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Sad days - Macclesfeld Town

Perhaps coming for a while but today marks the end of Macclesfield Town- wound up in court.

I fear may be the first of a few unless things change rapidly.

A sad day for their supporters though.

Comments

  • It's okay though, they're not in the EFL anymore so it's none of the EFL's business and absolutely definitely no blame should be apportioned to them.

  • Sad indeed, we've had some good games with them over the years.

  • 146 years of history gone for non-owner debts of a few hundred grand.

    Meanwhile premier league transfer spending this summer of over £400m.

    Think what opportunities to save some of these clubs could have been opened up by an emergency 5% transfer levy.

  • @DevC said:

    Think what opportunities to save some of these clubs could have been opened up by an emergency 5% transfer levy.

    I reckon a 1% levy on all transfers above £100K should be introduced. Use it to create a hardship fund for clubs that run into trouble - however to be only given to them once supporters groups make a majority shareholding in the club.
    Supporting fan groups / grassroots training / pitches etc would be another superb use of such as fund.

    I said at the start of lockdown when it came down to it Premier league clubs would still end up spending their obscene amounts of money whilst many struggled. I do hate it when I'm proved correct.

  • I laugh at the press reporting the peril Premier League clubs will be in if fans don't return soon. What a joke.

    This fund idea is great but doesn't it just give bad owners one more safety net?

  • Two in two years now. This really is a sad day.

  • @Right_in_the_Middle yes it does, but I think @Guppys_Left_Leg idea that it only is available after majority ownership is based to a fan trust has considerable merit, particularly further down the football pyramid; if this was coupled with FA/EFL/PL rule changes to prevent sale and leaseback of community football assets (stadia, training grounds, car parks etc) then we might see some light at the end of the tunnel and a move towards real sustainability in football

  • Southend back in court, told to cough up half a million in the next two weeks or something.

  • Whilst the Premier League monster exists and the lure of promotion to it exists football will never be sustainable.

    It's scary to think we could be spending a mad owners vast fortune on a big push for the 'promised land' at the moment. We're not but others are.

    This peril narrative from the Premier League is to deflect from them flowing any money down the pyramid. The money that Gareth Bales agent will pocket in the next few weeks could save half a dozen clubs

  • Whilst I understand how one might owe HMRC just shy of £200k and a financial services co £173k how on earth does a L2/NL club end up owing their ex manager in excess of £170k?

  • @Erroll_Sims said:
    Whilst I understand how one might owe HMRC just shy of £200k and a financial services co £173k how on earth does a L2/NL club end up owing their ex manager in excess of £170k?

    two words - Sol & Campbell

    Chased a 'big' name and agreed to whatever silly terms he asked for

  • @Right_in_the_Middle said:
    I laugh at the press reporting the peril Premier League clubs will be in if fans don't return soon. What a joke.

    This fund idea is great but doesn't it just give bad owners one more safety net?

    @Right_in_the_Middle the top end of the Championship should be included as these clubs are run on budgets that are approaching Premier League levels
    Hence my suggestion of all transfers above £100k.
    This would then effect ALL clubs spending money on players.

    Ball outs must only be given once fan have the majority shareholding - this might hopefully help some of the clubs out there that have been so mis-run but iffy owners

  • The £170k appears to e due to John Askey, manager when they got promoted out of the conference who resigned that summer. Unpaid promotion bonus?

    Incidentally Gareth Bale could forego his wages for one week and clear the debt that killed Macclesfield.

    funny old world.

  • @Guppys_Left_Leg said:

    @Erroll_Sims said:
    Whilst I understand how one might owe HMRC just shy of £200k and a financial services co £173k how on earth does a L2/NL club end up owing their ex manager in excess of £170k?

    two words - Sol & Campbell

    Chased a 'big' name and agreed to whatever silly terms he asked for

    I thought I read somewhere that Sol (not unlike GA) was buying stuff and bankrolling some things when he was there which, though he could probably well afford it, is still somewhat of a pain in the arse when you are trying to manage a team to survival.

  • @Guppys_Left_Leg said:

    @Right_in_the_Middle said:
    I laugh at the press reporting the peril Premier League clubs will be in if fans don't return soon. What a joke.

    This fund idea is great but doesn't it just give bad owners one more safety net?

    @Right_in_the_Middle the top end of the Championship should be included as these clubs are run on budgets that are approaching Premier League levels
    Hence my suggestion of all transfers above £100k.
    This would then effect ALL clubs spending money on players.

    Ball outs must only be given once fan have the majority shareholding - this might hopefully help some of the clubs out there that have been so mis-run but iffy owners

    But surely the next monied owner is a better short term option for a club in severe debt than a fan buyout? Are you donating them money from the fund or is it a loan?

    My gut feeling is that some clubs deserve to go bust due to mismanagement. The supporters don't deserve this so in that way them buying the club and usibg a fund makes sense.

    My head just doesn't get it though. It seems to reward mismanagement and create an uneven playing field. The club that pays HMRC and isn't paying off a stream of ex managers doesn't get access to the cash.

    Maybe saying a club can spend the points they gain to get a bail out? £50k per point say?

  • Saw someone this morning say that if Macclesfield were given 500K they'd immediately spend 900K on players.

    Football will never be sustainable when the rewards so vastly outweigh the risks.

  • Its a tricky situation. At some point, unless clubs fail, they will continue to be run in an increasingly bad way and seemingly just 'get away with it'. Obviously the ones that eventually lose out are the fans. Talk of a support fund etc for clubs would just lead to more of the same from owners, without actually fixing the root cause. There needs to be a proper investigation into ownership of clubs at all levels, however as there is so much money involved it simply wont happen. At some point there will be an implosion, as football currently isn't a sustainable model, and when it happens tens of clubs will go - maybe that will be the catalyst for the needed change, but it wont happen for a few years I imagine (and that in itself will probably lead to a breakaway of the rich clubs). There is no solution that everyone/anyone will agree to, and I assume no real appetite from other owners to change the model as it stands.

  • Wycombe have had two ludicrous one game scenarios in recent years that both could have had massive implications for the future of the club.

    Had Torquay away gone the other way or Bristol Rovers had scored we could have been in the same position as Macclesfield.

    This year we took the lockdown finish and bounded through the play offs to secure millions in extra TV money. Again this could secure the clubs future for a while.

    Both are one game results and surely the financial difference is just too big. Relegation shouldn't kill a club and the huge rewards for promotion encourage overspending.

    It's obscene, stupid and doomed to failure in time.

  • But no one is making tv companies give the Premier League hundreds of millions of pounds to televise their games. Just as no one is making owners mortgage the next five years on promotion this year.

  • The whole business model needs an overhaul, for most clubs and owners there is not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but there is a potential to make modest profits year on year (a bit like most other businesses). This is why the Couhigs keep banging on about cost benefit analysis and sustainability - the basic tenets of a sound business model. Despite the odious PR from the PL no club has an inherent right to be at the top of the pyramid or to make oodles of money.

  • Really sorry to hear. One of my favourite away trips from our first visit (missed the last train home chatting in the pub and was looked after out by some sympathetic local fans).

    Picking up on @Right_in_the_Middle’s post if we hadn’t gone up, without fans for probably/possibly half the season at least I think we’d be vulnerable.

    You’ve really got to feel for those big clubs like Sunderland and Peterborough who presumably have big wages but not the income from their big crowds and will have to rely on the big pockets of their big ego owners. Haven’t you?

  • Another question is would the average fan be happy with a well run club that survives but can never afford to get out of League Two/League One?

  • What would we be after if either Government pressure (some hopes) or League / Prem funding were enough to influence a bit of a shake up?

    -Supporter owned percentage / influence guarunteed?
    -Points deductions or bans for less final infringements?
    -Some kind of obligation for ownership to step aside in certain circumstances?
    -Central Administration assistance?

    All suggestions will have downsides but some kind of reset is needed.

  • I always remember when Macclesfield were turned down for promotion as their ground was not League standard, even though Chester, who were in the old third division, had been playing there for nearly 2 years.

  • Have a read of this loon, bit at the end about not wanting to stay in L2 might bite back as they'd do well not to be fighting relegation in May

    https://www.echo-news.co.uk/sport/18726064.statement-blues-chairman-ron-martin/

  • Sad though Macclesfield's demise is, I have never forgiven their fans for giving monkey chants to John Granville and Andy Kerr when we played there, either 89-90 or the following season.

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