There are lots of ways of speculating and the worst decision McCabe has made is getting rid of Walker.
Even with the rest of the upheaval, keeping him would have given us a potential chance of the lottery of the play-offs which in turn would have sold more season tickets.
Failure to do both is likely to cost as much as his transfer fee in lost attendance and associated commercial revenue in the short to medium term.
At the very least, sale should have been accompanied with a cast iron guarantee on the year loan.
I agree with you last comment as far as walker is concerned, but simply by the nature of the word RISK, and however calculated it is, its still a risk. Which can either pay off or not.
The same could be said for the signing of James Beattie. We signed him on a deal with vastly overpriced wages for the division on the hopes (RISK) that he would fire us to promotion. Granted it didnt work, and he eventually left, but even though the risk didnt pay off, imagine where we would have been without the goals he did score for us.
Thanks for your response, and excellent post.
Thanks
Has there been any promise of money from SCC, because I'm not aware of any?
See above
The part I'm interested in is the payback on the building. I think now the premiership froth has gone, it's clear we're miles away from this, and miles away from needing ground expansion. Even the kop, though basic, will suffice. So I can't see us, and hope we don't, start on any development until as was originally stated, we are "an established premiership club".
Given the above, the winning of the bid would push us to make upgrades that we would not otherwise be doing. Be it £10M (highly unlikely), £20M or £30M, It's additional debt to our existing £50M - and simply way too high for me.
So I think the upgrades would be for the WC alone. Assuming 3 sold out matches at £50 average ticket (and I don't think we'd sell out, or average £50 a ticket) then you have £6M of ticket revenue, a maximum I believe of 15% of which is available to the club. So we'd generate less than £1M, in my view at a massive push.
You can throw in hospitality, but in reality how much is this? In the most wild calculations., I can't see the whole lot giving us more that £2M. Yet it will cost us probably 10 times that, with an annual interests bill probably swallowing the one off windfall, hampering us for 20 more years thereafter..
If SCC pick up the tab, it's a different story. But I doubt very much they will - all bids were won based on no funding from the FA. I doubt the FA will be happy about speculative grants from the council, which will be vehemently opposed by 2/3Rd's or the city.
So for me losing the bid was a get of of the crap free card, and this action though morally justifiable, is just another route to the poor house and inevitable negative national publicity.
Let the porkers have it. We're well shot.
On the first point I dont think that anyone would disagree that at the minute the ground is sufficient for our needs. As for
"can't see us, and hope we don't, start on any development until as was originally stated, we are "an established premiership club"
It was never planned to wait until we were in the premier league. Although, given the current state of affairs on the pitch and the position within the league, i think that the development wont happen straight away; wether were a prem club or not this will happen within the next 18-24 months.
As for build cost, the development thats planned (Both Kop and South Stand) will push towards the £20m mark. But being as the South Stand was only based on winning the bid initially that will probably wait until towards the end of the planning period of five years, unless of course we were to establish ourselves in the top flight before then. On that basis the Kop works would add to the overall debt depending on how this would be structured may or maynot put us in a worse situation in the scheme of things.
Lastly the SCC wont pick up the tab fully, but as ive said above they have an interest in the schemes, and making sure that they go. The piggies is a high risk scheme which could eventually leave them in a worse position should they be unable to complete in time.
On the Stadium development side I thought I read somewhere that the winning bidder would get a sizable grant to help finance the work.
My understanding was that all of the venues would need to be "Self funded" and by that i mean without grants from the WC bid team. As i said before the sheffield bid was a joint venture between the SCC and the clubs and as such i would expect that the council will provide some (Albeit minimal) funding for either project.
the reason council want SWFC is because it will generate more for everyone in sheffield than BDTBL will.
How will it generate more to sheffield being as the stadium is practically "Out of town"
How so? Bramall lane would have held 44,000 - all headed for the center of town. How on earth would it generate more if they were headed to the outskirts of Barnsley?
Agreed, and in addition to my comment above, i think that a certain amount of naivity from our side expected that the decision would be based on this.
From where? One of the FA's stipulations was that they wouldn't be issuing any grants.
To my knowledge your quite correct
Although my posts may read otherwise, im not in full agreement that the works should go at the minute. Theres the argument that the WC bid coming to BDTBL may generate more business, of course theres the flip side that it could hurt us in the long run.
I agree that the foundation for the "Business" (because if you like it or not it is a business) has to be the team. Without this performing and making the concerted effort to move forward the crowds will reduce and the finances wont come in. That for me is ever decreasing circles that we cant get drawn into. By the same account the "business" also has to produce the cashflow that can allow the team to move forward.
Whichever way you look at it, its a very fine balance.
