I’ve always said that if I won the EuroMillions then after the properties, the Corvette and the yacht, I’d probably buy a football club.
It wouldn’t necessary make me happy, especially if it’s the one I’d be most inclined to buy, and I’d hazard a guess that my nearest and dearest probably wouldn’t be enamoured by the prospect either.
But I would still fork out the cash, knowing full well that I’d be unlikely to see any of my money again. Because let’s face it, only millionaires who can afford to treat a £10 note as a frippery would be crazy or comfortable enough to invest in such a venture.
So that’s why I’m always intrigued to see the financial states some individuals and clubs get into in search of success.
The latest cautionary tale comes from Clyde, and thankfully it’s a good news story underneath it all once you have delved through the many layers of pain and heartache that fine club and its fans have gone through.
The club was proudly able to confirm this week that it is now completely debt free, after amassing what officials admitted was an “unsustainable debt” of £1.4 million in their failed quest for top flight football.
It has taken 10 years for Clyde to recover, live within its means and repay its creditors, and the club confirmed what fans of Scottish football have seen plain as day for years that the process of rebuilding “saw financial survival take priority over sporting ambition”. It had to. And it was a real tragedy to see Clyde’s fall from grace.
So why do it? For me, the most telling line in the club’s statement this week confirming that the debt has been wiped out was the one that highlighted the fact that their quest for SPL football had been “mathematically possible right up to the last day of season 2003-4”.
That shows you the fine lines involved with Scottish football these days, and the stark difference between the price of success and the cost of failure.
In a nice touch, the Clyde statement highlighted the mixed emotions around wiping the slate clean. There was a sense of bitterness and anger at having to cut costs and take the pain of the past decade, but there was also a real sense of satisfaction and hope at being able to build a new platform from which to build.
And there was also a recognition that Clyde only exists today because of its fans: a sentiment all too often forgotten in boardrooms up and down the country.
What happened at Clyde will strike a chord with every Scottish football fan, and should highlight the difficult decisions club chairmen and their boards have in striving for success while also trying to balance the books.
The narrative of the story might well differ the higher up the leagues you go, but the gist remains largely the same.
For example, St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown has come in for some criticism from fans for spending cash on stadium infrastructure this summer rather than on the club’s playing budget.
Some supporters have suggested the decision might not just cost them a top six finish and another jaunt in Europe, but could even risk their top flight status altogether.
It’s one of those Catch 22 situations, and sadly I don’t have an answer as to what I consider right or wrong. I’d need to see the figures.
But it’s a scenario that those in charge of football clubs across Scotland are faced with on a daily basis. Clubs are chasing promotion to the top flight because that’s where the riches are, yet they are constricted by the finances currently at their disposal.
I have spoken at length with Dunfermline chairman Bob Garmory in the past week, and it was heartening to see the passion and enthusiasm he has to take the Pars forward. He was perhaps an unwitting volunteer when Pars United were tasked with saving the club, and he still is in some respects, yet he and others have given up substantial amounts of time and effort to help bring success back to East End Park.
Having said that, he drummed home the fact that the football team is almost secondary these days. It is the football club that makes the money: the pre- and post-match pints in Legends bar, the advertising, the sponsorship, the programme sales, the community groups who use the facilities during the week. As Puff Daddy rightly pointed out: “It’s all about the Benjamins.”
But Dunfermline’s tale once again highlights those fine lines I was talking about.
Just over a year-and-a-half ago, I remember speaking to previous owner Gavin Masterton who was effectively trying to sell the proposed share offer which purportedly would save the club. That share offer, of course, never materialised because the fans no longer rightly it turned out trusted what was going on behind the scenes.
But he spoke about the £2.4 million annual sum it was costing to keep the club afloat at that time, the millions he and his family had put into the club over the years, the thousands being chased by the taxman, the substantial overheads like the cost of policing Christmas and New Year games The list of outgoings went on and on.
Yet he was poised to go to the fans to ask them to plough at least £300,000 of their cash in to steady the ship that was clearly on course for an iceberg.
In a way, I felt sorry for him. It was almost back of a fag packet thinking: borne out by the fact that it appeared the club had factored in £300,000 they thought they would get from the radical SFL restructure proposed at the time. Which never happened. But in the cold light of day, that approach would resulted in a £300,000 black hole, or there or thereabouts, that would effectively have been filled by the £300,000 raised by the share offer. Or in other words: back to square one.
Throwing good money after bad has been the main problem at clubs across Scotland in recent years, so it’s refreshing if that is the correct word – to see that clubs like Clyde have taken the bold move to sacrifice footballing success to get their house in order.
Yet again it’s the long-suffering fans who have been on the receiving end as they watched their team sink to Scottish football’s bottom tier, but at least they’ve got a club to support. Unlike some others.
The sad truth is that there will inevitably be more clubs who have to go through what several clubs have gone before.
We’ve certainly not seen the last of football administrator Bryan Jackson (above), that’s for sure.
But let’s just hope that the chairmen of all clubs at all levels in Scottish football take time to read Clyde’s statement this week and take cognisance before opening their cheque books.