BTG - Kieran Maguire

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

5 hours ago, RonnieTodger said:

£91k p/w average got us a back five of:

 

GK Danny Ward

LB Luke Thomas

CB Daniel Amartey

CB Wout Faes

RB James Justin

I’m starting to think Rudkin and whoever negotiated these contracts were taken advantage of to the extent I’m questioning whether they have mental capacity and can be considered a vulnerable person (people). It’s just insane beyond belief.

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

4 hours ago, kingfox said:

Yep.

 

The story is simple, don’t be getting relegated from the Premier League with the 7th highest wage bill in the division, otherwise you’ll suffer numerous consequences further down the line. 

But also they had the opportunity to put it right when Enzo got us promoted. They made a total hash of that as well, and I wonder how much players recruited by Cooper et al are on (Ayew, BCDR, Skipp and so on…).

[Nolucklcfc]

Interesting listen but doesn’t really reveal  anything we didn’t know 

 

Other than King Power still own the club 

[Benji]

Out of interest what is it that makes people think the ownership moved from KP to Top?  Companies House filings seems pretty vanilla and point to KP.  Unless of course the point is the Top controls KP which itself owns the club - but that would be a change in KP ownership generally not the club specifically.

[Mike Oxlong]

Gosh ! Our wage bill if weighted towards performance/results bonuses rather than fat the stupid  basic pay element would have amounted to little more than a bag of chips

 

Can't see it would have affected the performance of Daka and Thomas who just aren't very good but it does make me wonder if someone like Soumare would have broken into a jog more often. 

 

Also someone like Winks who may not have come for a lower basic but if he had wouldn't perhaps be so content to have downed tools 

 

We've still made a staggering amount of crap signings but the overall squad quality has been horribly affected by these mind bogglingly  poor contracts 

Edited 24 January by Mike Oxlong

[ClaphamFox]

Finally listened to it. As other have said, the main takeaways were:

 

1) It isn’t clear whether the PL can legally punish us while we’re in the EFL, which is one of the possible reasons why we haven’t heard the verdict yet;

2) The outcome of the 23/24 charge is still being determined/wrangled over—ie it’s not true that the club already knows the outcome but has negotiated to delay the announcement;

3) We were a significant outlier compared to other clubs in the way we structured our contracts, and that was a major cause of our PSR issues;

I came away feeling even more frustrated than before at the club’s ineptitude yet simultaneously more optimistic that we might get away with a relatively small points deduction, or even no points deduction, for 23/24. A very interesting listen.

Edited 24 January by ClaphamFox

[Claudio Fannieri]

I listen to the Price of Football podcast every week as a bit of football finance geek I absolute love it, it’s always really interesting and Kieran is very knowledgeable and simplifies a lot of the complexities associated with PSR etc etc so it can be understood by the general football fan. 
 

A lot of what he said hasn’t come as shock or surprise to me regards our club as much of it he has already shared and discussed via the pod or on his social media.
 

Hopefully others will have listened and maybe starting to realise just what a mess and how out of their depth Aiyawatt and Rudkin are running this club. 
 

The naively of caving into the demands to pay such high basic wages demonstrates the lack of gravitas, respect and business acumen that either possess and its highly likely that most negotiations could probably have been reached at 50 -75% of what was agreed with a heavily performance based add ons included. The mismanagement and negligence to protect their own little empire has led us to where we are now, on the brink of financial collapse and a club in meltdown. 

[VLC86]

It’s a good listen and interesting but he does miss some of the nuance which is understandable for someone consistently being expected to know the ins and outs in finance of every club.

 

He talks about how we have done a good job in player sales in the last 3/4 years by making £72m a few years in a row. The nuance is the players that left on a free in that time, our sales should have been significantly higher than that.

[teblin]

I think we naively tried to be a club that could be top 6 every year. Realistically we probably should’ve been a club that challenged near the top every 3/4 years. The years in between we sell players and rebuild. 
 

All too late now, and we can’t even challenge top 6 in the championship, how sad.

[Stadt]

34 minutes ago, VLC86 said:

It’s a good listen and interesting but he does miss some of the nuance which is understandable for someone consistently being expected to know the ins and outs in finance of every club.

 

He talks about how we have done a good job in player sales in the last 3/4 years by making £72m a few years in a row. The nuance is the players that left on a free in that time, our sales should have been significantly higher than that.

We’ve sold some fantastic players and replaced them with crap, from a purely numbers perspective it’s been fine but from a footballing one it’s abysmal.

 

Barnes and Maddison going for about £75m is crap. Southampton got more than that for two absolute no marks last summer 

[VLC86]

11 minutes ago, Stadt said:

We’ve sold some fantastic players and replaced them with crap, from a purely numbers perspective it’s been fine but from a footballing one it’s abysmal.

 

Barnes and Maddison going for about £75m is crap. Southampton got more than that for two absolute no marks last summer 

Yep, he just needed to look at the squads that had been dissolved over that time to realise that amount is a shambles.

 

I’ve said before, I sat down 4/5 years ago and estimated values for our players back then because I was worried about our wage bill should we go down. My estimates were definitely high but if I’d have gone for lower amounts we would still be 4/5x higher than that figure.

[Stadt]

20 minutes ago, VLC86 said:

Yep, he just needed to look at the squads that had been dissolved over that time to realise that amount is a shambles.

 

I’ve said before, I sat down 4/5 years ago and estimated values for our players back then because I was worried about our wage bill should we go down. My estimates were definitely high but if I’d have gone for lower amounts we would still be 4/5x higher than that figure.

No wonder Wasserman like us. Lining their pockets on Rudkin’s incompetence and the club’s dime.

 

I wish I could fast forward to when this sorry episode is over, whenever it is.

[Claudio Fannieri]

It shows just how far out of his depth Rudkin is as a Director of Football. Any DoF worth his salt or a modicum of experience would be a lot stronger in negotiating contracts and ensure there is some skin in the game for the player to have to perform and for the club to be doing well for all parties to benefit. 
 

It will be interesting to see if any of the KPFC massive come on here to defend any of this, at what stage does the penny drop for some. 

[Sunbury Fox]

His point about our failure to use performance related pay was very interesting. What makes our approach even more unforgivable is that the year when our wages really ramped up to an unsustainable level was when we were coming off the back of two 5th place finishes. We were in a massively strong negotiating position to get good deals as we were clearly a very attractive proposition to players. And yet, whether through hubris or incompetence, we just threw money at players, many of whom probably couldn't believe their luck as they're sh1t.

 

My view is that all this stems from incompetence, not hubris. Can't think how else it would be that any group of senior execs of a major company would have signed off on a wage bill that was 116% of turnover. WTAF?!  That is rank incompetence and is at the root of all of our problems. Plus it takes so long to address this, especially when you sign too many duff players who nobody wants. Hence why 4 or 5 years later, even after selling our stars, we are still saddled with an eye watering wage bill and a bang average squad (if that). 

 

It's so sad that the hierarchy messed things up so badly. It should never have come to this, given the position we were in.

Edited 24 January by Sunbury Fox

[kenny]

1 hour ago, VLC86 said:

It’s a good listen and interesting but he does miss some of the nuance which is understandable for someone consistently being expected to know the ins and outs in finance of every club.

 

He talks about how we have done a good job in player sales in the last 3/4 years by making £72m a few years in a row. The nuance is the players that left on a free in that time, our sales should have been significantly higher than that.

He also talks about the model of selling youth players while forgetting that the new method is to strip them away before they become assets.

 

I also thought it was interesting that he thought the EFL was acting fairly in their pursuit of the club. From the outside, they look like a rich old guy that will spend £100k on legal fees to win £500 because of some principle they hold.

 

It would be interesting to know how much the EFL has spent unsuccessfully pursuing the club and also whether the clubs legal fees are PSR exempt.

[VLC86]

Just now, Sunbury Fox said:

His point about our failure to use performance related pay was very interesting. What makes our approach even more unforgivable is that the year when our wages really ramped up to an unsustainable level was when we were coming off the back of two 5th place finishes. We were in a massively strong negotiating position to get good deals as we were clearly a very attractive proposition to players. And yet, whether through hubris or incompetence, we just threw money at players, many of whom probably couldn't believe their luck as they're sh1t.

 

My money is that all this stems from incompetence. Can't think how else it would be that any group of senior execs of a major company would have signed off on a wage bill that was 116% of turnover. WTAF?!  That is rank incompetence and is at the root of all of our problems. Plus it takes so long to address this, especially when you sign too many duff players who nobody wants. Hence why 4 or 5 years later, even after selling our stars, we are still saddled with an eye watering wage bill and a bang average squad (if that). 

 

It's so sad that the hierarchy messed things up so badly. It should never have come to this, given the position we were.

Incompetence/laziness/arrogance/delegation of roles/lack of infrastructure/lack of controls etc etc etc

[VLC86]

1 minute ago, kenny said:

He also talks about the model of selling youth players while forgetting that the new method is to strip them away before they become assets.

 

I also thought it was interesting that he thought the EFL was acting fairly in their pursuit of the club. From the outside, they look like a rich old guy that will spend £100k on legal fees to win £500 because of some principle they hold.

 

It would be interesting to know how much the EFL has spent unsuccessfully pursuing the club and also whether the clubs legal fees are PSR exempt.

Do they though? Surely it’s about sporting integrity and integrity of the rules. You can’t write a set of rules and then do nothing to enforce them. At the end of the day, they are there to deter owners from being as incompetent as ours have been.

[kenny]

1 minute ago, VLC86 said:

Do they though? Surely it’s about sporting integrity and integrity of the rules. You can’t write a set of rules and then do nothing to enforce them. At the end of the day, they are there to deter owners from being as incompetent as ours have been.

They do have to enforce them, but they seem desperate to prove wrongdoing. 

 

I thought the purpose wasn't to prevent incompetence which is the right of any club, but to make sure the clubs are sustainable?

 

Incompetence is an important part of sport, without it, it would be really boring.

[dannythefox]

I can’t listen to half of it, hard to listen to when we done so well. If it were any other business then it would be bust or sold. It’s been a car crash 3 yrs and it’s probably going to get worse.

[Gazza M]

Confirms to me that we just roll over in negotiations and give players what they want money wise rather than making them earn the pay. Incompetence. 

[VLC86]

21 minutes ago, kenny said:

They do have to enforce them, but they seem desperate to prove wrongdoing. 

 

I thought the purpose wasn't to prevent incompetence which is the right of any club, but to make sure the clubs are sustainable?

 

Incompetence is an important part of sport, without it, it would be really boring.

Preventing incompetence by ensuring we are sustainable is what I meant, not on field incompetence. Paying someone £90k a week when they are shit and you can’t afford it isn’t sport.

[kenny]

1 minute ago, VLC86 said:

Preventing incompetence by ensuring we are sustainable is what I meant, not on field incompetence. Paying someone £90k a week when they are shit and you can’t afford it isn’t sport.

KP can afford it, they aren't supposed to have spent it. The fact they turn out to be shit when you had high hopes for them really is sport.

[wardyfox86]

I'd be interested to hear peoples opinion on how it would have affected morale and harmony in the squad, to have Luke Thomas fall over leading to a goal that scrubs everybody's win bonus? Or Daka being the liability up front, never scoring? Or Fatawu having a chunky goal bonus leading him to sky twice as many crossing opportunities? 

Edited 24 January by wardyfox86

[VLC86]

30 minutes ago, kenny said:

KP can afford it, they aren't supposed to have spent it. The fact they turn out to be shit when you had high hopes for them really is sport.

What evidence do you have that KP can afford it? They aren’t putting money into us any more.

[kenny]

8 minutes ago, VLC86 said:

What evidence do you have that KP can afford it? They aren’t putting money into us any more.

Even if they can't now, (I think they can they just think chucking money into our pit is a waste) they could when the contracts were signed. They have spent hundreds of millions propping up their incompetance.

 

Maguire does say in that interview there is no evidence of bills not being paid.

Edited 24 January by kenny