Clubs/Leagued to Go Bust Due to Coronavirus

[Bishop Hibee]

From the BBC: “English football faces "the danger of losing clubs and leagues" amid economic challenges "beyond the wildest imagination", says Football Association chairman Greg Clarke.” We can assume similar challenges face Scottish football.

Got me thinking about what a club is. If Hibs has gone bust in 1990, there would have been enough fans to keep a successor club going playing at Meadowbank which would have climbed the leagues with a new stadium somewhere in East Edinburgh/Leith eventually in my opinion. With this in mind, is it possible for a club with an average support of 1500+ to actually ‘die’ if we accept fans are the club? I enjoy winding Huns up as much as anyone but as I believe fans make every club, they can never die. Zombies an appropriate name for them maybe. Thoughts?

Can things remain the same structure-wise for Scottish football after this?

[Ozyhibby]

From the BBC: “English football faces "the danger of losing clubs and leagues" amid economic challenges "beyond the wildest imagination", says Football Association chairman Greg Clarke.” We can assume similar challenges face Scottish football.

Got me thinking about what a club is. If Hibs has gone bust in 1990, there would have been enough fans to keep a successor club going playing at Meadowbank which would have climbed the leagues with a new stadium somewhere in East Edinburgh/Leith eventually in my opinion. With this in mind, is it possible for a club with an average support of 1500+ to actually ‘die’ if we accept fans are the club? I enjoy winding Huns up as much as anyone but as I believe fans make every club, they can never die. Zombies an appropriate name for them maybe. Thoughts?

Can things remain the same structure-wise for Scottish football after this?

Control of the stadium is very important in survival. Hearts would have been in real trouble had they not managed to get a deal to buy Tynecastle from the Lithuanians.
If Sevco gets into trouble again then dealing with Mike Ashley may hinder their chances of a CVA if he is not feeling very generous. He may take control of the stadium. He will be the biggest unsecured creditor if they lose court case.


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[Since90+2]

Control of the stadium is very important in survival. Hearts would have been in real trouble had they not managed to get a deal to buy Tynecastle from the Lithuanians.
If Sevco gets into trouble again then dealing with Mike Ashley may hinder their chances of a CVA if he is not feeling very generous. He may take control of the stadium. He will be the biggest unsecured creditor if they lose court case.


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What is Hibs situation in terms of control of the stadium?

[ancient hibee]

The stadium is owned by Hibernian Football Club Ltd.

[Lancs Harp]

Hibs will never die.

If it meant 2,500 (or whatever) turning up in the lowland league then thats what it would be. too many diehards to let our Club die.

[Andy74]

Rangers and Hearts have both shown that, against any particular logic at the time, you can come out with club and stadium intact.

If you have a support you can have a club.

[Hibs4185]

Control of the stadium is very important in survival. Hearts would have been in real trouble had they not managed to get a deal to buy Tynecastle from the Lithuanians.
If Sevco gets into trouble again then dealing with Mike Ashley may hinder their chances of a CVA if he is not feeling very generous. He may take control of the stadium. He will be the biggest unsecured creditor if they lose court case.


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This new debt in regards to the deferrals and the MA situation, I think makes an admin event unavoidable.

It’s the only way to get rid of MA and that retail deal that costs them millions.

[Alan62]

Like everything at the moment, the key factor is time. The longer that social distancing applies, the more severe the economic repercussions. That applies to everything not just to football.

In the same way that COVID 19 doesn’t discriminate between rich or poor, its fallout could take down some very powerful clubs who are hugely exposed in the current market. The madness of English football looks unsustainable in the post Coronavirus world and Scotland’s big spenders are also in deep trouble. Whatever the future looks like, you can pretty much guarantee that we aren’t going back to how it was just a few weeks ago.


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[ScottB]

‘Losing’ clubs is very difficult, as we’ve seen. They can go bust, sure, but they’ll carry on or reform.

In the current circumstances, authorities may be far more forgiving / lenient towards insolvency events.

[LancashireHibby]

‘Losing’ clubs is very difficult, as we’ve seen. They can go bust, sure, but they’ll carry on or reform.

In the current circumstances, authorities may be far more forgiving / lenient towards insolvency events.
The difficulty may come when they are issues around the stadiums, particularly if they’re sold off to pay debts when a club goes bust. Once you lose your home ground then it is very difficult to come back from it.

[NAE NOOKIE]

Hibs will never die.

If it meant 2,500 (or whatever) turning up in the lowland league then thats what it would be. too many diehards to let our Club die.

The question for professional football isn't whether a club going bust can be resurrected by its supporters, for 90% of clubs that's probably the case .... but that for most is a long slow road back.

The big question is how many clubs will be left to form proper professional leagues a year from now? This applies especially in Scotland where we currently have 42 'senior' clubs of which around 18 are full time. The truth is that as it stands now out those 42 clubs only around 20, and that's being generous, can ever hope to make the premiership and stay there and of that 20 only around 10 of them can ever hope to average over 5000 per home game in a season, and even for some of them away supports from the uglies, Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen is the only reason they can do that.

If we were to lose some clubs altogether and others ended up going part time what sort of a league would we end up with? What, 5 or 6 relative giants and the rest absolutely nowhere, how long would interest in such a league last? In England that situation may well be magnified with a lot of clubs with overheads way beyond what they could ever have realistically afforded folding ... If this was to go on all year there is a real danger they could lose a tranche of clubs from the EFL set up.

We could see a situation where the EFL are looking for clubs to replace a host of folded clubs and where Scotland's big city clubs are looking for something better than what is little better than a semi pro league to play in. The Dutch and Belgians were already looking at a merger before this situation arrived, so the prospect of Scottish clubs in the EFL is hardly outlandish. There will be a desperation to maximize TV money and fan interest, so what would be more attractive .. replacing lets say Doncaster with Gateshead or Yeovil with Kidderminster Harriers or both these clubs with Hibs and Hearts.

At the moment such a scenario is a long way off ... but if the worst was to happen I would think the big clubs in Scotland would be very interested in a new start and the EFL may be far more receptive to the idea than they would have been previously ... I could see the TV folk going for the novelty angle too and being very interested in such a scenario.

[ScottB]

For the vast majority of Scottish clubs, they can use the furlough scheme without generating public ire, so staff costs will have dropped to somewhere between 0 and 20% with the only ongoing costs likely mortgages, any debt repayments and utilities, some / all of which could be postponed for now.

The issue at the moment is clubs who were spending significant sums on wages, so that their remaining wage cost commitments after furloughing are still significant, or that that public reaction makes using it harder. Given there are probably 4 leagues in England paying higher average wages than our topflight, and lots more debt, it seems more likely the carnage happens there than here to me.

But as said, I could see a blanket policy of ‘admins don’t count’ being applied, as well as pressure to ensure no community loses their club in this. I’d be very surprised to see clubs outright disappearing, and in England certainly, there’s already precedent with Leeds etc for not booting them out the structure to start again.

Football will probably have to adapt to a new financial reality after this, there’s where any radical change could spring from...

[AndyM_1875]

Control of the stadium is very important in survival. Hearts would have been in real trouble had they not managed to get a deal to buy Tynecastle from the Lithuanians.
If Sevco gets into trouble again then dealing with Mike Ashley may hinder their chances of a CVA if he is not feeling very generous. He may take control of the stadium. He will be the biggest unsecured creditor if they lose court case.


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I think MIke Ashley will have much bigger problems than a minor stake in Rangers to worry about after this virus passes.

Hearts would have come out of some way or other. Theyre like the jobbie that won't flush away mainly because like us they have a solid fanbase.
Even if they had lost Tynecastle (which they deserved to do) they would have kept going somehow. They'd have rented Easter Road or Meadowbank or Livingston and started at League 2.

The only notable club that really disappeared was Third Lanark in 1967 and they were unlucky in being geographically located in the centre of Scottish football and also during the most successful period of Scottish football where Celtic were European champions, Rangers European finalists, Hibs and Dunfermline making big inroads in Europe and the national team battering the then World Champions in their own back yard. So Third Lanark's sad and preventable demise barely registered as a blip.