cheltenham_villa

Reminds me a lot of Bert

Spurs charge a 100 quid to drive a go kart around the floor under the stadium. Place is just riddled with ways for people to part with cash.. 

1 hour ago, paul514 said:

Done in a much higher interest era, how’s it going for Arsenal now?

But arsenal were already arsenal. A strong squad and we'll established in the champions league. The compromised on challenging for titles. I'm just wondering if it's possible for us to compromise our push for European spaces in order to rebuild the stadium. I think the club has prioritised the latter (all speculation of course) 

11 minutes ago, paul514 said:

Simply non sense 

Arsene Wenger and his blatant lies that trigger the VT fanbase

https://shorturl.at/uyzY8

Speaking on beIN Sports, Wenger said that he encouraged the club to take what he believed was an important step.

“I encouraged the club to do it,” he said. “It cost £200 million more than we expected it to be."

"We were blocked, we could only spend 50% of the turnover on wages. For example, if the turnover was £500 million we could only dedicate £250 million to wages.

“So we always had to sell our best players because the best players want money.”

A move to a new, vastly bigger ground allowed the club to maximise turnover, but Arsenal needed Wenger to make a big sacrifice to secure the funding for construction.

“They wanted me to sign at the start of that period for five years,” the Frenchman revealed.

“I felt always that there was something special at Arsenal that I was proud to represent and to defend.

“On the other hand, loyalty is very important, and you cannot ask for the players to be loyal if you jump out at the first offer that you get.”

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

I mean, that is patently not true

Maybe "no club" is an exaggeration but Spurs went years without purchasing players in the window, arsenal the same when the emirates were built, Liverpool have a very low net spend on players. Everton is a good exception, theyre building a stadium and theyve also thrown millions at players, that has worked out very well. 

3 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

But you never recoup the construction cost of something when you come to sell it either. Financially, looking at the cost and opportunity cost, it will never make sense in a 10 year time frame. Maybe 20 was a stretch. But my point was, that the argument this was canned for a short term financial boost doesn't hold water. Or if it does, then it will forever, and we'll never improve the stand. That can't be the reason.

From a safety perspective, maybe we're not that far off being forced into something, but I've never felt unsafe in the North. Cramped, desperate for a piss, and annoyed I can't get a drink without missing the game, but never unsafe.

the opportunity cost is also a good point. No club have built a stadium or stand and continued to invest in the team. Its one or the other. 

Personally right now i think the club has decided that money in the team is the most important thing. 

3 hours ago, villa89 said:

That's the difference between us and Spurs/Arsenal. They can sell premium seats by the barrel load but the demand for Villa tickets is from joe punter who wants a £30 ticket, a pie and a pint. 

im not sure this is now true. i think the demand for terrace view and the other one is now growing. Ive seen some games particularly over xmas where we sold out. 

Its probably more accurate to say that Villa has typically been targeted at Joe Punter and none of us feel that comfortable with the gentrification. Ive now doubt it will be a success though like it is at every ground, it just means more families and tourists.

9 hours ago, MWARLEY2 said:

I know what you mean. But it also puts another fence around those teams with far higher revenue .  As it stands ( and i am only going by the outline 70 percent ) this is how we would have to try and compete with the available 70 percent revenue of others

Man city 443 mill , liverpool 416, man utd 408 Chelsea 336 Spurs 310, Arsenal 258 , West Ham 179.......etc etc ... and Villa 118

 

 

Unfortunately I think the top 6 is the top 6. The stats around what those teams have won in the last 20 years and how many of the champions league places they've taken are ridiculous. I personally don't believe it's possible to challenge them or join them (except maybe for the odd season) and sadly I'd rather teams didn't risk bankruptcy by trying. 

Very sad opinion I know. 

2 hours ago, MWARLEY2 said:

And to compound things the Premier League club heads are meeting soon to ratify bringing us into line with the UEFA rules of 70% max of revenue can be spent on transfers wages and agents. It is what it is i guess . But it isnt going to help us thats for sure. 

Personally I'm in favour of it, Dr Xi nearly cost us our club, any move towards the majority of clubs running sustainably is a positive for me. 

10 minutes ago, Leeroy said:

And we signed a youngster from the Serbian league (which I actually rate, I think he'll turn out to be good).

 

I just don't see anything in this player. Just because he was in City's Academy doesn't mean anything. And I thought we were selling players like JPB to bring in proven international footballers, not lesser players than the actual Academy players we sold. 

 

It's just a weird signing for me.

Could it be someone they see a profit in? Like an azazz, bring in for small money and sell on. Very much depends on the price. 

The reality is a lot of companies are returning to the office because they believe that the mass of people is more efficient organised in this way. 

Its also very likely that certain jobs are best organised from an office. Ive done a lot of work on Call Centre efficiency, all of the metrics point to the fact that call centres work better from an office. The individuals involved didnt necessarily have wfh space and preferred the social interactions that came with office work, the individuals dealt and answered more calls, the customer dialling in felt like the service they received was more professional and their calls were answered better,

The irony is I made these conclusions while working from home. My role has me running many analytics teams globally and being in an office would still mean being on the phone. I do accept though that I have to spend a part of my year travelling to locations in order to build relationships and collaborate.

I also often laugh at the fact that the VT wfh chat is most active during the day

7 hours ago, sidcow said:

Has anyone been to one of those big weekenders at Butlins?

I've been roped into the 80's on at Minehead in June.  I didn't realise it was THREE nights.  Anyone ever been to one?  I was thinking of ditching the last night and going home on Sunday.  Don't want to miss out though but I suspect the Sunday is a bit more low key.

Got quite a few mates who's marriages ended at the butlins weekend events. 

15 hours ago, CVByrne said:

They are also introducing a salary cap so no PL club has a wage bill bigger than the income of the bottom club. That was agreed by the PL as from next season UEFA CL prize money grows for those involved in it.

 

Have you got a link to this anywhere, id never heard of it and struggled to find anything that confirms its coming in. 

44 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

hmm, if we are meant to be loaning him back to them for the remainder of the season, why have they bought a new RB now?, wouldnt that now hinder Kosta's game time when we loan him back to them!?

it could be that weve agreed a lower price if we loan him back, the loan also keeps him off our wage bill for now. Seems odd though when we know we want a new right back.

The problem with us working out which players to sell for 60-100m is that probably only Chelsea, arsenal, United, Liverpool and city are paying those fees.

So not only do we need a player worth that, we also need to strengthen a rival and they need a player in that position. 

I think Watkins is most sellable on this basis, or maybe even Pau. 

I think it's more likely though we see 3 or 4 moving to create the money. Really we need to hope the players can go up another level 

8 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Luiz comes up a lot because of the fact Arsenal tried to buy him before and he will only have 2 years left on his contract this summer. So if we wanted to sell a player at the peak of his value to reinvest in squad and help FFP Luiz seems like the one. I think we will keep him however if we get CL as the financial boost that gives opens up room for us.

The big challenge with selling luiz is that probably those trying to buy him are also our rivals.

On 09/01/2024 at 22:45, blandy said:

Yes, that’s it.

For accounting purposes and FFP the club spends money on renting the ground. Something like 5 mill a year, without checking.  If he ground’s owners either reduce the ground’s utility (say by demolishing a stand) or improve it (say be increasing capacity and facilities, like I dunno, a New North stand) then the football club (and FFP) would expect the rent to be adjusted accordingly, as you suggest, yes.

The fact that the ground’s owners are the same people who own the club means, obviously, it’s these people who make the investment. They might partner up, or get other investors or whatever, but for Premier League P&S purposes spending on upgrading facilities is excluded anyway from the permitted losses, so even if the club owned the ground it would be fine.

So the real question about the decision to rebuild the north stand is how the entity that owns it gets a return on investment.

So for 100m investment, that feels like a significant rent increase. 

It also makes me wonder how much can truly be hecks impact, to my knowledge he's not involved In the organisation that owns the stadium. 

I noted labours suggested approach to getting long term school absentees back is free school breakfast.

While I think making sure every kid is fed is really important, I just don't understand the logic. If parents haven't been sending kids to school, or children have been playing truant for a long time, why will more school change that. Help me understand the link.

On 20/11/2023 at 13:30, blandy said:

They don't and they didn't. But there's a thread for general FFP discussion, (as opposed to Villa's specific FFP stuff). Please can posters use the right thread.

 

@blandy do you know how stadium investment works as part of FFP when the club doesn't own the stadium? Now the stadium is part of a group, could the owners if they wanted choose to just throw money at improvements? I assume this would see an increase in our rent.

Been wondering for a while who needs to make the investment here. 

3 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Finally. It took long enough for the obvious to happen.

Spurs signed an amazing long term deal with Nike back when they got into CL. Let's hope we have got a right good deal. Nassef is the largest shareholder of Adidas so we better be getting a sweet deal. 

Will definitely be a welcome boost to our FFP position 

I would imagine Nassef has stayed quite clear of the deal. Commercial deals are so heavily scrutinised now, particularly those where parties have a conflict of interest. 

4 hours ago, Deano & Dalian's Umbrella said:

On the FFP thread, somebody has posted a Football Insider  link to an article from a finance expert criticising the decision to not rebuild the North Stand.

 

 

One line from it which stood out was:

“It seems they will now only add just 3,000 seats, which admittedly will be premium price seats, but it does seem to be a short-term decision.

If this is correct about these being premium seats (and I don't know how this person would know this anyway) then this wouldn't fit with the concept of these extra seats being in out of the way parts of the ground like the corners.

It has also reignited my paranoia that I might soon be kicked out of my season ticket seat on the halfway line in the Doug Ellis.

 

 

 

I dont think it's anything more than a guess, but it's probably a sensible guess. I can't imagine villa adding more seats without increasing the premium seating. Maybe we will see them linked to the lower grounds. 

I think you're safe on the Doug Ellis half way line, I think the closeness to the away fans would prevent them making it premium. More likely to extend premium seating in the trinity. 

1 hour ago, Rugeley Villa said:

This is a very good point. Are the club looking at things thinking if we could plough money into the squad we have a great chance of challenging the elite clubs in terms of top 4 and honours. I know that was the aim anyway but I think it’s happening(so far) quicker than people thought. It could be at the moment we are prioritising the team over the ground which makes sense in a way . If we were to get established as a genuine top 4, top 6 club then once the foundations of the team were more solid we could then do the ground. 

This is my assumption. It's very difficult to do both and the start to the season has presented an opportunity that many wanted but maybe didn't truly believe was possible. 

Imagine making champions league but not being able to really improve the squad in the summer because we've put all our eggs in the north stand basket

I don't believe any clubs have seen significant ground investment without it impacting player purchases. 

Arsenal didn't spend for years, spurs had windows without a single player signing. 

Both of those clubs had squads that could ride this out a bit and I'm not convinced we are in that position. 

Add to that the rule movement that Everton have experienced around stadium interest contributing towards FFP and this project alongside team improvements may no longer be viable. For me it seems sensible right now for us to pause and focus on the team. The revenue from champions league will outweigh that from stadium enhancements. 

One thing that confused me. The media led me to believe in January we would be seeing Saudi players returning as they had some season break. 

Why would they be trying to sign players?