O'Dea on his time at Reading

[Franchise FC]

...and the other 22 teams? Have they all had to sell £12 million worth of players, cut their wages in half and only bring in £3 million of players to cover all that?

And which of those other 22 teams have recently been in the Premier League with a £30Mill per year wage bill whose parachute money is about to run out?[/quote]

Who were given 60 million tv money and three parachute payments to cover that...[/quote]

Hang on - if the wage bill was £30m per year and we were given £60m, then that's cash neutral for the Prem years. It doesn't leave anything saved as far as I can see.

[Millsy]

" and three parachute payments to cover that...."

and what about gate receipts?

The money has vanished.

[Terminal Boardom]

I think that you will find it is referred to as creative accounting. How much tax do you think the players ACTUALLY pay? They have accountants pulling rabbits out of hats so they can get as much as they can. Same would probably apply to the football club.

Remember the bad old days when attendance figures were fiddled so that less tax was handed over? How many times did you go to a game and think that there were more in the ground than was actually declared? Of course, that would have been much easier in the days before games became all ticket.

[Dirk Gently]

Ermmmm?!? Three parachute payments???????

Where did that come from???? Relegated clubs get parachute payments from the Premier League for TWO years.

After that all they get is a small share of the "solidarity payments" that the Premier League pass onto the Football League for distribution.

[Hoop Blah]

I think I heard on the telly this morning that Hull were slashing their wages because they couldn't sustain the £39m wage bill they were carrying.

Ours was what £35m?

The way I see it was the cutting of the cloth side of things all comes down to fitting in with being on a Championship budget again. Although we were told wages had generally been cut by 40% across the board it seems that that figure might have been misleading and that the top earners didn't actually take much of a cut. That meant that if we're in the Championship we can't support those wages (not to mention the fact that most of those on the top end wages no longer wanted to be here).

The money that was in or coming into the club during the Premiership years is pretty irrelevant, as are the parachute payments, because that was all spent at the time.

All that matters now is how much we'll bring in over the next few seasons (hopefully in the Championship) because that's the money the club is setting budgets for.

I don't see a lot wrong with that to be fair.

[handbags_harris]

I think I heard on the telly this morning that Hull were slashing their wages because they couldn't sustain the £39m wage bill they were carrying.

To pick up on this isolated sentence, I believe Dirk mentioned before that Hull have the 7th largest wage bill in the PL. If that's the case, then I would imagine it would be significantly more than £39m. All depends on the source of the information I suppose though...

[Hoop Blah]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 900142.ece

They say it's 'one of the highest' but a couple of years back when we were still in the Premiership that wouldn't have been in the top 10.

I can't believe wages have gone down, so I'm guessing that it's a bit of poetic licence.

Dirk, where did you get 7th from?

[Dirk Gently]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/hull/article6900142.ece

They say it's 'one of the highest' but a couple of years back when we were still in the Premiership that wouldn't have been in the top 10.

I can't believe wages have gone down, so I'm guessing that it's a bit of poetic licence.

Dirk, where did you get 7th from?

Can't remember,excatly, tbh - this was back in September, when it was revealed that their accountswere late and the auditors wouldn't guarantee them. I may well have heard it in a conversation with someone ITK about such things.

Below are two articles on the perilous state of their finances, from Sept and November.

[Terminal Boardom]

I think I heard on the telly this morning that Hull were slashing their wages because they couldn't sustain the £39m wage bill they were carrying.

Ours was what £35m?

The way I see it was the cutting of the cloth side of things all comes down to fitting in with being on a Championship budget again. Although we were told wages had generally been cut by 40% across the board it seems that that figure might have been misleading and that the top earners didn't actually take much of a cut. That meant that if we're in the Championship we can't support those wages (not to mention the fact that most of those on the top end wages no longer wanted to be here).

The money that was in or coming into the club during the Premiership years is pretty irrelevant, as are the parachute payments, because that was all spent at the time.

All that matters now is how much we'll bring in over the next few seasons (hopefully in the Championship) because that's the money the club is setting budgets for.

I don't see a lot wrong with that to be fair.

That's what I thought.

[Dirk Gently]

I think I heard on the telly this morning that Hull were slashing their wages because they couldn't sustain the £39m wage bill they were carrying.

Ours was what £35m?

The way I see it was the cutting of the cloth side of things all comes down to fitting in with being on a Championship budget again. Although we were told wages had generally been cut by 40% across the board it seems that that figure might have been misleading and that the top earners didn't actually take much of a cut. That meant that if we're in the Championship we can't support those wages (not to mention the fact that most of those on the top end wages no longer wanted to be here).

The money that was in or coming into the club during the Premiership years is pretty irrelevant, as are the parachute payments, because that was all spent at the time.

All that matters now is how much we'll bring in over the next few seasons (hopefully in the Championship) because that's the money the club is setting budgets for.

I don't see a lot wrong with that to be fair.

That's what I thought.

Surely it's been established many times already that last year we spent well over 50% of the total income from the two years which have parachute payments? i.e. last season was an expensive gamble to go back up first time out, and as it didn't succeed we're living with the financial consequences now.

Keeping the higher-paid players on was just part of that. Certainly they weren't still getting PL-level wages, but neither were they getting average CCC-level wages.

[Hoop Blah]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/hull/article6900142.ece

They say it's 'one of the highest' but a couple of years back when we were still in the Premiership that wouldn't have been in the top 10.

I can't believe wages have gone down, so I'm guessing that it's a bit of poetic licence.

Dirk, where did you get 7th from?

Can't remember,excatly, tbh - this was back in September, when it was revealed that their accountswere late and the auditors wouldn't guarantee them. I may well have heard it in a conversation with someone ITK about such things.

Below are two articles on the perilous state of their finances, from Sept and November.

No doubt they're up a nasty smelling creek without a paddle, but I do doubt that they're the 7th highest payers in the league though, even accounting for the lack of difference between a lot of clubs, that means that they're paying more than one of this lot

Chelsea
Utd
Liverpool
City
Arsenal
Spurs
Villa
Everton (possibly)
Sunderland (possibly)
West Ham (possibly now they've got rid of some but I'd still hazard they're higher payers)

...not to mention Pompey, although they don't seem to pay at all these days!

[strap]

Rodgers was sacked when he made it known he wanted a transfer kitty and JM refused.

He couldn't carry on when the old school closed ranks.

Charlatan : I've oxf*rd away £3.5Million of your money in 6 months Mr Mad. It's got us to 21st in the League, but I need loads more or else we're going to get relegated.

Mr Mad : oxf*rd off you bullshitting gobshite. Think I'll appoint someone who's had a career in football to manage the team.

[Hoop Blah]

strap, Rodgers has had a career in football!

[RoyalBlue]

Rodgers was sacked when he made it known he wanted a transfer kitty and JM refused.

He couldn't carry on when the old school closed ranks.

Charlatan : I've oxf*rd away £3.5Million of your money in 6 months Mr Mad. It's got us to 21st in the League, but I need loads more or else we're going to get relegated.

Mr Mad : oxf*rd off you bullshitting gobshite. Think I'll appoint someone who's had a career in football to manage the team.

RoyalBlue: So why, your Ego, didn't you F*cking well do that in the first place?

Surely it's been established many times already that last year we spent well over 50% of the total income from the two years which have parachute payments? i.e. last season was an expensive gamble to go back up first time out, and as it didn't succeed we're living with the financial consequences now.

Correction. It has been stated many times, in the same manner that Blair is currently stating things in the Chilcot Enquiry.

[Dirk Gently]

Rodgers was sacked when he made it known he wanted a transfer kitty and JM refused.

He couldn't carry on when the old school closed ranks.

Completely and utterly not what happened.

[RoyalBlue]

Rodgers was sacked when he made it known he wanted a transfer kitty and JM refused.

He couldn't carry on when the old school closed ranks.

Completely and utterly not what happened.

You were there were you? And, of course, the old school have assured you that it is completely and utterly not happened.

[Dirk Gently]

Rodgers was sacked when he made it known he wanted a transfer kitty and JM refused.

He couldn't carry on when the old school closed ranks.

Completely and utterly not what happened.

You were there were you? And, of course, the old school have assured you that it is completely and utterly not happened.

Of course I wasn't there. But I do know exactly what happened on the 16th December.

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Come on we all know BR got the sack cause he was messing around with Cilla.

The women's an animal....

[Hoop Blah]

To be fair Dirk, you only know exactly what you've been told happened...

[Vision]

The 05/06 season where we were virtually sold out for the 2nd half of the season we lost just under £7m.

We had no players on Premiership wages or anywhere near it yet still lost that amount of money. Why do people find it so perplexing that in order to gain any type of stability we need to go back to that type of wage bill again?

Inevitably it means removing your highest wage earners and replacing with significantly lower earners. It's happened at pretty much every club relegated from the Premiership and if you don't go straight back up then you really have to face reality. If you leave it too late then administration is almost inevitable.

Southampton,Norwich,Charlton,Watford,Palace,Leicester to name but 5 were Premiership clubs in recent memory yet have stared or are staring administration in the face. These are all decent sized clubs on a par or lets be honest mostly above us in terms of support (in the recent and distant past) yet realised too late what the current board knew from the end of last season. We tried to ignore it last season to gain success but it didn't happen so now we're facing the reality but thankfully the only threat is to our status as a Championship club rather than our status as an existing professional football club. It's not ideal and there have been some mistakes made of course but ultimately the future of this club is as secure as anyone else despite our current struggles.

As for O'Dea, well I've no idea as he doesn't name names but its not inconceivable given his penchant for flowery rhetoric (ooo get me) that Rodgers would have sold O'Dea the idea of World Class models, European football and Jose and then when the reality set in he put the blame elsewhere. Lets face it how much contact would O'Dea have with the 2 NH's? If its them he's talking about then he's only doing on the basis of what Rodgers is telling him.

Don't get me wrong, I think the decision to sack him was a mistake given the circumstances he inherited and the supposed 3 year plan but I'm as convinced as I can be that something must have happened behind the scenes for the club to act in a manner which for 20 years of JM's tenure has never happened. Pure speculation on my part of course (although no more than a lot of this thread) but if BR had undermined the board in the same way to other players then its no surprise that he would find his relationship with them strained to say the least.