Ipswich Town: Mark Ashton on the Price of Football podcast

Mark Ashton admits that Town will be among the best-financed of all the clubs in the Championship next season - but says they cannot allow emotion-driven spending to change their plan.

Town's chief has lengthy experience of the battleground in football's second tier, where clubs lose an average of £470k a week, and says the danger is obvious.

"The problem with the Championship is really simple," he explained. "It’s emotion.

"You’re in a division that is one step away from the golden ticket, one step away from the Premier League, where everyone wants to be and it’s one step away from that huge financial gain of getting across the line and into the Premier League.   

"What happens is, you have a plan, and a lot of clubs don’t stick to their plan in the Championship because they start to get close towards either the play-offs or automatic promotion and then the model changes because they overstretch and overreach.

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"I can understand that. I’ve been guilty of it at times in the past. But you’ve got to stick to your plan.

"That obsession with trying to get to the Premier League causes logical, sensible people who have made a lot of money in their own businesses to make emotionally-led decisions, which can be very dangerous.

"It’s a tough place to be.”

Mark Ashton with Ed Schwartz, one of Town's ownership group. Ashton says the owners allow him to make calm, considered decisions (Image: Steve Waller)

Asked about the assumption among fans of many clubs in the Championship that Town will have deeper pockets than most, Ashton said it's about far more than just cold hard cash.

"I think our owners are certainly one of the more wealthy backers in the Championship, that’s for sure," he admitted.

"But it almost becomes irrelevant because, like all of the other clubs, we are governed now by P&S (Profit & Sustainability) protocols.

"We are limited to what we can spend. I think what helps us more is that we will have average attendances of 30,000, we’ve got big retail numbers, our iFollow numbers are the biggest in the whole EFL – including the Championship – and that was in League One, by the way.

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"So that revenue sits against our P&S. That gives us some more firepower.

"We go back then to the player trading line. That’s the other income generator that gives you the ability to spend more, where again I’m really fortunate – I’m never under any pressure, on a cash basis, to sell any of my players.

"They want to build something. They want to build value in the team, value in the club, value in the squad.

"And I think if you look at our squad valuation, which we tend to run internally all the time, our players were worth X when we joined the club, they’re worth Y now – and that’s why we recruited young hungry talent.

Leif Davis is one of Town's prized assets (Image: Steve Waller)

"Leif Davis from Leeds, Harry Clarke from Arsenal, Nathan Broadhead from Everton – all in that early twenties bracket, who will grow with us on the pitch but will bring financial value if and when we want to trade them.

"So that all comes into the overall discussion with the owners, who will stand behind us.

"Look, we’ll be behind the parachute payments clubs for sure, because they will have big FFP headroom, big cash bases and Premier League squads.

"You haven’t seen three Championship clubs come down, you’ve seen three established Premier League clubs come down this season.

"It’s going to be tough.”

Ashton has transformed the fortunes of the once-moribund Blues in just a couple of seasons, under the new American ownership which appointed him.

And he stressed that, while his bosses are ambitious, they are very much in it for the long term, rather than trying to turn a quick buck.

(L-R): Brett Johnson, Berke Bakay and Mark Detmer are part of Town's ownership group (Image: Steve Waller)

"I’m really fortunate to have really smart owners who back the management team, challenge the management team, support the management team – but don’t interfere with the nuances of running the business," he enthused.

"I think that’s a real advantage for us. If you look at this football club compared with a lot of clubs in the pyramid at the moment, we have stability.

"We’re not going to chop and change our manager every five minutes. We’re going to grow, we have a plan to move forward and we’ll stick to the plan.

"There is no erratic decision-making. It’s calm, it’s considered, it’s focused and it’s progressive – so we’re really, really fortunate.

"Where we’re also fortunate is the money that comes into the club is platinum-plated.

"In a period where people are questioning where money is coming from into clubs, we are so fortunate to have a financial institution, a US pension fund, that backs the football club.

"If you look at what they’ve bought this club for, the money that they’ve invested, the value of the football club has already increased substantially moving into the Championship – and it would substantially improve again if we get to the Premier League.

"That’s the reason why. They’re buying into value and a long-term investment.

"There’s only 92 clubs in the Football League. If run properly, these are strong fundamental investments, and the opportunity there is to grow value.

"They understand that and they’re in this for the long term. I cannot speak highly enough of my owners and the way they work. They’re first class."

But just because Ashton has the backing of patient owners who allow him the luxury of calm and considered decision-making, that doesn't mean Town's CEO wil rest on his laurels for a while in the Championship.

Rather, the man whose favourite word is 'relentless' insists that everything about the world-famous club must improve once again.

"You have to move at pace in this industry because if you don’t your competitors will go past you at lightning speed," he insisted.

"I say to my staff all the time ‘What got us here will not get us there. What got us promoted from League One last season will not get us promoted from the Championship.'

"We’ve got to be better, we’ve got to be more effective, we’ve got to be tighter, we’ve got to be more disciplined, we’ve got to be sharper.

"We are probably this season in arguably the most difficult division in the world. It’s questionable – is it more difficult staying in the Premier League, or getting into it?

"There’s not that much between it. It’s really, really difficult, so we have to move forward at pace.

"The problem with football clubs is that people don’t like change. People are set in their ways – I’ve heard so many times in this industry ‘oh, we’ve always done it this way, that won’t work.’

Mark Ashton and Kieran McKenna have led Town to the Championship (Image: Steve Waller)

"It’s an industry where people will say seeing is believing. I’m slightly odd, for me believing is seeing – and that goes back to last season, was there a time we saw ourselves in the play-offs?

"We couldn’t allow ourselves to think like that, we had to have belief – and I think that was a key factor in getting us up."

So, having got up, what's the goal for Ashton and the Blues now?

“Progression is the key word," he replied. "What progression will look like, who knows?

"But if each year you progress – you score more goals, you concede less, you get more points on the table – you’ll ultimately get where you want to get to.

"I can’t tell you when that’s going to be. There but for the width of a post or a refereeing decision, your season can go one way or another.

"But it’s progression. We have to be more effective in our academy, we have to be more effective in our development squad, our analysis, our recruitment, our performance, our manager, our CEO, our ownership group.

"We all have to sit down and create a learning environment. The minute I think I know it all, I’m in a world of trouble.

"That’s why we run a model where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Mark Ashton has already signed £1.5m midfielder Jack Taylor this summer (Image: ITFC)

"Our manager is really, really important to us – but don’t underestimate how important Andy Rolls and the performance staff is, Gary Probert and recruitment, Luke Werhun, player contracts, medical, sports science, data, let alone on the business side.

"Everybody has a role to play because at football clubs things can change. Managers can change. We don’t throw the baby out with the bath water when that happens.

"Our biggest opportunity is stability. Look at how many clubs in the Championship and Premier League changed their manager last year. Never seen anything like it – some changed twice in a month!

"Stability, calmness. We will have a bad run at some point, the law of averages says that will happen.

"We won’t change. We’ll stick to the plan, we’ll adapt the plan, but we’ll stay on the tracks.

"I genuinely believe that stability, that planning, that ownership which gives you the calmness to get on with your job, will be a key differentiator for us."