Once the new stadium had opened, he and the rest of his colleagues on the current board would have stepped aside and let the club’s wealthy new owners take charge of its day-to-day operations.
In the ideal world, the club’s major shareholders would not be rugby-loving property developers. They would be fabulously rich Cardiff City fanatics who are prepared to bankroll the club’s bid for Premiership football by dipping into their own personal fortunes on a regular basis.
In the ideal world, the club would not have incurred any debts while it was in the process of building and fitting out the new stadium. A wealthy benefactor would have paid for all of the stadium costs out of his own pocket.
In the ideal world, the club wouldn’t have to service any historical debts. The individuals who had advanced the club money in the past would have written off their loans out of the goodness of their hearts simply because they love the Bluebirds.
In the ideal world, Cardiff City would not have to compete with five Championship clubs who are currently benefiting from Premiership parachute payments. All of the clubs in the Championship would be getting an equal annual income from the football authorities.
In the ideal world, the Bluebirds would not have to compete with eight Championship clubs who regularly attract higher attendances. The Cardiff City Stadium would have a far bigger capacity, it would be packed to the rafters for every league match and the Bluebirds would be the best-supported team in the division.
In the ideal world, mediocre Championship players wouldn’t command ridiculously high wages and bonuses. Such players would only be paid salaries that properly reflect their abilities.
In the ideal world, Cardiff City Football Club wouldn’t have any financial problems at all. The club would be a lucrative money-making machine and almost all of the cash it generates from ticket sales, sponsorship, catering, merchandising, television coverage, etc, would be given straight to the manager for squad strengthening.
Unfortunately, however, we don’t live in the ideal world. Instead, we live in the real world, or at least some of us do.
In the real world, Peter Ridsdale remains as the Chairman of Cardiff City and last week’s General Meeting proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he has the backing of the rest of the club’s board and its major shareholders. At present, it appears Ridsdale’s colleagues share his belief that new investment in the club is more likely to arrive while he retains his position than if he were to step down. Therefore, it seems almost certain that he will stay as Chairman for the foreseeable future.
In the real world, most of the club’s biggest shareholders and many of its smaller shareholders are local businessmen who are heavily involved in property development. They are not football fanatics and as such they are highly unlikely to bankroll Cardiff City’s bid for Premiership football by spending any of their own cash on the club. Unfortunately, there isn't anybody in South Wales who is wealthy enough and willing to buy the club, and so far it seems no-one from outside of the area has made a concrete offer to do so either, but we live in hope.
In the real world, the club ran up significant debts while building and fitting out the new stadium and it’s probable that those debts will need to be serviced for several years to come.
In the real world, the club also has to service large historical debts to the Langston Corporation, and to Bluebirds directors both past and present. While the people who loaned that money have been willing to renegotiate the terms in order to make them more manageable for the club, they are highly unlikely to write the debts off completely, and why should they? When all is said and done, Cardiff City Football Club is a business, not a charity.
In the real world, the club is competing with five others who are benefiting from Premiership parachute payments, and with eight who are getting higher average attendances this season. Although crowds at the Cardiff City Stadium have been very respectable by our club's standards, the place hasn't been packed to the rafters for every match and City are a very long way from being the best-supported side in the division.
In the real world, mediocre Championship players are paid ludicrous amounts of money, while the salaries earned by some of the better players in the division are nothing short of obscene.
In the real world, Cardiff City Football Club has a whole host of financial problems. Sadly, varying degrees of mismanagement during the last decade have ensured that is the case, but in my opinion we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that our club is by no means a big one in the grand scheme of things.
Some supporters seem to believe the Bluebirds currently have a divine right to be either in the Premiership or genuinely challenging for promotion to the top flight, but the reality is that the club is only the ninth-biggest in the Championship despite attracting its highest attendances for forty years.
The main problem at Cardiff in recent times has clearly been the wage bill. In simple terms, the club has employed too many people while paying its staff and especially its players far too much money by comparison to its annual turnover. And, of course, high wage bills go hand in hand with large tax bills, neither of which the club can afford if the truth be told.
My belief is that if the club gets over its current cash-flow problems, there will be some serious cost-cutting exercises at the Cardiff City Stadium during the summer months, particularly in relation to the playing budget. Eight players are apparently out of contract at the end of the season, and I can see all of them being released and replaced with cheaper alternatives.
Over the last three or four years, manager Dave Jones and Chairman Peter Ridsdale have been operating with a relatively small squad, but at the same time they have been attempting to attract quality players to the club by paying out hefty wages by this division's standards. It's a policy that has worked to a reasonable degree as there have been times during the last couple of seasons when City have been amongst the very best teams in the Championship, but such a scheme was never going to be sustainable on an indefinite basis.
This year, with the added burden of building and fitting out the new stadium, it appears the club has hit a financial wall. With or without any much-needed new investment, I believe the board will manage to negotiate the current crisis and steer the club through until the end of the season. However, unless the team gets extremely lucky and earns promotion to the Premiership, I think we should brace ourselves for a big culture change during the summer, and in my opinion that will be no bad thing. The club has clearly been living beyond its means in recent times and it could also be argued that it has been punching above its weight to a degree, so maybe it's time for a reality check.
Earlier today, Lee Strafford, the Chairman of relegation-threatened Sheffield Wednesday, claimed that his club needs an average attendance of at least 24,000 this season in order to break even. For me, reading Strafford's comments put things firmly into perspective.
In the real world, Cardiff City is a mid-sized Championship club with large historical debts, serious cash-flow problems and no wealthy backers to bail it out. Although recent peformances from the team have been dire, when all is said and done I reckon we're probably more than a little fortunate to be where we are.
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