"Budget Could Make It Impossible To Run Team"

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Originally Posted by Mr A

I had great respect for Paul Cook, but to be demanding more money in the current climate, after Sligo having to do what they did last year, is irresponsible. It's incredible that so many people seem incapable of learning anything from what has gone on around the league.

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I agree 100%. I really think Cook should shut hit trap and do his job and try to wheel and deal on what he has. The absolute cheek of him coming on and saying that if he doesn't get a bigger budget we will struggle! Every team in the league is in the same boat(Bar Dundalk by the looks of it). I couldn't be against Cook more saying winning trophies is more important than a few bob in the bank [In Others words he wants to splash the cash for success] and as we all know that certainly doesn't mean guaranteed success![Drogs for one example]
They way forward for this league is 35% salary Cap and Cook and every fan on this forum against this view will just have to deal with it. The way forward is the building of infrastructure in grounds. The time for spashing the cash for success is gone, (we must stay within this 35% cap) so its about time Cook realised this and got on with his job.

It seems to me that Cook is sour that he didn't get his chance at it like Doolin, McDonnel and Felon before him.
It the world we live in today that reflects in his budget and surely he should realise this, if not, maybe he's not as smart a man as i gave him credit for.

Does anyone know if we have cleared the debt to the taxman? That would be a big factor with the FAI if we were still in debt.

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Originally Posted by Inside Man

I agree 100%. I really think Cook should shut hit trap and do his job and try to wheel and deal on what he has. The absolute cheek of him coming on and saying that if he doesn't get a bigger budget we will struggle! Every team in the league is in the same boat(Bar Dundalk by the looks of it). I couldn't be against Cook more saying winning trophies is more important than a few bob in the bank [In Others words he wants to splash the cash for success] and as we all know that certainly doesn't mean guaranteed success![Drogs for one example]
They way forward for this league is 35% salary Cap and Cook and every fan on this forum against this view will just have to deal with it. The way forward is the building of infrastructure in grounds. The time for spashing the cash for success is gone, (we must stay within this 35% cap) so its about time Cook realised this and got on with his job.

It seems to me that Cook is sour that he didn't get his chance at it like Doolin, McDonnel and Felon before him.
It the world we live in today that reflects in his budget and surely he should realise this, if not, maybe he's not as smart a man as i gave him credit for.

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Very well said Inside Man. I'm a big fan of Cook as much as the next man but I don't like this statement. Seems to me he's just putting this out there in case things don't work out for him this season.
Fair enough Dundalk have been throwing a bit of cash around but where will they be this time next year financially spending all that money and only getting a few hundred fans every second week into dirty old Oriel Park after the initial curiosity dies down?
Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but you do wonder about his motives for saying this now.

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Originally Posted by dong2008

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but you do wonder about his motives for saying this now.

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More than a bit. Maybe I'm crazy but perhaps he wants to be a successful manager, move on after doing well with Sligo Rovers and feels he is currently being restricted.

We have quality rather than quantity, we've been luck with injuries relatively speaking and now we have to risk it again. There's no choice.
His point is fair enough....

0719171212.Thats the number of the Sligo Showground’s, there you will find Paul Cooke most mornings from 10am.Instead of hiding behind an alias name (and probably alias addresses and real names during registration)why not arrange a meeting with him to tell him "shut his mouth" and explain why "you could not be more against Paul Cooke" Doubt you will.
(Also puzzles me, why ther were 63 repleis to this post but when I asked for help with €2 fundraiser I recieved 4 replies to my post)

Now let’s get things in perspective, as some fans are getting a bit excited about Paul’s article. So the club could do with a serious cash injection, the dog on the street knows this. That is what Paul is looking for "We simply need more money".There is not a football club in the world that doesn’t want more money Paul is not asking the MC to break the 65% salary cap he simply stating we need "more money" so we can improve our squad.
We will be competing in 5 competitions next season with 15 players, this includes Coleman (who may be gone by then) and Raf (who will be suspended for first 2 league games) so we are now looking at 13 players, if we are injury free. Some weeks we will be playing 3 games in a week.

No way can we compete with such a small squad, I mean look at the biggest club in the world Man Utd(I'm not a Man Utd fan by the way) this week they had 12 injured/suspended players, if they had a 15 man squad then they had 2fit players. Suspensions and injuries are part and parcel of football, we are no exception. We simply need to be ready for when it hits.(please no replies about comparisons to us and Utd).

Anyone who attends the AGMs will constantly hear the appeal for MORE committee members, more volunteers. We need HELP to run the club. Suppose you could say this is the clubs off the field squad. Now can you imagine how difficult it would be with only 4-5 of a committee trying to run the club. With a club chairman or team manager they all need help, Pauls needs a large squad our chairman needs a large committee.

Paul has always worked within budgets provided to him, last July he accepted a reduced budget to "ensure the safety of the club " now he is being asked to work with reduced budget of 15-20% from the end of last season. He is not asking the club to put itself into "financial difficulties ".Last July Paul and Gerry were asked to reduce the players budget, they did this. They accepted the financial difficulties and accepted the position the club was in.
When Paul first arrived he was told he would have a reduced player’s budget, as we had to offload Rob McDonalds misfits who were getting well paid.
So from day one Paul has been asked to work with limited resources and has done so.

Cannot fault the man to hope that after last season’s success he would possibly have been given a slightly improved budget, even the same one he finished on last season, to push on and try and win some silverware this season.

Cookie is not asking the club to "splash the cash" in fact , if his article was read thoroughly he never mentions asking the club for more money, what he states is "we need people out there to come and help us”. Paul HAS accepted the budget, if he didn’t he wouldn’t be here.

Look at it this way, if Pauls asks for financial help for teh team maybe we have a better chance of getting it rather than the club asking for it as it may be seen as "here we go again with Rovers, always begging"
Will the club turn down any financial donation regardless of who or hows its asked for!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul Cooke has brought the club value for money and no other manager on the league would bring us the success we have had on such a tight financial budget as Paul and Gerry. I see Paul & Gerry as value for money. Look at it this way they have brought in almost €130K from last season with Setanta qualification, league finishing position and who knows how Europe will go.
I see that as a good return on investment.
Also look at the players we have sold for profit all because Cooke got the best out of them.Faz,Hughes,Turner,Seamie all improved under Cooke resulting in interest from other clubs willing to pay fees for them.

Cooke’s frustration is not directed at the club or management committee in fact "in the 20 months I have been at the club I have received nothing but the best of backing from the chairman, secretary and the rest of the committee " I personally know he has nothing but praise for the work the club is doing to help him.

Fact is in any walk of life you pay for quality let it be consumer goods or professional services if you are to succeed. The players have earned the right to challenge the top teams and we have a management team to do so and committee members doing their best to assist.
No one wants to put the club into financial difficulty but you will never see an open top bus parade a healthy balance sheet, or in 20 years celebratory dinner dances for making a profit in 2009.

Football is about winning trophies, being the best in the land bringing the feel good factor to fans. Last July Sligo Rovers fans saved the club, it wasn’t the management committee, or Paul Cooke or the supporters Trust, it was the fans collectively. It was probably the first time EVERYONE was pulling in the one direction and look what we did. We saved the club collectively to see it prosper we backed the management committee we backed Paul Cooke.

There is not a manager in the League who could get the quality Paul gets for what we pay. He has brought nothing but positives to the club locally and nationally .Credit the man for what he is doing not slate him.

I am sure Inside Man and Dong2008 celebrated our success last sason and would love to see it replicated or improved this season.
So simply ask yourself what can you (and us all) do to help Paul and the club this season instaed of asking him to "shut his mouth" and get on with it.


If you read this Paul any criticism is in the minority, ignore it ,you have the 100% backing of the fans.

'nil carborundum illegitimi' translated "Dont let the b******s grind you down"

To be honest, the whole thread was about a few sentences, taken out of context from that interview.

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Originally Posted by Rory H

More than a bit. Maybe I'm crazy but perhaps he wants to be a successful manager, move on after doing well with Sligo Rovers and feels he is currently being restricted.

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And that's the problem, Sligo Rovers have with bringing in these type of managers, who want to spend money only to further themselves, while leaving the club who gave them a chance carrying the can financially. We're a good enough club to start wanting managers to hang about for the long-term and not just be a constant stepping stone that managers use to progress themselves. The club will never build long term under this stop-go merry-go-round system of employing managers from the UK.

I've seen Scully now doing well with two clubs on low budgets. If he can wheel and deal like he does then other managers should be able to.

Cook should do his best with what he has and hope that should be enough for him to progress. Doing well on a low budget would prob do more for his prosepects that doing crap to average with a large budget (well unless he wants the cork job that is)

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Originally Posted by neutrino

We're a good enough club to start wanting managers to hang about for the long-term and not just be a constant stepping stone that managers use to progress themselves.

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we had one of them in don o'riordan..do you want him back? cook has every right to be frustrated with the budget. what's the point of qualifying for setanta and europe if we just gonna keep cutting the budget and eventually get burned with injuries and suspensions.

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Originally Posted by Red4Eva

we had one of them in don o'riordan..do you want him back? cook has every right to be frustrated with the budget. what's the point of qualifying for setanta and europe if we just gonna keep cutting the budget and eventually get burned with injuries and suspensions.

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O'riordan wasnt given tuppence during his time. I dont think his reign was as bad as is being made out either. We never competed for promotion under his reign but that period stabilised the club and allowed them to fund Connor for his reign.

Yes Cook can be frustrated with the budget, but what's the point cribbing in the paper about it. Alot of people have worked tirelessly to try and get some sort of budget in place and comments like these do undermine everyone's effort.

You know qualification for setanta and europe are highlights for Rovers that dont come along too much. All we can do is try to compete and go from there. There's no point throwing money at it and hoping you get it back based of getting x rounds into a competition. Our budget has been under estimated the last number of years and there's no harm in a bit of realism this time around. I'm sure when seamie's cash comes through the budget will be increased somewhat - altho preferrable once-off money like that should be put towards something beneficial for the long term.

For all they ney sayers, “shut your mouth Paul” ; “he should get on with” etc comments.

Fair enough so.

Let’s go into the season with 15 players, get a few injuries, put some young fellas on the bench, leave our A team short of players, start losing games, kill the confidence of the young fellas, then you will all be giving out about Cook for losing those matches.

As for the lets invest money in infrastructure comments.

Ya lets build a club house that will at best make a small profit of under €10,000 per year, just look at Dundalk, Cobh, Bohs etc., their bars hardly fund their running costs now do they ?

No let's build a stand (that will cost millions) for 800 people that will be occupied to full capacity maybe 4 or 5 times a year.

The Bray game was the first time all season that the blue stand was really any way full but sure wouldn’t it be great to look at all those red seats when the attendances drop (Shels, Longford, Galway and Cork have great - empty - stands dont they!) because we are losing games because we have too small a squad.

But sure then some have said here that Cook wants to move on from Rovers.

No Sh*%e Sherlock we knew that when he joined us, just like McStay, Conor et al!

What do you want the man to commit his career to Rovers and life to Sligo ?

If results went bad over the last year the same people would be calling for him to be sacked.

Everyone in life has ambition or at least should have.

If you are working in Dunnes Sligo and Sainsbury offer you a store managers position in England (just an example so relax) I think most people would take it given it would be a better pay deal and benefits, higher profile with chance of further job promotion etc. - get real people.

So that’s it whingers and complainers give out about a dedicated manager who has proven himself since he has joined the club and who has committed himself to the budget for this season.

Do nothing, sit on your hands and watch YOUR club suffer in 2009 based on your viewpoints.

That’s just it, Sligo Rovers is YOUR club, not the committees, not Paul Cook's, not Sligo County Council, not the FAI.............it's YOUR club, for goodness sake back it, promote it , praise it but for God's sake don’t slate it or those who work for its betterment.

In fairness to myself I was only questioning his motives for coming out with this now.
Wasn't having a go at him in any respect.
Could it not be possible that he's said this to lower the expectations a little bit, considering the squad will be pretty threadbare?

this has to be one of the best posts i have ever read on sligo rovers. it was full of passion and brilliantly put togeather. its guys like this that keep sligo rovers alive . then i was brought back straight to earth because the follow on comments to alans post missed the point completely that alan was making and that is simply alan needs help , the club needs help , paul cook is looking for more finance to bring extra players but not one of yee held up your hand to say "I will help" alan. i am going to say it for the last time the "2 euro ting" is a brilliant idea but we need foot soldiers. we need guys to go around and put up posters. then when all the posters are put up in pubs shopping centres etc we need people to go and sign up clients. look at it this way, the posters are colorful, they hammer the point home "sligo rovers needs you" . people will see this and ask the question what's this about? where can we go to sign up.? they will read about it in the "weekender" some maybe will fill in the form however for this to be truly successfull we need to attack on three fronts. firstly , we need anybody who works in a factory , industry etc. especially where there a large groups of people togeather to carry the direct debit mandate and sign up their co workers (also put up posters at work places) secondly, as i said before we need to chase family menbers close friends, acquaintances etc , sign them up. thirdly use cold selling , that is approaching the general public (atendance in shopping centres etc). we need leaders in each of these groups. if we can push this idea out over the next 2 weeks great things are possible. i have spoken to alan about calling a meeting with the trust next week and get as big an attendance as possible and most importantly getting help.lads, all i'll say is if we put a big effort into this and help paul to bring in an extra few players we could be celebrating at the end of the season. i firmly believe that we are not far off the mark but i can also understand that 15 players wont do the trick i also understand the clubs predicament so at the end of the day its up to those who want it most and that is guys like alan. look what drogheda have done ( no disrespect to what we achieved last year financially) gathered e300,000. if we have a properly orchestrated approach to this we can get at leat 300to 400 people to sign up . nothing is impossible. so lets have a large turnout when the meeting is called.

Is it not the managers job to try and get as much cash as he can to further the team, and in turn the job of the commitee to tell the manager what is available for the squad. This is how football clubs work. Nothing out of the ordinary in Cooks statement as far as i can see