Barnsley FC chairman Neerav Parekh on commitment, administration ‘rumours’ and board’s pledge to continue being ‘good custodians’ at League One club
A disappointing season on the pitch has seen the League One outfit fall off the play-off pace, with Barnsley’s stint in the third tier of English football highly likely to extend into a fourth year in 2025-26.
The current mood among increasing numbers of the club’s supporters is disillusionment, with many critical of the perceived failure to make a splash in the winter transfer window unlike several rivals.
Parekh has defended the Reds’ stance and insists that Barnsley must live within their means and not indulge in the ‘boom or bust’ approaches of others.
He told The Yorkshire Post: “There’s a handful of clubs where the owners are willing to burn tens of millions of pounds every season and they will go up. Money talks.
We will continue funding and the (recent) rumours of administration and all that are absolute rubbish. We will fund, but we cannot keep funding these amounts every single season.
“At the end of the day, there has to be some sort of sustainability.
“I think off the top of my head we have put in somewhere around £6m this season and that should carry us through to the end of the season, but it will need another equity injection again at that point.
If we managed to mortgage the club’s future, the money we put in could have been put in as debt. We chose not to, we put that as equity and it is not payable back to us. It is one of the ways we have proven we care about the club’s future and we want to be good custodians of the club.
“We are not going to overspend and go crazy where there’s a scenario where if it doesn’t work out, the club goes bust. That is far too dangerous a road to take.”
Reiterating his own commitment to the club after some recent criticism, he continued: “I wouldn’t be travelling these distances and taking the time out (otherwise). The amount of time Barnsley takes in terms of owner’s calls, calls to management and all of that is far more than I ever envisaged. But I wouldn’t be doing it if I did not care about it.”
Parekh remains fearful that some EFL clubs will go under in the near future if stricter controls on spending aren’t enforced. The collapse of talks between the Premier League and EFL over a deal to redistribute TV money has compounded a precarious situation for many.
He added: “Eighty-nine clubs lost money last year. The only reason they are still solvent is because 89 owners put hands in their pockets and funded the clubs.
“My hope is that the (independent) football regulator comes in, or at least there’s a deal to be made with the Premier League. Equally, if not more important, is much, much stricter financial controls on spending. For the last two years (in League One), there was 41 per cent (player) wage inflation, which is absurd.”
In terms of criticism on the club’s approach in the winter window, Parekh insists that money was available for the right player should they have been available.
He also revealed that cash spent in that window would have impacted on this summer’s budget.
The prospect of players being sold in the close season to ‘balance the books’ is something the club must also countenance, Parekh added.
He said: “I think all fans think their club is a selling club. Barnsley have, over the last few years, probably sold a lot less than our rivals and what we historically did as well.
“That will have to reverse a bit and I think we will have to balance the books. That said, a good chunk of that money will be invested back into the squad, not necessarily in transfer fees but wages as well, which is the largest component really. Some of that will obviously breach the shortfall we have every year.”
On the lack of spending in January, he continued: “If you spend something in January, that is not money that is available in the summer. In January, we would have spent if it was the right player at the right price. If we were looking at ‘boom or bust’, we’d have spent in January. But I think we have to look at it in the multi-year horizon because at the end of the day, the money is finite and we need to be careful how we spend it.
“It will be a competitive budget (next season) and Barnsley are still a big club in League One.”
Parekh confirmed that that club have had ‘a lot of inbound interest’ regarding the club’s vacant head coaching position – while confirming that interim chief Conor Hourihane will be among the candidates for the permanent post this summer.
He added: “There’s some Championship managers to League One managers and a lot of people want the job – far more than last summer.
We have talked to a number of coaches, one of whom is a fantastic option and he is getting paid by his ex-club until the summer and another who is a potential option is a fantastic coach, but has personal reasons why he cannot decide until summer.”
