SWFC - Club Statement (that I wish we were making)
OFFICIAL CLUB STATEMENT
Fellow Owls
We are in difficult seas. Our problems with the EFL are well documented, and time will tell if that will lead to a points deduction, a deduction that could well threaten our Championship status
Regardless of whether that status will be maintained, it is clear that our clubs approach is unsustainable given the current rules of FFP, which incorrectly favour clubs with parachute payments. We will continue to challenge that rule, but also recognise there are other factors that must change in order for us to re-establish this great club in the Premier League, a goal which I'm sure we all share.
FFP rules do not prevent us from investment in our academy, or our stadium. I'm today announcing a change of direction for our club.
We will purpose build a new academy, and it will be the best in Yorkshire. We will invest in new pitches, accommodation and leisure facilities that will make our academy one of the very best in the country in order to attract the best prospects from all over the UK.
We will invest heavily in our scouting infrastructure.
And we will develop the players to deliver our goal, to supplement the first team players we will continue to invest in within the FFP guidelines.
In addition, today I'm announcing that the entire West Stand structure will be demolished this summer and replaced with a new purpose built modern stand to accommodate home fans. This stand will be one of the most modern built in the region and will be the first phase in a redevelopment of Hillsborough to ready it for our return to the Premier League. Once complete, the next phase will be the replacement of the Kop with an identical structure.
All of the above investment will have no impact on our clubs FFP calculation, but we believe it will demonstrate our firm long term commitment to the future of our club.
This process will not be an overnight success. I hope you will be patient with us while we deliver it, and continue to be the very best supporters you can be.
Be patient not just with me, as I continue to learn what makes a quality chairman. But be patient with our young players who will be the future of our club. Encourage them, don't berate them when they make a mistake
Together, we can all work together to deliver our future as a long term addition to the Premier League
But divided, it is unlikely we will ever return
We are all Wednesday. Aren't we?
(What I wish) Dejphon Chansiri (would say)
5 years of Dejphon Chansiri
On the 29th January 2015 Dejphon Chansiri was introduced to Sheffield Wednesday supporters by Milan Mandaric as the new owner of our club. At the time Mandaric was quoted as saying
"I'm very happy and proud of what I have done for Sheffield Wednesday,"
"I promised that when I left I would have secured their financial future and I can look the fans in the eye and say that I have done that.
"They have a big desire to go to the Premier League and they want to put money into the club. They're not here to stay in the Championship.
"I didn't sell the club for the money or because I have to leave, I sold it because these people are more aggressive financially and they will do the job."
That financial aggression has been clearly evident since Mr Chansiris arrival, and there has been an investment in the club the likes of which we have never seen before. Mr Chansiri was quoted 5 years ago, on his takeover saying
"I am very excited at the prospect of taking over control from Milan,"
"I believe this club has huge potential and I can assure all our supporters that I will be working extremely hard to bring the success that I already sense from my short time in your city our supporters so desperately crave.
"My son Att, who was a mascot at the recent Blackpool game, is passionate about football and I know will be my inspiration in this project.
"I have made the same promise to him as I do our supporters, he will not let me forget this until we are back in the Premier League."
So far that promise of a Premier League return has continued to evade us, despite coming tantalisingly close in the first full season of Mr Chansiris chairmanship which culminated in that hugely disappointing day at Wembley.
As if to emphasise the under achievement our neighbours finished the same 2014/15 season that heralded Chansiris arrival in 5th place in League One, and dipped out (marvellously) to Swindon Town in the Play Off semi final stages. Since that time they have leapfrogged Wednesday and now sit just shy of the European places in the Premier League (despite severe boardroom wrangling and a court case to resolve ownership of the club).
The less said about them - the better.
In that same period our league status has yo-yo’d, and we’ve never really regained the playoff qualifying form of our early days under Carlos Carvalhal. 5 years after Mr Chansiris arrival we sit 10th in the Championship.
During Mr Chanisiris reign supporters have seen their own investment in football increase on a huge scale. Wednesday regularly top all the wrong League tables - cost of season tickets, cost of shirts, cost for away fans, costs for hospitality, costs for catering - literally ALL of the costs associated with watching football have Wednesday fans paying more. Even the cost of away games has gone up - as clubs regularly reciprocate the high costs of their own fans travelling to watch their teams at Hillsborough, meaning Wednesday fans are regularly charged the most to buy away tickets.
This hasn’t had too much impact on attendances - thankfully. The loyalty of Wednesday fans, severely tested during 20 years outside the top flight (the longest period in the clubs 150 year existence) remains - as one of the most enduring love affairs defies all belief. There has been little to cheer in that 20 year period - and yet our fans are as loyal as ever.
It cannot be denied that Mr Chansiri has invested huge sums of his own personal fortune into the club. Our clubs debt (to him) has risen consistently year on year - and although our accounts get more and more difficult to read (unless you put your hands to your face and read through your fingers) you have to give the Chairman credit for continuing to fund our (huge) losses. How much of those losses are down to the Chairmans (acknowledged) lack of experience in football are open to debate. It is widely suggested in football by commentators with better financial heads than I - that we do not engage anywhere near enough in player trading - bringing in older players and refusing to sell any at any kind of profit. This has left us with an ageing, and under achieving squad, relying on past glories (if failing to achieve promotion in a play off final can be classed as glory) and whom regularly still make up over 50% of our starting line-up.
And despite this lack of investment - our debt continues to rise. It could be argued that our debt is one of the few MASSIVE things about Wednesday these days. When Mr Chansiri took over 5 years ago - we started off in the black. According to our most recently submitted accounts (that were submitted late, and the accounting period extended) - our debt back then sat at slightly over £70m… In just a few very short years.
That debt figure is very scary. It absolutely dwarfs the amount that the club owed to the Inland Revenue which threatened its very existence. It also demonstrates the importance of Mr Chansiri continuing to fund our losses. And that figure is almost 2 years old. The next set of accounts will no doubt show that figure has risen some more as crowds continue to head the wrong way, and it could be argued wages have gone the wrong way too (albeit they have risen massively (more on that in a minute). Our P&L really is more of just an ‘L’ - our losses accumulate season upon season, and have risen well above the figure allowed by the EFL under the FFP (P&S) thresholds - and this has necessited a paper transaction - moving ownership of the stadium to Mr Chansiri in a ‘sale’ and leaseback loophole thats also been employed by other clubs sailing close to the wind trying to compete with clubs relegated from the Premiership.
Its a real sadness that Hillsborough doesn’t really belong to the club anymore (not that it really did under the new ownership). Its even more sad that we have need to resort to accountancy jiggery pokery to cook our books in such a way. Our club hasn’t been well run, and that cannot be denied.
Ive placed the 2 graphs for P&L & wages together - because both emphasise the huge size of the commitment placed into our club by the Chairman in the last 5 years. To increase wages by such a huge amount, and oversee such losses in that period is partly related - but again demonstrates the personal commitment of Mr Chansiri on a financial level.
If I were his family I’d be urging him to stop urinating my legacy up a very steep wall.
For the time being Mr Chansiri appears to be very much invested in working through these very difficult times. Right now he is fighting EFL misconduct charges (alongside his FD John Redgate and former CEO Katien Meire) that could even see him banned from football (Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/12/02/exclusive-sheffield-wednesday-chairman-could-banned-football/) - and we further charges against the club that could lead to a rumoured 21 point deduction, or even demotion of the club.
Mr Chansiri continues to demand more and more from our fanbase too - and schemes like Club 1867 and a new 10 year season ticket have been launched. Who knows just how successful these will be given the huge financial undertaking they require from fans in a city that is one of the poorest regions to live in the UK.
Who knows just how long he will continue to fight against all of the odds. From a purely financial viewpoint, as fans, we have to hope that he will - as the alternative for Sheffield Wednesday could be extremely bleak indeed. Today - its hard to see how the club will achieve the promotion to the Premier League that all associated with us is so desperate to see us achieve.
The rest of this current season promises to be extremly exciting off the pitch - even if our form and tactics at home games prevents it being so thrilling ON the pitch.
Fingers crossed.
Note: I am not an accountant. The figures used in this article have been sourced from commentators on football finance (such as Price of Football and Swissramble) as well as from the SWFC accounts lodged at Companies House.
Do ticket offers make a difference?
One of the biggest claims I see made on Owls forums over the last few years is “It doesnt matter if we do ticket offers - it doesnt make any difference to the gates anyway”
So I thought I’d do a little research.
Traditionally the biggest gates of a season tend to be the first and last match, and obviously any derby games. Coincidentally they tend to be the first games we look for when the fixtures are produced, along with “Who have we got on Boxing Day?” - although I think thats still a game thats important to us following events some 40 years ago!
The top 12 attendances 2010-19 - games played first/last match or a local derby
So when looking at a list of highest Championship attendances you would expect to see the first and last games, and derbies featuring regularly. And thats reflected in the research. Looking at the highest league attendances of the last 10 years - more than half (12) have been games that fall inmto that category. Often the last game of the season has been a game thats meant something to us or the opposition (or in the case of 2017’s Fulham game - both of us).
So the real test of whether ticket offers make a difference to attendances would arguably mean assessing the attendances that don’t fall into the above categories? (If you disagree with that - then you might be wasting your time reading further :-) )
The remaining 8 highest attendances of the last decade
A look at the remaining 8 highest league attendances of the last decade shows that of the 8 fixtures, the top 4 attended games had ticket offers (in yellow). Two of the games were the traditional New Years Day fixtures which also could be argued positively affected the attendances - but in that case you’d have to also imagine that the club wouldn’t have done a ticket offer if they’d expected a good turnout.
So armed with this information - and with 50% of the highest attendances (the top 4 too) being ticket offer games - you’d have to conclude that yes of course the offers make a difference. Do they make a difference on the cold miserable Tuesday night games in February against unfancied opposition? Well, no, probably not. Night games already suffered as a result of them being on school nights, and with the advent of the Sky Red Button, the attraction of driving to Hillsborough, finding somewhere to park, getting to your seat without a hot drink or pie because they’ve run out already, to see us play 4-5-1 against Brentford probably wouldn’t break 25k if we paid people to come.
But if we manage these offers correctly there is no reason why they can’t be the marketing tool some fans believe they can be - to drive higher attendances and improve the atmospheres we need to drive the team to achieve more in the league.
What are your thoughts?
A satisfying weekend
After the last 3 games and with the promise of a much changed side at the Amex for Sheffield Wednesday I decided to have a weekend off following the Owls
Instead I made my way to Armthorpe in Doncaster for Swallownest FCs away game in the NCEL - with Swallownest looking to get back on track after last weekends disappointing home performance.
It was a decent following from the Swallownest regulars and we were treated to an excellent performance with much more passion on display than last week's - maybe the Christmas puddings weren't sitting quite so heavy…
Swallownest ran out 3-2 winners in a scoreline that flattered Armthorpe - a penalty towards the end giving Armthorpe the opportunity for a last 5 minutes rally.
I managed to pick up a stream of the Wednesday game during the second half which meant I was fully aware of Reachs goal to put Wednesday deservedly in front, and eventually win 1-0 to go through to the 4th round.
With both Saturday games ending well it was over to Dan and the lads from Swallownest Village to complete the full set - and they duly obliged with a 5-0 hammering of KCM Fighting Cocks in the Rotherham District Sunday League Fixture at Lodge Lane. They never really looked troubled against the bottom of the league side and the goals were scored by Pearson (2), Markell(2) and Roscamp.
All round not a bad weekend 😊
2020 - Its the hope that kills you
I’m going to start a new blog for a new decade.
I’m going to try and remain as honest as I can - which means defeats and bad news will be reflected in less positive posts - and obviously wins and good news will be reflected in a more positive way. If that bothers you - it may be best not to read.
I attend most games, home and away, and I will make a point of saying whether I was there or not. Matchday posts will differ to general news day posts as I will use club content as per below.
I hope you’ll enjoy what I have to say - I used to be a fairly regular poster on Owlstalk but as my views are no longer welcome there I’ve chosen to start this blog as somewhere to vent/enjoy my football. Please feel free to add your own reactions and reply - I’d appreciate your views whether they agree or disagree - I’d just really appreciate you not using foul or abusive language to me or others. Lets keep it respectful.
All the best, and lets hope for a Happy New Year
Nigel
Yesterday was another one of those starts to the New Year that we can all do without - you only have to go back 2 years to remember the start to the New Year and a home defeat to Burton Albion under Lee Bullens caretaker leadership. Monk looks as depressed as all of us in his post match Press Conference. I left on 75 minutes yesterday.
My friend summed it up when he said “You didnt leave 15 minutes early - you left 75 minutes too late”…
Its hard to know where we go as a club right now. We are clearly hampered very much financially by FFP - (which I shall continue to call FFP despite it now being known as Profit & Sustainability). Even if the Chairman does have the funds to spend we don’t know for sure he has the will to. When we are kicking off with 4 of our spine that played in the play-off final defeat at Wembley in 2016 - it doesnt say much for the Chairmans spending since that game.