Mean Ridsdale Cuts Cardiff Cashflow

Cardiff City chairman Peter Ridsdale has put an end to any lingering hopes that Cardiff fans may have harboured regarding transfers into the club.


The message from the club has been that we do not have to sell any players, but that substantial offers will be considered and every player has his price. That is disappointing but fair enough, football is a business and external factors, such as an unforseen court case, or new stadium project, are bound to restrict finances.


However, if money to we do not need comes into the club, for example a hefty £3.5m for the sale of Chris Gunter to Spurs, and Steve MacLean to Plymouth (we understand almost £1.5m of that money was paid upfront), then surely a proportion of that money (that we didn’t need) is available to replace those players deemed good enough by other clubs to splash out on.


If the financial position is not stable enough to permit this, we have been lied to. If that money must be stashed away to pay for wages/legal fees/etc then we absolutely did have to sell them, after all – we cannot sell any players to cover short term cash flow problems after the January transfer window shuts.


Its nonsensical to state that our off-field position is stable, but we must sacrifice two first team squad members to what financial end?




Ridsdale told the Wales On Sunday:



“Dave will not see a penny of that because of the ongoing cost of the court case and because of the uncertainty created just before Christmas.’

“My job is to ensure the club is viable and above board, and at this stage I needed to raise money to underpin the club`s finance.’

“So as we stand now, there will be no transfer fees out.”




This season we were promised that the squad would be stronger, and better equipped to last the season. I firmly believe that it was, but now it doesn’t seem so. What team can have serious play-off aspirations with two strikers plus a converted winger to score the goals? What hapens if Kevin McNaughton is injured? There’s no other right back in the squad, Darcy Blake could cover but that is a massive ask of a promising young midfielder.


A loan signing is crucial, but we are clearly having issues. The wages should not be a stumbling block with MacLean, Gunter, Byrne all shifted out, and Matt Green currently on loan to Oxford United.


Dave Jones has done well with free transfers to be fair, they have not always come off, but we’ve got McNaughton, Capaldi, Oakes, McPhail, Rae, Hasselbaink all in the starting line-up without costing a penny in transfer fees. However, this is no way to run a football club long term, and we must start pressing on from our good league form. We could be a strong force in this division but ‘circumstances’ dictate we act like the minnows.