How much the Premier League bailout funds will benefit Doncaster Rovers

Each League One club is guaranteed a grant of £375,000 to cover lost income from match tickets.

Chief executive Baldwin has welcomed the rescue package and is confident the funds will help put the club on steady footing until the end of the season.

But he revealed the club’s annual budget is based on single ticket sales of £800,000, reflecting the continued impact of Covid-19.

It ensures the club somewhat of an anxious wait to discover the extent of other funds which will be made available within the next ten days.

As well as the £375,000 base payment, clubs will also have access to a £15million pot which is expected to be shared out proportionately based on lost gate revenues, with figures set to be confirmed by end of the year.

“We’re really grateful that the Premier League and the EFL have finally come to an agreement,” Baldwin told the Free Press.

“We’ll know exactly how happy we are by the end of year.

“The worst case we’ll receive is £375,000 which is obviously a big boost and protects our business model and our club until the end of the season.

“But to put it into perspective, we normally budget for round £800,000 of matchday ticket sales which does not include season tickets or the match packages.

“The £375,000 is not half of what we would have expected to sell on matchdays and that’s only tickets. It doesn’t include any other matchday activities such as beer sales, programme sales etc.

“However, we aren’t ungrateful and it is a huge boost and with other things we’ve done to protect the club we’re in a good position until the end of this season.

“But the additional monies they are currently considering how to distribute could make the difference towards helping make up some of those other monies and helping to put us in a good position for next season.”

The EFL initially undertook a survey of clubs to discover the extent of lost gate revenues in order to calculate how the £15million of grants are distributed.

“You would expect the Sunderlands and Portsmouths of this world to benefit more,” Baldwin said.

“Last season I believe our average attendance was eighth or ninth in the league so we’re hoping we should do reasonably well out of it.

“There is talk that the criteria may change, but having always stated it will be based on ticketing revenue, we feel it would be unfair to change the criteria of this late stage.”

Baldwin has ruled out the possibility of Rovers applying for funds from a further £20million pot which has been made available as ‘monitored grants’ at this stage.

“It’s really for those clubs that won’t make it through this season,” he said. “But we don’t put ourselves in that bracket.

“If you take that money then you accept restrictions on the size of your squad, the players you bring in, which is not something that I think we would want to do any way.

“Equally we’re not in a position where we’d be looking at administration this season at all.”

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