Cost Cutting Begins….

Hopefully Gino sees all the bad press and social media furore and decides to double down and insist the successful candidate pays him to keep the job.

 

As already mentioned by other posters, we have spent literal millions in paying off coaches over the past few years.

My point was that, although the board seem happy to dish out 6 figure contracts to multiple different managers a season, they can’t fish out a poxy few hundred quid a week to train up a Junior data analyst.. Expecting them to work full time for nothing???

Jokers.

 

I do understand many on here might have done similar things in years gone by to further their careers, but things have changed and it really is becoming an outdated practice. As Burnsy said earlier on in the thread there is a drive for business to adopt the living wage, not just the minimum wage, and bear in mind there wasn’t even a minimum wage a few years ago. We used to put kids up chimneys but funnily enough that changed.

The only way it is really acceptable these days is if an individual is desperate to get into a certain industry and actually approaches a company that perhaps doesn’t have any openings and offers to work for free, that is more common in things like Media and fashion. It isn’t acceptable in this day and age for companies to actively seek out free labour, it’s really a thing if the past.

And that’s before you get into just how profligate Watford FC are throughout the rest of the club.

At the very least there is always the kickstarter programme the club could use to fund wages for young people for free:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/kickstart-scheme

Unfortunately the club want graduates, and they want graduates for free, which makes it even worse, they could employe a young person on a wage at no cost to them but they’d rather benefit from someone’s paid for university education at no cost to themselves.

 

Reckon a few of our players need to be unpaid interns.

 

I remember going to lunch with a departmental HR manager (for my 'informal' end of contract review/interview) at Prestigious London University Inc. where I remarked that an alarming number (ie >1) of post-graduate students were 'working' in the department labs. I was alarmed that the practice was condoned but I was really worried that the H&S implications were extremely worrying if any had/caused an accident incident as I was the lowest link in the H&S it would be my arse on the line. She explained that contingencies were in place for such an outcome (*cough* *cough* *bullshyte*) and that it was the fairest way to sift candidates for the departmental 'prestigious' doctoral programme (a *lot* of students were self-funding PhD's) and they was planned to 'formalise' the internship 'programme' for 'targeted' post-docs interested in joining the university as a lecturer.

The episode really stuck in my craw mind as it was the same week Birmingham University's Department of Psychology advertised a three year PDRA position for the grand sum of £0K pa (with an extensive list of 'essential' experience/skills) and it was also leaked that one of Prestigious London University Inc.'s PVC's had negotiated the first (for a PVC) financial compensation package in excess of £200k pa.

 

A few of them are playing like they are learning on the job.

 

Careful. Before 1881 we didn't even have a chimney to put them up.

 

Not a lot of learning going on from what I've seen.

 

I think internships for students to get experience in an industry before they graduate and to push themselves to the front of the queue as early talent hires, is fine.

Expecting someone to come with an expensive degree and a bunch of elbow grease, and add value to your £150m turnover business for free, is a bit of a piss take.

 

I even think if you’re being generous, you could make certain allowances for unpaid roles in areas that aren’t business critical.

But these are roles based around the First Team. The primary function of the club.

I don’t believe this is a mistake or a misjudgment. I think they will have known how bad this looks and done it anyway.

 

Yep they have turned our wonderful club into a horrible little enterprise.

 

But shouldn't those wunderkinds in your HR dept spot 'talent' or even better still devise a recruitment process or a staff development process to do this?

 

This is actually what I do for a job, so yeah.

 

One industry that 'thrives' on internships is TV. The downfall of Cilla wasn't because she was absolutely f***ing awful (on- and off-screen) but one of the numerous 'runners' who worked 'with' her in the start of their career became a high flier and ended up in a very important job in corporate ITV and they bore a grudge for a very long time. Same is widely rumoured to be behind the BBC defenestration of Noel Edmonds.

 

Probably less than United paid OGS or Spurs Nuno.

Is that the figure from the accounts? Not including some additional expenditure on something else. Pearson had one week left on his contract and Gracia (while he had a far longer contract) was reemployed a year later. I would be shocked if any manager employed by Gino has had a salary of over £1m a year and we know the staff are underpaid so I just don’t see how that figure could possibly be reached.

 

So?

 

Am I missing something? The club’s ad was for students on placement as part of a degree program. Not for employment having graduated.

 

Just that while we burn through an obscene amount of managers, I would hazard that our compensation paid to fired managers over the last 5 years or so is far from the highest and probably closer to average. So it’s just an odd stick to beat the club with or to link to the internship discussion.

 

Yes but you missed out on a 5 year contract and spending the last 3 of those years as reserve analyst at QPR.

 

A friends son is an analyst with a Premier League club, (he has a sports science degree). After a few years working with cricket and other national sports organisations as a regional development officer, he was offered a no salary 12 month internship with that premier league club which he jumped at. His parents thought it shocking that an organisation paying £hundreds millions in salaries could not even offer the minimum wage. But he saw it as a chance to do something he wanted to do, in a very difficult industry to break into.

 

They key is the size of the payoffs compared to our turnover. Why would you compare us to Man Utd to justify these millions being wasted?

 

How many clubs have 3+ managers per season?

 

yes it’s from the accounts . It doesn’t mention anyone by name- a bit like Duxbury’s salary package. As CEO/ chairman he must command the status of the highest paid employee at £960k in our relegation season ( albeit we still had 6 games left when the financial year end was reached).
Of course it’s not just the HC but all their support staff and the length of contract so even if Javi was on £750k pa if he had 4 years left that’s £3m

 

Hopefully they have a clause where taking on a new job offsets it to some extent. If so presume it would show in the following year accounts?

Wasn’t Walt out of work for 18 months because the impact on his Inter payoff made taking a new post unappealing?

 

I can only assume that’s why Ivic hasn’t taken another job yet, to spite us and make us have to pay him the full amount before he takes another position.

 

You are right -I think that’s common - again the wording in the accounts says paid and committed so I guess if any of the three/ their support gets another job then it’s offset and will show when the FY 21 accounts are eventually released

 

You would need to employ a full time worker to keep track of all of WFC’s ex staff and whether they are employed or not to check on the monthly payments, seems like a lot of unnecessary outgoings to me, but what do I know!

 

But he was on a one year deal, no?

 

That’s definitely something to criticise the club about for generating poor results, a lack of direction and this descent into a poorly run club. But I don’t think that causes our compensation payments to be higher than other clubs. For instance:

3 managers on contracts until the end of the season with an average compensation of £1m a year and an average compensation period of 6 months = £1.5m paid in compensation.

Whereas one manager on a three year deal of £3m a year and a period being compensated of, say, 18 months = £4.5m paid in compensation.

Part of the club’s model is that it hires managers on short-term contracts, and lower pay because it believes managers are more expendable than other clubs believe. Lower compensation payments is also a part of the model.

 

The sayings you get what you pay for, and buy cheap, buy twice are particularly apt for our approach towards both managers and players.

1 HC being approached by another club out of 15 in total suggests it’s neither a successful or economical strategy (at least not any more in its current state).

 

Nonetheless the facts are that the accounts show £6.8m paid in a single season when we dispensed with Gracia, QSF and Pearson management teams. That has a lot more impact on a club with our turnover than Man Utd paying OGS off £8m. And doubly so when we then repeat that season after season while Man Utd stuck with OGS for 3 seasons.

I honestly have no idea why you seem to believe paying out millions in payoffs is not an issue, especially when we have such meagre resource compared to our peers.

 

I don’t think it is a good use of resources no - but the payment of compensation is the least of my concerns with the hiring and firing model.

We don’t repeat that amount season after season although 19/20 and 21/22 we have. But prior to that we mostly changed managers only at the end of the season. It seems likely to me that 19/20 is the highest (and I would hazard by far) compensation amount we’ll have paid in any year.

Again: not defending it and I don’t like the model in general though largely for other reasons. I just think linking it to the non-payment of undergrad interns is a little bit of a stretch.

 

Again, I agree with all of that. We should stump up for a good manager. Not because that would be likely to reduce compensation amounts but because the club needs to have an identity and building towards something and obviously we’re not.

 

'The same people you misuse on your way up
You might meet up
On your way back down.'

Allen Toussaint via Little Feat.