• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

the corona v . and sport

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Certainly, some clubs will fold but most likely non-league outfits. It will be a miracle if we avoid economic carnage in football and generally. There will be a few winners, but not many. Nearly everyone will be worse off. We can only hope that a lot of good will come out of it. We are now seeing some incredible kindness and heroism, which bodes well for the future. It’s the qualities we will soon need in abundance.
 

drwhoman

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I agree with your sentiments BBTC. I was having a closer look at Liverpool's finances, because of all the hoo ha, and the reality is that they are losing $7m a month in match revenue never mind any nice bonuses this year from the Champions League. They made a 42m profit last time courtesy of a 45m player transfer credit which is presumably the balance of the Coutinho money. This raises another issue for clubs. If they have purchased a player on a installment basis then presumably they will have to pay the sums due with no revenue. In a nutshell, I am not sure the public has quite woken up to the huge impact this is having on sports finances. As a generality, they think back to a now historic world which will not be the same when we come out of this.
 
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Liverpool are perfectly capable of surviving the next few months without government assistance. Their use of the furlough scheme was clearly exploitative, as most of their supporters have recognised. The state assistance was obviously not intended for cash and reserves rich organisations like them.
 

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Yes but at least they were unable to wipe the egg off their faces after such a ridiculous move.
 

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The gel have come up with a plan to finish the s eadon, they estimate it will take 8 weeks and all games likely to bee behind closed doors, I personally believe it is good to have a plan in place though when it will be implemented is another matter
 
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The gel have come up with a plan to finish the s eadon, they estimate it will take 8 weeks and all games likely to bee behind closed doors, I personally believe it is good to have a plan in place though when it will be implemented is another matter
I suppose that would be preferable to taking league positions on current points per game, which is what is happening in Scotland. The question remains which of our current squad of players would actually be available to us.
 

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that would be great news for us if it goes ahead as we could still stay up then... talk is of contracts being extended until end of the 56 day period whenever that will be.... I guess most players would be up for that unless they have a definitive move lined up elsewhere - which is I suspect is very few / if any of our players given how little appetite there was for them in the transfer window. Will hurt the clubs although there is the advance from the PL I guess that could be part used to cover it.
 
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It is more a question of whether we can hold on to the loan and short term contract players, as there will be plenty of interest in Clarke, Vaughan, Woodyard and co. Without them we will almost certainly go down.
 

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Fair point RLC - I was assuming that there would be some sort of gentleman's agreement to extend contracts until the end of the season whenever that would be unless the player simply refuses to sign but maybe I am being unduly optimistic. Also no mention of how long after the season finishes when the 20-21 season will start that I can see - that may well impact player's views as well I guess..
 
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I think common sense would have to prevail. The transfer window probably won't open until the season is over, so if a player's contract runs out on 30th June, he would have to extend it or he wouldn't get paid! Any pre-season contract agreements would be valid from the official start of the 2020/21 season. With performance bonuses and medals at stake, most players will want the season to finish. Most clubs will want the season to finish for contractual reasons. Even at our level, if we can get all the games behind closed doors televised, the clubs won't lose too much in income.
 
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I think clubs would still lose a lot of income in fairness. They would lose all the ancillary commercial income from matches and they would not be able to charge regular admission prices to watch on the internet. Plus, a lot of people would watch online in groups, so not every individual would pay as on a regular matchday.
 

bigmart

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I think clubs would still lose a lot of income in fairness. They would lose all the ancillary commercial income from matches and they would not be able to charge regular admission prices to watch on the internet. Plus, a lot of people would watch online in groups, so not every individual would pay as on a regular matchday.
I think it is making the most of a very difficult situation, there are no easy answers whatever way they go
 

drwhoman

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Yes but at least they were unable to wipe the egg off their faces after such a ridiculous move.
I am sorry Ian but if you are running a business that is losing 84m a year in revenue you have to look at every alternative to cut costs. People say they are a rich club, which they are relatively, but they only made a profit in 2019 because Barca were crazy enough to pay so much for Coutinho. It may not have appeared a smart move from the perspective that somehow they are a community club but so are Rovers, who took the govt money, so what is the difference? Public perception not business reality. I am not a fan of the decision they took, they will find cost savings elsewhere, but all sports clubs are in the financial poo at present.
 
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I am sorry Ian but if you are running a business that is losing 84m a year in revenue you have to look at every alternative to cut costs. People say they are a rich club, which they are relatively, but they only made a profit in 2019 because Barca were crazy enough to pay so much for Coutinho. It may not have appeared a smart move from the perspective that somehow they are a community club but so are Rovers, who took the govt money, so what is the difference? Public perception not business reality. I am not a fan of the decision they took, they will find cost savings elsewhere, but all sports clubs are in the financial poo at present.
I'm not sure where you got those figures from. Liverpool made a £42m profit in 2018/19 and a world record £125 million in 2017/18. OK, the Coutinho money helped, but they spent that and more on van Dyck and Alisson. As world champions, even this season should be a good one. They were entitled to cut the pay of their stars, but chose a weaker target, their non-playing staff. I am not singling Liverpool out. Most of the Premier League did the same.

Liverpool's loss of income will mean John W Henry will be a few million dollars poorer - most of it tax-deductible, no doubt. Rovers and most other League One and Two clubs need the furlough cash simply to survive.,
 
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I am sorry Ian but if you are running a business that is losing 84m a year in revenue you have to look at every alternative to cut costs. People say they are a rich club, which they are relatively, but they only made a profit in 2019 because Barca were crazy enough to pay so much for Coutinho. It may not have appeared a smart move from the perspective that somehow they are a community club but so are Rovers, who took the govt money, so what is the difference? Public perception not business reality. I am not a fan of the decision they took, they will find cost savings elsewhere, but all sports clubs are in the financial poo at present.
I am sorry, but to compare our finances to a club like Liverpool's is ridiculous. We have recorded losses in virtually every year of our existence, have a tiny turnover and effectively an insolvent balance sheet. Liverpool are one of the wealthiest clubs on the planet, with enormous reserves; I seriously doubt they are making a loss of £7 million per month, but even if they lost that sum every month for the next year their reserves would easily cover the deficit. We are precisely one of the struggling small businesses the assistance was intended for. They are not.
 
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drwhoman

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I am sorry, but to compare our finances to a club like Liverpool's is ridiculous. We have recorded losses in virtually every year of our existence, have a tiny turnover and effectively an insolvent balance sheet. Liverpool are one of the wealthiest clubs on the planet, with enormous reserves; I seriously doubt they are making a loss of £7 million per month, but even if they lost that sum every month for the next year their reserves would easily cover the deficit. We are precisely one of the struggling small businesses the assistance was intended for. They are not.
RLC - you are a Rovers fan through and through and I really respect that. I always value your commentaries on Rovers. I was not having a pop at Rovers. I have supported them since 1960 and before. All I was saying was that even the clubs that are perceived to be wealthy will have huge revenue issues at present. Liverpool took a rationale business decision without taking account of the public perception, which was not smart. My impression of football finances over the years is that it is a game of fine margins. No one makes big profits, it is just that some will have bigger balance sheets and can sell a player in need. The reality is that Liverpool will have to do something but it will not be taking govt money now.
 

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Liverpool posted a pre-tax profit of around 45m only a few weeks ago with a yearly turnover of £533m. Hardly short of cash. Their owners FSG are worth billions, they are one of the biggest clubs in the world and they wanted to take advantage of the gov retention scheme designed for businesses that will struggle over this period.

They were looking at furloughing some of their lowest paid staff. Restaurant workers etc.. it wouldn't have even made a dent to their finances.

Laughable really.
 
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drwhoman

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Liverpool posted a pre-tax profit of around 45m only a few weeks ago with a yearly turnover of £533m. Hardly short of cash. Their owners FSG are worth billions, they are one of the biggest clubs in the world and they wanted to take advantage of the gov retention scheme designed for businesses that will struggle over this period.

They were looking at furloughing some of their lowest paid staff. Restaurant workers etc.. it wouldn't have even made a dent to their finances.

Laughable really.
Ian, I agree with you that it was a poor decision by Liverpool but the fact is that football clubs run on fine margins whatever their size and they are businesses. You mention a profit of 42m (not 45) but this was after a transfer credit of 45m. So you could argue that they lost 3m on operations. If nothing else changes that loss will significantly increase this year. From memory about half of their income is TV money and if the season is cancelled a big chunk will have to be paid back. My apologies that this is rather a long winded way of saying that big clubs have their financial challenges as well and their original decision should be seen in this light, even if it was the wrong one!
 
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Liverpool will more than recoup any losses made in this period in the months ahead. There has not been any suggestion at this stage that they will lose TV funding, by far their biggest source of income. The UK government scheme was not intended to cover the short term losses of any business. It was to support businesses that were faced with making immediate redundancies. Liverpool have not been forced to lay off any staff, which demonstrates that they did not need the money and should not have claimed it. They were abusing the system. By contrast, without government support we would now be sacking staff, including players.
 
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The gel have come up with a plan to finish the s eadon, they estimate it will take 8 weeks and all games likely to bee behind closed doors, I personally believe it is good to have a plan in place though when it will be implemented is another matter
The latest suggestion is that current points per game will be used, which seems the worst of all options to me. If that is the system they go with, we will be relegated, unless only three teams come up from League Two. I personally think relegating clubs with the fixtures incomplete, with all the financial consequences that flow from that, would be open to legal challenge. Hopefully it won't happen.
 
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