'We're hurting' - Chief executive gives grim warning about Doncaster Rovers' finances as supporter shutout continues

Doncaster Rovers’ financial worries will worsen significantly if football continues to be played without supporters present beyond January.
The Keepmoat StadiumThe Keepmoat Stadium
The Keepmoat Stadium

Though the initial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was severe, Rovers stabilised their business operation with a combination of budget cuts, workforce restructuring and redundancies and were hopeful of an increase in revenues from October onwards.

However the government’s move to cancel the planned return of fans to stadiums indefinitely has left the club facing a tough winter.

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“Prior to the announcement that the pilots were being suspended, we’d got the business model stable,” chief executive Gavin Baldwin told the Free Press.

“We’d recruited the team with a bit of room to manoeuvre, we’d made the adjustments to the staff structure that we’d needed to and we had a clear plan to the end of the season.

“The announcement is not helpful at all.

“Revenue-wise, from the bottom line, at best, it’s going to hurt us by £200,000. At best.

“That is just from lost money from ticket sales and doesn’t take into account that supporters may ask the club for refunds.

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“The initial problem is about £200,000 and we’re now working on the assumptions that there are no crowds until January.

“Obviously if the problem worsens after January then the situation only gets worse.

“The club would lose an additional £400,000 from the budget that was already released.

“We’ve got actions that we’re currently talking about to mitigate some of that £400k but equally the onus falls on the owners if there is a gap.

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“To stress, that £400k is only what we would lose between now and the end of the season. It doesn’t allow for any claims for refunds at all.

“It’s potentially a seven figure shortfall with refunds.”

The shutout of fans has been the single most damaging factor to arise from the pandemic for clubs.

With every passing home game behind-closed-doors, Rovers are left to calculate the revenue they are missing out on and worry about the possibility of their season ticket holders requesting refunds.

Baldwin said: “For a specific example, and this would have been one of the more low-key games this season, had the Shrewsbury game been played, from tickets, hospitality, sponsorships, and match day sales such as programmes, etc and after all the costs from the game were taken out, we’d have expected to make a profit of around £22,000.

“At best now we’ll be looking at £6,000.

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“But you can imagine when that goes to Sunderland or Lincoln games, it’s multiplied by ten or 15 times.

“We were very much looking forward to having some sort of crowds back for Lincoln or Sunderland.”

Though the club will survive until the end of the current football season, the damage done to finances in the coming months would place the organisation under considerable strain by late next year - particularly if fans remain locked out of grounds into 2021.

“Because of the Club Doncaster business model, we are not in any financial danger of going into administration at all, in this financial year,” Baldwin said.

“Our real risk is the next financial year.

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“If these refunds do come in and the seven figure liability materialises, the Club Doncaster model cannot cover that.

“What it can do at the moment is protect the club for this season from the bad news that we’ve had.

“There could be more bad news around the corner. We’ve got the Killers concert rescheduled for next year and the funds from that would go into supporting the sports teams. But if that doesn’t go ahead then it’s more pain to come.

“It’s the uncertainty at the moment that makes it hard to work, whereas a few weeks ago we thought we had the certainty because at least we were working towards a 33 per cent capacity so we could let our season ticket holders in and a few more.

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“That cannot now happen until we get further advice, which could come tomorrow and we’d be worrying about nothing, or it might not come until January or after that.”

When drawing up their budget for the current season, the Rovers hierarchy proceeded with caution and based projections on supporters returning in January.

However, with the signs being increasingly positive for an October return, chairman David Blunt made extra funds available to Darren Moore to sign more players.

“We very much believed that the pilots were going very well and all the feedback from the EFL and the grounds safety authority was that they were going excellently,” Baldwin said.

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“We were confident we would be welcoming fans for the Shrewsbury game [originally set for October 10].

“We thought we’d be going to a 33 per cent capacity. As we were making our projections we forecasted a surge in season ticket sales before we came back on the basis you needed a season ticket to guarantee getting into the stadium.

“The projection we had was then made available to Darren for the team.

“Now we don’t have that money so we need to find it from somewhere else.

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“We always have a plan and we will have a plan. But the plan now is not a positive one. It’s about coping with it, not about progression.

“We were very much working with the fact that we would have increased revenues from October and therefore we looked to support the manager with those increased revenues.”

While the club awaits news on the potential return of fans or the possibility of financial assistance from the government or Premier League, all it can do is address its own business model and eke savings or revenue from wherever possible.

This includes maximising profits from the sale of match passes for the live video coverage of matches on the iFollow platform.

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The Keepmoat Stadium itself is being used only to play matches behind-closed-doors, with any of the typical activities and usages not taking place.

Baldwin refused to rule out a second redundancy programme at the club after the loss of around 20 roles during the summer.

But he insisted that all other options will be explored first and foremost to prevent any more job losses.

He said: “We are looking at whether the government’s new Job Support Scheme that has replaced furlough can work for our employees and ourselves, but we’re in the very early stages of that.

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“We’re not saying it is a solution, we’re trying to understand whether it would work or not and whether it would work for our employees.

“The staff have been brilliant so our first reference is not to hurt them any more.

“It’s just about understanding if it can work and how it would work.

“We would prefer to work with our staff on things like the JSS and not keep going back to them with redundancy programmes.

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“But we also know that we don’t know what the next announcement is going to be and how it would impact us.”

For now, Baldwin and his colleagues remain hopeful that as 2021 is rung in, supporters will soon be returning to seats in the stadium.

But hard work and the making of difficult decisions will continue to ensure Rovers have the best chance of riding through the pandemic and its aftermath.

“We are resilient, we’ve got a plan,” Baldwin said.

“We know the business model is robust and we’ve got to work through our options to protect the money we’re going to lose and help protect next year because we’ll have to start looking to manage the next 18 months, not just the next eight.”

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