UK Edition
How astute Bournemouth have consolidated further this summer
The completion by late June of Bournemouth’s three transfer priorities might have sent a surge of excitement through the club over this past week but they are also close to another off-field announcement of even greater long-term significance.
Talks with Bournemouth Borough Council have been progressing very positively during recent months and the club are now finalising a site for a new home that is expected to more than double the current 11,495 Dean Court capacity.
An opening date of 2020-21 has become an increasingly realistic target for a club now aiming to move well beyond the ‘plucky underdog’ caricature and become a genuinely established Premier League force.
Although the financial uplift of any new stadium is less transformative in the context of the Premier League’s vast broadcast revenues, it remains vital to the club’s wider growth and development.
A university and seaside resort, Bournemouth are acutely aware of the opportunity that exists under Howe to attract an entirely new generation of fans. The south coast might now have three football clubs in the top flight for the first time in history but, amid competition 25 miles to the east from Southampton, the potential fan-base to Bournemouth’s west is considerable.
A new stadium would also give Bournemouth a huge operational lift. Yes, there is a certain matchday advantage to such a uniquely compact Premier League site but it can be a logistical nightmare.
Space is so restricted that Bournemouth have to store even their stock for the club shop off-site and, having sold the stadium in 2005 in a leaseback scheme with Structadene that costs around £300,000-a-year, they have been unable to agree a buy-back deal.
Maxim Demin, the club’s low-key majority owner, is also genuinely said to be motivated by the desire to leave a tangible legacy. Demin put in around £20 million in the form of loans since first investing in 2011 – and it is clear that the club’s overall value would soar with the stadium’s completion – but there have been two significant changes over the past two years.
Peak 6 investments, a Chicago-based private equity firm, now own a quarter of the club and can help support a big building project like the new stadium.
They are represented on the board by Matt Hulsizer but what has been striking is how they have been sufficiently astute to let Howe, chief executive Neill Blake and chairman Jeff Mostyn continue their day-to-day running of operations.
The other, even more transformative change, has been the financial uplift that has flowed simply from a third season in the Premier League. The numbers are startling and have ensured that, in the most recent accounts, even a £30 million hike in the wage bill was accompanied by a pre-tax profit of £3.4 million.
Underpinning that was revenues which went from £12.9 million to £87.9 million in a single year and will comfortably now break past £100 million. Put simply, it means that the club can do things like spend a club record fee on Nathan Ake and attract established Premier League players like Jermain Defoe and Asmir Begovic without needing to trouble Demin or their US investors.
The profile of the signings so far this summer is also significant. Howe’s greatest managerial attribute might be his ability to improve players of all ages with his work on the training ground detail but he has also wanted to add something different to his squad.
Whereas signings previously have often followed a template of younger players Howe can improve, he has now very specifically targeted more established professionals of stature and quality.
He would have also loved to bring John Terry to Bournemouth this summer after identifying the need during the past season for more proven winning-experience in the dressing-room. It is an intangible that might just have been the difference in games such as 3-3 draw with Arsenal when Bournemouth had at one stage led 3-0.
Even Howe, though, had not imagined getting Ake, Defoe and Begovic by the time pre-season began yesterday with a series of gruelling fitness tests. It should give him what every manager most craves at this time of the year: a pre-season with his squad already intact ahead of the new season.
How Bournemouth now deal with interest from Tottenham for Josh King will also be instructive. They have never really been faced with a comparable scenario of a rival offering huge money for one of their key young players but there is no financial imperative to sell.
King’s attitude in all of this is likely to be critical and, in that regard, as well as being able to attract top players so quickly this summer, Howe’s influence remains the foundation on which Bournemouth’s remarkable ascent still rests.