Money, Money, Money

Tim Lawrence focuses on financial matters

It is still too soon for me to face up to writing anything about last season. I'm sure I'm not the only Reds fan still numb.

However, there is one related topic which I feel mentally strong enough to tackle and that is the role of money in the level of football at which WFC operates. The story is of course all about ITV Digital and the so-called financial ruin now faced by up to 20 league clubs.

The background is that the League was owed the fantastical sum of £178.5m by a TV company run by Jonny Vegas and his pet monkey and owned by big shots at Carlton and Granada TV. These two corporations are themselves run in the spare time of executives after they've finished making luggage and operating motorway service stations.

The Football League, run by Keith Harris and a green dayglo duck, failed to secure guarantees from the bags-to-burgers conglomerate. The guarantees would have forced them to pay up in the event of the failure of their love child ITV Digital. Result: Vegas and monkey make a hash of it , the two parent companies get away with it and league teams lose out (again). Shares in suitcases and motorway services rise.

Then, Harris and duck strike a deal with BSkyB instead but resign on 6th August when club chairmen express dissatisfaction with the money (£95m) and the duration of the deal (four years). Harris now plans to spend more time hibernating in his aviary and developing his already impressive skill of talking out of orifices other than his mouth.

So the loss of TV millions is set to 'bankrupt' some clubs. It rarely has before, so don't start thinking that the First Division will lose 10 clubs and that Wrexham will be invited back up. It may be my imagination but it never seems to work that way, does it?

It is the First Division which will lose out most but only because they were getting more than their fair share of cash in the first place. Don't shed any tears for Bradford - they knew exactly what they were doing and by rights should now pay the price of failure, not go skriking to their creditors, including their own fans! It's a disgrace that, in preference to other clubs, the PFA paid their players' wages...£2m! and that creditors had to accept a measly 10p in the £. The PFA didn't pay the WFC wages when Pryce couldn't afford it did they? Anyway, I thought it was fair punishment for having the worst playing strip in the entire league.

Wrexham, who pay their debts, have had next to nothing for years and no-one has ever given us a hand. The WRU built some classy khazis for us once but that's just about all. The Welsh FA wouldn't give us the steam off their chips! We have chosen to spend available money on the club's infrastructure, a training ground, lease extension and a new stand instead of blowing hundreds of thousands on players. This time we paid for it. After losing good players like Connolly and Macca for nothing (because we couldn't afford their wage expectations) we were unable to buy anyone any good and went down because of it.

How could we compete with the likes of Wigan, Huddersfield, Stoke, Bristol City, Cardiff and Reading? Big clubs with rich owners who could buy and sell Wrexham 10 times over. Remember when we finished seventh, level on points with Fulham in 1997/8 and missed the play-offs on goal difference? That year they had spent £13m on players. The rumour was that six weeks before the end of the season, Flynn had wanted to buy a striker for £30,000 and the club couldn't afford it. It's another world and the Premiership another universe into which we will probably never rise. At least the ITV Digital saga may act as a blessing in disguise by making all clubs poorer instead of just a few being made richer.

There are two last points. I don't know just how wealthy Guterman is. If all our houses have been going up in value so much, as a property man he must be worth a few bob. You never know who he may be able to bring to the club. 

Secondly, and the point of this article is this, although we may be as poor as church mice, I am not aware that we have large debts. Those clubs who overspent in the expectation of receiving big money may be much worse off than us. We deserve a bit of credit for behaving responsibly, even though we paid for it with our Second Division status. The spenders should be made to take the consequences of their actions in full, even if it's terminal.

By the way, the monkey and the duck are appearing with Rockin' Robin as a 'Retro' support act for Pop Idol national tour starting October, tickets still available...