Contracts

[Hasta]

The fact we signed a player who is only 28 on a free transfer (not loan) for only 6 months tells us where we are financially with our future planning. They can't, or won't, commit to increasing the salary of our bigger earners for the next 3 or 4 years.

Edited February 5 by Hasta

[Wheelton Blue]

At the beginning of last season, full of misplaced optimism, I said to myself that hopefully that would be the last season of having to endure the likes of Hedges and Dolan.

18 months on, and the alternative now will, in all likelihood, be even worse.

Running down contracts, managed decline, end of career journeymen, short term 'permanent' signings, and loans from lower leagues.

I'm resigned to it all. This is our Venky induced lot.

[Devon Rover]

7 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

At the beginning of last season, full of misplaced optimism, I said to myself that hopefully that would be the last season of having to endure the likes of Hedges and Dolan.

18 months on, and the alternative now will, in all likelihood, be even worse.

Running down contracts, managed decline, end of career journeymen, short term 'permanent' signings, and loans from lower leagues.

I'm resigned to it all. This is our Venky induced lot.

I feel that, too. Resignation combined with knowing I'll never be able to stop following Rovers, but the time for giving them any of my money and time is over. I hope that will return, and that the current actions around contracts and loans, etc, points to an impending sale of the club to someone with very different levels of interest and ambition. But I suspect it is far more likely it is just part of a Venkys plan to hammer down the running costs of their convenient but loss-making off-shoot to the very minimum possible. Not making the Championship playoffs may well be the least of our worries in the years ahead.

[roversinmyblood]

It’s a completely different ball game if we actually get in the prem. Apart from Tronstad, Travis and Brittain I wouldn’t be renewing any of the other contracts because they’re not good enough. Obviously when we don’t go up it’s a different “kettle of fish”. However, I still wouldn’t renew Dolan’s or Hedge’s contracts. You can’t fault their efforts, but moves fall apart when they get involved. 

[Mattyblue]

It’s VenkyWorld, 18 months ago ago it was all about The Model of young players brought in to sell on and tying players down to long deals. Now it’s the polar opposite, older players on short term contracts and loans.

Don’t even attempt to make sense of it, and so it does me laugh when certain naive posters actually try and purport that there’s some sort of structure here - when in reality it’s chaos, just like it has been since that dark day in 2010.

[roversinmyblood]

3 hours ago, Devon Rover said:

I feel that, too. Resignation combined with knowing I'll never be able to stop following Rovers, but the time for giving them any of my money and time is over. I hope that will return, and that the current actions around contracts and loans, etc, points to an impending sale of the club to someone with very different levels of interest and ambition. But I suspect it is far more likely it is just part of a Venkys plan to hammer down the running costs of their convenient but loss-making off-shoot to the very minimum possible. Not making the Championship playoffs may well be the least of our worries in the years ahead.

I currently live in Devon so don’t really get to support Rovers too often, but I’m still obsessed with them, it’s like a drug you can’t give up. I wish I could though as it’s been going on now for 62 years and I’m sure it’s not good for my health, especially my mental health!!

I really want new owners before I finally kick the bucket. I don’t want my days and weekends ruined a club owned by morons. 
 

Edited February 5 by roversinmyblood

[Upside Down]

16 hours ago, roversinmyblood said:

I currently live in Devon so don’t really get to support Rovers too often, but I’m still obsessed with them, it’s like a drug you can’t give up. I wish I could though as it’s been going on now for 62 years and I’m sure it’s not good for my health, especially my mental health!!

I really want new owners before I finally kick the bucket. I don’t want my days and weekends ruined a club owned by morons. 
 

It's deeper than an addiction, it's a part of the very fabric of your being. It's a part of who we all are.

This is why I believe that these football clubs should not be classed as private businesses but should instead be classed as what they are, our community heritage. We should be the owners of our heritage, at least in the majority anyway.

[CottonTownBoy]

Ansley Pears contract runs out June 2027. God help us.

[unleaded]

Jrc Hedges Dolan Pears Vale Garrett And if anyone will take him Buckley ( even though he’s on a long contract thanks to Greg ) need shipping out …..Tronstad Travis & Brittain & Bath are the back bones & must be signed up to new renewals ….. 

[JHRover]

I'm curious as to how or why anyone thinks we are going to be so much as trying to keep any of our key players on new contracts.

Even signing a handful of loans / short term deals in January has been a huge undertaking, leaving it until 11pm on deadline day, sacrificing key January fixtures, just to get three players here for 15 games until the summer from clubs desperate to be shut of them.

Contract renewals a totally different ball game to that. People like Travis, Tronstad, Brittain are into their late 20s soon, they are going to be getting advised that they should be looking for a minimum of 3 more years and on a good salary, better than they are on at the moment. 

Is there any reason on this earth to think Venkys or Waggott are suddenly going to be offering 3 or 4 year contract extensions or wage increases??

Everything we have seen has been short term, make do, no substantial long term commitments, cut costs wherever possible. 

I anticipate the only thing on their minds will be saving another £10k a week by getting rid of those players in the summer and replacing them with more dross from the bargain bucket on 12 month loans. 

[lraC]

It is blindingly obvious and this thread combined with the January transfer thread, shows that despite the waffle from the club, there is no way that funds are coming from the owners to pay for anything but the bare minimum.

There is no impediment don't forget.

Yeah right. 

 

[roverblue]

Travis, Tronstad and Brittain all deserve to be on par with our best players. I imagine this goes against Waggots budget bonus as they are probably all moderately paid at the moment.

Pretty sure Waggot will put himself and his bonus over the future of our club.

[JHRover]

23 minutes ago, roverblue said:

Travis, Tronstad and Brittain all deserve to be on par with our best players. I imagine this goes against Waggots budget bonus as they are probably all moderately paid at the moment.

Pretty sure Waggot will put himself and his bonus over the future of our club.

There's a blindingly simple way to deal with this situation. 

If it is true that Dennis is on £20k a week contribution from now to the summer, or that Sigurdsson is one of our top earners on a rumoured £18k a week, then come the summer if not before the money allocated to either of those two should be divided into 3 or 4 and split between Travis, Tronstad, Brittain and Carter and they be offered 2-3 year extensions with that as a pay rise. 

I'm pretty sure that they would all grab a £5k a week pay rise and an extra 2-3 year on top. 

Job done. Spine of the team secured for the foreseeable, some good news to give everyone a lift, this would not require budget increases or money from the owners as it would simply be reallocating cash that we have, allegedly, found on deadline day for Dennis or have been paying Sigurdsson to do nothing all season. 

Waggott wouldn't need to go cap in hand to the owners to do this.

But I think our problems run deeper than getting more money from the owners, I'm convinced that there is instruction to slash and burn, cut costs and downgrade at every point possible. Pay rises are therefore out of the equation despite the nonsense they will come out with an an effort to convince the fans that serious efforts are being made.

It is going to hurt when we watch these players and our manager doing well at other middling Championship clubs with an ounce of ambition but nothing new at Venky Rovers.

[islander200]

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

I'm curious as to how or why anyone thinks we are going to be so much as trying to keep any of our key players on new contracts.

Even signing a handful of loans / short term deals in January has been a huge undertaking, leaving it until 11pm on deadline day, sacrificing key January fixtures, just to get three players here for 15 games until the summer from clubs desperate to be shut of them.

Contract renewals a totally different ball game to that. People like Travis, Tronstad, Brittain are into their late 20s soon, they are going to be getting advised that they should be looking for a minimum of 3 more years and on a good salary, better than they are on at the moment. 

Is there any reason on this earth to think Venkys or Waggott are suddenly going to be offering 3 or 4 year contract extensions or wage increases??

Everything we have seen has been short term, make do, no substantial long term commitments, cut costs wherever possible. 

I anticipate the only thing on their minds will be saving another £10k a week by getting rid of those players in the summer and replacing them with more dross from the bargain bucket on 12 month loans. 

Next season it will be back to playing the kids from the academy model and the excuses for not spending any money will be "we don't want to block the pathway to young Dunn, young Tyjon and young Litherland "

 

[Bohinen1983]

Madness that next season, we're going to have to re-consider Kargbo's contract again- even if he does sign it, I doubt it's going to be on the same terms.. Really sloppy, short-sighted business.. 

[bluebruce]

On 05/02/2025 at 13:35, roversinmyblood said:

It’s a completely different ball game if we actually get in the prem. Apart from Tronstad, Travis and Brittain I wouldn’t be renewing any of the other contracts because they’re not good enough. Obviously when we don’t go up it’s a different “kettle of fish”. However, I still wouldn’t renew Dolan’s or Hedge’s contracts. You can’t fault their efforts, but moves fall apart when they get involved. 

Sorry but this thinking is flawed and dangerous.

If we go up, which has to be considered far less likely than staying in the Championship at this point, we bring in something in the region of £200 million. The contracts of a bunch of players on mostly 5-10k a week, 15k tops, will be like pissing in the sea. I believe it's 8 players out of contract in the summer? One is Hedges, with a 1 year extension option. For some reason we are talking a new deal with him but I wouldn't, he's shit. Another is Siggy, who surely we will let leave. So that leaves 6 players, even if you gave them all 15k per week (which we won't remotely and I wouldn't advise) on 3 year deals, that would be a total commitment of 14 million over contract length. More realistically (and probably still higher than reality, if they were all 10k p/w deals it's a commitment of 9.3 million. Versus 200 million. Ignoring of course that some of them could probably be sold back to the Championship as promotion winners, or at least given payoffs bringing the cost down. Or you keep them/loan them out, we (probably) go back down and have some Championship ready players. Realistically you probably don't end up losing more than 5 million, worst case scenario. A pittance in the grand picture of Prem riches, basically.

If we don't go up, which is most likely, we need to not have to wholesale replace the squad on what will be a pittance of a budget.

TLDR: We should attempt to renew contracts of any players we actually want to keep, as the money will be irrelevant if we go up, and we don't have the resources to reliably replace such a large chunk of the squad. Players like Siggy and Hedges can swivel though.

[bluebruce]

The Ribeiro half a season contract on a permanent, and the 2.5 year deal for Kargbo who we paid nearly a million for, is a very worrying pattern when we already have a huge portion of the squad out of contract this year and then next, and haven't renewed a meaningful contract in over a year, nor for the most part does it sound like we're trying to.

Something isn't right, even moreso than usual. Especially given the amount we have raked in through sales and having declared a profit last season.

[islander200]

43 minutes ago, Bohinen1983 said:

Madness that next season, we're going to have to re-consider Kargbo's contract again- even if he does sign it, I doubt it's going to be on the same terms.. Really sloppy, short-sighted business.. 

Has it been confirmed we don't have a year's option 

I know the club didn't mention an option when they announced the signing but they didn't with Hyam either 

[Bohinen1983]

So Ribiero is a permanent? I was confused with that one!

[KentExile]

30 minutes ago, Bohinen1983 said:

So Ribiero is a permanent? I was confused with that one!

Yes

Although there is no limit to how many loanees you can have in the squad over a season (or at any one time), you can only have a max of 5 loan signings in any matchday squad.  

So would imagine it is something to do with that

 

Edited February 6 by KentExile

[bluebruce]

17 minutes ago, KentExile said:

Yes

Although there is no limit to how many loanees you can have in the squad over a season (or at any one time), you can only have a max of 5 loan signings in any matchday squad.  

So would imagine it is something to do with that

 

It still must have taken Bilbao writing off the remaining year of his deal. I wonder how much of that we had to pay.

If both he and Kargbo have a 1 year extension option in the club's favour, it makes more sense, but nothing has been stated. And rumours before the Kargbo deal were announced were that his team only wanted a 2.5 year deal and we wanted 3.5. I'd say there's almost no chance they settled for what's basically a 3.5 year but in the club's favour, so I doubt we have an option.

[wilsdenrover]

26 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

It still must have taken Bilbao writing off the remaining year of his deal. I wonder how much of that we had to pay.

If both he and Kargbo have a 1 year extension option in the club's favour, it makes more sense, but nothing has been stated. And rumours before the Kargbo deal were announced were that his team only wanted a 2.5 year deal and we wanted 3.5. I'd say there's almost no chance they settled for what's basically a 3.5 year but in the club's favour, so I doubt we have an option.

The interview with him on the club website also only mentions the deal running until 2027.

[DeeCee]

1 hour ago, wilsdenrover said:

The interview with him on the club website also only mentions the deal running until 2027.

That's plenty of time to see if he's any good or not, if he is, that's kicked the can down the road again, if not, hey ho, the court case will still be rumbling on, giving them excuses either way 🥴

[SpaceBarSlam]

Great stuff from Andy Bayes here, asking the questions we're all asking (although shame the likes of Waggott and Gestede aren't the ones answering them). A lot of non-answers from JE, but reading between the lines it seems that he and the players are very aware and frustrated with the issues behind the scenes but pushing on as team with their togetherness regardless. 

[simongarnerisgod]

6 minutes ago, SpaceBarSlam said:

Great stuff from Andy Bayes here, asking the questions we're all asking (although shame the likes of Waggott and Gestede aren't the ones answering them). A lot of non-answers from JE, but reading between the lines it seems that he and the players are very aware and frustrated with the issues behind the scenes but pushing on as team with their togetherness regardless. 

if i know footballers,the colllective spirit will be all about trying to finish as high as possible and try to get a summer move,you can`t blame them or eustace,who wants to work at a club as rotten as this one,no ambition or any long term plan at all