Going down. The almost certain demise of the Sky Blues. (1 Viewer)

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 13, 2013

Ive put quite a lot of time into this one. Thought you may be interested.

http://aprisonofmeasuredtime.wordpr...n-the-almost-certain-demise-of-the-sky-blues/

If we move to Sixfields, and our attendance figures are around 3,000 a game, our income could drop to around £2 million a year which under FFP regs, means that we will be able to spend £1.3 million on players wages. In May 2011, we spent £10.3 million. Wycombe were relegated in 2012 on wage bill of £1.8 million. We would need to boost income to around £6 million for this budget, so even if the prediction of £2 million is low, the chances of being that far out are slim.

Either way, chances are we move, we go down.

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Another decent read Squirrel but, as I said to you on Twitter, while I agree that the correlation between wages and league position is fairly strong - and therefore a reasonable indicator of likely league position - Yeovil did kind of upset the apple cart this year with their reported £1million budget.

There is a similar connection between performance and salary in Major League Baseball, but the book Moneyball tells of how the Oakland As managed to go against the grain of that correlation through some canny management. So maybe our chances this year might depend on whether we have a canny manager!

DazzleTommyDazzle · Jul 13, 2013

Sky Blues said:
Another decent read Squirrel but, as I said to you on Twitter, while I agree that the correlation between wages and league position is fairly strong - and therefore a reasonable indicator of likely league position - Yeovil did kind of upset the apple cart this year with their reported £1million budget.

There is a similar connection between performance and salary in Major League Baseball, but the book Moneyball tells of how the Oakland As managed to go against the grain of that correlation through some canny management. So maybe our chances this year might depend on whether we have a canny manager!

As you rightly say though, Yeovil and Oakland are noteable because they are exceptions to the general rule.

It's not impossible to go against it - it's just not very likely.

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 13, 2013

Sky Blues said:
Another decent read Squirrel but, as I said to you on Twitter, while I agree that the correlation between wages and league position is fairly strong - and therefore a reasonable indicator of likely league position - Yeovil did kind of upset the apple cart this year with their reported £1million budget.

There is a similar connection between performance and salary in Major League Baseball, but the book Moneyball tells of how the Oakland As managed to go against the grain of that correlation through some canny management. So maybe our chances this year might depend on whether we have a canny manager!

Absolutely. The pressure is on Pressley. Is he the right man for the job? There are exceptions, but its the 87% stat that shows its unlikely...

saltaire bantam · Jul 13, 2013

The problem is that whilst the "moneyball" approach worked, it can only work for a short period, the advantage is short lived as what was once new "outside the box" thinking, quickly becomes mainstream thinking as other clubs adopt the very same strategies.

Football always often throws up unexpected surprises like Yoevil but a lot of good things have to fall into place for them to happen. Tbh you don't have any good things at all at the mo'.

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Skybluesquirrel said:
Absolutely. The pressure is on Pressley. Is he the right man for the job? There are exceptions, but its the 87% stat that shows its unlikely...

Oh I agree it is unlikely - I'm very tempted to say something about our relegation from the Championship but I don't want to set that hare racing again - and it's just unfortunate timing for making your argument that the last competitive game between two League 1 teams just happened to emphasis an exception to that 87%!

Jack Griffin · Jul 13, 2013

Yeah, but everyone in sport knows about the moneyball approach and are looking for ways to get an edge.. I don't think CCFC are exactly leaders in the field... maybe Gary Johnson knows a thing or two though.. so far Steve Waggott hasn't exactly been perfect in the picks he agreed to, even if it was Thorn who gave him a list of players to look at..

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Jack Griffin said:
Yeah, but everyone in sport knows about the moneyball approach and are looking for ways to get an edge.. I don't think CCFC are exactly leaders in the field... maybe Gary Johnson knows a thing or two though.. so far Steve Waggott hasn't exactly been perfect in the picks he agreed to, even if it was Thorn who gave him a list of players to look at..

It doesn't have to be the Moneyball approach per se, that was just an example of using a systemic approach to looking for an edge in other areas, but I think a similar bucking of the trend can be achieved in other ways. I haven't looked at the figures, so I don't know, but I suspect Moyes probably had Everton fairly consistently running ahead of where they theoretically should have been were the correlation between wages and league position 100%. I don't think he used Moneyball, I think he was just canny - at a guess building a strong team spirit, a consistent playing style and a top loading of wages towards the top 11-14 players may have been more of a factor there.

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 13, 2013

Sky Blues said:
It doesn't have to be the Moneyball approach per se, that was just an example of using a systemic approach to looking for an edge in other areas, but I think a similar bucking of the trend can be achieved in other ways. I haven't looked at the figures, so I don't know, but I suspect Moyes probably had Everton fairly consistently running ahead of where they theoretically should have been were the correlation between wages and league position 100%. I don't think he used Moneyball, I think he was just canny - at a guess building a strong team spirit, a consistent playing style and a top loading of wages towards the top 11-14 players may have been more of a factor there.

The main point that comes out of Soccernomics (for me at least) is that the manager can get a team to over perform but for the most reliable indicator for team position in the table is wages. The most unreliable indicator is transfer fees. Hold on to your good players - Gunnarsson, Westwood, Keogh etc etc and the results would follow. They look at stats and financial records going back 20 or thirty years. My blog is only looking at one year and teams promoted/relegated - that took enough time to be honest!

Yeovil are part of the 13%, not the 87% that soccernomics come up with, and so buck the trend. On the whole, if you want to use stats and look for a trend, you pay for what you get.

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 13, 2013

Sky Blues said:
Another decent read Squirrel but, as I said to you on Twitter, while I agree that the correlation between wages and league position is fairly strong - and therefore a reasonable indicator of likely league position - Yeovil did kind of upset the apple cart this year with their reported £1million budget.

There is a similar connection between performance and salary in Major League Baseball, but the book Moneyball tells of how the Oakland As managed to go against the grain of that correlation through some canny management. So maybe our chances this year might depend on whether we have a canny manager!

SkyBlues - if you can be arsed, do you want to stick a paragraph on the comments section so your point can be added as I think its relevant? Ive been told not to update posts as it affects search engines, but not sure if thats actually true or not...

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Skybluesquirrel said:
The main point that comes out of Soccernomics (for me at least) is that the manager can get a team to over perform but for the most reliable indicator for team position in the table is wages. The most unreliable indicator is transfer fees. Hold on to your good players - Gunnarsson, Westwood, Keogh etc etc and the results would follow. They look at stats and financial records going back 20 or thirty years. My blog is only looking at one year and teams promoted/relegated - that took enough time to be honest!

Yeovil are part of the 13%, not the 87% that soccernomics come up with, and so buck the trend. On the whole, if you want to use stats and look for a trend, you pay for what you get.

And your work added up to an interesting read! I think we are basically in agreement.

Right, I'm off to add Soccernomics to my summer reading list...

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Skybluesquirrel said:
SkyBlues - if you can be arsed, do you want to stick a paragraph on the comments section so your point can be added as I think its relevant? Ive been told not to update posts as it affects search engines, but not sure if thats actually true or not...

I'll give it a go.

By the way, your blog front page doesn't seem to have updated with some of your more recent posts. Maybe that's just my cache playing funny Marco Boogers though... :thinking about:

Jack Griffin · Jul 13, 2013

Squirrels table which correlates crowd to turnover & shows that each fan attending brings in approx £25 each... and has been consistent for some years is a very powerful argument and I congratulate him for spotting it.

The bottom line is that CCFC turnover will drop from around £7M last year to £2M this. How can that be in the best interests of the club.

James Smith · Jul 13, 2013

Jack Griffin said:
Squirrels table which correlates crowd to turnover & shows that each fan attending brings in approx £25 each... and has been consistent for some years is a very powerful argument and I congratulate him of spotting it.

The bottom line is that CCFC turnover will drop from around £7M last year to £2M this. How can that be in the best interests of the club.

Ah but we're entering the world of Fishernomics and the normal rules of anything don't apply.

Sky Blues · Jul 13, 2013

Jack Griffin said:
Squirrels table which correlates crowd to turnover & shows that each fan attending brings in approx £25 each... and has been consistent for some years is a very powerful argument and I congratulate him of spotting it.

The bottom line is that CCFC turnover will drop from around £7M last year to £2M this. How can that be in the best interests of the club.

Yes, that was a very interesting detail and it was remiss of me not to commend Squirrel on it. :claping hands:

(P.S. Squirrel, I posted the comment on the blog. Nothing appeared, so I'm hoping it is just a case that you have to approve comments.)

James Smith · Jul 13, 2013

Skybluesquirrel said:
Ive put quite a lot of time into this one. Thought you may be interested.

http://aprisonofmeasuredtime.wordpr...n-the-almost-certain-demise-of-the-sky-blues/

If we move to Sixfields, and our attendance figures are around 3,000 a game, our income could drop to around £2 million a year which under FFP regs, means that we will be able to spend £1.3 million on players wages. In May 2011, we spent £10.3 million. Wycombe were relegated in 2012 on wage bill of £1.8 million. We would need to boost income to around £6 million for this budget, so even if the prediction of £2 million is low, the chances of being that far out are slim.

Either way, chances are we move, we go down.

A fantastic (if somewhat depressing) read - thanks.

SkyBlue_Bear83 · Jul 13, 2013

Without looking at the stats my first thought is that Wycombe being relegated on a 1.8 million wage budget is also an exception to the rule.
The problem is that we have a lot of dead wood eating up the wage budget, some who would still be on championship wages

Brighton Sky Blue · Jul 13, 2013

Squirrel-where in Brighton are you?

James Smith · Jul 13, 2013

CCFC said:
Without looking at the stats my first thought is that Wycombe being relegated on a 1.8 million wage budget is also an exception to the rule.
The problem is that we have a lot of dead wood eating up the wage budget, some who would still be on championship wages

I'm not a financial expert and have limited experience of this so bear with me on this but something has been troubling me. Okay so I have had this thought before but it didn't really connect until I just re read the Trust Q&A again, and the news that the ball boys have been sacked. Just who is funding CCFC at the moment? We all know that SISU and their myriad of companies/offshore special purpose vehicles (Avro) etc. are currently holding the majority of our 'debt'. But are SISU still pumping money in to this, and the reason I thought about this was the following:

SkyBlueTrust Website said:
1: Who are your negotiation team ?

ACL: Paul Harris, Chris West. Although a wider number of Board members which included Martin Reeves and P.W.Knatchbull-Hugessen, were in attendance on 29 January 2013

CCFC: Tim Fisher, Mark Labovitch (came very late into the process) and John Clarke (has since resigned)

2: Does that team have the authority to agree a deal?

ACL: Yes – within clear parameters. This is normal practice. The 4 shareholder Board members were present on 29 January 2013. At the start of the meeting we specifically clarified that CCFC Directors were also authorised to agree a deal.

CCFC: Yes – if economics agreed got club to cash flow zero next season

http://www.skybluetrust.co.uk/index...full-version-of-qaa-to-acl-and-ccfc?showall=1

So from reading that I assume (and Tim feel free to correct me on any of this) that SISU don't want to put any more money in, as TF and ML couldn't agree to any deal which would cost the owners money. So as this was back in March maybe SISU haven't put anymore money into CCFC (for how long - who knows). So if that is the case and SISU aren't putting the money into the various companies to allow the paying of staff/players etc who is? Are we just living off cash in the bank and if so how long will that last given the administrator has to be paid, the ACL debt paid (does the escrow account need to be refilled?). Given the likely attendance at next seasons games and our drop in revenue, what are we going to do (apart from likely get relegated

)?

Brighton Sky Blue · Jul 13, 2013

James Smith said:
So from reading that I assume (and Tim feel free to correct me on any of this) that SISU don't want to put any more money in, as TF and ML couldn't agree to any deal which would cost the owners money. So as this was back in March maybe SISU haven't put anymore money into CCFC (for how long - who knows). So if that is the case and SISU aren't putting the money into the various companies to allow the paying of staff/players etc who is? Are we just living off cash in the bank and if so how long will that last given the administrator has to be paid, the ACL debt paid (does the escrow account need to be refilled?). Given the likely attendance at next seasons games and our drop in revenue, what are we going to do (apart from likely get relegated )?

We do still have some commercial income from Football League TV rights and generosity payments from the Premier League and, if we ever sign up a sponsor, from them too. However it does mark a seemingly massive U-turn from SISU, going from their own version of NOPM to suddenly being willing to bankroll a new stadium and years more of heavy losses at Northampton. Was it another 'Timmy truth' or a genuine reversal in policy?

Sky Blue Harry H · Jul 13, 2013

CCFC said:
Without looking at the stats my first thought is that Wycombe being relegated on a 1.8 million wage budget is also an exception to the rule.
The problem is that we have a lot of dead wood eating up the wage budget, some who would still be on championship wages

Sorry if I'm being lazy by not having read Soccernomics, but one question for me is: If you sell a player for say £1m (let's say Cyrus), can you then spend £1M on players transfer fee/wages, without it affecting the total you are working against ? (Ridiculous example - somebody wants to give us £50m for david Bell - does that entitle us to spend that sort of money back on the pitch, as overall cost neutral?)

Brighton Sky Blue · Jul 13, 2013

Sky Blue Harry H said:
Sorry if I'm being lazy by not having read Soccernomics, but one question for me is: If you sell a player for say £1m (let's say Cyrus), can you then spend £1M on players transfer fee/wages, without it affecting the total you are working against ? (Ridiculous example - somebody wants to give us £50m for david Bell - does that entitle us to spend that sort of money back on the pitch, as overall cost neutral?)

It would count towards club turnover so in the fantasy case of David Bell going for £50m, we would be able to use 60% of the total turnover including this figure on signings and wages. The rest can of course go towards things like infrastructure and the academy.

James Smith · Jul 13, 2013

Brighton Sky Blue said:
We do still have some commercial income from Football League TV rights and generosity payments from the Premier League and, if we ever sign up a sponsor, from them too. However it does mark a seemingly massive U-turn from SISU, going from their own version of NOPM to suddenly being willing to bankroll a new stadium and years more of heavy losses at Northampton. Was it another 'Timmy truth' or a genuine reversal in policy?

I'd forgotten about the other payments, would they be enough to keep us going with comparatively limited other income from matchdays (assuming a limited turnout at NTFC)?

Brighton Sky Blue · Jul 13, 2013

James Smith said:
I'd forgotten about the other payments, would they be enough to keep us going with comparatively limited other income from matchdays (assuming a limited turnout at NTFC)?

I'm unsure how much we get for all the commercial payments however having no sponsors means that our sole income at this point is whatever is coming in from PL solidarity payments and TV rights which really isn't much for League 1 clubs. Quite who will actually want to sponsor us in Northampton is another matter entirely.

savosdad · Jul 13, 2013

Oldham have signed anton rodgers
cheltenham terry gornal
port vale sam morey
Bury nathan cameron
Burton chris hussey
Gillingham Lewis Montrose

COVENTRY CITY Fuck all

Divi 2 here we come all down to fishface the c**t

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 14, 2013

James Smith said:
I'm not a financial expert and have limited experience of this so bear with me on this but something has been troubling me. Okay so I have had this thought before but it didn't really connect until I just re read the Trust Q&A again, and the news that the ball boys have been sacked. Just who is funding CCFC at the moment? We all know that SISU and their myriad of companies/offshore special purpose vehicles (Avro) etc. are currently holding the majority of our 'debt'. But are SISU still pumping money in to this, and the reason I thought about this was the following:

http://www.skybluetrust.co.uk/index...full-version-of-qaa-to-acl-and-ccfc?showall=1

So from reading that I assume (and Tim feel free to correct me on any of this) that SISU don't want to put any more money in, as TF and ML couldn't agree to any deal which would cost the owners money. So as this was back in March maybe SISU haven't put anymore money into CCFC (for how long - who knows). So if that is the case and SISU aren't putting the money into the various companies to allow the paying of staff/players etc who is? Are we just living off cash in the bank and if so how long will that last given the administrator has to be paid, the ACL debt paid (does the escrow account need to be refilled?). Given the likely attendance at next seasons games and our drop in revenue, what are we going to do (apart from likely get relegated )?

SISU have put money into the club over the years - at least £20 million judging by the accounts. The Admin report claimed losses of £3m to 2012. If there are no management fees paid to SISU in the expenses (which we can't be sure of), then SISU will have had to put in another £3m in hard currency.

Why the investors want to keep investing in us is beyond me...

DazzleTommyDazzle · Jul 14, 2013

James Smith said:
I'd forgotten about the other payments, would they be enough to keep us going with comparatively limited other income from matchdays (assuming a limited turnout at NTFC)?

We certainly get some payments from the FL, but I think I recall that relegation from the Championship reduced these payments by £33 to £4m.

doha · Jul 14, 2013

savosdad said:
Oldham have signed anton rodgers
cheltenham terry gornal
port vale sam morey
Bury nathan cameron
Burton chris hussey
Gillingham Lewis Montrose

COVENTRY CITY Fuck all

Divi 2 here we come all down to fishface the c**t

Vale released Sam Morsy.

Skybluesquirrel · Jul 14, 2013

DazzleTommyDazzle said:
We certainly get some payments from the FL, but I think I recall that relegation from the Championship reduced these payments by £33 to £4m.

Not sure where your numbers are from, but looking at them your £33m would be in the region of a a parachute payment from the Premier League and the other for a club Championship. All funded by sale of TV rights.

Jarvo · Jul 14, 2013

I didn't read it this post but my impressions are:
Feck the accountants not everything is tangiable and can be put on a balance sheet.
Where has the pride gone? 2000 cov fans at home in Northampton is a success?
Football is fecked generally. It all seems to be going down the champions league route, the FA cup means nothing etc
Its hot, been on the cider rant over. Thanks, see you at sixfields, never say never!

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