[themaclad]

Players not paid in November £172 million in debt not looking good

[St Charles Owl]

Their only saving grace is that the bulk of the debt, if not all, is owed to Ediie Davies and not a bank or other financial entity. Having said that he is reported to only be worth 65m (strange saying "only" to that amount!!), so not much he can do about things except accept that he will never see that money again. If he was to simply write it off maybe the club could move forward with new investment, but with that debt hanging over them there is no way they will find anyone to come in and invest in or buy the club.

[Stairs]

Wow. It makes you wonder how many more are running close to the edge. Eventually.....

[St Charles Owl]

Wow. It makes you wonder how many more are running close to the edge. Eventually.....

I wouldn't say Bolton are the last of these clubs with huge debts but the trend in the Prem at least is to utilize the huge income they receive to run the club more efficiently.  Clubs like WBA, Swansea, Palace, Norwich, etc do not seem to operate with the debt levels we saw before, and even if they did the income is so much bigger than when Bolton were in the prem.  The other aspect is that in this day and age if you want to be an owner of a prem team you either have to run a very tight ship and use the  income wisely or you have to be loaded, much more loaded than Eddie Davis is.

I think we are likely to see more of these problems in the Championship from the teams desperate to get into the Prem and get all these riches!!  Teams like Forest, Derby, Boro, QPR, Wednesday etc etc all want to get there, so either they have to have owners who can pay for this or they get in debt.  QPR seem to be trying to do both!!!  Take us as an example, our new owner has stated he wants us in the prem in 2 seasons. He is worth somewhere between 300-500m and is part of a family with even more than that, he has spent 40m on the ownership of the club, plus about 12m on the team and stadium so far, which is all chump change to him.  Now its a case of trying to stay within FFP rules by increasing revenues or blowing them off like QPR, Forest and Blackburn did to just get there and worry about it later.

[spireitematt]

There will be a lot of clubs running close to the edge Stairs. Do you remember when Phil Gartside wanted a two tier league for the Premier League so no Premier League team could get relegated into the Football League and the only way you could get in the Premier League is if you bought your way in like they do in America with certain sports.

[themaclad]

Matt, I do think there is a certain irony that Wanderers are bottom and under Gartside's plan would not now go down

[St Charles Owl]

To be fair to Gartside, the situation Bolton find themselves in is exactly the reason he wanted the closed shop. While I hated the whole idea, you could say he was ahead of his day by knowing that if, or when, Bolton got relegated they would be essentially crippled because of the debt but could sustain it whilever they stayed up. Of course it's their own fault they are in this position but look at Palace, a club who have twice gone into admin to clear debt to allow them to continue and they have used this "advantage" to get back to the prem with no need to worry about payments needed for debt.

[themaclad]

And QPR seem to be doing the same apparently

[spireitematt]

It is very ironic Maclad. Did Bolton get parachute payments?

When QPR beat Derby at Wembley to go up to the Premier League that was a must win game for them because otherwise they would have gone under if they had lost.

When you pay mediocre players big wages and buy them for big fees of course there is going to be financial problems somewhere down the line that's why most Championship teams are in financial difficulty because they all want to get to the Premier League because of the revenue from TV and big sponsorship deals which they wouldn't get if they were in the Championship or below and they will spend money they don't have and pay wages to players they can't afford but its not happening just in the Championship but in L1/L2 and even non-league football its like a domino affect. You have non-league teams like AFC Fylde, Forest Green Rovers etc trying to copy teams like Crawley and Fleetwood and when the money runs out and the debt is uncontrollable it will end in tears because it always does and then the loyal fans who have been going for years then decide to set up phoenix clubs which are fan owned and then slowly work there way back using a sustainable plan.

[St Charles Owl]

QPR won't go under, their owners are wealthy enough to support the debt they have. Bolton did get parachute payments from the Premier league but I believe that has now ended, hence their financial woes coming to the fore.

The problem is the disparity between the divisions, the gap in revenue between the Prem and Championship is enormous, but its a big drop from the Champ to League 1 as well. Clubs can usually cut their cloth accordingly between League 1 and the Championship but the parachute payments that relegated prem teams get really gives them a huge advantage over the other teams in the division and that is what potentially will drive some championship teams to the brink of financial disaster. This is because without competing with the teams that come down from the prem in terms of wages and transfer fees, then you will struggle to compete on the field when you play them.