Bailout Agreed

Quoted from Poojah

Just to give this some further context, that £465,000 is roughly the equivalent of 1,800 season tickets (again depending on the split between full paying adults and concessions), meaning that with those actually sold we have something close to the value of just over 3,000 sold.

With Town receiving around £10,000 a game from iFollow viewings and anticipated savings on the wage bill, you'd have to hope that any deficit is now well within a manageable realm for the club.

This is live saving news for clubs like Town. This season was all about survival; existential first, then our league status. Hopefully it means we only have to worry about the latter now, and if we can find a way to move away from the relegation zone and avoid any serious flirting with the trap door this will represent a successful one for me, under the circumstances. Just need to turn that 'if' into reality.

Dont forget the £200,000 plus they made in refunds, shares and crowdfunding

Whilst it’ll be tight, I’d imagine we won’t be far off having the same amount of cash come in to the club as normal, especially with the 200k fans threw in.

Survival financially is always important, for any business. As you say though, staying up has to be a priority. At present we look set for a relegation battle and long term that would be detrimental in many ways.

We have to learn from our mistakes, we have to avoid it and ensure we stay up, that’s the best way to gain a platform to push on...which is what Holloway wants to do, even if the leadership of the club lack any ambition.

Can we not apply for extra funding based on our extensive un-benign debt?

Some really good posts on here what resonates with me is that if we hadn't have paired back in the summer and a bailout (which wasn't guaranteed) had not come along then we would have potentially been in trouble. Though it hasn't taken Phil Day long to revert back to type and I get bored with the "well we give up our time" argument I'm not sure I'd have taken the risk to keep costs high whilst forecasted income was going to be so low.

It's just the crass hypocrisy of professional football in this country that those who didn't take measures in the hope that someone will ultimately step in have benefited, they say that "football is a business" well in any business if you behaved like many club boards you wouldn't last too long.  

I would like to think that this money would be awarded on a case to case basis to keep clubs above the breakeven level but I doubt it.

I highly doubt PL clubs are going to give away money without stringently assessing the ‘need’ part. I’m sure they’ll also have a good look at the accounts pre-Covid to ensure they’re not paying for pre-existing debts.

With our money back plus the fans money plus the money we’ve saved from the playing budget (by spending absolute peanuts) you’d imagine we’re in an incredibly healthy financial position now. However it’s taken less than 24hrs to plead poverty which is concerning yet not at all surprising.


I wonder if a non chairman’s benign loans is a ‘need’?

Quoted from pontoonlew

I highly doubt PL clubs are going to give away money without stringently assessing the ‘need’ part. I’m sure they’ll also have a good look at the accounts pre-Covid to ensure they’re not paying for pre-existing debts.

With our money back plus the fans money plus the money we’ve saved from the playing budget (by spending absolute peanuts) you’d imagine we’re in an incredibly healthy financial position now. However it’s taken less than 24hrs to plead poverty which is concerning yet not at all surprising.


I wonder if a non chairman’s benign loans is a ‘need’?

Not sure that reducing the playing budget in order to pay off loans (debt) built up by bad decisions off the pitch makes them ‘benign’?

On one hand I can understand Day's frustration.  It's simply unfair that we have really cut our cloth and adjusted our budget to match our income, whilst other clubs have done sod all to to adapt and yet any bailout/grant will reflect the losses incurred.  On face value that's crappy.  The Taxi analogy above sums it up perfectly.

Yet....how many times do we get it wrong?  Why is that we seem to be the only club that gets it wrong too?

The more and more this farce goes on the question still remains answered, what have the board put in to help the club this year?  As fans we've gone above and beyond to make sure the club has had money to keep running.  Personally I gave up my refund on last years season ticket, I put into the Crowd Funder, I made sure I spent a bit in the club shop and then I bought a season ticket with the high risk factor that I wouldn't get to see most (if any of the games) other than via a one camera feed.  I'm far from alone in doing this.   The club then had the absolute nerve to say the iFollow passes were 'free'.  They're not flipping free, I've paid for my season ticket and I'm getting an inferior product as a substitute for it.  I accept that but don't patronise me by suggesting I'm getting a freebie.  The same letter also said "Your loyal support will not be forgotten and we are currently looking at ways to rewarding that loyalty at this difficult time".  That letter came some time in October, the only reward I've had is the offer of a free calendar (subject to availability).  I don't want thanks, I don't want rewards.  I gave up my money because I love my football club.  But I want to know what have the board given up?

The staff of the club have taken paycuts to make sure there's still a club.  That's huge.  I'm irked that I've given up money for nothing.  It pales in comparison to giving up some of your wage.  What have the board done?

Tom Schutes and his gang were rebuffed because they couldn't provide assurances that they would have money to support us in the event of any downturn.  Well, I'm asking this board right now, where are the assurances that they can support the club during any downturn.  Because since the start of this pandemic the budget has been slashed, fans have given up money to dig deep and staff have dug even deeper.  

Answers are needed.  

Might be worth the fans writing a letter to the PL on the basis of our need to get rid of the Fenty. £1.55m should do it nicely, thank you very much.

I have to say, I find Philip Day's comments on the matter somewhat naive. The club is set to receive somewhere between £400k - £500k in non-repayable grants from a source which had no obligation whatsoever to provide anything, without (as far as I am aware) any potentially harmful strings attached. It's quite literally free money, and the fact that it's going to take another couple of weeks to ratify the exact amount payable to each club is neither here nor there.

Is the deal fair? Perhaps not, but little about Covid-19 is fair. It's not fair that millions of people are dying before their time and that jobs and in fact entire industries are being decimated. It's not fair that the old, infirm, poor and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected.

This is a rescue package; the clue is in the name. The funds should absolutely not be used to fill cracks that would have appeared without the pandemic, but I can accept that some clubs will have taken financial risks which would have been manageable without the effects of Covid-19, but are less so in the cold harsh reality of these difficult times.

The EFL's objective isn't about fairness and equality at this time, it's about the survival of its members. Enforcing a one-size fits all policy which would see a handful of clubs go to the wall would be akin to attempting to save a group of drowning people, but refusing to rescue those who had drifted further out because they hadn't had the foresight to learn to swim properly.

Quoted from Poojah

I have to say, I find Philip Day's comments on the matter somewhat naive. The club is set to receive somewhere between £400k - £500k in non-repayable grants from a source which had no obligation whatsoever to provide anything, without (as far as I am aware) any potentially harmful strings attached. It's quite literally free money, and the fact that it's going to take another couple of weeks to ratify the exact amount payable to each club is neither here nor there.

Is the deal fair? Perhaps not, but little about Covid-19 is fair. It's not fair that millions of people are dying before their time and that jobs and in fact entire industries are being decimated. It's not fair that the old, infirm, poor and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected.

This is a rescue package; the clue is in the name. The funds should absolutely not be used to fill cracks that would have appeared without the pandemic, but I can accept that some clubs will have taken financial risks which would have been manageable without the effects of Covid-19, but are less so in the cold harsh reality of these difficult times.

The EFL's objective isn't about fairness and equality at this time, it's about the survival of its members. Enforcing a one-size fits all policy which would see a handful of clubs go to the wall would be akin to attempting to save a group of drowning people, but refusing to rescue those who had drifted further out because they hadn't had the foresight to learn to swim properly.

Completely agreed, also the fine details have not been ironed out yet to determine the relative difference in pay out. Once the figures are on the table then it may be time to discuss. If the proposed model clearly shows that bad budgeting is rewarded then the EFL need to be taken into account but we need to see some clear evidence of this first. They are pretty incompetent and so it would not surprise me but let’s look at the relative difference in pay out before we get too excited, utm