As I mentioned before, the £8 million quid we received from Barcelona for our goalless wonder, Elidiano, has made us financially secure. Since then I’ve been able to do all the deals I want whilst maintaining a cash balance of round about the £10 million and keeping the wage expenditure to well under half the budget.
So I go the board to suggest they further enhance our already excellent training facilities. I’m thinking a few extra video cameras would be handy; maybe some software for the medical team; and, oh, a rowing machine wouldn’t go amiss. That kind of thing. If they ran to a few hundred thousand quid I’m sure we could find a way to use it.
But, no, that’s not the way they think. Invest in our facilities? Sure — let’s spend several million.
Let’s not, I think: we don’t need to and we’ve worked hard to make our finances secure so let’s keep things that way. But of course I don’t have a say on that: so we kiss goodbye to several million.
The next week I get an email telling me that the board have also decided to upgrade our youth facilities, to the tune of another few million.
Suddenly, our ‘Elidiano reserve’ has been blown. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows me that, since current expenditure out-strips revenue quite markedly, we will by the end of the season be needing to borrow.
We will be walking though the valley of the shadow of death.
I am angry beyond the words. The only solution is a mid-season fire sale.
