Stand up, take arms and prepare to be counted - Pompey, Port Vale and Rangers are counting on you

Two decades ago if you were to pick up any newspaper in the country the headlines on the back pages were traditionally dominated with what had happened on the pitch for 90 minutes. Fast forward to the present day and the headline news surrounds the misdemeanours of players on and off the pitch and the financial difficulties being suffered by clubs up and down the land. Football in twenty twelve see’s far too many clubs staring into the financial abyss. The possibility of a domino effect occurring and club’s going to the wall in the next twelve months is a very real one. How many will go is anyone’s guess but the days of sugar daddy owners seems to have gone. Whilst owning a successful Premiership side may be the ultimate have for some billionaire owners, sadly investing in lower league clubs with financial problems isn’t so appealing. Who suffers the most? The fans and the local creditors sadly, those who least deserve it.

In my previous blog I alluded to the financial results at Aston Villa where a £53.9 million loss was considered by their Chief Executive a good set of results. I’d had to think what would have constituted a bad set of results in his eyes. Better news came from Midlands rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers who posted pre-tax profits of £2.2 million, falling some way short of Arsenal’s half year pre-tax profit of £49.5 million but still in the black all the same. Worryingly though that figure was down £6.9 million on the previous season as player investment and an increase in the wage bill saw Wolverhampton begin to keep up with the Jones in their pursuit of Premier league survival and improvement. The wage bill increased from £29.8 million to £37.9 million an increase of 27.2% or monetary wise £8.1 million year on year. Turnover was up from £60.4 million to £64.6 million but that was largely down to an increase in TV revenues. The impact and cost of Sacking Mick McCarthy is likely to impact the clubs next set of financial results as they battle to stay in the Premier League for next season.

That’s not in for the Midlands round up though with the announcement that fellow Championship clubs Birmingham City and Coventry City have both had a transfer embargo placed on them this week both due to a failure to submit their club accounts on time.

There’s an age old statement that things in life always come in three’s, so it should come as no surprise that Portsmouth and Rangers are set to be joined by League two playoff hopefuls Port Vale who are currently operating under a transfer embargo and failed to play their players their wages for February. It will come as no surprise to learn that their problems stem from an unpaid tax bill which resulted in the HMRC issuing the club with a winding up petition.

I’m sure the fans of Port Vale won’t mind me alluding to the fact that they sit in the shadow of rivals Stoke City who currently occupy 12^th place in the English Premier League and are flying the flag in this seasons UEFA Europa League after they lost to Manchester City 1 – 0 in last season’s FA Cup final. Despite some decent average crowds during the 1950’s Port Vale’s support has declined in the subsequent decades since. Their Vale Park ground potential holds 19,052 supporters but last season’s average attendance of 4,678 meant that on average the ground was just under a quarter full for every league game a damming indictment that success across the way means someone has to suffer. In years gone by fans of Liverpool and Everton would flock to Tranmere Rovers on a Friday night to watch their smaller neighbours play. It seems that the fans of Stoke City have little or no desire to help out their smaller neighbours in a similar vein at any point during the season. Attendances would have no doubt been helped by a Potteries derby game but the last one happened in 2002. Stoke City in comparison regularly sell out their Britannia Stadium and can rely on income from the various Premier League television deals and Europa rights to boot.

This isn’t the first time Port Vale have found themselves in administration having previously been placed in 2002 when the club was then brought out by a fan based group. In 2006 their most famous fan one Mr Robbie Williams invested £240,000 into the club but admitted he doesn’t have the levels of finance needed to sustain the sort of levels required to run the club. Hope it seems rest with Mo Chaudry who had an offer of £1.2 million for 54% of the clubs shareholding turned down. The move into administration will see the club docked ten points and tumble back down the table. They currently sit one place outside the play offs. Once again those who suffer the most when football clubs fail to pay their bills are the fans. Do they great fans of Port Vale deserve to see a potential day out in the play off finals at Wembley in May be taken away from them through no fault of their own? If course they don’t but with players failing to be paid for February and the threat of the HMRC hanging over the clubs future at a time when things looked up on the pitch, events of it will dictate that the fans will suffer the most. What Vale need is the support of their community to bring much needed revenue into the club at the very least. As a Portsmouth fan my prayers go out to Port Vale and their fans and I hope that some much needed investment is found and soon.  

One of the key factors when a club goes into administration is that trust disappears and when trust goes then things start to become harder for any club to survive whether you have a fan base the size of Glasgow Rangers FC or as small as Port Vale’s. Local businesses lose the trust and clubs lose their supply chain and line of credit. Some fans will lose trust and question why they should spend their hard money going to attend home games when so many mistakes have been made in the past. To be fair it’s a valid question that needs consideration. Rationally there should be no malice aimed at those who choose to stay away. What people need to sell isn’t guilt but a remembrance of why you loved going there in the first place. As football fans we can all pretty much remember our first home game we went to see unless you were really taken from a young age. We remember why we were hooked from that first time and why we fell in love with our clubs. The support of a true fan never wavers. Sometimes it just gets a little lost and we need reminding of why we fell in love with the club in the first place.

Loving any football team can at points be like a marriage. When times get hard and the arguments start we can lose sight of why we fell in love in the first place and of all the happy memories that were there before the sadness and the anger began to kick in. Money makes the world go around. Sadly those at the top echelons in football are poisoning that money. What we need to do is inject clean money back into the game and reclaim our national game. We need to find a reason to fall in love again. It’s seems hard to remember that football was first and foremost a game where the masses came to watch 22 men on a pitch week in week out. Rows and rows of filled terraces football really was the people’s game. The feeling of comradery and belonging, standing toe to toe with other people who loved the club as much as you; People who would jump in unison when you scored and would feel the same pain when you conceded. Thousands of people all stood together kicking every ball from the stands willing on their sides to win. We need to reinstall this passion into people. We need true football fans to step up and be counted whatever team we support. If we would watch any game on a television or pay a Sky Subscription then what stops us going to watch a team we don’t support and taking in the atmosphere of those who do love the clubs you are watching. Nothing beats the feeling of seeing a game first hand. There is no feeling like it. Even the most boring of 0 – 0 draws will always far outweigh the feeling of watching something on a TV.

So I would implore the people in and around Stoke to go and pack Vale Park whatever side you follow. Communities are better when there’s a rivalry to be had and bragging rights to be told. No true football fan wants to see a club die anymore than they want to see their neighbours win come Saturday afternoons at 3pm. I give that specific day and time because the majority of league games in the lower league kick off at traditional times and haven’t been chopped and changed for the sake of a TV audience rather than those fans who’ve been attending games for season after season.

If you can’t get to a game then visit the club shop in person or online there are bargains to be had. If you can’t afford a shirt then buy what you can afford to buy. Every football fan needs to do their bit so that great clubs with great fans like Glasgow Rangers, Port Vale and my own love Portsmouth FC survive. If you don’t act now then it will be too late. Hindsight is a wonderful tool but sadly no use if you no longer have a club to follow and support.

Stand up, take arms and prepare to be counted.

Who do you think you are kidding Aston Villa if you think financial results are good?

February 2012 and not for the first time Portsmouth FC find themselves in administration and not for the first time in their well documented recent troubled past. The only difference this time is they are joined by some more illustrious counterparts north of the border in the shape of Glasgow giants Rangers. I’ve been saying it for some time now that the football bubble is going to burst, that the current levels of spending cannot be maintained. The worrying sign is that no one really seems to be heeding the warning signs and clubs are like the blind following the blind with only a few showing any signs of financial negligence if any at all. At a time where income into the English Premier League is at an all time high, how is it that only Wolverhampton Wanderers and Arsenal have anything coming close to a business model that seems sustainable over the long term?

An equally worrying sign is that despite being in poor financial health, some clubs genuinely don’t see it as a problem. Take for example Aston Villa who today posted annual losses of £53.9 million. Their bosses insist they are satisfied with the club’s financial position. Whilst that figure doesn’t include the money raised from the sales of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing it does come at a time where Villa’s income had actually increased by 1.3% to a record £92 million. So not taking into account the sums received for the two players, the operating costs for the financial year would stand at £145.9 million. No offence to the staff and followers of Aston Villa, but you would from a neutral point of view state the opinion that this is a club looking to secure mid table security at best, certainly aiming to avoid a relegation dog fight and certainly not a side that look capable of kicking on and securing a European birth anytime soon under the new stewardship of Alex McLeish. Remember Martin O’Neill walked away from the manager’s job over the issue of finance and if huge strides are not made soon to curb their spending then that figure of debt will be maintained and surely cannot be sustained when income levels are at a record high already.

What makes interesting reading are the comments of Chief financial officer Robin Russell who was quoted as saying; "Given the challenging economic environment we're pleased with positive trends in our financial performance." 

“The board of Aston Villa are confident that the actions taken since the end of the 2010-11 financial year have galvanised the long-term sustainability of the club.”

Reading that from a neutral’s perspective reminds me of the comments made by the ex-CEO at Portsmouth Peter Storrie who was stunned when the contracts he had drawn up for the players signed during his tenure had resulted  in the club having to pay out millions in bonuses when they won the FA Cup. He seemed genuinely bemused that a squad of highly paid internationals was capable of bringing silver wear to the club. I mean what were the chances of that? Sadly it seems there wasn’t the slightest glimmer or an inclining that this could possible happen. Some of the contracts contain such wonderful creative pieces of writing that even JK Rowling is jealous and even now the impact of such contracts is felt when you realise that despite having the smallest playing squad in the league they have one of the largest wage bills in the Championship. I’d be genuinely surprised if at least a few players didn’t receive huge bonuses for winning the Asia Cup but then again nothing would surprise me anymore after Peter Storrie received win bonuses alongside the players. I do however wonder if he’s got any goals in him because let’s face it we need someone to get on the score sheet with Kitson again firing blanks; perhaps it stems from the fact his hair if the colour akin to a jaffa?

Villa’s overall loss of £53.9 million for the year up to the 31^st of May 2011 represents a 46.87% increase from £37.6 million, a rise of £16.3 million. Whilst Villa’s commercial income had increased by 15.9% year on year, the club had been impacted heavily by the change in management which cost the club £12 million and the record purchase of striker Darren Bent. No one remind the Villa fans how long he will be out injured for after being stretchered off over the weekend.

So in two years the club has managed to post a total loss of £90.6 million. Whilst I’m sure there will be no marquee signings during the summer for Aston Villa, the club really will have its work cut out as it attempts to start to begin to get its finances under control and work towards a brighter financial footing whatever the Chief Financial Officer has to say on the matter.

However it’s not all doom and gloom in the Premier League when Arsenal  reported a rise in profits to £49.5 million yesterday following on from Sunday’s on the pitch 5-2 demolition of North London rivals Tottenham.  The profit for the six months to the end of November, compares with a loss during the same period in 2010 of £6.1 million.

Player trading, including the sales of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas had helped bring in some £41.6 million and the figures saw Arsenal’s cash reserves rise to £115.2 million up from £110.4 million. Turnover from football also rose to £113.5 million from £97.6 million. Whilst supporters call for investment after a period of seven success seasons without winning a trophy in any major competition, unlike some Premier League rivals, the club is keen to point out that despite a healthy balance sheet, that not all the money is available for spending on new players; a prudent and strong financial decision even if it doesn’t help appease some of the fans in my opinion.

During the week I was posed the question by ex-Pompey player and manager turned BBC pundit Steve Claridge whether I would swap Porstmouth’s FA Cup win for financial security? My answer in a heartbeat was yes. I’m sure the large percentage of diehard fans would probably agree with me on the matter as well. So whilst I’m sure it’s hard as an Arsenal fan to want to see common sense prevailing when you’ve gone so long without winning a trophy, from our fans point of view we would largely swap in an instant to now be watching a talented young side playing attractive football with a strong financial position behind us then we would at being able to look back at one trophy win that was the pinnacle of what in reality has lead to an absolute disaster and warzone landing on our front door step for the footballing world to shake it’s head in disgust at, not just once but twice.

As a footballing fan the noises coming from inside Arsenal are refreshing and positive and other clubs should start to take note of what is being said. "It's important to understand that not all that money's available to invest in transfers," Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis was quoted as saying before adding; "We have running costs of the club, player salaries and so on, so that amount goes down during the year. We also have to keep something in reserve in case things don't go our way."

"We are proud of Arsenal's record and consistency over many seasons and have the foundations in place, at every level of the club, to ensure we remain a force in the seasons ahead," said chairman Peter Hill-Wood.

I’m sorry Mr Russell at Aston Villa, if I was a fan or either yourselves or Arsenal I know whose trust I would rather be putting my faith in over the past two days when it comes to talking about being happy with financial positions having announced two very differing sets of results. As a Pompey fan all I can do at my own club, like every other one of our great fans fan is to sit and hope and pray that we manage to survive until the end of the season at the very least and avoid relegation. Attempting to sustain Premiership costs on Championship income is one thing, trying to do the same if relegated doesn’t bare thinking about.