Llambias: No more financial meltdown for big names.
Posted on March 8th, 2010 | 119 Comments |
Of course, this isn’t the first time Llambias made comments on a this theme recently, and he he seems to be on some kind of ‘counter offensive’ on behalf of Mike Ashley, himself, and their current stewardship of Newcastle United. He elaborates further in this interview though, and he began by contrasting the old model with the new, saying:
“We have to take a realistic view. Hopefully we will be there (in the Premier League) and we will have to have a squad that will keep us there. But that needs to grow.”
Hinting at the decadence of the Shepherd years and many previous, poorly negotiated contracts for players, he went on:
“That can’t happen overnight and we are not going to put the club into financial meltdown do buy one or two big names. Are huge transfer fees a thing of the past? They are a thing of the past for us at the moment because we just can’t afford it.
“If you look at the players we bought in January we have changed our attitude to how we buy our players and how we deal with agents. We are a lot stronger as far as our negotiations skills with agents.”
“You need to take a realistic look at your books and say this is the way we are going. What has happened at Portsmouth is very sad but it is a reality check. We have done a lot of work behind the scenes.
“It is cut to the bone. And it has to be to secure the future. We are now in position where we are quite healthy but it is all about promotion for us.”
Llambias then moved on to some of the decisions made by Ashley after the shock of relegation, and also decisions made leading up to this season’s January transfer window, when the club had some injury problems and experienced a slight dip in form:
“Once we were relegated Mike made the decision not to fire-sell. We had a terrible time pre-season at Leyton Orient which scarred the life out of us but it was a wake-up call and the squad have got on with it and got it going.
“When we lost that advantage we had in December we decided to have a final push and freshen up the squad. Chris needed some more players and Mike put the money in again.”
Returning to the example of a certain South coast club yet again, he rammed the point home:
“If it wasn’t for Mike we would have been a Portsmouth. People have to appreciate that he has put his money where his mouth is and he is committed to getting this club back where it belongs. It is too big a club to stay in the Championship.”
Llambias then moved on to what is at the heart of the new way forward for Newcastle United, the Youth Academy:
“We are still investing in our development squad, we are very keen on home-grown players and the academy is working very well.
“We will get some investment into the development squad as far as we might be one of two players at a million who are 18, 19 that in two or three years will be in the first team we have some good players coming through which you can see with our youth squad in the FA (Youth) Cup.
“The nucleus is there, there might be one or two positions we might need to review which is (manager) Chris Hughton’s job. If he is going to ask for a forward or a creative midfielder then we will have to go out there and look for them.”
The interview then moved on to the recent talking point about the recently published Deloitte list, which still rates Newcastle United as the twentieth richest club in the world, despite being in the second tier of English football. This has provided some ammunition to some who have berated Ashley for his frugality in the wake of previous excess. Llambias however pointed out that this was somewhat deceptive, saying:
“Those figures from being the 20th richest club are from 08-90 when we were Premier League,” Llambias said. “The drop from Premier league to Championship is just huge. So our revenue would be more like the 48th figure now. We have a huge wage bill that dominates the figures.
“What we are doing is that Mike has pumped in £25 million in December for running costs and we bought £5.5 players in January and Mike has just paid for that, he is committed and absolutely focused on getting the club back up to the Premier League and wants to make sure it stays there and will continue that.”
On the rather ridiculous claim by some that Mike Ashley has somehow been “Asset stripping” the club since assuming ownership in 2007, Llambias continued:
“There has not been a penny taken out of the club by Mike. We have had quite a substantial claim by Kevin Keegan that we had to deal with. That is a lot of money to find. With season tickets we have been really lucky in that we had 28,000 this season which was good. But you need to be up around the 100 million revenue mark to be able to afford the wage bill we have.”
When the club was generating revenue of £100 million per annum in the Premiership, it’s wage bill was over £70 million. Both have now been almost halved. If the club were to return to the Premiership though, it’s ratio of wages to turnover would almost certainly be below the 50% ratio which is regarded as being realistic in the business, not the figure in excess of 70% that it was before. It would also be well below many of the other teams in the Premiership and even leave room for further investment in the team. But I digress.
Llambias concluded with something of a broadside at the insurgents who continue to demand, in rather impolite terms, that Mike Ashley should once again put the club on the market, moves which had disastrous consequences for the club in the previous two attempts where Ashley tried to rid himself of his troublesome mistress. Of the barracking on Barrack Road he said:
“I do find it foolish. It is offensive. I don’t think they actually understand what Mike has actually done for the club. We have been honest. Mike has admitted he has made mistakes with some of his appointments which have caused all sorts of problems within the club and within the city. We are where we are. He is staying.
“It is not a normal business. You can run a business when 80 per cent of your revenue is down to payroll. Football needs a wake-up call.”
Well, whether you agree or disagree with what Llambias is saying, for a man who has been regularly berated for his lack of communication, he has certainly been communicative in the last few days.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1090 articles on this blog.
Right,
now just zip it ’til the end of the season.
:)