English Championship feeling the pinch

[Billy Whizz]

I've not seen this posted anywhere but these are incredible losses for a Championship side for a side like Bristol city


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15935151.stm

[WindyMiller]

Horrendous losses, but still going ahead with a £92m stadium!

[James70]

A drop in the ocean compared to our neighbours, the big team.

If Carlsberg did deficits.........

[Billy Whizz]

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Horrendous losses, but still going ahead with a £92m stadium!

No wonder players have left Scotland for this league if clubs are running up this sort of debt.
Maybe not as many players heading South if this is the general situation in this division

[WindyMiller]

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No wonder players have left Scotland for this league if clubs are running up this sort of debt.
Maybe not as many players heading South if this is the general situation in this division

Far too many mediocre players plying their trade in England and drawing the kind of wages they'd never get in their home countries.

[Posh Swanny]

All the more remarkable that the Posh are riding 11 places higher in the league than anyone thought we might! We were bankrolled somewhat through the lower leagues, but didn't go mad once in the money zone of the Championship. Average gates of just over 9,000 and managing to support a (currently) mid-table side with relatively small recent annual losses of around £1-2 million being financed by the owner*! We should be in the black this year (and next if we stay up) with the £3.5m we got for Mackail-Smith in the summer and even more so if any of the big boys stump up for Ryan Bennett in January as it looks like they might.

The relative on-pitch and financial success is all down to a policy of signing decent lower league players and turning them into Championship and potential Premier League players. Arguably our best players of the last few years - Craig Mackail-Smith, Aaron McLean, Geroge Boyd and Lee Tomlin were all signed from the conference or below. Ryan Bennett won his first England U21 cap recently and was signed from Grimsby Town two years ago. This season's revelation is Paul Taylor - a Scouse lad who played for Leigh RMI and Chester a few years back. He was banned for six months after testing positive for cocaine and somehow ended up playing for Anderlecht reserves. Ferguson brought him back over to England at the start of 2011 and the guy's natural ability is phenomenal. He'll be anything he wants to be with a season or two of regular football under his belt.

Quite amazing that tightening up our defence would see us challenging for the playoffs.

* we owe it all to ourselves.

[pentlando]

The Championship is IMO a very dangerous league financially. Every team at the start of the season harbours aspirations of making it into the big time. Probably 50-75% of the teams in that league will overspend with that aim, but only 3 teams in the end will realise the dream. If a club overspends for 3-4 seasons in a row without any luck, it goes pear shaped very quickly. Unlike in the SPL, as our beloved neighbours found out, throwing money at a team won't get you anywhere. In the Championship there's a real chance that one good season could see you into the Premiership, so the temptation to spend a bit more is far higher.