Why Watford’s Failure To Win Promotion Must Be The Catalyst For Off-field Change

Yes I saw. Parasite. Wonder how Wrexham's first choice keeper (before Ben sniffed out this publicity opportunity) feels ?

 

It's great for long term Wrexham fans, but the whole thing has become so nauseating. Absolute perfect gig for man-child Foster and his desire for media attention.

 

Typical BBC. 100% focus on the American filmstars bringing success to little Wrexham. No mention of the fact that bankrolling the club has given a huge advantage and pushed the oldest english club (?) Notts Co into 2nd and maybe prevented them getting back into the football league.
Summed up nicely by the "Have I got news for you" tweet. https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1645745606369984514

 

Why is it typical of the BBC?

 

Yeah exactly. I've no fuss with the longstanding Wrexham fans and they're a good club with some history in the league. But the number of hangers on is ridiculous and I can't stand so-called 'fans' whose support goes about as deep as having watched a Disney Plus series.

 

I'd forgotten about Fletcher. He'll be ideal. We are indeed fortunate to have an owner with the foresight to acquire players three or four years before they are needed.

 

I don’t think Reynolds or McElhenney particularly enjoy the fuss made about them over the players. McElhenney altered a BT Sport graphic at the weekend removing them and replacing them with a couple of their players.

They certainly aren’t financially doping their way out of the league, they genuinely appear to love the people and the area and seem to be doing things differently.

Could you imagine our owner drinking in the Red Lion before and after a game?

 

What else would you describe it as then?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-65142947.amp

 

I've heard he'd be delighted to if only they would stock some top grade Amarone della Valpolicella and not insist on serving it in wobbly plastic receptacles.

 

It's a long-running forum joke, so it wasn't made seriously.

 

"Newly-released accounts for the 12 months to the end of last June showed a loss of £2.914m.
The file, sent to Companies House, showed the figure was down to a surge in player wages and football costs."

 

Yeah, I mean they are financially doping their way out of the National League. Albeit so have most of the winners of that division in recent times.

 

‘Doping’ in the same as what City are, as in breaking rules and cheating the system? If so, I’ll absolutely say I am wrong.

 

Building a new stand isn’t cheap. Especially if it’s not a glorified temporary stand.

 

Well I guess it depends on your definition of Doping, but based on the dictionary definition I’d say it’s pretty much what they’re doing yes, I don’t think it has to mean rules have been broken:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/financial-doping

the situation in which the owner of a sports franchise invests his or her own personal wealthinto securing high-performing players, rather than relying on the revenue the franchise is able to generate for itself

 

Off field change has been happening since Ubenga and his staff joined at the end of last year(?), we are in the watching and waiting phase now.

 

Ok, so a poor choice of word on my part. They aren’t ‘cheating’ anyway. Which is what I was getting at.

 

Well there is no FFP outside of the EFL, so they aren’t breaking any rules for sure and they can do what they want. I think the point is their success has come through spending money beyond their natural means, and that comes at the expense of the other clubs who don’t have wealthy Hollywood backers. It’s great for Wrexham fans, but not so great for Notts County fans.

 

Meh, I’m reliably informed whenever I mention we’re £200m+ in debt that you need wealthy backers to just compete in football these days so good luck to them.

 

The £3m loss is as a result of investment in players. Building a stand would be capitalised, written off over many years and so have almost no impact on P&L losses.
Look they seem nice guys, and I wish we had owners like that, I just don't like the overplay of the romantic idea that these guys love and affection won promotion, and no mention of the fact that they stuck a few £million into the coffers to buy better players and an experienced manager. We'd be pretty irritated if we were NC fans.

 

Wrexham aren't breaking any financial rules (because there are none at that level), but it's far from the fairytale the press would have you believe. Tozer + Mullin at least are both on good salaries for League 1, let alone the National League.

That being said their business model is great. Use their celebrity status to get people invested in the documentary (I believe the amount of £ they got from the documentary wrote off the cost of them buying the club). Sponsor the club with their other brands and other big brands like TikTok - by doing TikToks about the club they both get kudos from their sponsor AND a plug for the club/show. Takes the appeal of the club worldwide - there's already numerous fans coming over from America etc to visit the town and games which is reflected in the amounts the club is raking in, if my memory serves my correctly they made £350,000 from merchandise sales on the club shop website ain the first month after the showed aired - compared to £80k from the previous YEAR. The success of the team and documentary means they'll likely get more for season 2, which will likely be invested back into the club and it will become a sort of cycle.

It'll be great for the club and community in the short term, although it'll be interesting to see what happens if they have a couple of "nothing" years in mid-table in League 2 - will they still receive the same amount of publicity? Will foreign viewers still care as much then? What happens if this happens and the audiences for the documentary plummet?

 

Of course not unlike Abu Dhabi FC who have to comply with rules so do EFL outside Championship -based on "rules" around wages to turnover-SMCP cap
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Turnover definition

Under the SCMP rules, the definition of 'Turnover' is particularly important as Turnover is used to determine the maximum wage-spend. Within a traditional accounting perspective, there are usually only three elements of turnover:

• Match-day Income
• Commercial Income (such as sponsorship)
• TV revenue (and any 'merit payments' based on league position)

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So for Wrexham sponsorship deals are within revenue-clubs can spend what they like on transfers etc.

I read elsewhere Abu Dhabi FC have £220m pa in Sponsorship income plus £90m in commercial which makes up half of their £600m revenue (rest is TV £250m and gate income £50m). So I think the owners of Wrexham are on the right track in increasing sponsorship so they can pay more in wages and begin their climb up the leagues

Of course Abu Dhabi FC have got FFP rules to meet so their recent announcement to spend £300m to increase the capacity by 6,000 (+more Corporate/Hotel) helps when this ground spend is outside FFP but the revenue from it is inside FFP-genius

 

Irrespective of increased income streams, they will reach a point where FFP will make it more tricky for them as they’ll be up against bigger clubs who naturally have as much or more revenue anyway. That’s where it will be more about smart decisions, rather than just being able to chuck money at players who are too good for that particular league.

 

What romance those tourists must experience when they walk around the history-festooned streets of Wrecsam....neither Cymru nor Lloegr really.

 

I don't think anyone is hiding from the fact that they are extremely well-backed? If anything, it's detracted from the fact that Notts County are also very well-backed for that level. Good luck to them, rather see Hollywood plug a documentary while also investing in the club and the area than a nation state laundering its image, I suppose it's not too dissimilar to Elton with us (albeit not exactly boyhood fans!)

 

Notts also have rich backers, it's just they're not as high profile

 

The Pozzos were guilty of legally doping when they sent us all the recruits from Udinese in the first season I think, upgraded the squad massively.

 

Yeah, and when we did it wasn’t portrayed in the media as some sort of fairytale was it? The whole league and media were up in arms about it and the loophole was promptly shut, which is the point some of us are making about Wrexham, in terms of how it’s being portrayed.

 

Everybody loves Ryan Reynolds. Knowing our luck we would get Will Smith and Chris Brown taking us over.