Clubs need to work otgether to reduce costs [Archive]

SeanDrog

30/07/2009, 11:32 AM

It is time for the league to etc smart and begin working together to reduce costs to clubs. I believe a unit should be set up in the FAI to handle central purchasing for the league clubs - surely 90% of purchases by a club are the same for all clubs.

- kits
- yearly bus travel for teams
- sports gear (balls etc)
- even tea bags
- paper
- computers
- telephone rates/deals
- elect bills (if these can be negotiated)
- for clubs with bars all the bar stuff
- pitch stuff (seed/equipment etc etc)- etc etc

You get the drift. For example in Dublin one bus company can win the contracts for all the clubs business if the price is right - this has to save money. The other side for the companies is that the FAI underwrites the contracts hence their is security for businesses in return for lower rates etc.

This is only an off the cuff posting but the idea deserves investigation. Clubs need to realise that we are all in the same boat and need to work together where there are opportunities.

Discuss?

Dodge

30/07/2009, 11:34 AM

or how about Clubs try and get the best deal possible for themselves, and see where that leaves them

SeanDrog

30/07/2009, 11:39 AM

or how about Clubs try and get the best deal possible for themselves, and see where that leaves them

The key point is that it leads to a form of bulk buying to reduce cost (which an individual club cannot do) and removes replication of activity via central purchasing (again reduces overall league costs).

pineapple stu

30/07/2009, 11:43 AM

It's the players that are too expensive, not the tea bags.

Ezeikial

30/07/2009, 11:47 AM

It's the players that are too expensive, not the tea bags.

Please don't spoil a good thread with reality! :)

passinginterest

30/07/2009, 11:47 AM

I think SeanDrog has a valid point to an extent. The government is all about shared services in the Public service in it's efforts to save money so why shouldn't the League of Ireland look into the same thing?

Things like jerseys could be contentious as bigger clubs might look to have individual deals, but there would be scope there for clubs to participate if they wanted to. Electricity costs, office supplies, gas, transport and other services could certainly be examined to see if it would be possible to go to tender for them, even something like a printer that would cover all clubs match programmes and promotional material.

Duggie

30/07/2009, 11:51 AM

a template website that all clubs have the same like they do in other sports elsewhere. the website are brutal for clubs(cork actually has/had the best).

Dodge

30/07/2009, 11:54 AM

The key point is that it leads to a form of bulk buying to reduce cost (which an individual club cannot do) and removes replication of activity via central purchasing (again reduces overall league costs).

Think you're overestimating how many teabags club use.

The main (non wages) outlays are security, transport and gear

Gear is always going to be individual. Transport prices don't wildly vary, and location does playa part. Securiyt in Dublin is already done by the same company

whinnie01

30/07/2009, 12:10 PM

Would this have an adverse effect on clubs sponsorship, as local buisness's would'nt be interested if clubs sourced products centrally from the Fai.

SMorgan

30/07/2009, 12:12 PM

I believe that Gerry Matthews, the owner of Dundalk wrote to every club in the league appealing for a co-ordinated response to the difficulties that the league find itself in.

He made a number of suggestions including an across the board reduction in wages. The reward he got for his trouble was a rumour that Dundalk were in financial trouble and was enforcing a pay cut on its players.

crc

30/07/2009, 12:17 PM

Gear is always going to be individual
Not necessarily. Reebok provide all the kit for NHL teams:

From the 2000–01 season, up to the 2005–06 NHL season, all team jerseys were made by The Hockey Company in an NHL-wide deal...
Following Reebok's purchase of The Hockey Company, all official NHL team jerseys were switched to the Reebok (Rbk Hockey) brand...
I think that more centralisation should be an aim of the league. Each of the LoI clubs is too small, and it works well for rugby over here and for most professional and semi-pro sports leagues in North America.

Dodge

30/07/2009, 12:20 PM

Would this have an adverse effect on clubs sponsorship, as local buisness's would'nt be interested if clubs sourced products centrally from the Fai.

I'd think so

The NHL (or indeed the other US sports, as they all have exclusive deals) doesn't really apply as while Reebok might sell a million jersies, the LOI sides won't. Some clubs are earning money from their kit deal, others are paying for kit. I don't think its fair that progressive clubs are penalised for being able to shift a few thousand jersies.

SeanDrog

30/07/2009, 12:42 PM

It's the players that are too expensive, not the tea bags.

:D:D my list was purely a quick pull together of things clubs might purchase etc.

I take on board not wanting to alienate local communities etc but there have to be activities that can be centralsied and save everyone money (the website template & programme printing etc are very good and in the spirit of the threads intentions).

I dont see why the kit should be ruled out just because we are a small league, if this is the case why do companies deal with individual clubs - surely it would be attractive for jako or someone else to supply the whole league (also reserve teams, youths etc) than just one or two clubs. Of course there are issues with different clubs urrently having different contract in place but perhaps it would be planned for a roll out when the majority of clubs have finished their current contracts.

Clearly I dont know all the angles etc but I thought this thread would make a proactive change on how things could be improved outside of the other threads of wages too high / clubs going bust / league is doomed.

pineapple stu

30/07/2009, 12:45 PM

Also don't forget that it'd cost the FAI to run such a scheme - at least the cost of one full-time person to administer it - which would possibly cost the clubs more than they'd save.

Also, the individual deals clubs have are an important consideration. UCD, for example, get free gear from O'Neills in return for access to the Superleague market. (And our inters wear hand-me-downs from the senior team). A central gear deal would actually cost us money.

SeanDrog

30/07/2009, 12:50 PM

clealry cost benefits would have to be run - no arguement there.

There is another consideration - at the moment alot of clubs are fire fighting from week to week and to remove the noise of dealing with many suppliers/tendering processes etc would help clear their lines of slight so to speak to deal with other issues.

I suppose thinking about it more it would link in well with the whole franchise oncept that the FAi gives the franchise to a club and like a coffee shop (take BB muffins as a visual) they then supply all the bits and bobs with savings through bulk buying.

As stated cost benefit would need to be done but compaines are doing this everyday of the week to save costs, coporate alliances etc - there just has to be something in there for the league - at least open up a discussion with clubs - pity Dundalk were basiccally ignored (might go back to clubs firefighting and not having time to be strategic).

JC_GUFC

30/07/2009, 1:05 PM

I'd think so

The NHL (or indeed the other US sports, as they all have exclusive deals) doesn't really apply as while Reebok might sell a million jersies, the LOI sides won't. Some clubs are earning money from their kit deal, others are paying for kit. I don't think its fair that progressive clubs are penalised for being able to shift a few thousand jersies.

Totally agree - it's like United now being sponsored by Pappa John's Pizza - we get cheap Pizza for the players. But if the League's pizza sponsor was given to another company this would only benefit Pat's as John Lester's food bill would be massively reduced. Imagine the queue of clubs who'd be looking to sign Keith Foy! :p

On a serious note though the real issue is the wages that players are being paid. They are clearly unsustainable but the impression is that if Club A doesn't pay Stuart Byrne €x000 a week then some other club will. The fact is if clubs A, B, C, D and E won't pay that much he's running out of options.
95% of players don't have the option of going to England - so it's either play for a much reduced salary or don't play at all.

Although they're not as offensive a club as Dublin City were it's great to see how Sporting Fingal are struggling to get promoted - I think most people have forgotten that Zayed, O'Neill and Paisley are players in the league!

SeanDrog

30/07/2009, 1:15 PM

Maybe a group of clubs (ones located close together) could come together and do it themselves - Drogs /Dundallk/Monaghan perhaps - use the same bus company (which offers the best deal), same printers for programs, same office suppliers etc. A procurement committee could be put togetehr from all the clubs to run the excerise hence no additional payroll isses.

We could all cite examples where it wouldnt work but unless a discussion takes place with clubs then we won't find the examples of where it will work - I am actually very annoyed that Drogs didnt respond to Dundalk - esp. given how we need to watch every cent.

Nesta99

30/07/2009, 1:40 PM

I see your point! Student Unions in the UK all purchase under NUSSL(National Union of Students Services) and therefore save significant amounts of cash bulk buying everything form booze to paper to electricity, the smaller Unions benefit most. First things first though,lets get clubs to stop breaking rules, stay within salary protocols and then agree to a general wage reduction.

Dodge

30/07/2009, 1:58 PM

There's nothing stopping clubs paying less. They decide on wages. No one else

dcfcsteve

30/07/2009, 2:06 PM

I see your point! Student Unions in the UK all purchase under NUSSL(National Union of Students Services) and therefore save significant amounts of cash bulk buying everything form booze to paper to electricity, the smaller Unions benefit most.

Electricity isn't covered by NUSSL (I used to be a Board member) - it's stock for bars, shops, cafes etc. They also used to do travel briefly (my legacy :o) but there was never a real interest in doing it, so that got stopped/privatised.

The fundamnetal problem is that there are only 22 LOI clubs, and they don't use significant volumes of anything.

Bulk buying obviously would lead to some cost savings, but they'd be minimal - to the point where it probably wouldn't be worth the grief dealing with 22 different clubs, their staff, their foibles, their inevitable moans and groans etc, just to save 2% on a £2,000 per club annual outlay on paper, for example. NUSSL works because it is the UK's largest non-governmental purchasing consortium, and even then they only really deliver serious discounts on alcohol.

Plus the FAI would be bonkers if they arranged anything that left them holding the financial baby centrally for items supplied to clubs, as we all know what would happen once clubs got in the fiscal sh!t.

For the small monetary savings that can be secured through bulk-purchasing, it would make more sense for the FAI to introduce the league clubs to businesses that exist to provide bulk purchasing to small firms like accountants, doctors, lawyers etc. The consortiums provide access to guaranteed cheaper goods, and in return they take half the savings (dependent upon their business model).

It's still the equivalent of looking to get cheaper net curtains when your salary doesn't even cover the mortgage on your house in the first place though. Financial priorities.

Nesta99

30/07/2009, 2:10 PM

There's nothing stopping clubs paying less. They decide on wages. No one else

What apart from other clubs:confused:

jebus

30/07/2009, 2:17 PM

What apart from other clubs:confused:

Why should other clubs and what they can spend on wages dictate what your club can afford to spend on wages?

dcfcsteve

30/07/2009, 2:24 PM

Why should other clubs and what they can spend on wages dictate what your club can afford to spend on wages?

Because you're in a very competitive industry competing to sign the best from a very small pool of talent.

And because all football clubs want to win.

So the more other clubs pay, the less attractive your club becomes to the 'talent' and the further down the competitive rankings you fall. And that loses you fans, sponsorship etc etc, which means you have less money to spend on players, yeddah, yeddah, yeddah.

I can't believe I'm having to explain this...

Nesta99

30/07/2009, 2:29 PM

Why should other clubs and what they can spend on wages dictate what your club can afford to spend on wages?

Doesnt dictate what a club can afford to spend but it can dictate what a club does spend!

jebus

30/07/2009, 2:29 PM

Because you're in a very competitive industry competing to sign the best from a very small pool of talent.

And because all football clubs want to win.

So the more other clubs pay, the less attractive your club becomes to the 'talent' and the further down the competitive rankings you fall. And that loses you fans, sponsorship etc etc, which means you have less money to spend on players, yeddah, yeddah, yeddah.

I can't believe I'm having to explain this...

All well and good having short term success until you have to produce 400k to the High Court by noon tomorrow or else your club is out of business

Can't believe I'm having to explain this either

jebus

30/07/2009, 2:30 PM

Doesnt dictate what a club can afford to spend but it can dictate what a club does spend!

And therein lies the problem with this jokeshop of a league

dcfcsteve

30/07/2009, 2:36 PM

All well and good having short term success until you have to produce 400k to the High Court by noon tomorrow or else your club is out of business

Can't believe I'm having to explain this either

It's the clubs you need to explain it to - not me.

It's the problem football faces the world over - the dream is all intoxicating.

P.S. Bar the Setanta Cup win at home against an IL team, what is the 'short-term' success you're speaking of that Cork have had for their £400k exactly...? :confused:

Nesta99

30/07/2009, 2:39 PM

I dont disagree! Dodge saying that there is nothing stopping clubs from lowering wages while technically true is hardly the reality(as yet) until clubs come up with some agreement, now maybe im wrong but wasnt there a wage cap during the 70s or so by which clubs like Dundalk got around by paying players cash not unlike Bohs and their best paid Bar staff in the country;)

jebus

30/07/2009, 2:59 PM

It's the clubs you need to explain it to - not me.

It's the problem football faces the world over - the dream is all intoxicating.

P.S. Bar the Setanta Cup win at home against an IL team, what is the 'short-term' success you're speaking of that Cork have had for their £400k exactly...? :confused:

Wasn't talking about Cork as a club, more using what has happened to them as an example of a club throwing money they don't have around

It is a problem that faces football the world over, but that doesn't mean clubs should still risk their entire future on getting a better player than their rivals does it?

Rovers fan

30/07/2009, 3:32 PM

The main (non wages) outlays are security, transport and gear

You left out tea-bags there dodge you silly billy.

Kildareman

30/07/2009, 3:35 PM

pineapple stu

30/07/2009, 3:50 PM

Lower the cost of officials, and you'll have fewer doing it, which will result in poorer officials.

dcfcsteve

30/07/2009, 4:28 PM

If the FAI wanted to help then why dont they reduce the cost of officials.
We played Dundee United to a crowd of 200-250 and got landed with a bill for the officials at well over €600.
We then played Newry City and at least one official was only qualified to officiate junior league football. Cost nearly €550. These were supposed to be fund raisers for us and not the FAI.
Crowds are down and sponsorships are more and more difficult to find yet referees bills stay ridiculously high.
Im not going to mention the fine of €50 for not having 'lucozade' on one of the medical bags...

Surely the bigger question is - why have 'fundraising' friendlies against clubs of the calibre that only attract 200-250 fans.....? :confused: Four match officials aren't going to show up to officiate your friendly for nothing.

Dundee have attracted poor crowds to every game they've played in Ireland this year. Newry have never been a draw for anyone - not even in Newry...

El Paso

30/07/2009, 10:10 PM

A centralised system will never work because too many clubs have delusions of grandeur and want to be able to split off and do their own thing. Witness the attempts of a couple of basket cases trying to form an All Ireland League... no interest in anything other than personal gain.

Did you know that the NFL is the most commie organisation in the world? Most revenue is shared equally across the clubs...

Under the system, every NFL owner starts the year on a level playing field, with nearly $100 million from NFL broadcast rights, national NFL sponsorships with companies such as Gatorade, and a redistributed portion of ticket sales. This all-for-one-and-one-for-all spirit, its supporters say, has been the backbone of the NFL's economic and competitive success, since it spreads the wealth and helps give every team, from the Packers in tiny Green Bay, Wis., to the Giants in metropolitan New York, a shot at winning a title -- and turning a nice profit.

The salary cap is also a team's even share of a percentage of total League revenue as opposed to a percentage of their own income as we have it today.

But, like I say, any such system couldn't work here because of selfishness and the belief of some clubs that they are intrinsically superior to the others, despite almost every senior club suffering from some kind of financial crisis in recent memory.

Greenforever

31/07/2009, 4:45 AM

dcfcsteve

31/07/2009, 1:25 PM

I agree that the savings on purchasing may be small, however the clubs could do well by engaging a single sales team for gound advertising, programme advertising etc.

The first argument that Shams should earn higer rates than UCD for example could easily be got around by a distribution system based on attendances and tv audiences for telivised games etc..therfore the clubs with the highest attendances would get a larger slice of the cake. This sales team could have an allocation of X% of ground advertising spots and pages in the programme etc.

Most of the advertising secure is local - you don't need a joint efort to pop down the road and get a local pub to sponsor you, and it's arguably best done through local contacts anyway.

Bottom line is that most clubs in the league have bigger issues to worry about right now, than have the luxury to tinker with securing fringe improvements to purchasing or income.

Mr A

31/07/2009, 1:34 PM

Maybe Cork and Bohs could club together to reduce their supreme court appeals expenses.

passerrby

31/07/2009, 1:48 PM

wellsorry but we are not cutting our budget because other clubs cant match us

Kildareman

31/07/2009, 2:41 PM

Four match officials aren't going to show up to officiate your friendly for nothing.

Show me where I said they should show up for nothing???:confused:

Im making a point that the FAI dont show any help when even a club tries to help itself.
Players, managers etc are all effected by wage cuts so why not the officials.
I wouldnt expect anybody to work for nothing!!!!

The cost of the officials isnt shared out amongst them. The FAI take a lump out first. A little leeway would be nice.

dcfcsteve

31/07/2009, 3:03 PM

Show me where I said they should show up for nothing???:confused:

Im making a point that the FAI dont show any help when even a club tries to help itself.
Players, managers etc are all effected by wage cuts so why not the officials.
I wouldnt expect anybody to work for nothing!!!!

The cost of the officials isnt shared out amongst them. The FAI take a lump out first. A little leeway would be nice.

Organising a friendly that attracts 200-250 people could hardly be viewed as trying to help yourself though. And it's not the FAI's job to do you a favour if you've organised an unappealing fixture in an effort to make money.

If the difference between a friendly being a financial success or a failure is the cost of the match officials, then you should really be questioning whether such friendlies should be organsied in future - not whether the FAI can help save you €100.

Did the club make any money out of the Dundee game anyways ?

Kildareman

31/07/2009, 3:16 PM

I would guess at a couple of grand. Nice to us but small to the likes of Derry City etc.
Our wage bill, at a guess, would be around €1200. It was as much an attempt at PR to the local area.

For us to get a more popular side from England the security cost for the Gardai would swallow up all profits. Its a tight balance.

Maybe if we could get the intelligence reports on all the cross channel sides we could make a more profitable friendly..;)

christo

02/08/2009, 3:07 PM

The clubs shouldn't have to pay the officials in the first place, its the FAI that should be doing it in my opinion

pineapple stu

02/08/2009, 5:48 PM

FFS. You want to play in this league, pay the officials to officiate.

If the FAI pay for the officials, then it'll end up coming out of the money available for clubs' prize money anyway.

dcfcsteve

02/08/2009, 8:26 PM

The clubs shouldn't have to pay the officials in the first place, its the FAI that should be doing it in my opinion

Sure why not get the FAI to play the game for you as well, and then give your players a rub down at the end.... :o

peadar1987

03/08/2009, 10:51 AM

Sure why not get the FAI to play the game for you as well, and then give your players a rub down at the end.... :o

The clubs could get together and bulk-buy the massage oil to save costs!

Kildare Lad

03/08/2009, 1:25 PM

I would guess at a couple of grand. Nice to us but small to the likes of Derry City etc.

Would you even say that much? I agree that I think the club organised these friendlies possibly even more so from the PR side of things, but I really dont know if it was worth their time. 4 Friendlies v Newry Town, Dundee United, Leyton Orient and a Sunderland XI, all bar the last one attracted fairly small crowds much like we would get at league games, I dont really see the point of organising these "glamour friendlies" when you're not playing sides much better than what we have here at home. We easily would have got a bigger crowd than the first 3 games if we had of been playing Shamrock Rovers or Bohs IMO.