Henry Ford gave his workers a decent wage so they could afford to buy his cars.

JG - I do agree with your post below. To me two things jump out on that - (1) we need to determine what we think is a reasonable level of player sales to budget for - that will be somewhere between zero (too low) and the levels of sales we saw in 2023/24 (probably higher than is sustainable) - it would be reasonable to assume that level of income in our budgeting (2) we currently seem to see the academy as being a vaguely "good thing to do" without actually questioning why that is the case. Realistically we should do an assessment of the costs vs the revenue it brings in (both from player sales and from the savings made by developing our own players who actually play for the team. If the revenue exceeds the costs then that is all good, if costs exceed revnue we should make an active decision whether this is just "something that we want to do", even if it is loss-making. We shouldn't just "have an academy" without thinking why we are doing so (eg there may be some sort of FA rule that you have to run an academy, if so that would obviously change the debate). Of course, I may be wrong and this assessment may actually have been done but just not shared with fans/ widely known about.

One other thing I found strange from the “Meet the Board” presentation was the assumption that we need to break even without any benefits from the proceeds of player sales. Presumably we only run an Academy, and thereby have all of the costs associated with it, because of the revenues we receive from sales. It would seem rather odd to take the hit on all of the expenditure without targeting and expecting something in return. Presumably the No 1 KPI of the Academy is to generate more in revenue from sales than it costs. Or is there some other altruistic Community Spirited alternative rationale? Over the last 5 years we have averaged around £800K per year in Academy player sales (£1.5m inclusive of non-Academy player sales). Obviously, I have no idea what the cost of running the Academy is, but hopefully it is a lot less than £800K.

I can see the value of paying the LLW, as the club staff impacted by it are still quite lowly-paid and it seems a bit mean to restrict their pay, and if the club was profitable or supported by an owner who thought it was a “good cause” for him/her to subsidise the consequent higher losses then I certainly wouldn’t oppose it on principle, but it needs to be acknowledged as a political, rather than commercial, gesture and one which, as a club, we currently can’t actually afford (as we are running at a loss)

Trebor - you may well be right. I wouldn't mind betting that the Club will only offer contracts to firms who agree to sign up to the Living Wage Foundation - i.e: we might be preventing firms from the process of tendering for our business on this basis. A bit like we appear to be excluding potential shareholders who don't share the same "Values & Principals"!!

Nick - Well said. I totally agree. I'd go further and state that it's quite scandalous to expect fans to make donations which are then being used for this kind of "Socialist" nonsense.

Laurence asked the other day for us to provide an example of the club not being run in a commercial manner- I think that the payment of the London Living Wage is a prime example of this. It’s all very nice as a gesture, and if I was an employee getting more than the market rate for the job I would be very keen on it, but it’s certainly not what a commercial business would do

Micky Dolenz seems to have 2 heads 😁

When the club goes bust, it won't matter in the slightest what "minimum" wage they pay staff.

From memory, London Living Wage applies to people you contract with, too, so catering and bar staff? Working for a third party would fall within its scope?

Onto football matters and I feel like there’s a point available at Barnsley but we’re going to have to take it rather than be given it. We went a point above them in the table with the Reading win but they do have 2 games in hand on us. Of most concern (to me)is that only once in their last 7 home league games have they failed to score 2 or more goals - but they also don’t tend to keep clean sheets either.

OTD can't be real, since I don't see the Manager with his massive rosette and equally massive cigar in the background of the picture standing in his favourite spot. :o)

The guy in the crowd leaning on the wall by the drainpipe looks like Ron who always had had musketeer haircut and tash .

Bravery is not a shared principle or value

CW - it’s good to see Peter Beardsley doing a shift in goal though… 🧤

Someone on the DTB should be brave enough to put the motion. Most staff where I work can only dream of earning £29k. Principles are jolly nice - if you can afford them!

I think that was one thing that got modified from the original draft Trigger. It would be good to see what the latest version looks like though I guess we are just at the Yes/No stage by now.

Under the new constitution wouldn’t it also require 87 seconders?

DO - put forward a resolution to the next SGM along those lines. It would of course require a 67% vote, something the new constitution seems to include.

Principles, toeing the line

DT members should be asked "Should the club spunk £140k per year to pay the London Living Wage rather than the statutory minimum wage or retain this money to help stem the unsustainable annual losses that the club is making?"

Trigger - I don't know whether I share them because I don't know what they are. My Values & Principals would say ditch the commitment to the London Wage Foundation which will save us £140,000 or more next year and around £400,000 per annum after 3 years. That latter figure represents around 15% of our current losses and would go a long way to closing the gap.

Stuart - I'm not against the concept of fan ownership which is why I am one of the 5000 who between us own 5% of the Club. What I'm against is a Collective masquerading as fan ownership controlling and trampling on the interests of these 5000 owners.

The fans in the OTD pic look like zombies

That’s why we need far more detail on our finances than we get, JG. I would suggest full transparency on PLC Board member remuneration at the very least.