O/T Macclesfield Town

Discuss all matters related to Dagenham and Redbridge
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redboy
Posts: 299
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:41 pm

Sad to hear that the inevitable has happened. Another case of a club with a long non league history being badly managed. This could easily of been us! When will the FA, FL etc put in place a structure and mechanism that protects clubs from this. Too many foreign owners (not ours) seeking a bit of fame or a tax loss are jeopardising our game. The top clubs will survive as they are underpinned by TV money. I was amazed to see that almost 80% of Liverpool's income in 2018/19 was from off the field activities. Ours must be around 5%, correct me if Im wrong Tommo.

It seems even more galling when on the BBC football page, they report Macclesfield's demise along with the Gareth Bale transfer/loan saga. The problem being how clubs can meet his £600k a week wage demands which would have wiped out the Silkmen's debts in a fortnight. Im not really blaming Bale, but that just puts matters into perspective. The covid situation is exceptional and I fear more smaller clubs will suffer. I was looking at the FA cup draw, prize money etc., which to be fair is a good source of income for many clubs. But, wtf do the winners get £2 million. For Arsenal, that pays for Aubameyangs little toe. The top clubs dont take the cup serious and certainly aint in it for the money, so just like the lottery, why cant the prize money be more evenly spread.

Sorry for the rant!
Mark
Posts: 1550
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:04 pm

There has to be a far more robust owners test and a far more robust financial fair play regulation at all levels. I know there's all sorts of legal disputes around limiting expenditure but rugby seems to have managed it, and Saracens got relegated for breaking it.

Yes this will likely result in fewer small clubs climbing the ladder but I've always thought it quite hollow when someone just buys the titles in the way Salford have. There's still room for well managed clubs to progress, and the biggest sized clubs don't always win. There should be room for a sensible amount of chairman investment and some speculation, but it shouldn't be done against non guaranteed revenues or empty promises.

Macclesfield wound up for what, half a mil? That's probably at least 6 players they couldn't really afford assuming the debt accumulated over 1 year, or alternatively a whole squad slightly above the level they should be able to afford.

People talk about putting huge glass ceilings in if you limit lower leagues in their expenditure but that's life. It the prem is the money making machine, yes they should help fund the national game and yes they should be stopped from collecting all the young talent just to loan them out, but ultimately they are entitled to spend what they make in sponsorship and TV.
Dagdale
Posts: 1188
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:33 pm

As always when this happens I feel so desperately sorry for the real fans of clubs when so much of their lives a club has played a big part of it and that's it just gone! Every club from League One downwards it can become such a hurdle when owners and money management fails and why wasn't it 'nipped in the bud' before it got so catastrophic?, why hasn't there ever been a governing body checking out 'new personal' before installed? I use to believe it was mainly caused by a bad results business but look how the format is changing with what happened to Bury a couple of seasons back, a promoted side, Southend United in a few weeks? Although our club are at least trying to stretch its resources I really find it difficult to understand how can a business thrive when a stadium sits so empty for so many days of the year.
BarkingRambo
Posts: 267
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2015 11:53 am

This biggest problem for Daggers and I imagine a lot of clubs in our league is the lack of parties. The function rooms were booked every weekend. I often run into the sponsors area after the game and the players are often still finishing their pasta when everyone is thrown out to prepare for the evenings bookings.

Daggers might be better off than many from a stadium attendance front as people ditched the club pretty much the moment Burnett started attacking the team for only winning 3-0 (it had already been slowly bleeding but that's when chunks just didn't bother). Since then we have only really had 1,100 turn up for years, often that's including away fans, so our business model probably isn't built around bums on seats. Compared to Notts County and Wrexham who were getting 5,000 fans, if they were paying say 20 quid a ticket they are down £100,000 a match while we are down £22,000. Not great for us, terrifying for them.
Diggerthedog
Posts: 3893
Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:08 pm

Thrown out the league, poor sods.
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