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Clegg: Important to Keep to Budget - Ipswich Town News

Chief executive Simon Clegg says it’s important for the club to keep to a budget and not give into the often excessive demands of players and their agents. As the Championship moves towards the Financial Fair Play break-even model, manager Paul Jewell and new signing Luke Chambers believe all parties are starting to adjust to a future in which money will be less plentiful at this level.

Clegg is aware that fans are always desperate to see deals done but says sometimes a line has to be drawn: "Fans want these issues to be done instantaneously and the club should just capitulate with whatever figures are demanded.

"We’ve got to operate within a budget. My number one priority is to safeguard the financial situation of this club. I’m not going to lead us down the road of administration again.

"We also need to recognise what’s happening out there in the wider Championship — wages and transfer fees are coming down.”

Jewell says agents are starting to get the message and that out of contract players will also soon begin to come to terms with the Championship’s new situation: "There are a few players who are out of contract who were getting paid by their clubs, but next month they’ll stop getting paid and they’ll realise that football, as I’m tired of saying, is like any other industry, it’s struggling.

"OK, you’ve got the top guys in the Premier League who are always going to spend, but the rest of football financially is in a bit of trouble. We’ve got to be sensible about it.

"Look at Rangers, I said that last year and people said ‘that can’t happen to us’ but it could do, it could happen to anyone.”

The move to the break-even model doesn’t mean that some sides won’t have significant cash to spend and Jewell admits that the Blues won’t be competing on a level playing field with some of them: "I don’t want to comment on other clubs, but when you come down from the Premier League you do get a £40-odd million parachute payment, so that helps.

"At the end of the day, takeovers happen and sometimes someone decides to have a gamble. Birmingham City’s owner came with big ideas and that went a bit wrong for him.

"We’ve got to be honest, we haven’t got fortunes to spend. Certainly at Ipswich there isn’t a lot of money to spend, we’ve got to work to a budget and I’ve got no problem with that.

"If you said to me I’d got £10 million to spend or £100,000 to spend, I’d rather have the £10 million, but I haven’t got that, so I’m happy to work with what I’ve got.”

New signing Chambers says he’s noticed that Championship wages have been dropping in recent seasons: "It’s not just something a chief executive talks about, it’s a fact.

"I think they’ve slowly been coming down for the last three years and being on a free transfer makes it a lot easier for me personally and a lot easier for the club to conclude a deal.

"From what we understand as players, I think the chairmen meet every year and discuss things like wages and I think these things have to come to account because we’re not living in the times we were living in three, four or five years ago and football shouldn’t be immune to that.”

The 26-year-old became the Blues’ second signing of the summer earlier this week but says fans may have to be patient when it comes to further additions with the Championship market having been slow so far this summer: "When you look at the transfer fees that people are demanding and wages on top, and I’m not putting any pressure on Simon whatsoever, it’s difficult to get players in.

"There’s hardly been any movement whatsoever in the Championship and I think that will continue for the next couple of weeks at least.”

With Jewell looking for three of four more signings, Clegg agrees with the club's new central defender: "There’s not been a huge amount of movement in the Championship so far. There’s still a long way to go until the window closes, so let’s see where we get to.”

Photo: Action Images

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