As many of us will recollect, back in League 2 days, BFC were on a different planet financially, to that Matthew has orchestrated nowadays. A post from a board member on the Wealdstone FC fans forum below (their equivalent of our GPG), about why players are moving on, the difficulties in attracting new players at that level, preparing for the forthcoming season in the National League, trying to get a squad together to compete, is really frank and sobering….
“All of us - including the board - wish we had the resources to fund a National League average wage bill. But the point of handing over control was to ensure the club survived. We are losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year and someone has to underwrite those losses because the club can’t.
Even with cup prize money, gate revenue and Wembley gate revenue we will still announce a loss of £250k for last season, paid for out of club reserves (those reserves include Nick’s investment).
I’ve seen the forecast losses for the season ahead and they are terrifying.
We don’t attract the attendances to drive the revenue needed to fund a wage bill at this level. We have limited facilities to drive commercial revenue - our boardroom holds 40 people which includes away officials so limited space to sell hospitality. We have a circa £1m bill to fund the planning process for the new stadium. We’re operating in a full time league which requires a CEO to lead the club day to day (Nick lives in the US and the board have full time jobs, we can’t do it) staff on the payroll including commercial staff required to help us develop new revenue streams, media, catering, ground staff etc.
We’ve got increased rent to pay, increased bills and operational costs, increased costs to run the team in this league including training, catering, overnight stays, medical etc. It goes on and on.
Nick took over with a clear statement that he wanted to make the club sustainable, generating the revenues needed to fund a team who could push for the EFL as we head into a new stadium, not a promise to use his investment to give non league players stupid money they don’t deserve. The wage bill for this season is the highest it’s ever been but players are demanding stupid money and we have to box clever.
There’s not a single player that has left the club and who demanded more money, that is worth what they were asking Wealdstone to pay them. If other clubs want to do it then that’s their prerogative but we have a budget to work to as we’ve always done and that will ultimately determine the decisions we make”.
