Milne: Money Available to Pay Fees Wednesday, 27th May 2015 13:55 Blues MD Ian Milne says owner Marcus Evans will make cash available to manager Mick McCarthy to pay fees for new signings if required as the Town boss looks to strengthen his squad over the summer. While most of the club’s close season additions are again likely to be Bosman free signings augmented with loanees - like most established Championship clubs - Milne says money for fees will be made available if McCarthy needs it. “If there are some key players that are going to cost some money Marcus has said he’ll put his hand in his pocket and we’ll have to find money with which to do it. “That would be forthcoming. We would have to do that if there aren’t the frees and the loanees out there. “At the end of the day, it’s the footballer you’re after. There is a price tag somewhere, but they’ll be looking at footballers and whether they’re going to fit into that squad.” He says the financial fruits of Town’s successful 2014/15 campaign have boosted the budget for the year ahead with season ticket sales up by around 1,000 on the same stage last year to more than 12,500, while overall attendances - not including the play-off first leg with Norwich - increased by 15 percent on the previous season, from an average of 17,100 to 19,600. “The extra takings help that,” he added. “Hospitality went up 12 per cent, programmes up 23 per cent, retail sales went up 50 per cent because of Adidas. But the first team squad costs also went up by nine per cent.” Milne says the Blues are determined to keep the current squad together as they look to build on this season’s progress: “Mick and Marcus have both come out and said ‘Hands off, this is the team we want to go with next season’, but clearly there are one or two key players that we need. “But it’s that way around - we’ve got the team, it’s a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that we’re missing rather than a whole jigsaw puzzle.” He added: “But you have to be realistic. As Mick says, if somebody makes a huge offer for somebody which you can’t stop them going for, it’s only reasonable they go for it, and then they will go. “But at this moment in time we want to keep it together. We don’t want to go out and pick up more players than we have to because we’ve got a successful team.” Milne says that up to now there has been no interest in anyone: “No offers for managers or players. “I think, to be fair, it’s still quite early with the Premier League just having finished. I think people are going to go away, they’ll all be on holiday. “I’m actually waiting for somebody to pinch our ticket office people because they did such a good job with the online ticketing. In fact they may be worth more than Tyrone Mings! “The ticket office did so well with the online ticketing for the play-offs. They worked very hard for three or four days but it was done and dusted while some of the other clubs struggled. Our online system worked perfectly well.” The Blues chief won’t be shocked if the Blues do receive interest in their players with a report yesterday claiming that Cardiff are targeting 27-goal Championship top scorer Daryl Murphy. “They’ve all worked very hard and I won’t be surprised if offers like that are made. But I’m not aware of any offers," he added. “And the same with the manager. With regards to Mick, I spoke to Marcus about this last week. He said ‘The only rumour I’ve heard is the one a few months ago where Fulham were interested. Since that time I’ve heard nothing’. “I said that there have been other rumours going around about Mick, but it’s like when Marcus was changing a manager, he had a shortlist and I’d be very surprised if Mick wasn’t on a number of clubs’ shortlists. “If a club has got a shortlist and word gets out about who is on that shortlist, it’s then the rumours start. But, to answer the question, nothing’s come in.” McCarthy has said that there is a compensation clause in his contract which if met would allow other clubs to talk to him but Milne says that isn’t particularly significant. “Quite a large payment would have to be paid,” he continued. “And whether it’s written there or not, you can always have that situation. If the price is high enough, you’re going to take it, if the person wants to leave, of course.” As previously reported, Milne confirmed that there was a sell-on clause included in the deal which saw Aaron Cresswell join West Ham last summer with the left-back reported to be a summer target of Chelsea and Manchester City. “We get a sell-on, which is worth a few bob, thank-you-very-much,” he said. “Tranmere get a little bit of that. It’s all good stuff and watch that space. “Sunderland renewed Connor Wickham’s contract so there is some potential money out there, too. “They’ve also got appearance clauses which have been paying out, so we get a little bit of help there that Mr Evans is very pleased about.”
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