Galway in financial turmoil

[John83]

How many have dropped overall (I noticed you used significant).

If someone drops from 2000 to 1985, counting it as a fall will make a statistician cry because the error in the estimates dwarfs the drop. The raw data is here.

Could there be other factors i.e. UCD, Pats Dundalk all doing better than expected and holding top spot at some stage?

Very difficult to quantify, but the overall league average is down 2.6%, which again is too small to really be considered significant. (The Premier average is not that useful as UCD and Fingal have replaced Cork and Derry.) If those few examples were being propped up by form, then the teams doing less well would have crashing attendances, and the league average would have fallen dramatically.

You say UCd's are in line with other premier seasons but UCD are playing a lot better football and having better results than their more recent seasons. On form alone would you not expect an increase?Id imagine it would be different if they hadnt performed as well.

Our crowds are very sensitive to away fans, and so not as much to form. There's also the staggering number of Tuesday home games we've had to play. I really don't think success has that much to do with it.

I'd also be surprised if most clubs attendances didnt average out as lower than they currently are by the end of the season with the summer lull taken into account. I'd be surprised if there are more than a few clubs over both leagues with higher averages than last year, due to numerous factors.

There usually is a bit. Last year's decline from here was 9%. Galway's attendances are down about 20% on last year so far.

Im not trying to claim the economy is the only reason for a drop in crowds, but it would certainly be a reason to budget for a drop in crowds, because if you combine the economy with a few disappointing results, then you'l find people will find better things to do with the 15euro they're finding tough to come by. or the extra few tickets for the kids.

Sales in everything is down, why would the league be any different? Why wouldn't you budget for them to be down? Even if you are lucky enough to avoid them dropping for other reasons?

I mostly agree, but how much of a drop should you budget for? Galway, if the fan who said they budgeted for no fall is correct (and that's a big if), probably got it a bit wrong, but it's unreasonable to expect them to have expected a 20% drop. If they were debt free, they might be able to absorb this, but they're not, and their budget has to be in ruins.

[micls]

I mostly agree, but how much of a drop should you budget for? Galway, if the fan who said they budgeted for no fall is correct (and that's a big if), probably got it a bit wrong, but it's unreasonable to expect them to have expected a 20% drop. If they were debt free, they might be able to absorb this, but they're not, and their budget has to be in ruins.

Maybe it's cautiousness based on the state we've been in in recent years, but my first thought would always budget low to be in a position to cover yourself should something like this happen, or something like what happened to Derry(sponsor pulled out).

Like in any other business you need to have some sort of cushion for the unexpected that can go wrong. LOI clubs seem to completely ignore this for the most part, budget for exactly what they expect and then base expenditure on spending most of that, with little thought into how they would deal with hitting a blip or debts they have.

With the debts they came into the year, based on things going wrong before, I would have expected them to expect that things could go wrong again. And build something into their budget for this(maybe they have and are just unlucky that something went wrong their too). The trend was already there, as a Galway fan pointed out earlier, they played some fantastic football last season and their crowds kept falling.

But the attitude of spending what we expect will come in if nothing goes wrong and then being surprised when something does is killing a lot of clubs, especially when they already have debts.

[gufcfan]

I mostly agree, but how much of a drop should you budget for? Galway, if the fan who said they budgeted for no fall is correct (and that's a big if), probably got it a bit wrong, but it's unreasonable to expect them to have expected a 20% drop. If they were debt free, they might be able to absorb this, but they're not, and their budget has to be in ruins.

Fair point, although I thought that the crowds we had last year would have been made up of mostly core support.

The drop we've seen since has really surprised me and I'm not known for optimism.

[total hoofball]

If it wasn't for Nick Leeson putting in his own money into the club, it would have gone tits up long before now.

As for the budget being topped-up, it was more a case of keeping the club afloat than throwing money at players.

O RLY?

http://foot.ie/threads/130400-Sean-C...=1#post1304761

and then Galway went onto sign the likes of Thomas Heary, Stephen O'Donnell and Bobby Ryan.

[total hoofball]

Hmmm this topic of this thread is somewhat familiar

Financial crisis threatens United's long term future

June 12, 2009 - 9:53am Leeson highlights serious troubles ahead of FAI Cup opener


GALWAY United CEO Nick Leeson has this week highlighted the perilous financial state of the club as they prepare for tomorrow night’s Ford FAI Cup clash with Finn Harps in Ballybofey (kick-off 8 pm).
On the same day it was announced that Cristiano Ronaldo is set to move from Manchester United to Real Madrid for a mind-boggling fee of €94 million, Leeson confirmed yesterday that United took just €5,000 in gate receipts from their last two games, well short of the minimum €12,500 a week – €50,000 a month – required to cover the cost of running the club.
It is not just United who are struggling financially – a petition was lodged in the High Court last month seeking to wind up Cork City; Derry City have lost two of their sponsors; while Sligo Rovers were ‘outed’ as tax defaulters by Revenue this week, with an outstanding bill of €55,000 owed to the taxman.
While the city basked in the success of the Volvo Ocean Race stopover, hosting some of its biggest ever crowds, Galway United were attracting some of their lowest in recent times, a situaiton which has to be a threat to its very existence.
“It is unbelievably tough at the moment. We took only €2,500 on the gate for the game against Derry recently, a game which is usually a banker for between €12,000 and €13,000. We need that kind of money every week to cover ourselves, but we took only €5,000 in the month.

http://www.galwaynews.ie/7802-financ...ng-term-future

Leeson is really just like Brian Cowen, soon he'll be saying 'nobody saw it coming', 'unprecedented', 'it's not our fault', 'Lehman Brothers'.

[gufct]

Our Budget is less than €4,000 a week so how people can lash us over that is laughable.We may have 1 home game in 7 weeks as after Bray our next home games are against Rovers and Dundalk who could both be involved in Europa ties which means the fixtures may be postponed leaving us with no cashflow.

[Dodge]

Our Budget is less than €4,000 a week so how people can lash us over that is laughable..

make it 2.5k a week and save yourself 60k

[gael353]

In reply to Dundalkjames, we have Liverpool in the first week of August for a start

its liverpool legends i think, and the company who are bringing them have a less then clean record down this way

[Olander]

its liverpool legends i think

Yawn.

No its not.

[Dodge]

Its a LIverpool XI

So its still not glamour, is it..

[gufct]

Its the Liverpool reserve team same as played in Cork last season except that it looks like a large number of 1st teamers could be playing as it is their last friendly before the season starts.Its amazing how fans of other clubs seem to think they know so much about GUFC.

[Olander]

Its a LIverpool XI

So its still not glamour, is it..

Ask Bohs (sell out) and Dunmanway Town (sell out) about Liverpool XI's Dodge... goodman

http://sportsfile.com/id/373142/

http://sportsfile.com/id/371651/

[Dodge]

Relax lads, I hope it sells out for you. its actually a better deal than paying for the first XI

but glamour it isn't...

[Olander]

I am relaxed Dodge. I couldn't give a fiddlers fart whether you think its a glamour friendly or not.

As long as it sells out I will be a happy man, thats all that concerns me.

[pineapple stu]

You so much don't care what he thinks that you went into the Sportsfile archives to prove him wrong?

[Olander]

You so much don't care what he thinks that you went into the Sportsfile archives to prove him wrong?

Read what I posted Stu. I said I don't care if he thinks its a glamour tie or not.

Define a glamour tie? Is it Sunderland bringing a full strength squad? Liverpool bringing their youths? Who honestly gives a toss as long as it sells out and we do well from it?

I thought it was painstakingly obvious that posting those links to sportfile was an example that a so called "glamour" tie, doesn't mean ****. That Irish people will turn out in force for any big name club.

Next time I will try to be clearer, spelling it out perhaps.

[gufct]

The FAI are so out of touch with the Politics of Galway soccer and after reading Fran Gavin suggesting that GUFC,SDFC & Mervue should merge I really despair.I can Just see Ollie Daniels and Declan McDonnell sitting down discussing this.The league realise now they have ****ed up royally by having 3 LOI clubs in Galway and there isnt a hope of Salthill and Mervue merging let alone all 3.

[pineapple stu]

So this is the fault of the FAI, Fran Gavin, Salthill Devon, Mervue United but absolutely not Galway United for building up massive debts and then not paying them off?

If you looked up "apologist" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of you.

[gufct]

Whats the word for WUM in the dictionary. Our debts are being paid the problem at the moment is cashflow plain & simple. Im not blaming other clubs for our problems but the suggestion that Fran Gavin made today will have the people involved in Galway soccer and the GDSL falling about laughing. Politics and egos in Galway soccer are one of the main problems in all of Galway soccer moving forward.

[pineapple stu]

It's been mentioned a number of times that you budgeted for higher attendances than you're getting. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of that (as well debated earlier in the thread), that doesn't equate to a problem of "cashflow plain & simple". It equates to spending more than you're earning.

(Taking it that "cash flow" implies problems caused merely by a delay in money coming as opposed to not coming at all)

So maybe you're right, but you're disagreeing with pretty much every other Galway fan and official in the thread so far.