Sharon Brittan and CEO Neil Hart talking during a match (Image: Camerasport)
SHARON Brittan has laid bare the challenging financial arena that Wanderers face despite their success in Saturday's League One play-off final.
With it almost five years since they rescued the club from administration and teetering on the brink of collapse, Bolton's chairman admits the joy of securing promotion with victory against Oxford United will also be his future would entail its own tests.
Under the current financial structure in English football, Brittan estimates that she and her fellow investors may have to find an extra £20 million a year to compete in the Championship - with no guarantee of success.
Although some clubs have managed to succeed in the notoriously unforgiving financial climate on what is widely regarded as a low budget - Luton Town are promoted with a pre-tax loss of £6.4m, increased to £16.3m on a basis of bonuses for reaching the Premier League (source, Swiss Ramble).
Ipswich Town have been praised for their double promotion, achieved with transfer fees of less than £5 million this season. But they also recorded similar losses to Luton as a League One club just twelve months earlier.
The dangerous economics of the second tier are well known to Wanderers, who once had a then EFL record £50.7 million charge to their financial accounts at that level of football.
This year's group losses at League One level totaled £5.6 million, and although assurances have been given that a funding plan has been put in place, regardless of the outcome against Oxford United this weekend, Ms Brittan is one of several figureheads calling for a fairer financial distribution in the region. the football pyramid to reduce pressure on owners across the country.
"I got into football five years ago for two reasons: one because I love the game, and two because I wanted a platform to do good," she told a parliamentary committee.
"After working in the industry I wanted to get into football and run a club the way I work in business, and that is with the right people in the right way, honestly and transparently, coming together as a team, knowing what a impact that has. would have on the community.
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"When I came across Bolton Wanderers in 2019, I cannot explain the dire situation I found myself in when I had a previous owner. I can't even say the club was on its knees, because it was more than that.
"There were staff who hadn't been paid, they were eating from the food banks, people hadn't paid their mortgages, they hadn't paid their rent. I do a lot of work in mental health and people's well-being has been beyond catastrophic.
"I have seen first-hand the impact of having the wrong owners at football clubs and the effect that has on the community. I cannot stress enough, and having worked with Rick Parry for the last five years, that the owner suitability test must be rigorous.
"Football in Britain changes people's lives. As owners of these football clubs, we have the ability to make change and give people hope.
"Since I joined the club, people are having a very difficult life now more than ever. And it's not just about money or what we have to pay for salaries, it's about the impact that the entire football pyramid has, and therefore the distribution must be fair.
"It has to be fair to us, as owners, to have the opportunity to continue the work we do. I still go into Bolton on a Saturday afternoon and there are grown men crying at me and saying, 'You saved our football club. God, my family and you stand behind what you did."
"And it's not just 300,000 people in Bolton, there's a wider impact than that because as a good owner you work with another good owner to make sure it extends further.
"The way the Premier League works - and I'm sorry to be frank - but I work in an honest and transparent way with a good, clean heart. People have to do the right things.
"This is a pyramid, it's not just the Premier League. It's the Premier League, the EFL and the National League, and I think it's a travesty that it has gotten to this stage where all of you good, hardworking people have to be involved and spend your time dealing with this problem. while the football authorities have not been able to solve it themselves.
"Sorry to move on... But I've been in the middle of it for five years and I'm passionate about where it's going.
"The pressure has been increasing in terms of what we have to spend. But Bolton is a big club, I like sporting danger, I think the pyramid is absolutely brilliant. Promotion, relegation, it all adds to the tension. Better financial redistribution will make a difference for every club, regardless of size."
Wanderers will attempt to return to the Championship for the first time since 2019, when they were relegated under previous owner Ken Anderson amid a slew of financial problems that ultimately forced the club into administration.
Football Ventures have helped rebuild and restore Bolton's reputation, with Ms Brittan openly praised as the type of person the EFL wants to get involved in the game.
However, the Championship's heavy financial demands will be greater for Bolton unless the EFL can reach an agreement with the Premier League on their 'New Deal' or an independent government regulator is appointed in the longer term.
The Football Governance Bill currently on the table has been widely praised by EFL owners, although there are some concerns that it does not adequately address the issue of parachute payments or the voting issues that currently make it difficult to enforce change.
There are also concerns about how regularly the rules will be reviewed and whether the regulator will be given powers to tackle issues they say make the game unsustainable.
"In the bill as it stands now, I know there are a number of areas that the EFL would like to look at," Ms Brittan said. "For me, Rick Parry is a man who has led the organization in the right way over the past five years. I'm really sorry and I would say this to the Premier League, but I don't think they have done the same.
"Everything I say, I will say to people's faces. I don't talk behind people's backs. I don't gossip.
"Rick Parry has done a fantastic job, and I have read through and discussed with him the areas where he believes the bill could be amended. It is important that agreement is reached on these areas because the Premier League is not working with us, so we can make all these efforts and if we don't get it right there could be more problems.
"What I would like to see is a bill passed that will be absolutely effective and that will allow us all to move forward in a very exciting way. It is global and there is so much good we can do for this country."
