

Enjoyed listening to that .really informative

 

[Cappy]

I had the same issue - connected to WiFi and all downloaded fine... So I'm guessing it's something to do with the size of the file?

That might explain my issues. I’m stuck in shitty hotel in Swindon with unreliable WiFi so am using 4G and get the issue

Also had it for NTTT and BladesPod last week when commuting

Might just have to wait till I am back in Sunny Glossop on Friday night

 

[Bath Blade]

That might explain my issues. I’m stuck in shitty hotel in Swindon with unreliable WiFi so am using 4G and get the issue

Also had it for NTTT and BladesPod last week when commuting

Might just have to wait till I am back in Sunny Glossop on Friday night

Try clicking on the Listen in Browser link in the OP as recommended by BushBlade. Worked for me.

 

[Deleted member 875]

I listened to it on the way to work at 5am this morning, and really enjoyed it and found it interesting and informative, I follow the price of football on Twitter and have read a fair bit of Kieran Maguires work. What I’ve learnt over the last few months when it comes to financial matter relating to football the landscape has changed hugely when it comes to the Championship, and is a lot different to how I thought it was.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Might just have to wait till I am back in Sunny Glossop on Friday night

Haven't checked the Star today but seeing as they've been predicting ten feet of snow since September, take a sleeping bag, full flask and a shovel.

Alternatively, and much more likely, RayBans, sunblock for your right arm, shorts and flip flops.

 

[Topplayersleave]

I also find some of the viewpoints coming from our neighbours at S6 quite bizarre.

2 examples
1: Histotically we’ve seen clubs over spending, gambling many millions at the roulette table and losing. There’s been loads of public support towards a Portsmouth, Bolton etc. Some Chairman are totally irresponsible and it’s like giving a teenager a credit card with no spending limit. FFP has been brought in to curb this, basically it’s like putting a spending limits on a credit card. It sounds a very sensible idea and since FFP hardly any clubs have gone into admin, so it’s been a success.

So it’s weird that most Wednesdayites want to scrap this safety to prevent massive debt. They have no concerns about their club building up 100 to 200 million of debt with the owner. It’s as though if the debt is with a bank then it’s real but if the debt is with an owner then it’s automatically ignored and written off.

2: They have a new Chairman that has immediately announced he knew nothing about football but wanted to buy a club for his 10 year old son, massively increased prices, massively increase corporate boxes and sponsorship, changed the kit (got rid of the stripes), delayed the production of the kit so it wasnt available until after Xmas, changed the badge, sacked loads of the back room staff and employees, messed up the clubs birthday the other year, set up false companies to pay for advertising, has his name and photo plastered all around the ground, falling out with fans and unstable behaviour/ weird comments in fans forums. tricked fans into buying season tickets by not mentioning they were in an embargo so couldn’t buy players, front loading their income asking fans to pay for PL season tickets years in advance (thats like a gambler losing all his money, then asking his mates to lend him money so that he can gamble again), refusing to sell any players to balance the books saying he thinks if his players as :family”, getting involved/ buying players using guidance from a player agency, delaying the submission of the current accounts.

Looking at the above then surely the alarm bells would be ringing, this type of owner wouldn’t last 2 minutes at Bramall Lane but because he’s said he’s ambitious willing to spend whatever is needed for promotion, said he’s not bothered about profit and loves their club, said he’ll never sell his club for any price unless the fans want him out Then because of this they all think he’s the Messiah and the best Chairman ever.

Without FFP Wednesday could easily become the next Portsmouth and no doubt their fans would all say they’ve been taken for a ride by this nasty Chairman and no doubt there wouid be public support for SW with cries that it;s the leagues fault for letting someone like Chansiri run a football club. You couldn’t make it up.

Good post
But just one thing
If Wendies build up a debt with a bank it's not real either
Remember the Co-op ?

 

[Bartleby]

"People want to see a Yorkshire club in the Premier League that no one hates" - and he means us! Love it.