Yup. Rovers' wage bill may have been nominally flat since 2019-20, but just plugging our 2019-20 £25.6m wage bill into the Bank of England's inflation calculator, that's equivalent to £32.7m in today's money, or a ~25% real cut if our wage bill is currently around £25m. Sure, footballers are privileged folk, but their agents will certainly be aware of economy-wide inflation when negotiating new contracts... To be somewhat fair, Championship aggregate wages had been flat/declining for some time due to Covid, plus perhaps a slight regaining of financial sanity by owners, but there was a big jump in 2023-24. Part of that will be due to Luton getting promoted on the cheap (I'd also suspect the rise of immediate parachute club bouncebacks have suppressed the league-wide wage bill), but it'll also reflect the new commercial deal feeding through + general inflation (and keeping the lights on has gotten pricier!) Revenue has been growing too. Obviously rebounding from Covid, but 2022-23 and 2023-24 were mainly due to JDT's Cup runs (which will likely have boosted our player costs too!) and the Championship's league-wide commercial deal improving by a few million.

Swiss Ramble posted a review today of our 2023-24 accounts in his usual highly-digestable way: https://swissramble.substack.com/p/blackburn-rovers-finances-202324 Most of it is behind a paywall, but can do a 7-day free trial to access it. I haven't read it yet myself, but perhaps can share some highlights later (although I doubt it'll say anything we don't already know!)

Quibbling over the fee we should have gotten for Wharton is ultimately beside the point, as much as we can enjoy pedantic arguments about how we'll obviously receive more than £18m in the end, how much 'credit' we can give for add-ons/sell-ons (as we can debate re: Raya's sale), benchmarks like how much Bristol City received for Alex Scott (eg, I've seen it reported as 'up to' £25m), speculating as to how much we would've gotten if we had at the very least waited until the summer and had a proper bidding war, etc etc etc. The main issue is that it was obviously a replay of the Tom Cairney sale: a distressed seller forcing a star player out the door to alleviate immediate cashflow concerns due to our owners suddenly being unable (and unwilling) to properly fund the club despite their (allegedly) massive wealth.* Hell, it's somewhat frustrating how much we did get for Wharton given the Rovers hierachy can simply deflect any critique saying it was a record fee, it reflected the market at the time, hard to say no when PL club comes calling, etc. I can't immediately recall if they've referred to FFP... blah blah blah, it's all bullshit. They'll obviously never publicly admit it was driven by cashflow needs. Some times I wonder if one angle of attack is to mock Venky's for not being able to properly fund their 'play thing'. For all the talk of making the club 'sustainable' etc, fuck that, you're quasi-oligarchs. Why aren't you pissing away your wealth to chase footballing glory, like the other vain owners across English football? --- *Linked to how much of an 'impediment' it is for Venky's to provide a 'guarantee' for every £ they send abroad. As can reportedly be the case for the super rich, a lot of their wealth is tied up in illiquid assets, is needed as collateral for other loans, etc., so regularly scrounging together ~£10m+ to send over isn't necessarily something they're capable of doing at a flick of a switch (probably also reflecting general in-fighting, poor planning, indecision, bureaucracy, etc within the Venky's empire). And whether the money set aside in the guarantee still earns interest or does it just sit there and have its nominal value eaten away by inflation I've generally found it a bit odd that they've consistently relied on that bank overdraft (at 2% plus BOE rate) for day-to-day funding of the club, which hurts Rovers' bottom line relative to just sending over a bunch of cash, but perhaps that reflects competing interests for cash within the Venky's empire. Anyway, I'm straying into a separate (unending) discussion! tldr; I just had some coffee.

On Duru, he did apparently impress at Barrow in L2 before his injury and, for what it's worth, caught the attention of the USA u20s for a few appearances with them too, so I think he had a promising year. But, agreed that he shouldn't be counted on for the Championship just yet. A loan in L1, and a season without injury, should do him well. On Academy 'targets', I'm not adding anything already discussed, but while Academy minutes are certainly a metric of interest, any outright 'target' violates Goodhart's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law Let alone whether minutes alone can really mean anything when the output of Academy products is so bimodal and heterogeneous, with the likes of Travis, long graduated, logging 3000+ min alone, another 2000+ min from JRC/Buckley, yet probably failed years for both of them, Carter probably would've logged ~3000 if it wasn't for injury... and if you rule them out based on age (but why? Part of the Academy's value is if it churns out a durable asset that means we don't have to deploy our budget for a senior player, even in cases where we don't ultimately profit from a player sale, eg, Nyambe), the minutes dramatically drop to a bit under 300min across Montgomery, Tyjon, and Leonard, where it doesn't make sense to think they should have played more than that due to injuries and Montgomery first needing to show promise on a loan. There's maybe some value in also having Academy players available to fill bench spots as needed, and maybe blood them opportunistically, as injuries crop up, but that can get out of hand (just look at this lineup: https://www.skysports.com/football/sheffield-wednesday-vs-blackburn-rovers/484926), especially when used as an excuse to otherwise not invest in squad depth (yet, surprisingly if you think about it, we were scraping the max roster limit this past year!) Another benchmark - and perhaps in the ballpark of what we can expect to get for Finneran (perhaps more backloaded/add-on given his lack of senior games) - is the Mahoney compensation: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/16229661.ruling-reveals-fee-rovers-will-receive-connor-mahoney/ Mahoney left in July 2017 and the tribunal fee was published in May 2018. So, would maybe expect a decision around now... £425k up front, plus £100k for every 10 first-team appearances up to 50 apps / £500k, £250k if he was capped by England, and 20% of any sell-on profit. Obviously didn't trigger any of those appearance bonuses, but apparently went to Millwall for £1.1m, so we ultimately got £425k + 20%*(1.1m-.425m)= £560k for Mahoney. If I remember right, this was made public because it did go to a tribunal decision as Bournemouth and Rovers couldn't agree on a deal. Not sure if that's still the case for tribunal-determined fees.

Were you looking at Ipswich's 2023-24 accounts? Interestingly, they explicitly set out their FFP calcs in their accounts, which I've never seen in a club's accounts before. Their headline losses for 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24 were £12.6m, £18.2m, and £39.3m, respectively, so £70.1m total, obviously well above £39m, but, as with all clubs, plenty of costs are netted off for FFP. Over those three years, that includes £4.5m of depreciation (tangible, not player trading), £1.2m of 'related party preference shares' (whatever that's about), £8.7m for 'youth development', £1.2m for community development, £0.8m for women's football, and £2.5m for Covid-related costs. That brings their losses down to £51.2m. But, crucially, they claim £16.3m of 'promotion costs'.* Such bonuses are always excluded from FFP. Excluding those costs brings their 3-year losses down to £34.9m, so they were fine as of 2023-24 (but probably needed to make ~£6m+ of player sales to stay compliant in 2024-25 if they hadn't been promoted). *Oddly, no such costs are claimed for promotion from L1 in 22-23. It would be odd if they had zero bonuses due to that, so you can imagine them arguing to net off further costs if they were at risk of a breach. --- For 'fun', using some of those Ipswich Town figures as rough benchmarks (will assume £4m/y for our Academy costs, which I think is what Swiss Ramble ususally assumes. Ipswich only have a Cat 2 Academy, with costs varying from £1.7-3.8m/y), here's what our 'FFP losses' would've been for 2021-22 to 2023-24. So, yeah, we did lose £29m - the Championship is a financially stupid league - but Venky's probably could've pumped in another ~£25m+ the past few years without breaching FFP.

Yes, agreed that criticising that specific header is a bit harsh! He did make a good run in that instance... Your example is better 🙂 While we can debate Dennis' efforts/decision-making that game, I can't really direct that much venom toward a clearly out of form striker, who, due to our 'unique' circumstances, was supposed to be the guy, yet clearly was in no position to be that this year. Yup. Meant to cap my post that the Dennis loan is ultimately emblematic of our 'penny wise, pound foolish' approach, imposed because Venky's have apparently suddenly decided they can't be bothered with losing £10m+/year anymore (heck, even making a loss at all given we made a £3m profit last year...). Yes, Championship football is an insane money-waster, but if you've seemingly suddenly become aware of that (perhaps partly hastened by an Indian court...), then why are you still owning the club.

Taking a very narrow view, but that was the moment for Dennis to shine. The biggest piece of our 'significant' investment in January, perhaps finally a striker with gamebreaking potential (Ohashi and Gueye have certainly been decent bargain buys, but they're both clearly squad-level, rather than leading, strikers), we need one goal to make the playoffs... And yet clearly off the pace, rusty with the ball, misses an open header ... everything you'd expect of a striker who has played barely 5 minutes since March (with a red card in there to boot!). When he's fit, I'm sure there's a hell of a player in there, but he's not even close to that right now. A clear panic buy at the end of the window, probably cheap compared to if we actually signed a decent striker for several million in the summer, yet also probably quite expensive for a return of zero goals and one assist in ~170min of action (and a loan too, at least Kargbo could turn into a decent investment). Plenty proud of some of the efforts to end the year, but this whole season just leaves a bitter taste.

Or 2017 vibes, up 2-0 early in our must-win game against Brentford, then (ironically!) staring at our phones cheering on Bristol and Ipswich for the rest of the match... That was a friend's GF's first live football game. Still laugh at her post-game review: "It was kind of fun, but then everyone at the end got so sad ☹️" (she's not at all a football fan, despite now being married to a former PL Academy player haha)

I've wondered similarly, but, at least for the last couple years, it's that +26% jump in 2024 that probably matters most. Nobody sheds cost-of-living tears for most footballers, but they're not going to accept real terms pay cuts due to recent inflation in a highly competitive labour market... Would definitely be a factor for non-playing staff costs too. Just taking a simple average, our ~£25m is well-below the 2023-24 is league-wide average of £37m, but that's of course skewed by parachute clubs. I may trial Swiss Ramble's substack to see if he's got a new chart for 2023-24, but we were mid-table in 2022-23, but that's before a 26% average league-wide jump, while we dropped 1.5% to £25.4m (or -2.5% if you exclude the impact of Waggott's deferred pension!). Doing a back-of-the-envelope calc assuming the same distribution of wage budgets excluding us, that alone could have dropped us from 11th in 2022-23 to 21st in 2023-24 (guessing it's less of a drop if I properly tried to account for changes in the wage distribution due to promotions/relegations!). Our 'other' operating costs oddly swing from year-to-year, but they'll have definitely been hit by recent inflation too; electricity bills most pertinently! 2023-24 reports them at £13.2m vs an average of £8.7m for 2019-20 to 2021-22 (which will be skewed down by Covid) What counts as the 'budget' can also get a bit wooly. JDT claimed our 'budget' was cut 20%, yet our wage bill was effectively flat and the number of senior players/management increased from 79 to 80. Perhaps 'other' staff costs increased for some reason... meaning a material cut for players (after factoring in departures, new contracts, escalators, etc), but the elephant in the room is obviously the transfer budget, where we swung from a ~£5m net spend to a ~£20m net profit (ultimately reflecting Venky's ceasing to pump money in). I'd bet JDT was having ridiculous arguments about transfer budget promises being dramatically reversed, while the Rovers hierarchy (disingenously!) pointed to the wage budget being maintained... The Academy can also make it hard to benchmark Rovers' staff costs against other non-parachute payment Championship clubs. For example, we had 211 staff in 2023-24 vs 138 at Preston, largely reflective of us having 71 'Academy football players and management. (Preston's accounts also mention an additional 115 matchday staff (so, not full-time employees), which our accounts don't mention). Now, most of those staff are presumably relatively low-paid (but also need to factor in costs beyond basic salaries!), and apparently grants offset some of those costs (it's not clear to me how those are included in our accounts), but it's definitely a factor. As we're well-aware, directors' salaries are published in the accounts, but it's certainly opaque enough that you can wonder what the 'true' player wage budget is, as well as 'other' staff salaries (including whatever the hell Suhail is on).

Happy for Sonny 🙂

National League North is obviously not a high level, but Montgomery has been a consistent starter across both his loans this year (17 starts with Marine and 6 starts + 1 sub with Chorley) and bagged a couple goals (including that screamer). He's turning 21 at the end of next month, so the thinking may simply be he'll need to show if he's anywhere near first-team level pretty soon. This season has obviously gone off the rails, so perhaps give him a couple sub appearances as the season winds down... O'Grady-Macken and Edmondson are a couple years behind him. https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2024/february/02/kristi-signs-new-deal/ He's signed through to 2025-26, plus an option. Even if he's only flogged off to a L1/L2 club in the end, that's still a relative success for the Academy (and him!). Small beer, I know...

While there's still some 'hope' (had a glance and bookies have us at 16/1 for playoffs at the moment...), I'm so checked out about the season... I was sceptical of Eustace (and the sustainability of what he had managed to start the year), but he was starting to win me over, and then... Ismael, bah, more a symptom than the root cause. Amid all that, how the loanees and Academy lads are doing at least remains a topic of relatively optimistic interest! Some positives: - Markanday: recent lack of minutes a bit concerning. Hope it's just an outlier. Overall, he's still had 8 starts in 12 league games with 2 goals in L1, plus the obviously successful L2 loan - Batty: injuries still a concern, but he's managed 22 appearances with Accrington, which is a positive? - Duru a regular with L2 Barrow with 8 apps so far. 3 games in a USA U20 call-up too. - Olson immediately becoming a regular starter with Altrincham in NL (now at 13 starts) is a good sign - any potential there? That seemed to come out of nowhere. - Obviously a low level, but Edmondson apparently did well with 7th tier Macclesfield as a 19yo (3 goals in 14 apps) and has again made our bench a couple times. There was a bit of hype about him last year too. - 14 games for Atcheson at NLN Marine as a 17/18yo can't hurt, and has made our bench a few times. Presumably some promise there. NI U19 call-up too... - Montgomery's been a steady starter for both his NLN loans (21 league starts), but he is turning 21 in a couple months, so... On the negative side: Vale blighted by injury (albeit probably running down his contract/trying to showcase him for a low fee sale at this point); O'Riordan maybe salvaging things a bit with Crewe in L2, but hard to ignore the disappointment of the L1 Cambridge loan; poor-ish loan for Gamble for NL Fylde (but perhaps not much of a prospect to begin with); simply looking like a disastrous loan season for Garrett; Harrison Wood's scored 4 in 6 Academy games yet has struggled for minutes at both his Scottish L1 and NLN loans (5 starts, 6 subs, 1 goal, left on the bench 5 times). Guessing he wasn't much of a prospect in the first place given his age (turning 21 in the summer) and the level of those loans? Mafoumbi loan looking more like offloading a signing that didn't work out (baffling if that took up an international slot). Saadi, bah who cares haha. Also, while I agree that the slew of low non-league loans look odd - I'll admit to ignorance at just how low a level those leagues are! - I also suspect they're more 'give a lad a handful of games against men in local non-league/work experience'-style loans rather than full-blown loans. Many have just been for one month, and they've often still played Academy games during the loans. I'd also guess some of those lads weren't really promising prospects in the first place...

Treating this as the general 'former Rovers on podcasts' thread 🙂 Benno on I Had Trials Once: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/elliott-bennett-dealing-with-imposter-syndrome-super/id1459117353?i=1000698548123 Decent listen. Always was a likeable guy, and at least honest about his limits as a player! Ultimately scrapped together a heck of a career. Interestingly contrasts himself with his much more skilled younger brother, who got stuck in L1/L2 and maybe got to used to dominating with the ball, while Benno was a steady Championship player who managed a couple PL seasons through graft. Main Rovers tidbits: - Coyle was the worst manager he ever had, repeats stories we've heard from Graham/Conway/Mulgrew etc about what a joke he was re: training/tactics (IHTO hosts mention Willem Tomlinson told them that the young players loved Coyle's training because they didn't know any better, while the vets were fuming). Playing for Coyle made him hate football. - Loved Mowbray (a breath of fresh air after Coyle...) and being at Rovers in general. Felt being honest about his bad start with Rovers helped win the fans over early. Some stories about Dack, Graham, Mulgrew, etc. Recounts the story of Dolan blowing away the senior players when he first joined as Preston reject. - Usual Rovers contracts nonsense (I didn't exactly follow the numbers detailed below!): Recounts the story of the senior players' 33% Covid wage deferral. He and his agent tried offering to turn his deferral into a permanent wage cut in exchange for a contract extension. Mowbray on board with it. Then - surprise - 'the board' come back offering to cut the wage of his remaining year in half in exchange for another year at a 50% cut, so effectively play an extra year for free... He and his agent miffed. For his final year, Mowbray informs him he's not allowed to let him get over a certain number of appearances as it would trigger a 1-year extension at his prevailing wage. Bennett frustrated that his offer to take a wage cut for an extra year would've nullified that, but Rovers are still only offering a 50% wage cut for both years, so he barely plays. At the end of the year, Rovers offer a one-year extension at a 50% wage cut. All left a sour taste in his mouth, so declines that and goes to Shrewsbury at an 80% wage cut.

O'Riordan's goal was a decent strike (er, perhaps given a bit too much time to settle the ball by L2 defenders haha...): Duru's goal poking in a header off a corner (first highlight below):

Argh, can't find that video of Jason Lowe running the ball out of play under no pressure...