County can weather coronavirus storm
RECENT TAKEOVER PUTS CLUB ON STABLE FINANCIAL FOOTING
STOCKPORT County are confident that the recent takeover of the club means they are in a strong enough financial position to survive the suspension of the National League due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Local businessman Mark Stott bought the Hatters in January and since then he has appointed a new director of football and brought in a number of new signings including Salford City trio Liam Hogan, Lois Maynard and Danny Lloyd.
On Monday, the National League announced the suspension of the league, initially until April 3 but it is expected that will be extended.
It has raised concerns that some non-league and League One and Two clubs may struggle financially.
National League side Barnet have already put all non-playing staff on notice of redundancy.
County, who are pushing for the play-offs in a bid to return to the Football League, have one of the biggest attendances in the league, and at the moment they are having to postpone four home games, slashing the revenue coming into the club.
John Keighren, a spokesman for Stockport County, said: “We are financially more resilient than other clubs at this level and some clubs slightly higher, but let’s not be complacent about it, it’s four home games and with the gates we get any club would miss that.
“If you look at the Premier League, gates probably only make up about four per cent of revenue, but a lot of clubs at our level you might be looking at 30 or 40pc of your turnover coming through the gates on a matchday.
“I think that the timing was good, and we were able to get this takeover over the line in time for the second half of the season. It does put us in a stronger situation, but it is really tight still and the last thing we want to see is other clubs going under.”
With many non-league players working on 38-week contracts, if the season is extended past the current finish date of April 25 there could be issues.
However, Keighren says this is not the case at County. He explained: “We’ve got more players now who are on longer contracts, even then there still entitled to five or six weeks holiday. If the season starts when it normally would start, you’d want a pre-season with them, you want to get them into training, so it does clearly cause problems in terms of timing, planning and scheduling.”
County’s 2-1 away win over Maidenhead United was one of six National League games that went ahead at the weekend but following a board meeting on Monday the League was suspended.
A National League statement said: “In the knowledge of the government measures now announced including not to support sporting events with emergency services workers it is clearly not practical for its fixtures to be fulfilled in the immediate future. In those circumstances and in line with The Football Association and the Professional Game, at a Board Meeting today, The National League has decided that its competition is now suspended until at least 3rd April 2020.”