Sunderland's running costs are 'scary' and must be reduced, says Stewart Donald


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Yep, you're a WUM.

I'm not, I've just spent 2 years listening to Bain get slaughtered and become public enemy number one, then see new blokes come in and say the same things and announce a continuation of Bains policy yet get lauded as heros.

If that is the case and you actually think that then what do you see as the short term future for the club? Am I correct in assuming this is it: cut a load of costs now, spend 5m in the window on our 14 new players, get promoted first time of asking, cut some more costs in the championship, spend whatever is in our means next season. And the season after and the season after and keep doing so until we manage to strike gold and get promoted back to the premier league?

Because honestly mate, that's just what Short was doing tbh
 
The parachute payments will be security- so i'm assuming we cant spend it until Short is paid the £40M in full?

The question is whether the share price is being paid in full by Stewart's own money or not. If not then the Club will be paying it one way or another and that makes a huge difference to the Club's finances.
It's literally 20x more important to them than Rodwell's remaining wages.
 
But no clubs outside of the PL (and few in it tbf) break even....only those who trade successfully do so.

Surely the whole point of the “project” is that we AREN’T a L1 club and have only finished less than 3rd in the Championship once (last season) so running the club as a L1 club shouldn’t really be the aspiration of the new owners. Cut costs where they don’t impact on match day experience but ultimately we have to invest to get the club back challenging for a PL return....we won’t do that if we cut our cost base to L1 levels.

We aren't a PL club though, we barely survived being a premier league club for many seasons in a row because we kept living above our station.

Donald had stressed in initial interviews that people need to get on board that we aren't a premier league club any more and weren't last season and if we try to maintain our current setup then we'll probably go out of business before getting close to the PL once more.

People were angry at Bain for his austerity plan (sounds like it was poorly implemented) and realistically it seems the same is going to happen again because that appears to be the thing that needs to be done. We have to get the club on a financial footing that matches the lower half of the championship and then build up from there instead of trying to continue to spend how we do.

Methvan was talking about closing Black Cat House or renting out the top of it and only using the bottom, those are the sort of cutbacks that people are going to need to get used to.

I appreciate that at some point we can't keep closing things as we'll end up with no AoL and we'll have sold the stadium and be groundsharing somewhere but there is a long way to go before the club hits bare bones and so people are just going to have to suck it up until we get to that point.
 
Everything about the club should be geared towards making the first team successful and nothing else, at the end of the day that is the only thing that matters. It was mentioned above that we may need to keep the ladies team in order to maintain the status of our academy. If that is true then it may be worth us keeping the ladies team as long as the benefit of having a cat1 academy as opposed to a lower level one really would help us get better players through to the first team. If not the ladies team definitely should go.

Agreed. I think clubs should also be a positive for the community so, if possible, I do think we should have a women's team. There are people who like to watch them and it will help get girls involved in football. It has to be affordable for the club though. If we were in the prem with turnover of £150m or whatever then I'd argue that even if it lost £400k it's probably a price worth paying for the community benefits it brings. When we're in league one and facing the end of parachute payments in a couple of seasons at which point our turnover will be drastically lower than that, however, I don't think we can be spending that much on a "nice to have". Either we find a way of running it for significantly less/ no loss, or it has to go. No doubt if Donald does that however there will be loads calling him a disgrace etc
 
His whole strategy was flawed. The loans, the lack of quality players, the fact that he didn’t get high earners salaries off the books when they were loaned out, the staff numbers were unsustainable and albeit very unpleasant he needed to reduce the staff further. He didn’t do his job properly......
I agree with all of that marra. My point was that there's folk who were gunning for him last time redundancies were announced, some now seem to be saying they need to happen. It's amazing what a change of owner does. For what it's worth I also feel it needs to happen. I've been through this process myself, both by having my job at risk and carrying out cost cutting and consultations. It's not nice, but most people recover pretty quickly. Infact some are glad to go. The contrast in views from last year though from some people is slightly hypocritical.

Staff Redundancies at SAFC
 
I'm not, I've just spent 2 years listening to Bain get slaughtered and become public enemy number one, then see new blokes come in and say the same things and announce a continuation of Bains policy yet get lauded as heros.

If that is the case and you actually think that then what do you see as the short term future for the club? Am I correct in assuming this is it: cut a load of costs now, spend 5m in the window on our 14 new players, get promoted first time of asking, cut some more costs in the championship, spend whatever is in our means next season. And the season after and the season after and keep doing so until we manage to strike gold and get promoted back to the premier league?

Because honestly mate, that's just what Short was doing tbh

“Short term” is exactly what we don’t want. Make the changes needed on and off the pitch, get the club running efficiently and have a long term plan in place. If they do that we have a great chance to turn things round

Shorts biggest problem was with the staff / management he allowed to run the club. That won’t happen with this new lot in place
 
I'm not, I've just spent 2 years listening to Bain get slaughtered and become public enemy number one, then see new blokes come in and say the same things and announce a continuation of Bains policy yet get lauded as heros.

If that is the case and you actually think that then what do you see as the short term future for the club? Am I correct in assuming this is it: cut a load of costs now, spend 5m in the window on our 14 new players, get promoted first time of asking, cut some more costs in the championship, spend whatever is in our means next season. And the season after and the season after and keep doing so until we manage to strike gold and get promoted back to the premier league?

Because honestly mate, that's just what Short was doing tbh

Bain did Fook all other than cut the 1st team budget to zero.......which was a clever Fookin move.....

Spend a bit where it matters, the team, win, crowds come back, cash-flow improves
 
“Short term” is exactly what we don’t want. Make the changes needed on and off the pitch, get the club running efficiently and have a long term plan in place. If they do that we have a great chance to turn things round

Shorts biggest problem was with the staff / management he allowed to run the club. That won’t happen with this new lot in place

I see. So how long shall we be down here before we lose a generation to the mags? How long before our expectations decrease to the point that this is ok ? Would mirroring Leeds be classed as a success becuase they haven't gone out of business ?

Bain did Fook all other than cut the 1st team budget to zero.......which was a clever Fookin move.....

Spend a bit where it matters, the team, win, crowds come back, cash-flow improves

Nailed it tbh. We have 13/14 new players we have to go out and get this summer! Let's hope Sharon from the club shops salary will be put to good use!
 
We aren't a PL club though, we barely survived being a premier league club for many seasons in a row because we kept living above our station.

Donald had stressed in initial interviews that people need to get on board that we aren't a premier league club any more and weren't last season and if we try to maintain our current setup then we'll probably go out of business before getting close to the PL once more.

People were angry at Bain for his austerity plan (sounds like it was poorly implemented) and realistically it seems the same is going to happen again because that appears to be the thing that needs to be done. We have to get the club on a financial footing that matches the lower half of the championship and then build up from there instead of trying to continue to spend how we do.

Methvan was talking about closing Black Cat House or renting out the top of it and only using the bottom, those are the sort of cutbacks that people are going to need to get used to.

I appreciate that at some point we can't keep closing things as we'll end up with no AoL and we'll have sold the stadium and be groundsharing somewhere but there is a long way to go before the club hits bare bones and so people are just going to have to suck it up until we get to that point.

Ok....are you happy to accept us running the club as a sustainable L1 club?

I’m sure the answer that is no, you want to exit L1 asap. Right let’s look at the accounts (published) for the last two teams to do that...Sheff Utd and Millwall. Sheff Utd made a loss of £5.7m...and that’s after £8.6m the previous season. Millwall made a loss of £5.8m and £7.1m the season before.

It’s complete pie in the sky thinking to believe we can be run as a self sustaining club and get out of L1...unless L2 is the aim.

We can cut costs and move players on but if Sheff Utd make hefty losses on 20k+ average gates people have to realise it’s not as simple as sacking everyone.

Edit....oops, forgot Bolton’s £12m loss there.
 
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I see. So how long shall we be down here before we lose a generation to the mags? How long before our expectations decrease to the point that this is ok ? Would mirroring Leeds be classed as a success becuase they haven't gone out of business ?
We don't have an owner who is going to invest 50m of his own money into the club. So then we need to match our outgoings to our incomings. If that means we have to spend 5 years in the Championship then so be it. It's been 10 years of not being able to sustain our spending and so people shouldn't be surprised if it takes an equal amount of time to "fix it"
 
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We don't have an owner who is going to invest 50m of his own money into the club. So then we need to match our outgoings to our incomings. If that means we have to spend 5 years in the Championship then so be it. It's been 10 years of not being able to sustain our spending and so people shouldn't be surprised if it takes an equal amount of time to "fix it"

I see thanks for the answer. I best start lowering my ambitions for the club then, maybe one day we will see the lofty heights of 10th again, Bruce was right all along.
 
Ok....are you happy to accept us running the club as a sustainable L1 club?

I’m sure the answer that is no, you want to exit L1 asap. Right let’s look at the accounts (published) for the last two teams to do that...Sheff Utd and Millwall. Sheff Utd made a loss of £5.7m...and that’s after £8.6m the previous season. Millwall made a loss of £5.8m and £7.1m the season before.

It’s complete pie in the sky thinking to believe we can be run as a self sustaining club and get out of L1...unless L2 is the aim.

We can cut costs and move players on but if Sheff Utd make hefty losses on 20k+ average gates people have to realise it’s not as simple as sacking everyone.
Do I want us to be a premier league club? yes. Do I accept that we aren't anymore? yes.

We don't have to be run as a sustainable league 1 club, we have to be run like an average Championship club yet we don't even seem close to be being run like your average Championship club. Getting rid of players on 20k+ salaries is one thing and it'll be good when it happens but we shouldn't have twice or three times as many staff as PL clubs, so if we can reduce our non playing staff down to "average" then the club is going to look completely different and I'll accept that.
 
Ok....are you happy to accept us running the club as a sustainable L1 club?

I’m sure the answer that is no, you want to exit L1 asap. Right let’s look at the accounts (published) for the last two teams to do that...Sheff Utd and Millwall. Sheff Utd made a loss of £5.7m...and that’s after £8.6m the previous season. Millwall made a loss of £5.8m and £7.1m the season before.

It’s complete pie in the sky thinking to believe we can be run as a self sustaining club and get out of L1...unless L2 is the aim.

We can cut costs and move players on but if Sheff Utd make hefty losses on 20k+ average gates people have to realise it’s not as simple as sacking everyone.

Edit....oops, forgot Bolton’s £12m loss there.

Mate they will realise in about 6/7 years. For the next half a decade we best just shut up and be grateful to be in league one ! Because did you know we spend more in running costs than 20 League 2 teams !! We've won the LDVVans running costs Cup !!!
 
It's just a question of getting it lean. We will no doubt be paying people in Africa and God knows where.

Some of it is unavoidable though. Have an AoL and you need a boat load of AoL support staff that league 1 teams don't need or have.

I think the top and bottom of it is that it's a two pronged approach. Attack the bloat and get out of league 1 asap.
 
I see thanks for the answer. I best start lowering my ambitions for the club then, maybe one day we will see the lofty heights of 10th again, Bruce was right all along.
That sort of response makes you sound like a spoilt child though, there is a difference between Newcastle levels of "we deserve to be playing champions league football" and understanding you have to walk before you can run and we may need to knock half the house down before we build it back up again, which isn't going to be 1-2 years of work.
 
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