Matthew Benham
Whos money is that? It isnt that nasty benham man isit whos trousering all this cash for his huge profit hes making from brentford isit?
Matthew Benham
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Whos money is that? It isnt that nasty benham man isit whos trousering all this cash for his huge profit hes making from brentford isit?
davidccpigeons
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Matthew Benham
Yes, that's right. FFP takes into account new equity and losses (presumably covered by loans/overdrafts). In Millwall's case they got away with it as they received no benefit from breaking the rules and were relegated. But they are presumably not in as good a good financial state as they would have been if they had stuck to the rules. It is also the FFP plus a life insurance on the owner that would allow things to be run back down to pre-Benham levels in the event of a disaster. Meanwhile, there will be no shortage of twitter from people saying how to spend someone else's money, and blaming all and sundry when things go wrong. As far as I know the only person on the GPG (or on the current BFC board, come to that) who has actually put up money to buy a player is abee. Remind us who you paid for abee!
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
Incorrect David. TITS and ergo those who purchased the fanzine funded Moses Ademola
davidccpigeons
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Matthew Benham
Incorrect David. TITS and ergo those who purchased the fanzine funded Moses Ademola
Almost as good as abee's purchase.
walsall bee
religion.= football.church= griffin park
Matthew Benham
Andy Sinton, Gary Blissett, Andy McCulloch, Dean Holdsworth and Stan Bowles.
walsall bee
religion.= football.church= griffin park
Matthew Benham
abee et al
My recollection from the various conversations last January was that MB was indeed aware of the FFP issues that could have engulfed us if we had not achieved promotion. The view then was that, yes, we could have had a transfer embargo in the 2015/6 season. However we would have assembled a squad capable of promotion before that embargo would have taken affect (which would have been at the start of this transfer window). The view back in January 2015 was make hay when the sun is shining financially wise and i) get promoted or ii) miss out on promotion but have a highly-rated squad that had already gelled and settled etc that could make a promotion challenge this season.
How things have worked out justifies that the above strategy was worth pursuing IMHO. Instead we had a squad that was still being assembled well into the season, a error in a new head coach appointment, new DOFs etc.
That time is still the worst of times. We have to move on but the decision to think shorter-term & match-to-match rather than strategic, longer-term thinking has ballsed-up this season for sure.
One final point, I'm not sure if we knew at the time that the FFP rules were changing. I don't even know what they are anymore, but aren't they averaged over 3 seasons now too? Which would mean that they don't mean a lot until the third season by which time the world will have changed again.
My recollection from the various conversations last January was that MB was indeed aware of the FFP issues that could have engulfed us if we had not achieved promotion. The view then was that, yes, we could have had a transfer embargo in the 2015/6 season. However we would have assembled a squad capable of promotion before that embargo would have taken affect (which would have been at the start of this transfer window). The view back in January 2015 was make hay when the sun is shining financially wise and i) get promoted or ii) miss out on promotion but have a highly-rated squad that had already gelled and settled etc that could make a promotion challenge this season.
How things have worked out justifies that the above strategy was worth pursuing IMHO. Instead we had a squad that was still being assembled well into the season, a error in a new head coach appointment, new DOFs etc.
That time is still the worst of times. We have to move on but the decision to think shorter-term & match-to-match rather than strategic, longer-term thinking has ballsed-up this season for sure.
One final point, I'm not sure if we knew at the time that the FFP rules were changing. I don't even know what they are anymore, but aren't they averaged over 3 seasons now too? Which would mean that they don't mean a lot until the third season by which time the world will have changed again.
davidccpigeons
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Matthew Benham
Incorrect David. TITS and ergo those who purchased the fanzine funded Moses Ademola
Some GPG voting helped ensure we got that coca-cola player. And don't forget Les Beeavinu's efforts to sign Shipperly either!
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Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
Sssshhhhhhhh..........
I must say though as ingenious as it was, I still can't believe how we managed to rig a national competition and get £50k.
I must say though as ingenious as it was, I still can't believe how we managed to rig a national competition and get £50k.
davidccpigeons
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Matthew Benham
Erm......the flaw in that argument of course is that the 'highly rated squad that had already gelled' would have been picked off by those clubs in the Championship that pay higher wages than we can afford and if we tried to stop them leaving then there would be dressing room disharmony........(see NLB and others passim).
As I see it that business plan never stood up to scutiny as it will necessitate us re-building every summer because the one thing that we are all agreed on is that we are not in a position to pay top Championship wages. Thus our top players will always be agitating to be off to greener pastures and not hanging around waiting for us to be promoted.
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Matthew Benham
That may or may not be true. We don't know. However the Jan 2015 signings would have been on new contracts probably at 'Championship' wages rather than 'League One' wages. At that time it was certainly the plan to "go for it" but there were roadblocks from individuals as we all know. Since then circumstances may have changed. My fear is that was the one time the planets aligned and they may not align again for some time.
So yes, I see that as long as we are successful in the Championship without getting promoted then we will lose players in the summer and have to replace them with players that we have identified at a 'value' price. However that is far better than the alternative which is knocking around in a half-empty GP and travels to the same set of League One grounds year after year.
Matthew Benham
1) So the new signings would have been on Championship wages with the 'old guard' on their presumably lower salaried contracts. Doesn't sound like a recipe for dressing room harmony to me but then what do I know.
2) So we are agreed that the 'new, new policy' will likely involve rebuilding each summer and bedding new arrivals in whilst our best players are off for higher wages elsewhere. Sooner or later you run out of players to sell........for example who do we have left who is an in demand readily realisable asset apart from Judge?.........and which by definition means that your squad is being constantly weakened.
I'll stop now because I will be seen as being critical of Matthew Benham which of course I am not.......I do however have concerns over the 'strategy' which I assume has been recommended to him and which has been accepted.
Matthew Benham
1) I don't know the ins and outs of the detailed remuneration. But I suspect we both know that keeping everyone happy in a dressing room is a very difficult job. There will always be some on more money than others. I have little doubt that Jota and other recent signings are on more than the 'old guard' and maybe that is the reason for some of the old guard leaving. Of course you may wonder how they came to discover disparities in their wages, but as Dean Smith says they were all happy to sign for Brentford on those wages.
2) I don't follow you on this. I suspect we will continue to see a high-turnover of players as we have done for many seasons now. I don't think this is a 'new new policy' as you state. Even if we get promoted we will continue to be a selling club, as are Southampton.
davidccpigeons
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Matthew Benham
It's not exactly a new strategy is it? Or any strategy, really. It's the same old business of selling the best players. Only difference is we now get more money for them. And others just want to move on. Needs another type of strategy to meet the ambitions.
NorthamptonBee
Yes Boss
Matthew Benham
Or that being in the Championship for a while means that we will be more competitive on salary budgets in the future.
JCMcBee
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Matthew Benham
.......we all had to learn how to play with big boys when growing up......sometimes it was painful and we got hurt....but the secret was not letting them know it hurt....it took a wee while to achieve......but we got to play with big boys in the end......no surrender MB and BFC....we'll be playing with the big boys at Lionel Rd.
Matthew Benham
Also Dallas and Tourns could hardly be called our best players. We are doing well. Make no mistake. However the hangover of last year seems to affect supporters, players, blog sites, fanzines and many others....
Matthew Benham
First time poster and this seemed a good place to start...
It's funny because I think I was one of the original fair weather fans. Started going as a teenager- play-offs then promotion under Holder then up till January us storming it in the Champ until end of December. Even when we went down I assumed we'd go straight back up. But I struggled through it and all these years later here we are.
I'm genuinely amazed that there's even a debate on this. Us and at least 80 other clubs in the League structure are selling clubs when it comes down to it. There's always someone bigger who can offer more and for longer. The difference now is that we're doing it on a larger scale, finding better players and most importantly improving them- then selling them when the right offer comes along if necessary and in a way that can be reinvested. I assumed that was how we attracted players like Forshaw, Forrester, Bidwell etc when we did. Come and play 1st team football and get noticed by Premiership clubs as well.
And now the gap in income is so huge that some Championship clubs can blow us out of the water because none of them have learned the f***ing lessons from Leeds, Sheff Wed, Bradford etc mortgaging their entire futures on going and staying up. Can or should we try to compete with that? No- look at QPR. Fernandes has spunked a quarter of a billion in four years to turn them from a Premiership side to a mid table Champ one. We are so f***ing fortunate to have an owner with a proper strategy I cannot tell you. I have no ITK regarding Brentford but there are plenty of others to go around...Are we going to pay players 20 or 30k a week? No. And if they can get it elsewhere of course they are going to want to. All we can do is continue to get their value or over it if possible when the crunch comes.
That does not make me a MB apologist or think that every signing has been a complete success. But to personally abuse the bloke on social media or on that stupid Facebook page? It's just not right. I don't tweet when one of them makes a minor mistake at work. 'Jay just dropped my Big Mac and fries. What a c***. I hope him and his family f***ing die' . Grow the F*** up.
It's funny because I think I was one of the original fair weather fans. Started going as a teenager- play-offs then promotion under Holder then up till January us storming it in the Champ until end of December. Even when we went down I assumed we'd go straight back up. But I struggled through it and all these years later here we are.
I'm genuinely amazed that there's even a debate on this. Us and at least 80 other clubs in the League structure are selling clubs when it comes down to it. There's always someone bigger who can offer more and for longer. The difference now is that we're doing it on a larger scale, finding better players and most importantly improving them- then selling them when the right offer comes along if necessary and in a way that can be reinvested. I assumed that was how we attracted players like Forshaw, Forrester, Bidwell etc when we did. Come and play 1st team football and get noticed by Premiership clubs as well.
And now the gap in income is so huge that some Championship clubs can blow us out of the water because none of them have learned the f***ing lessons from Leeds, Sheff Wed, Bradford etc mortgaging their entire futures on going and staying up. Can or should we try to compete with that? No- look at QPR. Fernandes has spunked a quarter of a billion in four years to turn them from a Premiership side to a mid table Champ one. We are so f***ing fortunate to have an owner with a proper strategy I cannot tell you. I have no ITK regarding Brentford but there are plenty of others to go around...Are we going to pay players 20 or 30k a week? No. And if they can get it elsewhere of course they are going to want to. All we can do is continue to get their value or over it if possible when the crunch comes.
That does not make me a MB apologist or think that every signing has been a complete success. But to personally abuse the bloke on social media or on that stupid Facebook page? It's just not right. I don't tweet when one of them makes a minor mistake at work. 'Jay just dropped my Big Mac and fries. What a c***. I hope him and his family f***ing die' . Grow the F*** up.
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Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
You can post again.
Aw thanks- it took me long enough to get here. I'd like to stick around for a bit. Although I can't find any smiley faces to use. Or fishing rods. Do I need special poster privileges? Or I am going to risk my cynical and sarcastic posts being taken at face value...
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Les Beeavinu
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jlove
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Matthew Benham
It sounds different if you say "receiving substantial offers for some of our best players". Having attractive players is the result of a strategy, it's not a strategy in itself. There's probably only 3 or 4 clubs in the UK that are immune from player offers and we're never going to be one of them. We need to build the revenue, so that we can build the player budget, so that we can pay sufficient to retain a greater percentage of the players we want to keep... but we'll always be a selling club, just like the majority. It does mean, though, that players we actually want to move on are still attractive to someone.
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
Are you posting via a mobile ? If so, the GPG mobile version doesn't show the smilies and relies on you remembering the codes. For example : and blush together = :blush You can switch to desktop version to see all the available smilies. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on GPG Default style.
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
What would you see as the alternative to that business plan though ? I don't think there is one is there ? Certainly not until LR allows us to drastically increase our revenue.
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Les Beeavinu
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Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
Well, perhaps that was too optimistic a word but assuming we were able to fill the stadium every week and that LR proved a popular venue for corporate functions, I think the increase could be quite sizeable. It certainly was in Brighton's case I believe. I'm not sure how or indeed if we might benefit from the arrangement with the hotel or any potential sharing arrangement with a rugby club either.
King Bee
Former BU board member, working in pharma land
Doovster
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Matthew Benham
I read an interesting article about the new Premier League TV deal and the ability this gives clubs outside of the so called big 4/5 clubs to hold on to their best players.
They spoke to Martinez at Everton and he said that the reason they didn't sell Stones to Chelsea was because they didn't have to as a result of the significantly increased TV rights.
Of course there will always be an elite and we will never be in it but it was encouraging that the Premier League looks more competitive as a result. That said anyone not on the gravy train still has to sell and we are certainly in that boat right now.
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Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
I guess the only problem with Lionel Road is that the area is flooded with corporate venues. You can well imagine companies treating their staff to a day out at the Amex but I don't think Lionel Road would have the same appeal.
Should have moved to Woking .......
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
If I recall also. FFP and the consequences of the changes being pushed for in some quarters was the subject of more tha one discussion at BU Board Meetings. You may better remember though.
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
I guess the only problem with Lionel Road is that the area is flooded with corporate venues. You can well imagine companies treating their staff to a day out at the Amex but I don't think Lionel Road would have the same appeal.
Should have moved to Woking .......
I work in Woking, we most certainly dodged a bullet there lol
My hope would be that there is so much demand around the local area that it will still be able to sustain another corporate venue.
jlove
Well-known member
Matthew Benham
It's true that more Premier League money should mean that more clubs will be able to resist more offers for their players but it will still be restricted to a minority of the PL clubs. All those 'second tier' clubs will still have a compensation structure which will be able to be exceeded by the really immune clubs, both PL clubs and the bigger continental clubs, even Asian clubs in the future.
It's a bit of a dream for us, I think; we'll always be a selling club, all we can hope for is to increase gradually our ability to keep hold of more over time. Meanwhile, a lot of effort needs to go into scouting - including technical scouting - and development.
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Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
jlove
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Matthew Benham
It's what Everton called the use of statistics to identify targets when they started using them! I wish people would consider how it is that Everton seem to sign players from all over every summer that no-one in the English game has heard of.Technical scouting. I like that phrase, we should use it more often.
Matthew Benham
I was commenting that according to posters (NLB and Banana) on this thread who were and are close to the movers and shakers at BFC the business plan for the January 2015 transfer window sanctioned by the BFC board and clearly endorsed at the time by Bees United was to effectively bust the budget by signing additional players to be contracted on 'proper Championship wages' (Banana) and in the gamble that we do a Bournemouth and get promoted to the Premier having driven a coach and horses through FFP.
In the event we didn't sign the players that the BFC board wished to because of the MW veto and we were not promoted. This left us in the Championship with a FFP deficit of around £9m and we had until end of August 2015 to raise this sum by player sales to avoid a transfer embargo and fine. I gently pointed out that had we bought the players on the BFC board's list and we still weren't promoted then we would have had to sell players valued at £9m PLUS the additional January spend.
The above is based upon the posts from North London Bee and Banana. I make no comment on the strategy and it could well have been a worth while gamble..........we'll never know.
Both NLB and Banana if I read their posts correctly suggest that until we are playing at Lionel Road we can expect to be marking time as a mid table Championship side and I'm sure most of us are more than happy to settle for that. I thought this was a sea change from the ebullient statements that we have had from senior figures at BFC; NLB refers to these possibly unwise statements in his assessment of where we go from here.
Hamburger Hill
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Matthew Benham
You won't last 5 minutes on here posting such well thought out and reasonable stuff...
Hamburger Hill
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hairman
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hairman
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Matthew Benham
If it's what I think it is we'd have been better off winning second prize. Coca Cola my arse.
Billy Hunt
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The Pipe
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Matthew Benham
Welcome glad you have decided to join us keyboard warriors, if your first post is an indication of what we can expect then I, for one, will be looking forward to reading them ?
Owlsmoor_Bee
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Matthew Benham
I don't see it as a sea change and as far as I'm aware, the intention and goals are still very much to complete at the top end of the table. Last season set the bar phenomenally high, both in terms of league position and also the success of our player acquisitions which has facilitated the huge profits we've made. I think it would be fair to say though that there is a realisation that such success is very difficult to replicate year on year and there may be seasons where recruitment isn't as successful.
In terms of the discussions regarding last January's transfer dealings, I think it would also be fair to say that there was an awareness of potential forthcoming relaxing of FFP Regulations which had been in the offing for several months and the knowledge (I assume based on previous or ongoing contact) that there was a better than average chance of some additional revenue being generated through player sales prior to the end of August in the event we weren't promoted so I'd suggest it was more an educated gamble than simply going for broke. All irrelevant now as in the event, there were no further incomings for reasons previously well documented.
BURFORD BEE
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Matthew Benham
I certainly hope that there will be many more posts if this is a typical example
Doovster
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Matthew Benham
Sonofabee is gonna be lurking with those rainbow laces soon if this love in with I'llbeeback continues
Matthew Benham
To be honest that one was way above my normal standard. Just wait until we go a goal down. I'll be calling for changes to the strikers, management, back room staff, and club strategy.
The Pipe
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Matthew Benham
To be honest that one was way above my normal standard. Just wait until we go a goal down. I'll be calling for changes to the strikers, management, back room staff, and club strategy.
Oh that's ok then, we can all go back to bullying you if you do !!!!!!