St Johnstone can't sustain their wage bill!!!

[theonlywayisup]

You can see why they gave the Old Firm three stands. Makes it better when you score a late equaliser.

[jgl07]

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Clubs like St Johnstone, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Hamilton, Aidrie etc used to pull in far bigger crowds in the 80’s and early ‘90’s. Ironically, our crowds would regularly drop to 5 or 6k in those days.

Hibs crowds sometimes dropped to 4,000 or less in the early 1990s. Usually against St Johnstone.

On April 6 1993, the crowd against St Johnstone was 3,526.

The following season on November 30, there were 4,998 at Easter Road for the same team.

The daft thing was that Hibs away matches at McDiarmid Park usually attracted better crowds than those at Easter Road. On August 29, 1992 there were 6,017. There were 4,206 on January 23 1993 and 5,008 on September 18 1993.

So while Hibs, Hearts, and Aberdeen fans (not to mention Rangers and Celtic) have increased crowds considerably since the early 1990s, the likes of St Johnstone (along with Kilmarnock, Falkirk, etc) have gone down the pan.

[RIP Bestie]

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Correct.
Basically things would be healthier in the top league if 3 of Dundee Utd, Dundee, Dunfermline and Falkirk can replace Hamilton, Livingston and St Johnstone.
Less than 5000 fans on average per game brings insufficient income in a league where our clubs are massively dependent on fans money.

Unfortunately you can't just hand pick the teams that are going to form the top league. Surely doing so would take away every element of sporting.integrity.
I agree bigger crowds and better supported clubs may increase the amount of money spent on players but that doesnt always guarantee an increase in quality. I think the likes of Livingston and Hamilton should be commended for the way they are now being run and still maintaining their top flight status. Thats healthy.
If we are not careful we could be accused of a snobbery that we associate with the old firm who regularly spout off about how its all the other clubs that are holding them back

[Geo_1875]

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Cheats

Not really. They're spending their own money.

[FilipinoHibs]

Attendances falling away. In 1989 when the stadium opened the average was just over 4,600 and sold out for the visit of Rangers (over 10,600).

[Phil MaGlass]

As long as they dinnae go bankrupt before hertz go doon, that"ll dae me

[Caversham Green]

At 31 May 2019 St Johnstone had £2.1m useable reserves and a similar amount of cash in the bank. They made a loss of £175,400 for the year to that date. That's not unhealthy for a club of their size and they can afford to sustain a fairly large loss in the current year but couldn't let that continue into next year. Those reserves are profits they've made but not used in the past so they're anything but cheats.

By comparison, on 30 June 2019 Hearts had negative reserves of just over £17m and £591,000 in the bank (that's after an extra month of collecting season ticket money compared with St Johnstone). They would have made a loss of around £300,000 but for donations of £3.25m. If anyone can be called cheats......

[MB62]

How Livi can still exist on the gates they get are astonishing to me. About 2 weeks ago they had 1263 for a midweek game against St. Mirren, then a few days later they sign Efe Ambrose! How on earth can they afford to do that on those kind of attendances?

[Ozyhibby]

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I didn’t say it was wrong, you take into account the amount of glory hunting bigots too.

That’s the same in every country in the world. People leave small town all over the north of England to go watch Man Utd every week.


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[Ozyhibby]

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Do we have any idea what constitutes a “cheat” in Scottish football these days?

There is no FFP in Scottish football. We prefer to wait until a club goes bust and then hit them with a points penalty.
It’s a bit like not having speed limits but waiting till someone dies before punishing the speeding driver.


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[Peevemor]

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That’s the same in every country in the world. People leave small town all over the north of England to go watch Man Utd every week.


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It's definitely worse in Scotland than France.
Out of the people I know here who follow football, the vast majority support Rennes, a few support Guingamp, a couple support Nantes and I know one each of PSG, Marseile & Lyon.

Guingamp's ST holders outnumber the town's population.

[The Baldmans Comb]

Absolutely crazy I know but they could maybe pay their players less and budget better.

Not the current lot who are contracted but in the summer when their will be a turnover of 7/8 players then you replace the £1.5K a week lads with £1K a week lads.

It really is so simple as wages and salaries is the biggest expense any club has.

18 months from now and you eradicate your deficit.

Brown of course knows this very well but made a gamble on the TV money by finishing Top 6 and a cup run but their awful start put paid to that.

[Kato]

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How Livi can still exist on the gates they get are astonishing to me. About 2 weeks ago they had 1263 for a midweek game against St. Mirren, then a few days later they sign Efe Ambrose! How on earth can they afford to do that on those kind of attendances?

In the past they were able to do that as the club was used to launder cash. Dunno about these days.

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[The Baldmans Comb]

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How Livi can still exist on the gates they get are astonishing to me. About 2 weeks ago they had 1263 for a midweek game against St. Mirren, then a few days later they sign Efe Ambrose! How on earth can they afford to do that on those kind of attendances?

They would have signed Efe on the basis of TV money as at the start of season would have budgeted for being in the bottom 6 somewhere around 8th to 10th.

Finishing 5th or 6th will mean an extra £500,000 TV money based on a placement they didn't expect hence a luxury marquee signing like Efe.

[SquashedFrogg]

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How Livi can still exist on the gates they get are astonishing to me. About 2 weeks ago they had 1263 for a midweek game against St. Mirren, then a few days later they sign Efe Ambrose! How on earth can they afford to do that on those kind of attendances?

Maybe their assistant has a wad of cash stashed away?

[lord bunberry]

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They would have signed Efe on the basis of TV money as at the start of season would have budgeted for being in the bottom 6 somewhere around 8th to 10th.

Finishing 5th or 6th will mean an extra £500,000 TV money based on a placement they didn't expect hence a luxury marquee signing like Efe.

They’ve also been giving away teams 3 sides of their stadium for years, geographically they’re in a far better position than a team like St Johnstone for away fans. Both hibs and hearts will take 2 or 3 times the support to Livingston than Perth.