Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[19QOS19]

Do any clubs to you look like they're cutting back? To me the only clubs that seem to be cutting back are Morton and QoTS. 

...we certainly aren't doing what Morton or QotS appear to be doing...

I definitely lean on the pessimistic side of QoS support but I don't feel we've cut back this season (so far). The signings we've made are exactly the kind I would have expected regardless of the current climate. We've kept our reserves on when I expected that to be the first thing to go. As well as that, with only 3 players signed (including Holt who's now departed) it would have be the ideal opportunity to go back to part-time football. We rarely had a deep bench last season so I'm not expected another hoard of players to arrive. If the next 6 or 7 players to sign aren't 18/19 year old boys then I don't think it'll be any different than usual for us.

[Rob1885]

Honestly think its madness the money some clubs have spent this summer.

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, CALDERON said:

If *checks notes* two players being given two year deals pushes Raith Rovers into oblivion then fair enough. 

That would be two more deals than any club trying to protect themselves from the full financial impact of the pandemic would be handing out right now, so your panhandling back in March will still be regarded for the morally bankrupt nonsense that it was. 

[Skyline Drifter]

14 hours ago, Grant228 said:

Do any clubs to you look like they're cutting back? To me the only clubs that seem to be cutting back are Morton and QoTS. 

The most obvious club cutting back is Dundee as Ludo says below. They are the only one who obviously made people redundant and publicly had their players accept wage cuts and deferrals or leave. Morton and QoS are the slowest to assemble a senior squad undeniably. That doesn't necessarily mean they are cutting back any more than any other club who haven't just had a major European investment have. I think most Scottish clubs will have reduced wage budgets but as they'll pretty much all have done that it probably doesn't particularly change the market they are working in much.

13 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

We've cut back quite a bit. Not a chance would we have let Hemmings go if there hadn't been a pandemic, for example. Whilst Jakubiak and Mullen are able replacements one would think for this level, they're not in the same ballpark as him. 

We've punted loads of staff behind the scenes as well. We are being distracted by the Charlie Adam thing at the moment, but if he does sign it'll be within our new wage structure (Or as expected, financed by third parties like Peter Marr and/or Kilmac). 

As for other areas, we are in desperate need of a keeper, CH and a striker which may or may not be addressed. Granted we are not known for our frugal spending at the best of times and we certainly aren't doing what Morton or QotS appear to be doing,

What exactly are Morton and QoS doing to lead you to this conclusion?

55 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

I definitely lean on the pessimistic side of QoS support but I don't feel we've cut back this season (so far). The signings we've made are exactly the kind I would have expected regardless of the current climate. We've kept our reserves on when I expected that to be the first thing to go. As well as that, with only 3 players signed (including Holt who's now departed) it would have be the ideal opportunity to go back to part-time football. We rarely had a deep bench last season so I'm not expected another hoard of players to arrive. If the next 6 or 7 players to sign aren't 18/19 year old boys then I don't think it'll be any different than usual for us.

Yeah this seems about right. It's a difficult "summer" to compare with any other as it's clearly much longer and some clubs jumped very early to fill up their squads but, with almost 4 weeks to go before we kick a competitive ball and five weeks before we play a League game, I don't think we've got significantly less players than we normally would nor a particularly obvious drop in quality at this stage. I think budgets across football have dropped a bit but we're competing in the same player market that we usually do and still needing half a dozen-ish players to come in a month before we kick a ball doesn't seem excessive. I imagine most of the remaining signings will probably be loan players and won't come in for a wee bit yet.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Skyline Drifter

[Guest Flash]

3 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

 

Yeah this seems about right. It's a difficult "summer" to compare with any other as it's clearly much longer and some clubs jumped very early to fill up their squads but, with almost 4 weeks to go before we kick a competitive ball and five weeks before we play a League game, I don't think we've got significantly less players than we normally would nor a particularly obvious drop in quality at this stage. I think budgets across football have dropped a bit but we're competing in the same player market that we usually do and still needing half a dozen-ish players to come in a month before we kick a ball doesn't seem excessive. I imagine most of the remaining signings will probably be loan players and won't come in for a wee bit yet.

That looks like a cut-back to me. Before lockdown we had 20 players with 4 of them on loan. You’re suggesting 16/17 players with at least 4, possibly more than that, on loan.

[TxRover]

4 hours ago, virginton said:

That would be two more deals than any club trying to protect themselves from the full financial impact of the pandemic would be handing out right now, so your panhandling back in March will still be regarded for the morally bankrupt nonsense that it was. 

The biggest problem with this suggestion is that two years deals are pretty much irrelevant in terms of cost structure and a potential money crunch. If football stays zero live fans all season, a couple of two year deals will be pocket lint compared to the financial disaster that occurs in fitba. If fans are allowed, some revenue will be received, and two extra wage bills will be pretty much peanuts over the season break. If a relegation scenario is your argument, we don’t know how the contracts are structured, as surely the Nisbet affair has sharpened focus on terms.

To be honest, I expect that most teams have already been chatting between each other and the SFA/SPFL about what will happen if it becomes clear that fans cannot return at all for the 2020-2021 season. The vote to resume the season in October, with 27 games, was pretty much telegraphed as expecting crowds to start returning after Christmas. By that time a pretty good idea of revenue expectations for the remainder of the season will be established, as the possible additional income from streaming games beyond ST holders (if permitted) will be known, as will the payment from TV contracts.

Unless the numbers are sufficient to maintain the clubs, it would not be a terrible surprise if some (or all) the lower leagues elected to shutdown and exercise the universal contract terms to dump their payroll in order to survive for 2021-2022. The vote by teams to NOT establish a process for deciding the results or voiding of a season in event of force majeure occurrence just makes the resulting shambles even more typical of fitba.

[Skyline Drifter]

52 minutes ago, Flash said:

That looks like a cut-back to me. Before lockdown we had 20 players with 4 of them on loan. You’re suggesting 16/17 players with at least 4, possibly more than that, on loan.

I'm unsure where your 20 comes from. I make it 19 or 21 depending on whether you are counting Irving and Gourlay or not? I wasn't counting them as there will be two or three step ups from the Reserve squad to replace them in the Barflies apprentice role.

Leaving that aside though, I don't know how many more players we'll sign. It was a ball park guess based on the fact we've got roughly a team signed at the moment and need to roughly fill a bench, hence "half a dozen-ish". Perhaps it will end up being a cut back in numbers, perhaps it won't. It will depend how the manager chooses to use his budget. I don't think there's anything at this stage to indicate we are making swingeing cuts though.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Skyline Drifter

[Guest Flash]

15 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I'm unsure where your 20 comes from. I make it 19 or 21 depending on whether you are counting Irving and Gourlay or not? I wasn't counting them as there will be two or three step ups from the Reserve squad to replace them in the Barflies apprentice role.

Leaving that aside though, I don't know how many more players we'll sign. It was a ball park guess based on the fact we've got roughly a team signed at the moment and need to roughly fill a bench, hence "half a dozen-ish". Perhaps it will end up being a cut back in numbers, perhaps it won't. It will depend how the manager chooses to use his budget. I don't think there's anything at this stage to indicate we are making swingeing cuts though.

Fair enough. I just don’t remember us ever having a squad of 16 or 17 which is what it looked like you were suggesting given we only have 10 just now. Given the general quality that we’ve signed in the last couple of seasons, I didn’t think it would be possible to make “swingeing cuts” unless we were going with a squad of 11.

[vikingTON]

4 hours ago, TxRover said:

The biggest problem with this suggestion is that two years deals are pretty much irrelevant in terms of cost structure and a potential money crunch. If football stays zero live fans all season, a couple of two year deals will be pocket lint compared to the financial disaster that occurs in fitba. If fans are allowed, some revenue will be received, and two extra wage bills will be pretty much peanuts over the season break. If a relegation scenario is your argument, we don’t know how the contracts are structured, as surely the Nisbet affair has sharpened focus on terms.

It quite clearly is relevant though because you are committing yourself to paying twice as much money over the contract length until May/June 2022, when you have absolutely no idea when or indeed if fans return to grounds at all as well as what limitations will be imposed on this. You can therefore have absolutely no reasonable estimation of what your club's operating budget will in fact be in the summer of 2021 or indeed the state of the wider economy on which a fans through the gate + sponsorship business model largely depends on. 

The argument that 'ach well if things go badly then we'll go bust through all our other expenses anyway' is ridiculous because there are in fact a huge range of outcomes that exist between 'everything's fine, return to normal' and 'no fans at games at all, the baw's burst, every club goes under'. How well clubs cope with whatever middle path option they most likely end up with in the next 12-24 months will depend on the flexibility that they have to adjust their costs and overall club structure. Adding more players on longer-term deals to the books shows a football club that is either not serious about handling the heightened business risk or is comfortable with racking up a significant loss if it goes wrong. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by vikingTON

[TxRover]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

It quite clearly is relevant though because you are committing yourself to paying twice as much money over the contract length until May/June 2022, when you have absolutely no idea when or indeed if fans return to grounds at all as well as what limitations will be imposed on this. You therefore can have absolutely no reasonable estimation of what your club's operating budget will in fact be in the summer of 2021 or indeed the state of the wider economy on which a fans through the gate + sponsorship business model largely depends on. 

The argument that 'ach well if things go badly then we'll go bust by all our other expenses anyway' is ridiculous because there are in fact a huge range of outcomes that exist between 'everything's fine, return to normal' and 'no fans at games at all, the baw's burst, every club goes under'. How well clubs cope with whatever middle path option they most likely end up with in the next 12-24 months will depend on the flexibility that they have to adjust their costs and overall club structure. Adding more players on longer-term deals to the books shows a football club that is either not serious about handling the heightened business risk or is comfortable with racking up a significant loss if it goes wrong. 

Except, if things go south, all clubs can break the  contracts under the standard language, all contracts, if they get shutdown again. If they adjudged that they can make the payments under conditions X, and that’s what happens, fine...if things go to shite, the option taken by all the teams outwith the Premiership, will likely be a shutdown (and even then, some top level teams will be wobbly).

[vikingTON]

43 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Except, if things go south, all clubs can break the  contracts under the standard language, all contracts, if they get shutdown again. If they adjudged that they can make the payments under conditions X, and that’s what happens, fine...if things go to shite, the option taken by all the teams outwith the Premiership, will likely be a shutdown (and even then, some top level teams will be wobbly).

Cubs cannot in fact just 'break the contracts' without either paying up the remainder or facing outside sanction: presumably you weren't paying attention when clubs like Hearts were scrambling to arrange pay cuts with their players a few months ago. They didn't get to punt all the shite ones who got them relegated for nothing because of the pandemic because that's not how it works. The only thing that has kept clubs from having to pay wages over the past six months has been the JRS which ends at the end of next month.

You also still haven't grasped that there are literally hundreds of scenarios between a best case scenario and the 'things go to shite' mass liquidation event that you keep raising, in which having committed yourself to multiyear contracts does actually impose a restriction on a club's ability to readjust.

Edited September 12, 2020 by vikingTON

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

Cubs cannot in fact just 'break the contracts' without either paying up the remainder or facing outside sanction: presumably you weren't paying attention when clubs like Hearts were scrambling to arrange pay cuts with their players a few months ago. They didn't get to punt all the shite ones who got them relegated for nothing because of the pandemic because that's not how it works. The only thing that has kept clubs from having to pay wages over the past six months has been the JRS which ends at the end of next month.

You also still haven't grasped that there are literally hundreds of scenarios between a best case scenario and the 'things go to shite' mass liquidation event that you keep raising, in which having committed yourself to multiyear contracts does actually impose a restriction on a club's ability to readjust.

Clause 12, enjoy. As for the rest, TL;DR.

[Rovers_Lad]

Its amazing how some on here  know the structure of a players contract no matter who the play for

[vikingTON]

9 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Clause 12, enjoy. As for the rest, TL;DR.

How many contracts have been arbitrarily cancelled through 'clause 12' since clubs stopped receiving the vast majority of their income this time six months ago? Be extremely specific.

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, virginton said:

How many contracts have been arbitrarily cancelled through 'clause 12' since clubs stopped receiving the vast majority of their income this time six months ago? Be extremely specific.

Note, they are technically paused under Clause 12, and none BECAUSE the Government elected to pay. If it happens again, we can expect a bloodbath as teams shed costs if a similar scheme doesn’t reoccur. It is you who are blinded by your mythical rainbow of possibilities. These teams are run by people who can count (some better than others) pennies, and who voted to start the season with their eyes wide open...assuming they haven’t played out the scenarios and discussed it between them is folly. The simply options are “we can afford to play” and “we cannot afford to play”, determining which scenario we are in will be the trick.

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, Rovers_Lad said:

Its amazing how some on here  know the structure of a players contract no matter who the play for

Clause 12 is part of the universal boilerplate in ALL SFA contracts.

[vikingTON]

13 hours ago, TxRover said:

Note, they are technically paused under Clause 12, and none BECAUSE the Government elected to pay.

Wrong. The Government only pays up to £2500 per month, so if you're a Hearts player on first team wages then the club is in fact still paying the bulk of your wages throughout the past six months. How many of them were released instead under your laughable Clause 12 because they were dung and the club didn't want to pay them? How many were released at other top SPFL clubs whose player wages are not fully met by furlough? 

Quote

It is you who are blinded by your mythical rainbow of possibilities.

So you believe that the only two possibilities on the table are i) fans get back to games within the original timeframe or ii) fans never get in and the professional game completely implodes? 

Idiot well and truly found. 

Quote

These teams are run by people who can count (some better than others) pennies, and who voted to start the season with their eyes wide open...assuming they haven’t played out the scenarios and discussed it between them is folly. The simply options are “we can afford to play” and “we cannot afford to play”, determining which scenario we are in will be the trick.

Yep, the people running Scottish second tier clubs can count the pennies so well that their combined losses for the last pre-Covid season was well over £3 million, with the two Dundee clubs and Inverness in particular losing eye-watering sums of money year on year. Even clubs like Morton have lost ridiculous one-off sums despite slashing budgets and fielding ringers, while your own club lost £400k and £200k respectively playing in the third tier. Not to mention the mere five administrations incurred by the current group of ten clubs over the past two decades. 

Truly the sort of far-sighted executives who can deal with an unprecedented economic and public health shitstorm surrounding the game right now!

Edited September 13, 2020 by vikingTON

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

So you believe that the only two possibilities on the table are i) fans get back to games within the original timeframe or ii) fans never get in and the professional game completely implodes? 

Idiot well and truly found. 

Yes, that statement alone, completely mischaracterizing my statements and trying to bang your pet square peg into a round hole shows which of us is the idiot. There are two conditions that may occur, and they vary by club...HOWEVER even one or two clubs tipping over the line from we can afford to play into we cannot afford to play will have huge knock on effects, for at least their League.

As for your £2500 player rant, the relatively few players on such wages, if their contracts were tolled, would justifiably treat their clubs as dead to them, not something a club can afford from star players. Don’t believe that, look at Hearts (your example team), who used Clause 12 to legally implement pay cuts, as did Dundee, Hibs, Celtic and Aberdeen to name a few...but they all did so WiTH the players, not unilaterally.

[vikingTON]

Agreeing a pay cut with the players' consent is not an arbitrary use of Clause 12 by a club to rip up a player's legal contract, so the number of cases you can cite for this is precisely zero.

And there's also not just 'two conditions that may occur', you imbecile. Excluding hospitality etc. which is stuffed, an SPFL club could get the full gate income of 14 league matches this season, or 10 games, or 5 games, or none at all: or any combination of full and restricted games over the course of the season. The potential spread in terms of expected revenue is therefore huge. Some clubs will fail at 50 or 75% of their normal revenue from 27 games - others will survive. Among the things that will determine this outcome include 'foolishly having players tied to two year contracts that you can no longer afford and cannot in fact cancel just because you're a bit skint now'.

If it was any other club who was being discussed in relation to this point then you wouldn't have chosen this ridiculous hill to die on, but here we are. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by vikingTON

[Finlay21]

13 minutes ago, virginton said:

Agreeing a pay cut with the players' consent is not an arbitrary use of Clause 12 by a club to rip up a player's legal contract, so the number of cases you can cite for this is precisely zero.

And there's also not just 'two conditions that may occur', you imbecile. Excluding hospitality etc. which is stuffed, an SPFL club could get the full gate income of 14 league matches this season, or 10 games, or 5 games, or none at all: or any combination of full and restricted games over the course of the season. The potential spread in terms of expected revenue is therefore huge. Some clubs will fail at 50 or 75% of their normal revenue from 27 games - others will survive. Among the things that will determine this outcome include 'foolishly having players tied to two year contracts that you can no longer afford and cannot in fact cancel just because you're a bit skint now'.

If it was any other club who was being discussed in relation to this point then you wouldn't have chosen this ridiculous hill to die on, but here we are. 

What’s the issue with giving 2 year contracts ? This season you are only paying the exact same money as if it was a 1 year contract , next season you would pay them the 2nd year of their contract , when it’s more likely fans will be in grounds , so it’s not costing anymore this season wether your players are on 1 or 2 year contracts , any 2 year contract potentially allows you to sell in summer and make some money or saves you looking for a potential new squad at end of season for next season , unless I am missing something obvious