Alas Ridsdale and Jones

Last updated : 06 July 2008 By Michael Morris
There appeared to be a sense of positivity surrounding Cardiff City FC just 8 or 9 days ago. City had confirmed the signings of Ross McCormack and Darren Dennehy. Kevin McNaughton had signed a new three year contract and with the players due back for pre season training there was a whiff of optimism that we might see more players, more contracts signed and the good ship Cardiff City heading in the right direction.

Then news broke of the earnings of Peter Ridsdale. Over £1m earned in the year 2006 / 2007. Half in salary and half in a bonus earned for renegotiating the loan notes and getting the stadium up and running. To be honest the bonus is not the real issue, what seems excessive is a half million pound salary. Thought to place Ridsdale amongst the top 5 Chief Exec earners in the whole of British football.

The accounts showed an operating loss and no reduction of the debt so Ridsdale came in for some stick. Then we find out that for his generous salary the Chairman had managed to mess up the contract situation of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. There's even a story in today's papers where Ridsdale is being sued by a fan for not settling a bet. It's really rather silly.

Jimmy turned up for pre season fitness tests to be told he was surplus to requirements. The club claiming Jimmy verbally agreed not to take up the option in his written contract of an extra years football triggered becuase he played a certain number of games last season.

With the PFA and the lawyers now involved it seems the failure of the club to settle Jimmy's contract in a professional manner could costs the club a seasons wages, or at least a decent sum to settle the dispute.

With these outgoings having to be paid it looks like it's the squad that's going to suffer with money not being made available for new players.

We hear that City made an offer of £2.5m for Kris Boyd of Rangers. How serious was that bid? Did we ever think it would come off?

When you read Dave Jones' comments below it seems we are in no position to make big money offers to players who will want big wages. So why did we bid for Boyd?

We do have so many things to positive about. Firstly we have a football club, we came close to losing that. We have the stadium rising majestically from the ground and ahead of schedule. We are an established Championship side with a new season a month away. Friendlies against the calibre of Celtic and Ajax. We have 14,000 season ticket holders for next season and we can look back at being FA Cup finalists.

But underlying that is a feeling of mistrust, incompetance and contempt.

I wonder what the next week will bring?

Both Peter Ridsdale and Dave Jones have had a chance to have their say in the press in the last 24 hours.

When asked if he was under presure Ridsdale said

"I was brought in to see the stadium through and that will be completed.

"I will then go to the board of directors and it will be up to them to see if they want me to continue in this role. I'm not going to look that far ahead ... there are more important issues to deal with right at this moment in time."

Ridsdale continued: "When I arrived at the club there were almost unsurmountable financial problems and the new stadium looked unlikely. Good progress has been made."

Dave Jones has talked at length with the Wales on Sunday.

"This club has been down the road of spending big money before and that's why we have a £24m debt to pay," Jones told Mark Bloom.

"That strategy has not got us anywhere and this is where supporters need to look at the bigger picture. The club has gone down that avenue and it simply has not worked.

"We are not a big club yet. I know fans think we are, but reality says we're are not. However, we are getting there.

"We recently inquired about a player - and it was not Kris Boyd, let me stress - where the selling club wanted £3.7m and the player wanted £27,000 a week.

"So what do you think we said? We are simply not in that bracket when it comes to money and we have to be careful in everything we do.

"People from outside the club always seem to think they know what's happening with the finances, players and a host of other things. But they do not have a clue.

"People ask where is the £2m or £3m striker? What those people must realise is that with a player of that sort of transfer fee comes the wages of £25,000-plus a week.

"How the heck is a club like Cardiff City going to afford that? How can you afford to pay one player £1.5m a year, when we have a turnover of £9m?

"And before people start talking about the wages of Robbie Fowler and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's wages, don't believe the figures that have been bandied about for them.

"Even the Ross McCormack signing, which should have gone ahead without any problems, caused complications. Birmingham stepped in at the last moment and nearly snatched him away.

"Credit to Ross, though, he said he had agreed to come to come to us and he kept his word."

Emphasising the strides Cardiff have made, Jones continued: "The one thing that this club has not done is deliver Premiership football and everybody here is working their socks off to try to achieve that.

"This club is finally becoming what everybody thought it already was, but it actually wasn't.

"We have assets on the pitch these days and we have assets off it, too. We have training facilities at the Vale of Glamorgan that are second to none, and the new stadium in progress.

"Everything is one step nearer to what we want, which is to get to the next level ... namely the Premiership.

"But look at where we have come from! Two seasons ago we did not train on grass for three months because the pitches were waterlogged, and for several weeks the astroturf pitches were too dangerous to play on.

"It was a joke for a Championship club.

"There are no excuses any more on that score. I got what I wanted and that is a decent working environment where 99 per cent of my work is done.

"We have pitches at the Vale with state-of-the-art drainage systems. The changing facilities, gym equipment, medical rooms and everything else would stand up against the top clubs in the country.

"Everything is in place for us to become one of the major players in the Championship.

"We were fooling ourselves that this is a big club. It's not and the quicker we realise that the better.

"People say that Cardiff had 60,000 gates in the early 1960s. I could say that Rochdale had 60,000 in the early 1960s, as most of the clubs did.

"But due to the progress we are making, the fans do have something to be proud of.

"We are far more stabilised today than we have been in the past and we will see the end of the product some day.

"Of course I want it yesterday. I'm one of the most impatient people you're likely to meet, but it does take time and we have made major progress.

"Go back 12 months and compare Cardiff City to a club like Burnley. Given a choice between the two, any potential signing would have gone to Burnley and I couldn't have blamed him.

"But these days I have the tools to show a player around the training ground and I can actually show him the new stadium.

"I can say, 'There you go' and tell him there is lot more to come. Today, the player is more likely to choose Cardiff."

Jones revealed the criticism that has hurt him most was the flak he received last season when, with his side badly misfiring in the League at the time, he missed running the rule over a reserve team game to attend Ridsdale's book launch in London instead.

"The fans can have a go at me for this, that and the other ... it goes with the territory," said Jones.

"But I was criticised for missing a reserve game, one I had arranged for a specific player to get match-fit, and that hurt a lot.

"I travel thousands of miles to see games in person, watch hundreds of hours of football on research video.

"I go to as many youth matches as is physically possible, but I was not at this particular game and people had a pop at me. That was under the belt, it was poor. We have every game videoed anyway and my coaching staff, who were there, reported back to me what happened."

Of his transfer targets for the coming campaign, Jones is still ploughing through his wish list having failed to land Boyd and other targets.

"Yes, I have a wish list and if we don't get A, B or C, there are other plans in place," he said.

"As it stands at the moment, we're still in the top half of the list and the chairman is busy talking to clubs.

"We are still trying to bring in two or three to improve the squad. But whatever happens, this club is definitely moving in the right direction."