Is United World worth the money?

[Carlton Blade]

In the last accounts (20/21), Sheffield United payed £2m and received £500k from UW. They were 13 month accounts so that sets the cost of UW to United at £115k a month. Anecdotally, I'd heard that the current costs are double that (but we'll see in the next accounts).

According to El Accounto, this covers the club share of the executive team that runs the club, the data analysis and recruitment/scouting teams and central costs (insurances etc). As much as I don't always agree with his pro PA views, I'd guess this is about right as a menu of services. Although it doesn't explain how we were refusing to pay for other analytical services when we were under embargo.

Basically, do you think that United are getting value for money?

 

[brownblade]

I'm really not sure. Sounds expensive - Id cancel my direct debit if it was one of my subscriptions - but if UW unearths one gem for Blades to play and/or sell, does it pay for itself?

Obviously we're unaware of benefits currently. But perhaps we get tactical innovations from all those leagues etc? I mean... I literally have no idea mate! Presumably we must get every scout report/team analysis that UW clubs do... But again, no evidence of this.

Sounds a good idea in theory, but doesn't LOOK like it's working for us yet.

You'd think PA would sell those clubs if he doesn't think they're worth maintaining.

 

[Bladeinleeds]

Theoretically there should be value to be had from sharing certain common costs. Analysis data etc so that each team doesn’t have to pay for licenses individually.

I would guess the blades take the lions share of any costs just given the size and scale as a PL operation in comparison to the other clubs. With no knowledge I’d guess executive salaries would be the bull of that and they would be ballpark similar even if the prince just owned the blades.

Guess as the prince owns then all it’s his right to do as he sees fit. Obviously, the real benefit would be facilitating movement between the clubs and having a player pathway for the best talent in each country.

 

[Berkshire Blade]

Impossible to quantify. If it found one great talent every 5 years it would pay for itself and then some.

 

[billyblademan]

Impossible to quantify. If it found one great talent every 5 years it would pay for itself and then some.

Such as a Bosnian centre half?

 

[Berkshire Blade]

Such as a Bosnian centre half?

Not sure Jack Lester knowing him at Nottingham forest years ago was part of United world tbh

 

[JayGreen17]

No

 

[SUFC Guy]

Ultimately it will be based on results such as unearthing talent in the mould of Ndiaye and Anel. This has happened to date so only time will tell.

At the moment it's a tentative 'No'

 

[Balboni]

Probably not

 

[Ball_Sup (Phil)]

Ultimately it will be based on results such as unearthing talent in the mould of Ndiaye and Anel. This has happened to date so only time will tell.

At the moment it's a tentative 'No'

I spoke to a United scout who worked for the club in the South of England at the time Ndiaye was trialling at U21. It was he who recommended Ndiaye to the club. It was very much an old skool, lone wolf operation. He had a lot of difficulty getting staff to travel and watch Ndiaye play. Indeed, he had to arrange games specifically for that. I'll stand to be corrected, but any wider, data driven, United World scouting and recruitment of Ndiaye didn't happen.

 

[robbiez666]

This summer is the first time we will actually see if it's wort it.

 

[Westran]

The Prince is the one responsible for overall financial management of the club, and he seems to think it provides us with a benefit, whether that be an understanding of the player market in different areas, analytics, sponsorship, kit deals, knowledge sharing or whatever.

I couldn't honestly say it costs us money and isn't worth it, as I don't have any serious insight to what it provides us as a benefit, and so I'll leave it in the hands of the people who do and not worry about it too much.

 

[Berkshire Blade]

I spoke to a United scout who worked for the club in the South of England at the time Ndiaye was trialling at U21. It was he who recommended Ndiaye to the club. It was very much an old skool, lone wolf operation. He had a lot of difficulty getting staff to travel and watch Ndiaye play. Indeed, he had to arrange games specifically for that. I'll stand to be corrected, but any wider, data driven, United World scouting and recruitment of Ndiaye didn't happen.

There's a podcast with the old blades southern scout and it absolutely isn't United world data driven stuff. There's a few lads in the academy set up that have joined from down here that he's found like Josh Smith who was from Bracknell Town. The scout left us for Wolves last year and was quickly poached by Manchester City so he must know his stuff

Episode. 20: Sean Murphy - National Scout at Sheffield United

This week's episode is with Sean Murphy of Nation…

blubrry.com

 

[Addison]

A cost that requires further explanation but I doubt we will get it because the Board don't do communication with fans these days. You are therefore left with the speculative musings of El accounto.

Whose costs are part of the Executive team that run the Club? Does that include Bettis who is not on the Board but has been referred to as part of the UW team in the past. Are his costs directly borne by SUFC? It seems he's the only executive level person running the Club on a day to day basis. If his cost is part of the UW fee then fair enough.

Not sure if Board members Yusef G and Alghamdi are charging for their services but if they are the Club needs to request a rebate for last season when we slipped into embargo and couldn't pay bills.

I would hope the majority of the costs are in respect of recruitment. We will be paying a percentage of Steven Vanharens costs the Football and Recruitment Director of United World whose responsibilities cover all 5 clubs in the group. His resume' states that he has restructured the recruitment department at all the clubs centralising data and recruitment policy and growing the team from 4 to 14. That 14 could include Paul Mitchell and his analysts but again I would guess they are a direct cost applied to SUFC. You can only be judged on results and to date which players have come to the Club as a consequence of UW's efforts alone, Coulibaly?

We did employ someone from Jordan to negotiate the Ramsdale sale which would have been for a fee but that may have been a consultant rather than an employee of UW. Again we are left to speculate.

It seems after 3 years its still jam tomorrow with United World and for the monies coming out of SUFC you have to question what tangible benefits have they provided to SUFC at a time when the Club is financially struggling to compete at the top table of football.

The off field management of the Club was rudderless at times last season regarding financing training pitches, undersoil heating being turned off, debt accruing due to unpaid transfer fees and bills all affecting the Football Team Managers ability to do his job. The money would be better spent and at less cost on a Sporting Director exclusive to SUFC in situ in Sheffield, experienced in negotiating contracts and dealing with agents for sales and purchases. A football man something lacking since Van Winkel went. It would be support at Board level for PH and avoid the communication problems he experienced last year.

Personally I would prefer SUFC to unbundle itself from UW in preparation for a sale. The current structure may itself be an inhibitor to prospective buyers.

 

[Blade56]

No

 

[Champagneblade]

The whole United World has a dog's name in France this evening.

Despite remaining in National on a sporting front, the DNCG, the French Finance Police has relegated them to N2. They will lose professional status.

The club has appealed but they need to fill a gap of €5m to be successful.

They have no manager, the recruitment guy has just left and by July they will have about 7 contracted players.

What a mess!

COMMUNIQUÉ

La Berrichonne de Châteauroux était auditionnée ce jour par la DNCG.

www.berrichonne.net

 

[brownblade]

The whole United World has a dog's name in France this evening.

Despite remaining in National on a sporting front, the DNCG, the French Finance Police has relegated them to N2. They will lose professional status.

The club has appealed but they need to fill a gap of €5m to be successful.

They have no manager, the recruitment guy has just left and by July they will have about 7 contracted players.

What a mess!

COMMUNIQUÉ

La Berrichonne de Châteauroux était auditionnée ce jour par la DNCG.

www.berrichonne.net

Jesus, not good.

 

[PurpleRain]

In the meantime at Beerschot the papers report that princey is discussing a sale of the club to a fraud guy on the wanted list of interpol. Princey has lost the plot big time. Without take-over chance is high we will have the same faith as Chateauroux.

“Een fantast, een gek”: zakenman die op Interpol-lijst staat, biedt tot wel 60 miljoen euro om Beerschot, Westerlo en KV Mechelen over te nemen

De voorbije maanden heeft een zekere Johan Guillemyn meerdere pogingen ondernomen om een Vlaamse voetbalclub over te nemen. De West-Vlaamse ondernemer ging samen met oud-voetballer en -manager Guido Mallants langs bij onder andere Beerschot, KV Mechelen, Westerlo en Kortrijk, maar geen enkele...

m.gva.be

 

[Wards]

In the meantime at Beerschot the papers report that princey is discussing a sale of the club to a fraud guy on the wanted list of interpol. Princey has lost the plot big time. Without take-over chance is high we will have the same faith as Chateauroux.

“Een fantast, een gek”: zakenman die op Interpol-lijst staat, biedt tot wel 60 miljoen euro om Beerschot, Westerlo en KV Mechelen over te nemen

De voorbije maanden heeft een zekere Johan Guillemyn meerdere pogingen ondernomen om een Vlaamse voetbalclub over te nemen. De West-Vlaamse ondernemer ging samen met oud-voetballer en -manager Guido Mallants langs bij onder andere Beerschot, KV Mechelen, Westerlo en Kortrijk, maar geen enkele...

m.gva.be

Just like Henry Mauriss I guess. I think PA is slowly working his way down Interpol's list

Had we not achieved promotion I think it very likely we would've slowly drifted towards financial disaster. I'm not convinced that we won't be this time next year unless he sells up.

 

[jono_t2000]

Not sure about whether United World is worth the value.

But in this financial climate where house prices continue to fall month on month around the world, the Prince is definitely over-pricing Sheffield United as a football Club.

For a top half Championship side which occassionally flirts with Premier League football (lets be realistic that's what we are, I think the original quoted price of around 115 mill is still our realistic value (maybe even slightly less)

But as an owner who cannot guarentee us being a Premier League mainstay, he should be thankful that we got promoted and able to service our debts.

However that does not mean inflating our sale price by 30-40 million especially when any new owner would now have those additional expenses due to us now being a Prem club for the time being anyway!

As they say... beggars cant be choosers.

Take what you can get PA and move on.

 

[reedy63]

This is what happens when you have an owner of a club who knows nowt about football.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

We've seen zero outputs from it so far.
So anything spent above £0-00 is a bad ROI.

 

[Carlton Blade]

The whole United World has a dog's name in France this evening.

Despite remaining in National on a sporting front, the DNCG, the French Finance Police has relegated them to N2. They will lose professional status.

The club has appealed but they need to fill a gap of €5m to be successful.

They have no manager, the recruitment guy has just left and by July they will have about 7 contracted players.

What a mess!

COMMUNIQUÉ

La Berrichonne de Châteauroux était auditionnée ce jour par la DNCG.

www.berrichonne.net

But the Chateroux academy is so widely respected and has such a huge catchment area

 

[Carlton Blade]

In the meantime at Beerschot the papers report that princey is discussing a sale of the club to a fraud guy on the wanted list of interpol. Princey has lost the plot big time. Without take-over chance is high we will have the same faith as Chateauroux.

“Een fantast, een gek”: zakenman die op Interpol-lijst staat, biedt tot wel 60 miljoen euro om Beerschot, Westerlo en KV Mechelen over te nemen

De voorbije maanden heeft een zekere Johan Guillemyn meerdere pogingen ondernomen om een Vlaamse voetbalclub over te nemen. De West-Vlaamse ondernemer ging samen met oud-voetballer en -manager Guido Mallants langs bij onder andere Beerschot, KV Mechelen, Westerlo en Kortrijk, maar geen enkele...

m.gva.be

I’d say this is as close to a statement from UW as you’ll get. Princes mouthpiece

 

[jono_t2000]

I’d say this is as close to a statement from UW as you’ll get. Princes mouthpiece

I dont get his reply here... so where are the queue of buyers then?? Or is he saying that PA has priced us even higher than that??

FWIW I agree we are closer to 70m than 140m, especially with his dire financial outlook.

 

[Champagneblade]

But the Chateroux academy is so widely respected and has such a huge catchment area

The training center will be made into a hotel for the Olympics by the Town if Berri loses its pro status, which will definitely happen if they are demoted to N2.

Si la Berrichonne perd son statut professionnel, le centre de formation deviendra un hôtel

Mal en point au classement de National, la Berrichonne de Châteauroux pourrait perdre son centre de formation en cas de relégation en Nationale 2.

m.lanouvellerepublique.fr

Part of this is down to the locals empowered to run the club.

By all accounts, and I've followed them all season as you know and am on their forum, Chateauroux had a budget of €7.5m. This is the second highest behind Nancy at €10m. Nancy were just relegated from Ligue 2, and are a fair bit bigger than Chateauroux. Incidentally Nancy got relegated in the season just gone, taking the last relegation spot kn the final day, but if Sedan and/or Chateauroux end up being demoted financially they will be saved. One of the teams promoted, Concarneau, did so on a budget of about €2m. Smaller infrastructure perhaps but clearly a far more inferior playing budget.

The origin of the problem was the setting of the budget 2 years back. One fan described it as like a kid whose poor parents won the lottery, insinuating they didn't know how to react to this additional money and wasted it.

That summer they bought in 18 new players, a lot of aging ones on decent money, with no resale value in an attempt to go back up immediately after being relegated from Ligue 2; somewhat the antethesis of what United World is supposed to stand for. In came Nolan Roux, 33, former Ligue 1 player, reportedly on €40k a month, Ferris N'Goma 28 from Brest in Ligue 1, Paul Delecroix, 32, Fortune, formerly of Celtic and WBA, 31, Youssouf, 27, etc. They had a squad of 30. Simply far too much excess. They tried to operate more modestly this past year but still had experienced players on big money and who all suffered injuries meaning they played slow percentage of the matches - N'Goma (24%), Sunu (38%), Grange (12%) and Roux (50%). Caught between two stools they sold Robinet, the prior seasons top scorer, and Decouré, a promising young striker for the best part of €2m combined. It was on transfer deadline day and pretty much torpedoed the hopes of automatic promotion, and ironically more revenue that might have saved their fate here, effectively putting an end to the goal supply.

So I'd say the local management deserve a lot of criticism. But, as the saying goes. The fish rots from the head and nobody forced a lack of governance onto PA.

So ultimately him and his United World organization are to blame though the local guys should not be devoid of criticism.

I also think them buying Beerschot was a big mistake. They seemed to see a club they thought was undervalued and when promoted to the Jupiler League they probably thought it was a great move and everyone is happy. They'd just taken over a team that was bankrupt a few years back, everyone would rejoice, right? But Beerschot are a proud club, with a fanatic fanbase who have some experience of winning things. So just turning up and being happy to be there wasn't going to be enough. They were expected to compete and they weren't prepared to provide the financial backing to do that and without at least some European football, I doubt there is enough tv money to finance an autonomous club.

Ironically, and @purple rain may disagree, they are a bit better set for next season. This year they fell short, but with one promotion spot it was always going to be hard. They rebuilt the squad almost entirely and in Baeten, at least have a scorer. The average squad age is a healthy 23.6 at present once all agreed ins and outs are considered. BUT, they still will need one or two experienced guys to lead and this is where there seems, juxtaposed to what happened at Chateauroux, a reluctance to do this at all in Belgium.

All in all the issue is partly money but also strategy and understanding of the clubs' needs and expectations.

The Prince and United World don't seem to have enough to run so many clubs and there has been no successful pooling lf resources either. Most loans have failed - Broadbent and Gomis to Beerschot and Ibara from Beerschot to Chateauroux.

But also, at Beerschot they don't sign nay players of experience and have a very young team. At Chateauroux they should have built a young team and allowed the locals to inflate a squad of aging overpaid players. There is no positive loans between the teams. Overall they could have done better with the same resources and better judgment.

Like United, none of the clubs got good support in Jan either but given we were in embargo, Beerschot needed money to be bailed out and Chateauroux have their own financial issues with their budget for 23/23 rejected and demotion proposed, there is no wonder support wasn't forthcoming. The money isn't there, which probably explains why we are expected to live within modest means for the foreseeable.

 

[BobblesBlade]

Honestly the Prince is just like Mcabe but a little bit better at holding on to players.

 

[Houston_Blade]

The question for me is whether we actually ‘need’ any of these resources that are being shared.

I suspect the answer is ‘no’ and that we’d be no worse off if we just operated a single club model. The shared costs seem like additional costs to me.

There’s also been nothing of note to come out of the UW links so it seems poor VFM.

 

[Champagneblade]

I'd also question this.

I understand the old SPAR type concept where we are sharing the fixed costs. Ordinarily I'd get the logic here.

But a couple of things I would question.

1. Scouting. We are now a PL club. Beerschot are probably at League One/League Two level, I'm not even sure some of the B teams they face wouldn't get their arses handed to them by the likes of Wrexham and Notts County who only just joined the league. Chateauroux are probably at League Two/National League level. What possible scouting mission for either of the two clubs mentioned is going to unearth a player set for the PL?
2. We have signed one perm player since summer 2020. How valuable is a constant payment for scouting services of x per month when over a three year period we've signed one guy who Jack Lester knew well? May as well save the money, engage short term resources ad-hoc for now or just ask Jack Lester!

Beerschot and Chateauroux did next to nothing in January too. So maybe they would have been better saving any cash too.

It seems that United World is some sort of do good vanity project without any real substance. It allows them to rub shoulders with the FIFA dude who sucked up to the Turkish Chef at the World Cup, but they seem to be as interested in running a glorified people trafficking scheme from Africa (not suggesting anything illegal, more the liberal movement one way of young African students) rather than produce anything tangible for the clubs in the near term. It is more like an International Erasmus cum-Boy Scouts set up rather than anything else.

I'd expect to be seeing front line collaboration between the clubs. Chateauroux and Beerschot making up for the absence of Cat A academy status to provide a technical finishing school for the Blades U23s. I'd expect those offloaded or without a clear path to get a chance at the clubs. But there would have to be some football nous involved.

Gomis could have gone to Chateauroux. I don't think Beerschot was the right loan. Ayari could have gone to Chateauroux. Neal would have probably suited Beerschot more. Some of the current U23s to Chateauroux would help them and would also keep costs down at the latter.

I'd expect some pre-season collaboration and the usage of each other's training facilities for a break or change of scenery.

You'd expect perhaps half yearly or quarterly coaching get togethers.

I don't see any of that or any hint of buy-in from any of the coaches.

It seems to me that there is a really good idea in there somewhere, which perhaps the City group or Watford/Udinese do well but there is neither the expertise to make it a tangible success nor the cash to keep the clubs comfortably afloat during the process.

But apart from that...

 

[Eric_Brooks]

Such as a Bosnian centre half?

Jack Lester found him