Aberdeen "lose £5m to keep up"

[matty_f]

https://twitter.com/scotexpsport/status/1593756187392180225?s=46&t=bQQpPZz_PbPHSvDPo9WeEQ

It'll be interesting to see our accounts this year after Hearts relied on donations of £4.5m to make a c£1m profit and Aberdeen spent big to keep up with us and Hearts.

It shows how difficult it is to be competitive with these teams, Aberdeen's turnover was something like £13m - it'll be interesting to see how Hibs' compares.

Really though, when you see those figures and there figures from Hearts, it should put performances against them (both head to head and comparisons in league position) into perspective a bit.

[HoboHarry]

https://twitter.com/scotexpsport/status/1593756187392180225?s=46&t=bQQpPZz_PbPHSvDPo9WeEQ

It'll be interesting to see our accounts this year after Hearts relied on donations of £4.5m to make a c£1m profit and Aberdeen spent big to keep up with us and Hearts.

It shows how difficult it is to be competitive with these teams, Aberdeen's turnover was something like £13m - it'll be interesting to see how Hibs' compares.

Really though, when you see those figures and there figures from Hearts, it should put performances against them (both head to head and comparisons in league position) into perspective a bit.
They still have a stadium to build too, they will have to rein in costs at some point.

[HibeeHibernia]

for clubs similar in size the gap in finances between us and those two is mental

[18Craig75]

“This re-build was largely made possible by experienced EPL scout, Darren Mowbray, who was appointed Head of Recruitment in August 2021. As a result of the significant recruitment work done in advance of the summer transfer window opening, right across Europe, by Darren and his team, working hand-in-hand with our Director of Football, Steven Gunn, and Jim Goodwin, the club got most of its summer transfer business done early.”

This paragraph struck me as being at total odds to our set up, especially ‘experienced former scout as head of recruitment’.

Miovski hit the ground running for them and will get 20 goals this season (unless he’s bought in January). Duk whilst a bit raw, is contributing in goals, assists and penalties - how did we look at the same u19 team and decide Tavares was the better option? The two players look lightyears apart in terms of first team readiness.

Also note that the loss will be covered by Cormack and his other directors. This together with Hearts benefactor is a bit worrying, if we’re not careful we could be left behind if those two get it right on the pitch, in a sort of third group with the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren and Livi. Clubs we have a far superior budget over.

Time for Hibs to wake up.

[cocteautwin]

The financial gap between us and Hearts this year is huge. They had nearly £8m in cash at the end of June. If Anderson keeps contributing this year then they’ll have an extra £6m in donations, c£5m from their Euro run, record season ticket sales, World Cup players etc, its going to be over £20m they have available. You’d expect them to make some bold statement signings in January with all that extra cash. They should stroll 3rd place this season with all that cash.

Should we be worried they can manage the cash properly?

They’ve now had over £45m of extra donations and done nothing recently aside from a third place last year when everyone else was awful.

If they don’t win the Scottish cup this season they’ll reach £50m in donations spent by the time they can next win a trophy.

£50m is laughable. It’s a clown show over there and now Anderson being appointed Director has given him a front row seat at the Circus.

[HibeeHibernia]

The financial gap between us and Hearts this year is huge. They had nearly £8m in cash at the end of June. If Anderson keeps contributing this year then they’ll have an extra £6m in donations, c£5m from their Euro run, record season ticket sales, World Cup players etc. You’d expect them to make some bold statement signings in January with all that extra cash. They should stroll 3rd place this season with all that cash.

Should we be worried they can manage the cash properly?

They’ve now had over £45m of extra donations and done nothing recently aside from a third place last year when everyone else was awful.

If they don’t win the Scottish cup this season they’ll reach £50m in donations spent by the time they can next win a trophy.

£50m is laughable. It’s a clown show over there and now Anderson being appointed Director has given him a front row seat at the Circus.

We have no one but ourselves to blame when it comes to the 5 million pound they received in Europa conference league money this year. We had a chance to become Scotland's third force for some time but chucked it all away and let them stroll back up into our position, every time we have a chance to crush them we seem to always pass it up. 50 million is a mental amount of money to have acquired and still have a team of absolute huddies like the garbage they have their squad at the moment though

[matty_f]

“This re-build was largely made possible by experienced EPL scout, Darren Mowbray, who was appointed Head of Recruitment in August 2021. As a result of the significant recruitment work done in advance of the summer transfer window opening, right across Europe, by Darren and his team, working hand-in-hand with our Director of Football, Steven Gunn, and Jim Goodwin, the club got most of its summer transfer business done early.”

This paragraph struck me as being at total odds to our set up, especially ‘experienced former scout as head of recruitment’.

Miovski hit the ground running for them and will get 20 goals this season (unless he’s bought in January). Duk whilst a bit raw, is contributing in goals, assists and penalties - how did we look at the same u19 team and decide Tavares was the better option? The two players look lightyears apart in terms of first team readiness.

Also note that the loss will be covered by Cormack and his other directors. This together with Hearts benefactor is a bit worrying, if we’re not careful we could be left behind if those two get it right on the pitch, in a sort of third group with the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren and Livi. Clubs we have a far superior budget over.

Time for Hibs to wake up.
I was going to come back to that point (posted at 4am ish when i woke up for the loo!) - it’s very significant imho. It was something we spoke about on Longbangers Extra Time recently where we discussed if Hibs needed a Director of Football. One of the points we talked through was about whether it was possible to operate without one if, as in it case, one of your key Heads of Function (in our case, Recruitment) had no experience in football.

I think you can get away with that, just about, if you have a very experienced team working under you, but from what i remember - and i could be wrong here - Hibs make use of internships for much of the desk-based scouting so you are losing out on experience there as well, not to mention the benefits of having someone that’s worked in the game and the little black book of contacts they have built up over the years of agents, scouts, coaches etc.

There’s no doubt that’s something Ian Gordon will lack, irrespective of how good he is at coordinating and managing that recruitment function, unless he has someone in that team with those sort of contacts and relationships to take advantage of, it leaves us at a disadvantage.

That said, given the figures quoted that Aberdeen (80% wages to turnover!!) and Hearts are spending, I would probably argue that £3-5m minimum of a difference in spending per year would negate any difference that an experienced recruitment head would bring anyway, unless they are exceptionally talented or exceptionally lucky.

[18Craig75]

I was going to come back to that point (posted at 4am ish when i woke up for the loo!) - it’s very significant imho. It was something we spoke about on Longbangers Extra Time recently where we discussed if Hibs needed a Director of Football. One of the points we talked through was about whether it was possible to operate without one if, as in it case, one of your key Heads of Function (in our case, Recruitment) had no experience in football.

I think you can get away with that, just about, if you have a very experienced team working under you, but from what i remember - and i could be wrong here - Hibs make use of internships for much of the desk-based scouting so you are losing out on experience there as well, not to mention the benefits of having someone that’s worked in the game and the little black book of contacts they have built up over the years of agents, scouts, coaches etc.

There’s no doubt that’s something Ian Gordon will lack, irrespective of how good he is at coordinating and managing that recruitment function, unless he has someone in that team with those sort of contacts and relationships to take advantage of, it leaves us at a disadvantage.

That said, given the figures quoted that Aberdeen (80% wages to turnover!!) and Hearts are spending, I would probably argue that £3-5m minimum of a difference in spending per year would negate any difference that an experienced recruitment head would bring anyway, unless they are exceptionally talented or exceptionally lucky.


I listened to that episode earlier in the week and agreed with much of it. Particularly when Colin said something along the lines of “being old enough to remember when DOF’s weren’t a thing”. That struck a cord, it’s a relatively new phenomenon but it did make me think, we’re sort of inbetween structures;

If no DOF - shouldn’t it be a Manager, in charge of everything first team related including of signings. Team of scouts and analysts working under him. Sir Alex Ferguson type thing, Neil Lennon @ Celtic, McInnes @ Aberdeen.

OR

Director of football (or operations, sporting director, general manager) - then a recruitment team/department, then a Head Coach.

It’s all about accountability, and for me the lines are blurred at Hibs which inevitably will always lead to questions over Ian Gordon/Lee Johnson and who’s signing is who - usually on a bad run.

After such a period of instability the appointment of George Craig and the Graham Mathie was inspired. If we’re going to burn through managers and players, having that structure with a long term vision and the control to implement that is essential, otherwise we’ll burn through funds chopping and changing managers/players (as we are now) where that money should be going towards adding 2/3 top, first team ready, players each window, supplemented by development signings (if that’s a project they want to stick with).

[matty_f]

I listened to that episode earlier in the week and agreed with much of it. Particularly when Colin said something along the lines of “being old enough to remember when DOF’s weren’t a thing”. That struck a cord, it’s a relatively new phenomenon but it did make me think, we’re sort of inbetween structures;

If no DOF - shouldn’t it be a Manager, in charge of everything first team related including of signings. Team of scouts and analysts working under him. Sir Alex Ferguson type thing, Neil Lennon @ Celtic, McInnes @ Aberdeen.

OR

Director of football (or operations, sporting director, general manager) - then a recruitment team/department, then a Head Coach.

It’s all about accountability, and for me the lines are blurred at Hibs which inevitably will always lead to questions over Ian Gordon/Lee Johnson and who’s signing is who - usually on a bad run.

After such a period of instability the appointment of George Craig and the Graham Mathie was inspired. If we’re going to burn through managers and players, having that structure with a long term vision and the control to implement that is essential, otherwise we’ll burn through funds chopping and changing managers/players (as we are now) where that money should be going towards adding 2/3 top, first team ready, players each window, supplemented by development signings (if that’s a project they want to stick with).

I think it’s needed at a club or size if we’re going to churn managers at the rate we do, otherwise we’re in a constant state of transition.

[Paulie Walnuts]

I’m sure I read on here Aberdeens turnover is a lot higher than ours because they have more stuff in house than us.

I can’t remember specifics, but it was something like they have their catering in house so whilst they might make £3m or so off that they may well also spend £2.5m more than us on it. Essentially, I think the argument was that whilst their turnover looks miles above ours, it’s not really any better when you consider their expenditure on things that don’t impact the playing side.

[green day]

I think it’s needed at a club or size if we’re going to churn managers at the rate we do, otherwise we’re in a constant state of transition.

Yip.

Its needed so that the DoF can determine the type of team and footballer we want at our club, and then slot coaches in to suit Hibs.

We cant keep dropping in managers who then try (unsuccessfully) to impose a style on players that dont have the ability or skills to implement it (see Maloney).

[Brightside]

for clubs similar in size the gap in finances between us and those two is mental

We had a chance to fix that and *****ed it on “projects”

[Brightside]

“This re-build was largely made possible by experienced EPL scout, Darren Mowbray, who was appointed Head of Recruitment in August 2021. As a result of the significant recruitment work done in advance of the summer transfer window opening, right across Europe, by Darren and his team, working hand-in-hand with our Director of Football, Steven Gunn, and Jim Goodwin, the club got most of its summer transfer business done early.”

This paragraph struck me as being at total odds to our set up, especially ‘experienced former scout as head of recruitment’.

Miovski hit the ground running for them and will get 20 goals this season (unless he’s bought in January). Duk whilst a bit raw, is contributing in goals, assists and penalties - how did we look at the same u19 team and decide Tavares was the better option? The two players look lightyears apart in terms of first team readiness.

Also note that the loss will be covered by Cormack and his other directors. This together with Hearts benefactor is a bit worrying, if we’re not careful we could be left behind if those two get it right on the pitch, in a sort of third group with the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren and Livi. Clubs we have a far superior budget over.

Time for Hibs to wake up.

As a club we are set up to bring in the most sales we can. We’ve just sacked a guy who basically revolutionised our income stream. Everything is the Ben K way and he’s never actually ran a football dept in his live. We 100% should have a football director and I believe it was the reason why we didn’t get JDT as manager. Ben and the committee know diddly about football.

[HibeeHibernia]

We had a chance to fix that and *****ed it on “projects”

it all harks back to the summer of 2021 for me mate that transfer window was the start of the downfall though I dare say we needed a clear out even before then, it's got rather stale in our changing room.

[Jones28]

No wonder they’ve gone cap in hand to the council to try and persuade them to include their new stadium as part of this beach front redevelopment programme.

[Jones28]

I’m sure I read on here Aberdeens turnover is a lot higher than ours because they have more stuff in house than us.

I can’t remember specifics, but it was something like they have their catering in house so whilst they might make £3m or so off that they may well also spend £2.5m more than us on it. Essentially, I think the argument was that whilst their turnover looks miles above ours, it’s not really any better when you consider their expenditure on things that don’t impact the playing side.

Turnover for vanity, profit for sanity. If there’s no profit, how sensible is the model they’re using?

[MikeyS]

As a club we are set up to bring in the most sales we can. We’ve just sacked a guy who basically revolutionised our income stream. Everything is the Ben K way and he’s never actually ran a football dept in his live. We 100% should have a football director and I believe it was the reason why we didn’t get JDT as manager. Ben and the committee know diddly about football.

You meaning Greg McEwan? Ifso I didn't realise he was binned!

Quite a few familiar faces thr Gordon's have gotten shot off lately.

[PHeffernan]

It should be noted that the £5 million loss does not include the £6 million sales of Ramsay and Ferguson and I presume their £2 million of summer signings either so probably £1 million down over the last 18 months.

However, the real elephant in the room with Aberdeen will continue to be their stadium.
At some point they need to access funding of circa £100 million if they are to build a new one and I can't see it in the current economic climate.
As it stands, no pun intended, they have 1 viable stand and 3 old sheds

[marinello59]

No wonder they’ve gone cap in hand to the council to try and persuade them to include their new stadium as part of this beach front redevelopment programme.

They did the same with the other two out of town stadiums they had planned. Both quietly dropped after years of hoo-ha. They’re a joke of a club.

[Hibees1973]

If you look at average attendances, which I feel is a good barometer between club budgets/size Hearts tend to have an average crowd around 1,000 higher than Hibs and us in turn around 2,000 higher than Aberdeen. So in real terms, there is not much between the three clubs.

You can look at benefactors donations and charitable donations from club supporters, but these tend to only last in the short term. This guy Anderson who has thrown money at Hearts and expecting nothing in return is a rare example. Guys of this ilk tend to look for some kind of return or even seek a higher profile at the club, but this guy so far has not. It's to his credit that he keeps a low profile and doesn't seem to look for any plaudits. He is probably the perfect sugar daddy and has pulled Hearts out of all kinds of financial mess and malpractice in the last few years.

However, Anderson won't be around forever. Which brings me back to my initial point. Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are all clubs of a similar size, always will be.

The only concern I have is around timing which is something we have no control over. Hearts timed their 3rd place last year perfectly. Their place in the Europa League was gained on the back of Rangers success in Europe the previous 2 years, which improved the co-eficient of the country and gave Hearts a place in the Europa League qualifying rounds. After this failure they then parachuted into the Conference League and gained 6 points over some Latvian minnow and the money that came with that.

My point is that you can gain a lot of money by being in the 3rd place in the league, but only if there is an easy qualifying route. Who knows what will happen in the future. But Hibs must always be good enough on and off the part to put themselves in the frame if any Atlantic/European League comes to fruition for clubs of our size. If we do not, as mentioned by an earlier poster, we could find ourselves bracketed amongst the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren & Dundee Utd.

[Paulie Walnuts]

If you look at average attendances, which I feel is a good barometer between club budgets/size Hearts tend to have an average crowd around 1,000 higher than Hibs and us in turn around 2,000 higher than Aberdeen. So in real terms, there is not much between the three clubs.

You can look at benefactors donations and charitable donations from club supporters, but these tend to only last in the short term. This guy Anderson who has thrown money at Hearts and expecting nothing in return is a rare example. Guys of this ilk tend to look for some kind of return or even seek a higher profile at the club, but this guy so far has not. It's to his credit that he keeps a low profile and doesn't seem to look for any plaudits. He is probably the perfect sugar daddy and has pulled Hearts out of all kinds of financial mess and malpractice in the last few years.

However, Anderson won't be around forever. Which brings me back to my initial point. Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are all clubs of a similar size, always will be.

The only concern I have is around timing which is something we have no control over. Hearts timed their 3rd place last year perfectly. Their place in the Europa League was gained on the back of Rangers success in Europe the previous 2 years, which improved the co-eficient of the country and gave Hearts a place in the Europa League qualifying rounds. After this failure they then parachuted into the Conference League and gained 6 points over some Latvian minnow and the money that came with that.

My point is that you can gain a lot of money by being in the 3rd place in the league, but only if there is an easy qualifying route. Who knows what will happen in the future. But Hibs must always be good enough on and off the part to put themselves in the frame if any Atlantic/European League comes to fruition for clubs of our size. If we do not, as mentioned by an earlier poster, we could find ourselves bracketed amongst the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren & Dundee Utd.

:agree:

I fully expect us to get our act together the season we go back to having crap European spots.

[Silky]

Turnover for vanity, profit for sanity. If there’s no profit, how sensible is the model they’re using?

I was thinking that. Is a £5m loss really what we want to copy?

[Jones28]

I was thinking that. Is a £5m loss really what we want to copy?

It’s nice to have people to finance these losses - imo they are losses, they’re a tab picked up by wealthy benefactors. But I’m not going to throw any stones until our finances are released.

[matty_f]

I was thinking that. Is a £5m loss really what we want to copy?

I don’t think anyone’s said we should copy them. It’s not in any way sustainable to run a club like that and history is littered with owners who took that route and left a wreck of a club behind.

[gbhibby]

They still have a stadium to build too, they will have to rein in costs at some point.https://www.afc.co.uk/2022/11/16/beachfront-stadium-plans-update/
Interesting statement

Sent from my SM-A127F using Tapatalk

[PHeffernan]

If you look at average attendances, which I feel is a good barometer between club budgets/size Hearts tend to have an average crowd around 1,000 higher than Hibs and us in turn around 2,000 higher than Aberdeen. So in real terms, there is not much between the three clubs.

You can look at benefactors donations and charitable donations from club supporters, but these tend to only last in the short term. This guy Anderson who has thrown money at Hearts and expecting nothing in return is a rare example. Guys of this ilk tend to look for some kind of return or even seek a higher profile at the club, but this guy so far has not. It's to his credit that he keeps a low profile and doesn't seem to look for any plaudits. He is probably the perfect sugar daddy and has pulled Hearts out of all kinds of financial mess and malpractice in the last few years.

However, Anderson won't be around forever. Which brings me back to my initial point. Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are all clubs of a similar size, always will be.

The only concern I have is around timing which is something we have no control over. Hearts timed their 3rd place last year perfectly. Their place in the Europa League was gained on the back of Rangers success in Europe the previous 2 years, which improved the co-eficient of the country and gave Hearts a place in the Europa League qualifying rounds. After this failure they then parachuted into the Conference League and gained 6 points over some Latvian minnow and the money that came with that.

My point is that you can gain a lot of money by being in the 3rd place in the league, but only if there is an easy qualifying route. Who knows what will happen in the future. But Hibs must always be good enough on and off the part to put themselves in the frame if any Atlantic/European League comes to fruition for clubs of our size. If we do not, as mentioned by an earlier poster, we could find ourselves bracketed amongst the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren & Dundee Utd.

I agree average attendances are a good place to start in assessing Scottish clubs strength.

In recent times Hibs and Hearts crowds have been very similar, however, this season they knocked out 15,500 season tickets to our 11,250 so they have stolen a significant march on us there.
All things considered I see them finishing a comfortable 3rd this season and moving further ahead next season as a result of their financial means. It could be some time before they return. A bit worried we might be left fighting for 4th with Aberdeen. My amusement will be seeing Hearts still failing to split the OF for the aforementioned attendance reason. Wealthier than us but not enough to bridge the big gap.

Not worried about Aberdeen, the lack of a fit for purpose stadium will eventually claw them back whatever they do in the short to medium term.
On attendances Dundee Utd should be the medium term chaser behind Hibs and Aberdeen.

[Silky]

I don’t think anyone’s said we should copy them. It’s not in any way sustainable to run a club like that and history is littered with owners who took that route and left a wreck of a club behind.

It's not sustainable at all. But, to be fair, there were a couple of posts which appeared to indicate that Aberdeen were on to something. "wake up Hibs" I think was a phrase I saw used.

[marinello59]

https://www.afc.co.uk/2022/11/16/beachfront-stadium-plans-update/
Interesting statement

Sent from my SM-A127F using Tapatalk

I smell ***** :greengrin

[Bostonhibby]

I smell ***** :greengrinBumping creditors could be the future [emoji6]

Sent from my SM-A750FN using Tapatalk

[Jones28]

I don’t think anyone’s said we should copy them. It’s not in any way sustainable to run a club like that and history is littered with owners who took that route and left a wreck of a club behind.

Exactly, and silkys point too.

It’s not a sustainable business model.

When Gordon took over he said a lot about making the club self sustaining, and I’d far rather it take a few years and it becomes something that works than chuck it after 3 years and say **** it, here’s £30 million and once it’s gone there’s no more.

[PHeffernan]

Exactly, and silkys point too.

It’s not a sustainable business model.

When Gordon took over he said a lot about making the club self sustaining, and I’d far rather it take a few years and it becomes something that works than chuck it after 3 years and say **** it, here’s £30 million and once it’s gone there’s no more.

The Aberdeen business model is similar to Hibs.
Drive up turnover, bring through your own players and bring in young players of talent, develop them and sell on for profit rinse and repeat.
They brought in £6 million in transfer fees in the summer which more than covers the loss to June.
They have reinvested £2 million in new players. Could get that back on Miovski.

The real big problem for Aberdeen is their relic of a stadium.
No point in upgrading the hospitality as Hibs have done in the West.
Suspect Hibs have plans to similarly transform the hospitality areas in the Famous Five this summer which will further drive up our turnover.

[BH1875]

I don’t think anyone’s said we should copy them. It’s not in any way sustainable to run a club like that and history is littered with owners who took that route and left a wreck of a club behind.

Difference is their big money centre forward they signed is scoring goals. Ours (melkersen) has 2 since he’s been here. If we are to spend money like that on a striker they have to be straight into the first team and scoring. Same with Mcallister we can’t spend big money on potential when the first team is lacking. Poor recruitment decisions is the heart of our problems

[IberianHibernian]

Difference is their big money centre forward they signed is scoring goals. Ours (melkersen) has 2 since he’s been here. If we are to spend money like that on a striker they have to be straight into the first team and scoring. Same with Mcallister we can’t spend big money on potential when the first team is lacking. Poor recruitment decisions is the heart of our problemsSurely a bit soon ( by at least a year ) to say these have been bad signings ? At least one of these two might turn out to be very good signings in terms of helping team and sell on value . We have also signed a striker who is scoring . Fees reported to have been paid for these two may seem a lot for such young players but what quality of player with a few more years`experience would we get for the same price ?

[BH1875]

Surely a bit soon ( by at least a year ) to say these have been bad signings ? At least one of these two might turn out to be very good signings in terms of helping team and sell on value . We have also signed a striker who is scoring . Fees reported to have been paid for these two may seem a lot for such young players but what quality of player with a few more years`experience would we get for the same price ?

Surely spending that kind of money would’ve been better spent on proven players? And the striker you’re talking about is here on loan with no option to buy (as far as I’m aware) I get buying younger players to delevop and sell on but not when we really need players to come straight into the first team and perform now. For the money we have spent we should be a much better team than what we are showing?