Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[die hard doonhamer]

11 minutes ago, Paco said:

£500k grants incoming for all Championship clubs.

 

Surely enough to keep the wolves from the door for everyone?

Each?! That's more than a third of what Queens' turnover was in 2019. An obscene amount, and frankly horrendous use of public money, IMO.

[UpInTheAyr]

Each?! That's more than a third of what Queens' turnover was in 2019. An obscene amount, and frankly horrendous use of public money, IMO.

Maybe up to 500k, depending on each clubs specific immediate needs, possibly ? Can't see a check for the full amount just arriving at the club, that really would be irresponsible.

[Dunning1874]

Aye, you'd imagine taxpayers with no interest in football will be pretty pissed off with this use of public money as it's an obscenely huge amount, particularly if they're struggling themselves and the areas they work in aren't being supported.

Surely such a huge amount being available will see every Championship club have absolutely no issues, even considering that this is going to quite rightly going to have significant strings attached.

[D'Jaffo]

The caveat is that the money cannot be used for transfer fees and also the monies cannot be withdrawn by directors or owners.  The grant is purely for operational football costs.  Any misuse will see the grant money having to be repaid in its entirity.  Each club has to sign an agreement regarding this.

How do you prove clubs are misusing it though?

[HMIP]

Football clubs are businesses too, employing people and generating significant economic value in their communities as well as other social and economic benefits through youth academies and other initiatives.  I’m not clear why they are any less deserving of support than other businesses that have received support from the UK/Scottish governments.

[Guest Flash]

5 minutes ago, Tynierose said:

The caveat is that the money cannot be used for transfer fees and also the monies cannot be withdrawn by directors or owners.  The grant is purely for operational football costs.  Any misuse will see the grant money having to be repaid in its entirity.  Each club has to sign an agreement regarding this.

Can you use it to pay off a manager?

[Derry Alli]

29 minutes ago, GiGi said:

£150k for League One clubs (Falkirk, Partick, Clyde etc).

Think we can raise a wee glass to Hearts for gracing us this season, imagine that might have played a part. Was anyone expecting a half million grant?

Here's to Hearts. 

 

Here's to your likes of Falkirk, Partick etc:

[die hard doonhamer]

9 minutes ago, HMIP said:

Football clubs are businesses too, employing people and generating significant economic value in their communities as well as other social and economic benefits through youth academies and other initiatives.  I’m not clear why they are any less deserving of support than other businesses that have received support from the UK/Scottish governments.

They aren't less deserving (although the argument could be made that they should be, given they took the unnecessary decision to start playing again). Why are they more deserving though?

[HMIP]

19 minutes ago, die hard doonhamer said:

They aren't less deserving (although the argument could be made that they should be, given they took the unnecessary decision to start playing again). Why are they more deserving though?

On what do you base your assertion that starting to play again was unnecessary?  Our own chairman has long since debunked the notion that clubs could be mothballed.  They are going concerns which continue to have ongoing costs whether the season was restarted or not (non playing staff, players on existing multi year deals, managers and coaches, maintenance costs, insurance costs etc).  That’s before you get into the commercial liabilities to TV and sponsors for not restarting which could have torpedoed our whole game.  I’m not suggesting football when viewed as a business is more deserving of support, I’m just puzzled as to why some people think the clubs are less deserving given the support handed out to other industries.  There seems to be an attitude that it’s “only football”, which seems very shortsighted given the footprint clubs have in their local communities.

[vikingTON]

45 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

Here's to your likes of Falkirk, Partick etc:

Would you say it's been worth a global pandemic to see Falkirk denied promotion in the Great Summer of Injustice, having their usual meltdowns about it, before the same decision does them out of £350k worth of a government bailout two weeks before 2020 is out?

[Skyline Drifter]

On 17/12/2020 at 12:12, Skyline Drifter said:

Far from convinced the Championship share of £10m which is being shared not only among 30 SPFL clubs but also the womens game and presumably Juniors and senior non league sides too is going to be some sort of panacea either. What's that going to be per club? I assume it will likely be based on some sort of average attendance stat. For most of the clubs being hinted at that probably won't cover a month's payroll. Still think the lower Leagues came back far too soon. They would have been better advised to sit still till January.

If the BBC are to be believed to be fair it is a very large sum and will go a long way to paying multiple months payroll. It also appears not to be based on attendances or income loss either but just on your division which means the likes of us, Alloa and Arbroath getting three times what Falkirk and Thistle are!

[Skyline Drifter]

41 minutes ago, HMIP said:

On what do you base your assertion that starting to play again was unnecessary?  Our own chairman has long since debunked the notion that clubs could be mothballed.  They are going concerns which continue to have ongoing costs whether the season was restarted or not (non playing staff, players on existing multi year deals, managers and coaches, maintenance costs, insurance costs etc).  That’s before you get into the commercial liabilities to TV and sponsors for not restarting which could have torpedoed our whole game.  I’m not suggesting football when viewed as a business is more deserving of support, I’m just puzzled as to why some people think the clubs are less deserving given the support handed out to other industries.  There seems to be an attitude that it’s “only football”, which seems very shortsighted given the footprint clubs have in their local communities.

Most lower division clubs could very easily have been mothballed, particularly if they'd known at the time of the decision that payroll costs would be covered to April 2021 though I accept at the time they thought it was only till October and only partially at that.

The commercial and tv contracts were all based around the Premiership. Everyone accepts the Premiership had to restart, that's not up for debate. The lower Leagues could have mothballed to January or beyond without losing any significant commercial income.

[HMIP]

1 minute ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Most lower division clubs could very easily have been mothballed, particularly if they'd known at the time of the decision that payroll costs would be covered to April 2021 though I accept at the time they thought it was only till October and only partially at that.

The commercial and tv contracts were all based around the Premiership. Everyone accepts the Premiership had to restart, that's not up for debate. The lower Leagues could have mothballed to January or beyond without losing any significant commercial income.

I can only point you to our own club chairman who dismissed the idea of mothballing as unrealistic.  The point you have failed to address is the ongoing costs that don’t just vanish because a club is “mothballed”, whatever that actually means.  The reality is that the decision to restart in October was driven by the expected wind downof the furlough scheme coupled with the reasonable expectation bsck in the Summer that limited crowds would be back by then or soon after.  The increasing likelihood is that we won’t see crowds back until next season which wasn’t part of anyone’s thinking and was always therefore going to require some kind of financial support for the lower leagues, though the amounts are way more than I might have expected.

[Skyline Drifter]

8 minutes ago, HMIP said:

I can only point you to our own club chairman who dismissed the idea of mothballing as unrealistic.  The point you have failed to address is the ongoing costs that don’t just vanish because a club is “mothballed”, whatever that actually means.  The reality is that the decision to restart in October was driven by the expected wind downof the furlough scheme coupled with the reasonable expectation bsck in the Summer that limited crowds would be back by then or soon after.  The increasing likelihood is that we won’t see crowds back until next season which wasn’t part of anyone’s thinking and was always therefore going to require some kind of financial support for the lower leagues, though the amounts are way more than I might have expected.

I haven't failed to address them at all. It's my actual job! I've said it would be easy and considerably cheaper to mothball and pay basic standing charges on utilities, etc than to play loss making games in front of zero crowds IF you have no payroll costs because they are covered by furlough. Which it is. As I've posted several times before, clubs were told by the League when deciding to come back that they should expect no crowds before January and limited thereafter. If they pushed on in the belief that advice was going to be wrong then they only have themselves to blame. However, as noted already, the decision was made at a time when it was thought furlough would stop in October and given that turned out to be incorrect I think it's not that difficult to make an argument for the Govt to step in and assist in some way.

Most lower division clubs rely on volunteer assistance for lots of the unspecified "ongoing costs" you are probably trying to claim can't be avoided.

The main issues that would make mothballing a problem would be:

 - If a large number of contracted wages exceed the maximum value for furlough which would certainly be an issue for say Hearts and possibly some of the other large Championship clubs like Dundee (no idea how many employees Ayr will have earning £800 a week).

 - those clubs who rent their grounds / training facilities and are unable to get a rent holiday on them. Again, unsure that will affect too many though.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Skyline Drifter

[HMIP]

18 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I haven't failed to address them at all. It's my actual job! I've said it would be easy and considerably cheaper to mothball and pay basic standing charges on utilities, etc than to play loss making games in front of zero crowds IF you have no payroll costs because they are covered by furlough. Which it is.

Most lower division clubs rely on volunteer assistance for lots of the unspecified "ongoing costs" you are probably trying to claim can't be avoided.

That’s a stupid argument.  The clubs didn’t know the furlough scheme would be extended to April when they had to make key decisions back in the summer.  On the contrary, the UK government was adamant at the time that the furlough scheme would gradually wind down from August with businesses picking up an increasing proportion of wages before it ended in October.  

And as Lachlan Cameron pointed out, as welcome as the furlough scheme was, it still left the clubs with a significant shortfall to make up e.g. the prize money for last season’s league placings which should have been part of this season’s budget effectively had to be brought forward to cover costs for the end of last season.

I really don’t see how “volunteer assistance” covers the wages of managers, coaches and back room staff, players on existing multi year deals or non playing staff such as commercial managers.  Which is of course before you address other fixed costs such as utilities.  Is “volunteer assistance” going to pay e.g. insurance costs?

You say mothballing is easy, our chairman says it was unrealistic.  Due respect, I’ll go with the guy who (along with his father) has run our club generously and responsibly for a decade and a half.

 

[die hard doonhamer]

1 minute ago, HMIP said:

That’s a stupid argument.  The clubs didn’t know the furlough scheme would be extended to April when they had to make key decisions back in the summer.  On the contrary, the UK government was adamant at the time that the furlough scheme would gradually wind down from August with businesses picking up an increasing proportion of wages before it ended in October.  

And as Lachlan Cameron pointed out, as welcome as the furlough scheme was, it still left the clubs with a significant shortfall to make up e.g. the prize money for last season’s league placings which should have been part of this season’s budget effectively had to be brought forward to cover costs for the end of last season.

I really don’t see how “volunteer assistance” covers the wages of managers, coaches and back room staff, players on existing multi year deals or non playing staff such as commercial managers.  Which is of course before you address other fixed costs such as utilities.  Is “volunteer assistance” going to pay e.g. insurance costs?

You say mothballing is easy, our chairman says it was unrealistic.  Due respect, I’ll go with the guy who (along with his father) has run our club generously and responsibly for a decade and a half.

 

And I'll go with the guy that looks after our club's accounts over a serial posturer.

[parsforlife]

Given several clubs are comfortable with not getting fans in(or at least not at high enough levels to have non season-ticket holders).  What was to be gained by sitting about doing f**k all?  I just see (more) lost fans and losing ground on the clubs/countries that are playing and that’s before you piss off commercial partners.

Edited December 18, 2020 by parsforlife

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, HMIP said:

That’s a stupid argument.  The clubs didn’t know the furlough scheme would be extended to April when they had to make key decisions back in the summer.  On the contrary, the UK government was adamant at the time that the furlough scheme would gradually wind down from August with businesses picking up an increasing proportion of wages before it ended in October.  

And as Lachlan Cameron pointed out, as welcome as the furlough scheme was, it still left the clubs with a significant shortfall to make up e.g. the prize money for last season’s league placings which should have been part of this season’s budget effectively had to be brought forward to cover costs for the end of last season.

I really don’t see how “volunteer assistance” covers the wages of managers, coaches and back room staff, players on existing multi year deals or non playing staff such as commercial managers.  Which is of course before you address other fixed costs such as utilities.  Is “volunteer assistance” going to pay e.g. insurance costs?

You say mothballing is easy, our chairman says it was unrealistic.  Due respect, I’ll go with the guy who (along with his father) has run our club generously and responsibly for a decade and a half.

 

Yes, you keep saying.

I've already said I understand that at the time they made the decision they believed furlough was winding down. I accept that if you have more than a handful of contracted players (exactly how many will depend on the wage levels) then it becomes a marginal call. Very few clubs outside the biggest 2 or 3 at this level had a team's worth contracted on multi year deals though. That isn't the debate here however. You're all over the place. Your claim was that clubs can't mothball easily even WITH FURLOUGH (or at least you are parroting back that Lachlan Cameron says so without critically analysing it).

If furlough is in place, you don't pick up the top 20% of wages on some unnecessary "moral" basis and you don't have a load of staff earning more than £800 a week. And especially if you don't rent your ground, then mothballing is fairly straightforward.

No idea what red herring you are waving about last year. The only costs you had to cover of any significance were the 20% top ups which I think Ayr paid. They did so voluntarily though. They didn't have to. Managers were furloughed. Coaches were furloughed. Back room staff were furloughed. Players on multi year deals were furloughed. Are you seeing a trend here? All massive red herrings. Commercial managers either were or could have been furloughed (logically you furlough them unless they can generate at least their own salary cost in profits). Utilities in a closed down club are minimal. Some heating probably needed November to February but we're not talking tens of thousands here. You probably need to keep a groundsman working, especially if you have a grass park as Ayr and at least half the other clubs in the lower divisions do. You may or may not pay an administrator to keep the books running and pay the bills. Again, most lower division clubs will have a volunteer for that. No idea if Ayr do or not.

For most clubs in the lower divisions, particularly the part time ones and probably the mid tier Championship full time ones such as yours, mine, Raith and Morton mothballing would certainly have been less loss making financially than running with no crowds for all or the majority of the season. There are of course less finite costs such as the longer term effect on crowd levels if clubs aren't at least playing and keeping people engaged. I accept that argument too. Again though that's not what we're debating.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Skyline Drifter

[Rob1885]

Ridiculous way to spend taxpayers money.

[Trogdor]

3 hours ago, die hard doonhamer said:

And I'll go with the guy that looks after our club's accounts over a serial posturer.

Wow, did you just call our chairman a serial posturer? You'll need to show your workings here, be very specific as he's been chairman for over 15 years so you must have a few examples over that period.