Bohs in financial trouble - FAI Licencing called into question again?

[marinobohs]

apologies if already posted.

Mc Guinness obviously missed the news flash about 400,000 plus unemployed, diminishing returns from just about any finance stream and the worst recession to hit ireland in at least 20 years.
Everytime you think that clown has hit rock bottom............ surely the worst reprezentative the players could have ?

PS this is not to mitigate in any way Bohs self inflicted financial difficulties.

[Ezeikial]

PS this is not to mitigate in any way Bohs self inflicted financial difficulties.

A Damascan conversion if ever there was one!

Accpeting reality is welcome even if very belated

If Bohs somehow win the league and escape short term finanical meltdown or SCP sanctions will you turn back again to your earlier lines of mitigation?

[micls]

Mc Guinness obviously missed the news flash about 400,000 plus unemployed, diminishing returns from just about any finance stream and the worst recession to hit ireland in at least 20 years.
Everytime you think that clown has hit rock bottom............ surely the worst reprezentative the players could have ?

PS this is not to mitigate in any way Bohs self inflicted financial difficulties.

You say that as if there was no recession before the budgets went in in February. Come off it!.

If the bohs board weren't even able to see that this would be a tough year in Ireland then theyre more clueless than I alright thought they were, and that would be difficult.

[Mr A]

The following is robbed from the Bohs forum and appeared in the Mail On Sunday. It doesn't seem to be online anywhere else, so I'll post it in full:

Bohs in bother but League must take share of blame
Gypsies enter most critical stage in their history so far
By Mark Gallagher

NEXT MONTH, as part of the Phibsboro Arts Festival, there is a special evening organised for the Phoenix Bar at Dalymount Park entitled Bohemians at the Heart of Phibsboro.

It will chronicle the history of the club from its founding meeting in 1890 to the present day.

The next few weeks, though, are likely to be the most critical in the long and proud history of Bohemians football club. A shortfall in commercial income and cashflow problems mean the club needs €400,000 simply to survive until the end of the season.

Doubts expressed, most loudly by PFAI chief Stephen McGuinness, over their ability to pay players' wages in the past week have been allayed somewhat by the impending sale of teenage defender Matt Doherty to Wolverhampton Wanderers and receipt of the next instalment of Gary Deegan's €150,000 transfer fee from Coventry City.

In that rarest of League of Ireland seasons, where there has been no issue with unpaid wages (Galway United players agreed to a deferral last month), the FAI have to deal with one of the biggest crises since they took control of the league with the most successful club of recent times falling on hard times.

There were warning signs, though, and all too frequently reported on these pages. Only two years ago, Bohemians posted losses of €1.3million.

Nevertheless, they went ahead and secured a €4million loan from Zurich Bank, repayments of which now affect their cashflow. One highprofile member (writer and activist Michael Nugent) was so perturbed by the club's spending practices in 2008 that he called for an Emergency General Meeting. But little changed.

Bohs were dogged with rumours that they were skirting around the 65 per cent Salary Cost Protocol last season, something borne out by the fact the FAI imposed a transfer embargo on the club.

Despite walking a financial tightrope, though, the two-time champions bolstered their squad with seven new players this past January. No wonder it will be a constant struggle for the club between now and November. Bohemians are paying for past sins; recent ones at that.

'We robbed Peter to pay Paul and we did that for a while,' one club source acknowledged this week.

'And that is where we are at now and we just have to see where we can go from here.'

The Gypsies elected a new board last year and immediately set about implementing cost-cutting measures.

Wages were slashed by as much as 40 per cent in some cases. By that stage, though, things had been allowed to spiral out of control.

Bohemians met on Thursday night to evaluate the club's current position, discussing a number of fundraising ventures and the different methods which will allow it to get back on a stable footing.

Members have been asked to pay for home games, although given less than 1,200 turned up to watch the 2-0 defeat of Bray Wanderers on Tuesday night, it remains to be seen how much can be raised. The club is also running a 'Bring a Friend Initiative'. But again, judging on recent gates, it doesn't appear to have been too great a success.

It doesn't help that the events on the pitch have led to the most pronounced slump of Pat Fenlon's reign at precisely the wrong time. Since their shock Champions League exit at the hands of TNS in Wales, the faith of followers was further shaken by a 3-0 defeat to Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght before the lost 2-0 at home Park to nine-man Galway United. There was some respite with Friday's victory over freefalling Dundalk but it remains to be seen whether it's enough to stop the rot.

For seasoned observers of the league as a whole, it's depressingly familiar. Twenty-three years ago, Shamrock Rovers spent their final season in their fabled Milltown home with average gate floating around the 600 mark.

Fenlon has delivered five trophies in two-and-a-half seasons at Dalymount Park, but it hasn't led to any sort of stampede through the turnstiles. And recent spiritless performances have turned off a few regulars too.

However, as Bohemians members discovered nine days ago in an information meeting, there's a major reason for the lack of spirit among the players. Despair on the field has been dwarfed by that off it. The board anticipated there would be trouble as far back as June.

Certain revenue streams were not producing and the club still had to deal with a long-standing Revenue debt (which they hope to clear by the end of this year) as well as repayments on the €4million Zurich bank loan. They decided, not unreasonably, to wait until the outcome of the Champions League qualifier with TNS to break any bad news.

When that game ended in disaster, however, costing the club in the region of €500,000, the inevitable transpired only days after the humbling defeat to their most bitter rivals in Tallaght Stadium. Despite what it may look like, however, both the club and the FAI are adamant that only one round of European football was factored into their calculations.

'Bohemians were only allowed to budget for one round in Europe and last place in the Premier Division,' insists FAI compliance officer Padraig Smith whose efforts have been rewarded with an invitation to join UEFA's Financial Fair Play Committee.

There was no issue with regard to a budget, speculating on how far they might get in Europe. Their current problems do not come from that.'

The new board elected at Dalymount Park last year have been firefighting (mostly inherited) financial issues for much of the intervening time. However, facilitiating the manager in bolstering his squad with seven new players in January, when they knew that the club were walking a financial tightrope after the FAI embargo had been lifted was, perhaps, not the wisest move.

Still, given the apparent rigours of the licensing process, questions must also be asked as to how, only two thirds of the way through the season, they should find themselves in such a financial bind.

The current trouble seems to stem from that September night almost four years ago when Bohemians members rubber-stamped an agreementin-principle worth €65million with property developer Liam Carroll which would see them leave Dalymount Park and move to a new, purpose-built stadium.

Doubts surrounding that deal, however, were not long in surfacing and said that And it's midtable title up, and the the although the club stubbornly refused to acknowledge any difficulty and continued to spend well beyond the non-refundable advances received (only circa €2m of an agreed total of €4.5m was paid over).

'The new board has done very well in trying to reduce the costs,' Smith says. 'And they have a very solid three-to-five year plan in place to get the club back on a sound financial footing and deal with the problems they have inherited. And we believe they can do that, if they are allowed to.'

Despite repeated warnings, the scale of the mess engendered by several seasons of over-spending is only now becoming apparent.

CARROLL'S well-documented financial difficulties mean that deal has crumbled, but the club still need to find some way out of the sinking hole. The hope now is that property developer Pascal Conroy, with whom the club were engaged in a legal battle in 2008 over the sale of a small corner by of the ground, may be enticed to buy the rest of the site if plans to redevelop Phibsboro Shopping Centre go ahead.

'A deal with Albion and Pascal Conroy is one of the options on the table,' said a Bohs source. 'And all of these options will be discussed with our members at an EGM early next month.'

The picture remains bleak, though. Although the new board did implement measures to slash the wage bill last year, with some staff taking a 40 per cent wage cut, salaries are still high by league standards and the club concedes there are not many who will be able to match them.

'One of the ways we are looking at raising funds, though, is through the sale of players (Paddy Madden, Killian Brennan and Aaron Greene are among the few saleable assets),' admitted a Bohs official.

That the club's profligacy with cash seems to have gone relatively unchecked for so long is almost beyond belief yet it was hardly a secret.

An official at one club, facing serious sanction in the last few seasons, recounted a tale of a crisis meeting he'd had with the licensing board. Making a plea on behalf of his own club, he cited the apparently greater difficulties at Bohemians. The dogs in the street, he reasoned, know how bad Bohs' situation is.

Asked to provide evidence, he declined. 'That's not my job,' he said.

Indeed.

Not too much new there but I wasn't aware of the issue with the taxman.. that appears to be the most obvious threat on the licensing front if we accept that the 65% limit is not an issue.

[Macy]

'Bohemians were only allowed to budget for one round in Europe and last place in the Premier Division,' insists FAI compliance officer Padraig Smith whose efforts have been rewarded with an invitation to join UEFA's Financial Fair Play Committee.

There was no issue with regard to a budget, speculating on how far they might get in Europe. Their current problems do not come from that.'

So where do the budget problems come from, that wasn't in the mix before the start of the season? They might not have been allowed to budget for more than one round in Europe and last place, but there's a big hole there now. Why didn't the licencing process pick up on it? What's the point of pre-approval of budgets, if this can still feckin happen?

[kdjaC]

Mc Guinness obviously missed the news flash about 400,000 plus unemployed, diminishing returns from just about any finance stream and the worst recession to hit ireland in at least 20 years.
Everytime you think that clown has hit rock bottom............ surely the worst reprezentative the players could have ?

PS this is not to mitigate in any way Bohs self inflicted financial difficulties.

Ah now here Pats,Sligo,Rovers,Bohs,Fingal(one) have had great fun away in europe with him, the lad can drink.

[DeNiro]

I blame the outrageous anti-Rovers bias on this forum for entirely derailing the thread from its topic.

Anti-Rovers bias on this forum? What? Sure we all love Rovers on this forum! How could you not?

[mandrake]

i wonder will bohs be 'switching off floodlights' in an attempt to get two gates as dalymounttrower accused us of about a month ago ...
tut tut tut, what goes around comes around......

[sean r]

how did the fai approve of there budget? are there 2 contracts is the goalkeeper also the barman?

[Dodge]

http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...l-2313674.html

Byrne, the thick, still doesn't get it

[Jaime]

What does he not get?

[Dodge]

"But I hope it doesn't go the way Shelbourne did. It's a pity they are in the first division because they are a premier division club, but if things are not done properly off the field, these are the things that happen."

"That's the price of success if you want to bring the league on and bring the best players here. It comes at a price," he said.

"We have taken a step back and that is not good for the league. It is a good league as a whole, but when you see some of the things happening off the pitch it gets a bad name."

---

That most of these "off field" issues he speaks off were payments to players

[osarusan]

What does he not get?

Paid.

[legendz]

The frustrating thing about Boh's is, had they beaten TNS and been defeated by Anderlecht, they would've given CSKA Sofia a good game in the Europa League Play-offs. Would've been some amount of games as well to raise the profile of the LoO.

[Dodge]

The frustrating thing about Boh's is, had they beaten TNS and been defeated by Anderlecht, they would've given CSKA Sofia a good game in the Europa League Play-offs. Would've been some amount of games as well to raise the profile of the LoO.

No basis for saying they'd have given CSKA a good game seeing as they were beaten 2-0 at home by Galway (with 9 men)

Also the'd have played 6 games in Europe. Same amount as Pats last year and the year before. same as a few others in recent time too

[Jaime]

Same amount as Pats last year and the year before. same as a few others in recent time too

Yeah, and those games were good news for the profile of the league too. It was definitely a springboard for Fahey, for one thing. The evidence of the benefits of a good Euro run are there for all to see.

[Jaime]

That most of these "off field" issues he speaks off were payments to players

So he's making some attempt acknowledge the bigger picture, while all the time [rightly] pointing out that his own primary concern has to be his wages...

[Dodge]

Yeah, and those games were good news for the profile of the league too. It was definitely a springboard for Fahey, for one thing. The evidence of the benefits of a good Euro run are there for all to see.

So how has the league improved with all this great promotional work done by pats over the past two years? (and Fahey only played in half those games btw)

[Jaime]

The Fahey thing proves my point, one decent performance in Europe will accelerate any prospective move to a decent English club. I was thinking specifically of his performance in the Hertha home(?) game, which was probably worth a million times more to him than the Sunday evening league game when he came off the bench against Cork and single handedly rescued a point.

Lookit, a European run increases public awareness of the league and media coverage of the league, and generates positive publicity. I am not saying it gets an extra 1,000 people in the gate for the next league game, because we all know that isn't the case. But the benefits are there. They might not be worth a whole lot financially, but they are there.

[legendz]

What the league needs it's top 2 or 3 clubs making the play-offs at least every season. One-off season get a bit of coverage, if it happens season after season it'll raise the profile of the league and the coefficient.