Doncaster's reply to my email (warning: lengthy)

1. It's clear from what you wrote today that only money for a player on loan is available - but in your webchat with fans back in mid-July, you stated that the £3.5m raised from the sale of Robert Earnshaw had been added to Peter Grant's budget, and that all monies raised by selling Dickson Etuhu were available too. These comments were made before we sold Youssef Safri, and after the vast bulk of our summer signings - so where has this money gone? If it's been put towards the club's debts, as the fact that we made a £2.6m profit on transfers yet still face an "extremely challenging future" would certainly suggest, then you would appear to have lied in the webchat. If so, why?

[Neil Doncaster] your logic assumes that players don't come with any wages or agents' fees - and the reality is that these costs are increasingly significant relative to transfer fees

2. It's hardly rocket science to infer from all you've written today, and indeed in both your many previous columns as well as what you've said in public, that the only way this club will ever have a realistic chance of returning to the Premier League will be via massive further investment. Indeed, we only broke out of the seemingly interminable drift of the 1995-2001 period when ITV Digital's deal with the Football League was announced: consequently, Nigel Worthington was granted substantial funds, and the subsequent collapse of ITV Digital forced us to gamble further in order to recoup the losses.

[Neil Doncaster] i don't think that's necessarily the case - look at what we achieved in 2004 with a relatively limited (and unfancied) squad, and what Watford achieved two years later, despite relatively modest wage levels relative to other clubs that year. please also remember that we had sold Belamy for £6million in 2000

Bearing that in mind, how hard are the club trying to attract and secure new investment? I completely understand the board's perspective that anyone looking to come on board should be a fan themselves and have the club's best interests at heart: equally though, does that not massively reduce our prospects of gaining any extra revenue? Perhaps most fundamentally, is the club open minded to potentially interested suitors who might not share the exact same homespun, family-oriented ethos with which the present board operates? And in the continued absence of new investment, what is the club's plan for getting us back in contention?

[Neil Doncaster] your point assumes that there is a large number of different people who contact us about the possibility of putting money into the Club - that just isn't the case. just think for a second - why is it that people do put their money into football clubs? in the Premier League it is because they can make money. in the Championship it is generally because they are wealthy fans. there are very few cases where people put their money into clubs for other reasons. we are entirely open minded about people putting money into the Club. Delia and Michael put in a further £1million last year (through a combination of fresh cash and loan conversion) and Andrew & Sharon have put in £2million, and have said that they remain open minded about the possibility of further money

3. Much as I of course accept that we had no option other than to rebuild the South Stand, aren't you being a bit disingenuous in arguing that the securitisation loan was the only way to pay for it? When the plan to build the new Jarrold Stand was announced, you yourself said that:

"The cost of building the Jarrold Stand and infill will be met through revenues generated by development of other land we own in and around Carrow Road, including residential development on land behind the Norwich and Peterborough Stand and the building of a new four-star hotel in the corner between the Barclay Stand and the Jarrold Stand".

Isn't it actually the case that the £15m securitisation scheme was largely unplanned for, because the club expected to receive the money it needed through the land it owns? Doesn't that make it an albatross (a point which I note you didn't actually deny in your column) which was never foreseen in the first place?

[Neil Doncaster] where the cash came in from (ie securitisation and the sale of land) is not in dispute. but it wasn't put in a 'pot' to be spent - it was put against expenditure that arose

and that included the Jarrold Stand, the fact that we suffered considerably from the collapse of ITV Digital and investment in the playing squad

in addition, the cash that came in from the sale of the land was effectively reduced considerably by various costs (eg the road behind our site that we have to construct) that are part of our planning obligations - so you have the cash come in in one year, and costs associated with that income coming in in other years

4. On top of the securitisation debt, why has the club run up a further £6m of short term debt through further land speculation (around half of which was spent on the Laurence Scott and Electromotors Land)? And why, having paid off £1.1m of this debt by selling some of the land around the hotel, did we then immediately take out another loan of £1.3m to fund "office development"?

[Neil Doncaster] the office development is one that creates income - we have Broadland Housing and Connexions who pay us rent which more than covers the interest on the loan. your point about the hotel land is answered by the costs of the Norwich Union Community Stand

5. According to the most recent accounts, while our overall wage bill remained high at £14m, just £7.4m was on player wages. This is down from 05/6, when Deloitte and Touche placed the club a mere 12th in Championship wage payers: indeed, our ratio of player wages to turnover is an amazingly low 31%. Doesn't this confirm that, actually, far, far too much is going towards non-footballing expenses - and the team is suffering as a result?

[Neil Doncaster] no - this ratio is massively distorted by the parachute payment and by the large catering turnover we enjoy (most clubs would simpy take a franchise fee which goes straight to the bottom line without expenditure) . if you look at the table of expenses on page 7 of the accounts, i would be interested in where you think savings can be made. nearly £4million is, for example, allocated to depreciation and amortisation of transfer fees

6. Lastly (you'll no doubt be relieved to hear!), bearing in mind how challenging our post-parachute payment circumstances clearly are, why did we appoint someone with no previous managerial experience? Where is the sense in allowing someone to learn on the job when it was abundantly clear how difficult that job would be? And were we to lose at QPR next Monday, I hope to goodness the board proves it did learn from the mistakes of Nigel Worthington's final year in charge - for not to dismiss Peter Grant if we hand QPR their first win of the season would be to dice with death in terms of our future in this division, would it not?

[Neil Doncaster] you might argue that Chris Coleman, Roy Keane, Gareth Southgate, Nigel Adkins were all appointments made with no previous management experience. Peter Grant had coaching and management experience at West Ham, Reading and Bournemouth

What do we think, peeps? You can't fault him for taking the time to reply - equally though, his answer to question 1 is risible, 2 is pie in the sky, and 6 his usual attempt to find other clubs to compare us with. But we're not talking about other clubs, Neil: we're talking about Norwich. And in any case, Keano is a clear exception: his sheer charisma was always likely to have a big impact, Coleman and Southgate were hardly plunged into jobs as difficult as the Norwich one (post parachute payments) now clearly is, and Adkins only got the job after going on a phenomenal run as caretaker.

His answer to question 3 should interest the King of Prussia too. It isn't at all convincing - and reads as though for every bit of extra income we gain, we're still going to be stuck paying it back in costs for at least the foreseeable future.

Thoughts, folks?

Posted By: thebigfeller, Oct 4, 17:35:11