Well first of all we don't have to thank Ashley for anything, he didn't buy the club to save it, or to make the fans happy, he bought it because he thought it was a good piece of business at that time, which of course turned out to be a false assumption, but he only has himself to blame for not doing due diligence before buying. He paid off the debts because it would have been bad business to pay the interest, and since he owns the club it was essentially putting money from one of his pockets to another. On the same note, people complaining that he is taking money out of the club or asset strippig, are clearly complete idiots, it has been stated a thousand times that he had put in a considerable amount of cash just to keep the club running, and it wouldn't make any sense to take money out of a business which he owns 100% and generates big losses every year.
While it can't be debated that we're on a much stronger financial footing than we would've been without the takeover, I'm pretty concerned about Ashley's style of running the club, both from a financial and footballing standpoint. On the pitch we're in the worst position we've been since getting promoted, and Ashely's approach and especially the events of the last transfer window suggest that we won't be getting much better in the coming years, and I'm not sure that Ashley himself, or most people on this board for that matter, realise the potential consequences of that.
If we continue to operate the way we have been in the last two seasons the best we can hope for is to fight off relegation in the coming seasons, and even if we won't get relegated, this will greatly hurt the club's already dreadful finances. In the 05/06 season we had an average attendance of 52032, last season it was 51321, this season it's 48094 so far. If we continue to play the way we are right now, i can see this number declining further, especially under the current financial and economic climate, which means that our revenue will fall 1-2 millions every year (until we hit a low where only the hardcore fans remain, who doesn't give a toss about how bad the team is, just because it's their team). This would also mean a fall in merchandise I guess, especially since we won't have a Shearer/Owen type of big name player, whose name alone would sell a few thousand extra shirts every year.
Another financial issue with being shit on the pitch is sponsorship. The good thing is, that we can't get any less than we're getting this term because it has been spent already, the bad thing is that I can't see us finding a proper sponsor once the northern rock deal is up (economic situation etc.), in fact I won't be suprised at all to see a sport direct logo on our shirt in the near future, for free of course. That's probably another good 4-5 mill/year down the drain.
What makes it even worse is that we're already making a loss of 20m/y (at least on paper), and even if we'd manage to cut back on the wages considerably, well, i think it would be the greatest achievement in sport management history ever if we could decrease the wage bill, break even on transfers, and at the same time increase the depth and quality of the squad (esp. with Joe Kinnear as manager).
We might save around 9-10m on wages next year if Viduka and Owen departs in the summer, maybe 5-6m more if we get rid of a few other wasters, but we will have to replace them, pay with cash upfront for all those replacements and pay their wages, so we won't be able to save a lot. We could of course if we wouldn't replace them, in that case we'll go down, simple as that. Even if we'll be able to "achieve" the 7m loss next year that Llambias was talking about, it's still quite a few years until we can spend properly and bring in some quality, and in the meantime we will be fighting for our premiership status. And that's not taking into account the clown we have for manager.
And to all those who think relegation wouldn't be a disaster, just think about the fact that we would lose ~22.5m of TV money, and that's including the parachute payments and championship tv revenue, and we would surely lose at least 50% of our gate receipts if not more, that's another 15-16m, so that means that we'd have to find 20+22.5+15= 57.5m somewhere to break even financially, which effectively means that we'd have to sell the whole fucking lot and field the reserves plus Shola Ameobi.
I might be a bit pessimistic about these things, but all in all the only way to generate income in football is by success on the field, and while I agree that the priority should be to keep down the spending and the wage bill, this is a very dangerous road we took. I hope MA will prove me wrong btw.
