Buying a LOI club?

rightyabe · 03-03-2015 4:14pm

atilladehun wrote: »

I think I'd go a different route than buy a club. I think the model of trying to sugar daddy a club to success has be tried , here and abroad, and is eventually likely to fail and cause a fair bit of heartache. It's your lotto dream though , go for it.

I'd rather a clairefontaine style national academy For players and coaches. Get a boarding school set up for the top 50 players a year. Send coaches off to study in all the top academies in Europe and USA. Get the teams to play against them too. Properly prepare the players for the real world too, as professional careers would still be a low %.

The LOI come into it with an adapted us draft system. Players get released to the club's for a small loan age 16, longer age 17 and partial owner ship age 18. Different club's each year. The academy would fully own the 16&17 year old and the 18 would be academy owner with loan compensation built into contract if sold. After 18 the scary would get development fees.

This would improve the LOI as well as national teams. #lottothoughts

Brilliant idea.

The drafting system would be great. In aussie rules the team that finishes bottom of the league gets 1st draft pick or can trade the pick for a player they want or were offered.

But I'd still rather own my own club and do things my own way for my club. I prefare instant results rather than waiting a few years hoping a few players will develop into anything..I'd rather throw a few million at a club and hope we get into the champions league..lol

But yeah a strong youth development is the only solution for future success imo.

dreamers75 · 03-03-2015 5:14pm

So a bit like the Glenn Hoddle thing in Spain? That presents its own issue in that the kids at it came from clubs who want to be paid.

Zebra3 · 03-03-2015 6:24pm

atilladehun wrote: »

I think I'd go a different route than buy a club. I think the model of trying to sugar daddy a club to success has be tried , here and abroad, and is eventually likely to fail and cause a fair bit of heartache. It's your lotto dream though , go for it.

Why should they go for it though?

Why should one person be able to put a club's future at risk?

Trust me, my club has been there, it doesn't end well.

atilladehun · 03-03-2015 7:32pm

dreamers75 wrote: »

So a bit like the Glenn Hoddle thing in Spain? That presents its own issue in that the kids at it came from clubs who want to be paid.

I'm not sure what the glenn hoddle thing is, but I'm sure there are many pitfalls. Remember instead of sugar daddying a club I'm suggesting sugar daddying an academy. No money to be made in this. Possibly some in the long term agent work the academy could set up to offer graduates. Nothing sustainable out of it but a possible income. There might be department of education money for the teachers. Only hire ones that are interested in football to help the qualified coaches. Run fee paying summer camps in the academy for football wannabes?? I'm grasping at straws for a #lottothought

Why should they go for it though?

Why should one person be able to put a club's future at risk?

Trust me, my club has been there, it doesn't end well.

Are you asking me? Does "they" mean the players? A chance to train at home with the best trained youth coaches my Euromillions can afford. Do the Leaving Cert while they're at it.

Or does they mean the clubs? They get to trial several young players each year, judge their character as well as their ability. Get partial ownership on young players sold abroad. Increase interest as the top 150 16-18 year old Irish players. will spend some time each year at their clubs. If they get to sign them at 18 and they continue to improve then they can get a financial reward.

I'm not sure how it puts one club at risk, I've made the academy up with my Euromillions.

Captain Havoc · 03-03-2015 8:34pm

What he's on about is, you come in, spend a mint on trying to qualify for the champions league, put international players on long term contracts and when qualification doesn't happen, you bog off, leaving the club in a total mess and a club that's over 100 years old is dead. That sort of situation, shouldn't be allowed to happen.

atilladehun · 03-03-2015 9:20pm

pronouns confuse me

overshoot · 03-03-2015 11:01pm

i hate to burst your bubble rightyabe but as a co-op its impossible for anyone to buy the club, i think you cant own more than 10 shares but regardless of the number you have, you only get one vote at board meetings.
id like to think thats why our main sponsor bought Bray.....

also operating budget last year was around 250k... senior, reserve & u19 (academy is a separate entity)

miroslavklose · 05-03-2015 3:29am

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

You'd need to see if you could access Rover's accounts for the year that they played in the Europa League groups stage.

Rovers' accounts aren't fully declared publicly, but the annual budget would be in the region of €1.5m with playing budget, staff, rent, etc all included.

COYVB wrote: »

What are their losses? Or is that the 1.5m? Because if you were buying a club your main concern would be their annual losses since that's what you'd be looking at covering. Obviously not including putting money in for new players etc.

I reckon anyone with a few million they had "spare" could turn a team into a completely dominant domestic force and have a decent crack at regular European football beyond qualifying stages

Their budget would be around €1.5m. I'd say Kelleher puts in a couple of hundred k of that.

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Thanks to this ludicrous Financial "Fair Play" it would probably be impossible. A newly retired bachelor in his 50s-60s that has supported a team all his life can win 100m on the Euromillions, decide he wants to spend his money on his local football team and then get told by UEFA that aint fair that he invests his own money into his local club.

UEFA want to move away from generous benefactors and go to a system where whoever has the most Facebook likes can spend the most money.

FFP doesn't affect Irish clubs. A club can spend up to €45m over budget across three seasons without sanction - no Irish club has a turnover above 2m.

Paz-CCFC wrote: »

A few wealthy businessmen/businesses have been involved in the last decade or two and no one club has managed to emerge as a dominant force.

Brian Lennox was involved with Cork City, covering a lot of our losses. We won a league and a couples of cups under him, but it was stretching his personal finances too much. He passed it onto mega rich (now bust) company Arkaga, who spent loads on the club's behalf and when it didn't immediately pay off, jumped ship leaving an insolvent company. The fans took over following a shyster in the interim and, while the club is spending much more moderately, we've never been in a better shape.

Bohs didn't have a single sugar daddy in charge, but they were expecting a windfall the equivalent of a couple of CL group campaigns. They spent it before they got it. It took them a couple of years to reach the top, but they were knocked off that by fans-owned Shamrock Rovers before they even started to cut their cloth. They've been in much worse shape since, compared to how they were before the "windfall".

Pats had big investments by Kelleher, but initially to little avail. It wasn't until they introduced a much more sustainable model that they actually got to the top in 2013.

Limerick have a local millionaire in charge. Even with the millions, it took them a couple of seasons to get promoted and two seasons in the Premier, they failed to get above mid-table. His spare cash now seems to be depleted and he's cutting back to a more sustainable model. He did put in some structures like an extensive youth time and a large property for training facilities. These will do Limerick much more good than any first team player brought in on big wages ever would.

There are plenty of other examples, then - Fingal, Drogheda, Shels, Rovers a few times etc.

A spare few million seems great at first, but when you throw money at players, it's not long until that's eaten into and gets completely depleted. If you wanted to make it last, you'd be much better off at putting it into building the infrastructure to allow the club develop - stadium, training facilities, youth teams etc. It takes much longer to reap the rewards, though, and it's no guarantee that you'll be the single dominant force. But chances are you'll get a lot more mileage than throwing it at the first team in the form of overinflated wages and transfer fees.

Rovers only had the Kilcoynes as far as I'm aware. The collapse in the mid-2000s was based on bank loans, not a sugar daddy.

rightyabe wrote: »

Of course that would help for generations and benefit the whole club but people would also like to see good players play. Maybe allow a marquee signing every season like in MLS and Australia's A League.

MLS is centrally-owned so marquee player signings are an investment by the league. I think the A-League is similar. That wouldn't really apply here where clubs are independently-owned and could find better ways to spend a million euro+.

Francie Barrett wrote: »

Most of the clubs in Ireland would be run on a budget of about €400-500k a year. A few clubs would be less (Longford, Bray) a few clubs would be a bit more (Cork, Pats). Shamrock Rovers would have the biggest budget (surely they wouldn't be far off a million at this stage?). To buy the league, you'd need €1M at a minimum, €2M would probably guarantee it, assuming you had some kind of base to start from.

Do you mean playing budget? As terms total spending, Rovers, Pats, Dundalk Cork and Sligo would all be over a million.

Gavin shels wrote: »

On the whole player thing. I was at the Shels Fans' Forum, and it was brought up by someone asking if we got any money off Ipswich for Adam McDonnell or Dylan Connolly. Basically English clubs do want they want, there's UEFA rules in place but they don't really abide by them, made a lot of sense at how clubs over here get screwed over.

I doubt you got more than 4-5k for the pair. Shels having players on amateur contracts and the general way things work here means you'll never get any reasonable amount for players.

Ulysses Gaze · 05-03-2015 12:31pm

miroslavklose wrote: »

Rovers' accounts aren't fully declared publicly, but the annual budget would be in the region of €1.5m with playing budget, staff, rent, etc all included.

Would you have a ballpark figure for how much the club would have made when they made the Europe League Group stages?

€1 million?

Gavin "shels" · 05-03-2015 2:41pm

miroslavklose wrote: »

I doubt you got more than 4-5k for the pair. Shels having players on amateur contracts and the general way things work here means you'll never get any reasonable amount for players.

Shels tried to sign Connolly to a pro contract mid-season but his agent told him not too. Even up long winding his move to England then in the long run as Ipswich wouldn't play ball over compo.

uch · 05-03-2015 3:59pm

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Would you have a ballpark figure for how much the club would have made when they made the Europe League Group stages?

€1 million?

You can get these figure from the UEFA website, but off top of me head it was about €1.6m from what I remember

Mr_A · 05-03-2015 5:01pm

rightyabe wrote: »

Thanks for your in out folks. Me and a friend were talking what would we do if we won euro millions, like 120 million or something. I said I'd buy Finn harps and get them into Europe. It just got me thinking what money is required etc..like how much would there weekly total salary equate to? At a guess if say 6-10 grand at the moment (absolute stab in the dark) so up to 500,000 a year..like if I won 120m the interest would nearly cover that maybeðŸ˜€ I know there is loads more the club spend on every week and match days but I'm sure with the right structures and management you could make it some what sustainable??

You don't have to win the lotto to own Finn Harps, anyone can buy a share as we're a co-op http://www.finnharps.com/fhfc/?page_id=1211

While it has been mentioned that as we're a co-op you can't buy the club out, turn up with €120million and I suspect a way around that would be found!

miroslavklose · 05-03-2015 7:42pm

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

Would you have a ballpark figure for how much the club would have made when they made the Europe League Group stages?

€1 million?

The prize money for the group stage was €1.15 million: http://www.uefa.org/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/Finance/01/84/05/88/1840588_DOWNLOAD.pdf

Couldn't tell you what the net earnings were after travel expenses, cost of installing the temp stand, etc.

Gavin shels wrote: »

Shels tried to sign Connolly to a pro contract mid-season but his agent told him not too. Even up long winding his move to England then in the long run as Ipswich wouldn't play ball over compo.

Ipswich are one of the worst from what I hear - they'll refuse to pay anything until forced to make a derisory offer.

dreamers75 · 05-03-2015 10:36pm

miroslavklose wrote: »

Ipswich are one of the worst from what I hear - they'll refuse to pay anything until forced to make a derisory offer.

To be fair to Ipswich they have a no fee policy since Keane left, they do that to everyone.

All our decent young players were told not to sign anything with us by their agents, its normal now.

Gavin "shels" · 05-03-2015 10:37pm

We managed to get Ryan Robinson signed down on a pro contract before all the rumours of Everton and £250k started last season.

dan1895 · 05-03-2015 11:11pm

Gavin "shels" wrote: »

We managed to get Ryan Robinson signed down on a pro contract before all the rumours of Everton and £250k started last season.

And all of a sudden no English clubs are interested. If he was Norwegian or Belgian they'd be falling over each other to part with that kind of money for him.

miroslavklose · 06-03-2015 4:29am

dreamers75 wrote: »

To be fair to Ipswich they have a no fee policy since Keane left, they do that to everyone.

All our decent young players were told not to sign anything with us by their agents, its normal now.

I think you and I have a different definition of fair! They'll ride you raw, but I suppose at least they're honest about it.

Gavin shels wrote: »

We managed to get Ryan Robinson signed down on a pro contract before all the rumours of Everton and £250k started last season.

And shockingly he didn't sign for Everton! English clubs just see Ireland as a pound shop. I suspect it's part of the reason why so few of our players make it - they're not making an investment so it doesn't matter if these kids end up on the scrap heap in a couple of years, **** it if their lives are put on hold for years as a result.

civis_liberalis · 10-03-2015 5:08pm

Richard Hillman wrote: »

UEFA want to move away from generous benefactors and go to a system where whoever has the most Facebook likes can spend the most money.

Woohoo!

You can buy 5k likes for a fiver!

civis_liberalis · 10-03-2015 6:45pm

anncoates wrote: »

If i had a windfall that allowed me to invest heavily in my LOI club I wouldn't spunk money into player wages. I'd fund stuff like a extensive Youth Academy, B team, training facilities, members bar advertising etc. All stuff that has the potential to build the club long term

Same.

I wouldn't let the club near the money. I would invest it in things and let them use it.

The vast majority of people involved in the LOI have their heads screwed on and are intelligent enough to know what happens when clubs lose the run of themselves.

The thing is, these people aren't always the ones making the decisions. We have a situation in Galway where there's a massive majority of people doing the right things, working to make things better and then you have a few people on the board who have interests that conflict completely with the success of the club.

iDave · 11-03-2015 11:26am

How exactly do you enter the LOI out of interest? I.e. can you create a new LOI out of thin air or does it have to be an existing football club? A wealthy guy wants to set an LOI team somewhere there isn't one, Navan for example, can he approach the FAI and say 'I'm creating Navan United FC, heres my stadium plans, I'll use ParkVilla as a feeder, I have a business model etc etc now let my team play!'
Not sure if franchising is in the FAI rulebook but this is the FAI we're talking about and money talks.

To Elland Back · 11-03-2015 2:33pm

iDave wrote: »

How exactly do you enter the LOI out of interest? I.e. can you create a new LOI out of thin air or does it have to be an existing football club? A wealthy guy wants to set an LOI team somewhere there isn't one, Navan for example, can he approach the FAI and say 'I'm creating Navan United FC, heres my stadium plans, I'll use ParkVilla as a feeder, I have a business model etc etc now let my team play!'
Not sure if franchising is in the FAI rulebook but this is the FAI we're talking about and money talks.

Acquire goalposts and a ball and phone Fran Gavin. Don't worry about a ground, as you can sort that out when your membership is confirmed

civis_liberalis · 11-03-2015 3:35pm

To Elland Back wrote: »

Acquire goalposts and a ball and phone Fran Gavin. Don't worry about a ground, as you can sort that out when your membership is confirmed

You jest, but if you can offer something politically to Eamonn Naughton, Gavin will receive you with open arms and tell you not to worry about the goalposts.

Buying a LOI club?

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