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Bolton News Fan's View columnist and long-time Wanderers fan Alan Houghton has his say on the reasons behind his beloved club's downfall
BOLTON Wanderers have survived being wound up four times this season. How have we ended up in this mess?
You have to go all the way back to 1992 for the root cause of the financial problems when the Sky TV money first starting coming in.
The explosion in money has massively increased the resources required to run a football club.
Virtually every club has had to find new investment and, more importantly, adapt to new ways of running a football club.
At Bolton we signed very few players who we could sell on afterwards.
Also, transfer fees and wages have rocketed over the years and while Sam Allardyce made a fine art out of begging, stealing and borrowing players, they didn’t come for nothing.
For years we completely ignored a youth policy with very few young players coming through.
Nowadays a club has to grow their own timber and get some value when they move on.
This was belatedly recognised by the club with the setting up of the Eddie Davies Academy which is only now beginning to bear fruit.
Also, as the top clubs now mostly buy foreign players, the income to clubs in the lower leagues has been greatly reduced.
Even with the parachute money, clubs cannot fund Premiership wages in the Championship as TV appearance money is lost and sponsors disappear.
Yet you still have to invest in players to either stay in the Premiership or have a chance of promotion back to the Premiership.
Bolton Wanderers ended up with a wage bill of more than £50 million in our last season in the Premiership.
Once money started to get tight, the decisions about which players we signed became crucial.
You cannot afford to make duff investments or fail to get the best out of what resources you have.
In the past few years, poor management and recruitment have caused us to fail miserably in this area with the Macron Stadium looking like a donkey sanctuary at times.
Wanderers have also been unlucky. We had potentially one of the best young midfield trios in the Premiership in Stuart Holden, Fabrice Muamba and Mark Davies and we lost their services.
The financial crisis has been coming for years and the signs have been there since we got relegated.
So many experienced quality players have had to be sold or released for financial reasons.
You cannot let that many players go and not take a hit on the field.
Eddie Davies was always likely to pull out at some time. At Bolton, we didn’t adapt fast enough.
There was no Plan B for not getting promoted.
The board chose to bury their heads in the sand and maximize Eddie Davies’s credit card to cover the mounting losses.
Source
BOLTON Wanderers have survived being wound up four times this season. How have we ended up in this mess?
You have to go all the way back to 1992 for the root cause of the financial problems when the Sky TV money first starting coming in.
The explosion in money has massively increased the resources required to run a football club.
Virtually every club has had to find new investment and, more importantly, adapt to new ways of running a football club.
At Bolton we signed very few players who we could sell on afterwards.
Also, transfer fees and wages have rocketed over the years and while Sam Allardyce made a fine art out of begging, stealing and borrowing players, they didn’t come for nothing.
For years we completely ignored a youth policy with very few young players coming through.
Nowadays a club has to grow their own timber and get some value when they move on.
This was belatedly recognised by the club with the setting up of the Eddie Davies Academy which is only now beginning to bear fruit.
Also, as the top clubs now mostly buy foreign players, the income to clubs in the lower leagues has been greatly reduced.
Even with the parachute money, clubs cannot fund Premiership wages in the Championship as TV appearance money is lost and sponsors disappear.
Yet you still have to invest in players to either stay in the Premiership or have a chance of promotion back to the Premiership.
Bolton Wanderers ended up with a wage bill of more than £50 million in our last season in the Premiership.
Once money started to get tight, the decisions about which players we signed became crucial.
You cannot afford to make duff investments or fail to get the best out of what resources you have.
In the past few years, poor management and recruitment have caused us to fail miserably in this area with the Macron Stadium looking like a donkey sanctuary at times.
Wanderers have also been unlucky. We had potentially one of the best young midfield trios in the Premiership in Stuart Holden, Fabrice Muamba and Mark Davies and we lost their services.
The financial crisis has been coming for years and the signs have been there since we got relegated.
So many experienced quality players have had to be sold or released for financial reasons.
You cannot let that many players go and not take a hit on the field.
Eddie Davies was always likely to pull out at some time. At Bolton, we didn’t adapt fast enough.
There was no Plan B for not getting promoted.
The board chose to bury their heads in the sand and maximize Eddie Davies’s credit card to cover the mounting losses.
Source
