The vicious circle of Wisła Kraków – the default state is a budget hole
Wisła Kraków’s financial problems have been going on since 2012. Since then, the budget begins to grow, which will appear to be better sports results. However, they do not exist, so it is getting worse and worse financially. Has Jarosław Królewski reversed this trend?
At the last general meeting of the shareholders of Wisła Kraków, the club announced that real progress had reached PLN 43. When four years ago the new owners added the club from the discredited board of Marzena Sarapata and Damian Dukat, they spent PLN 42 zlotys.
Although much of this money is loans from the owners (Królewski himself had to make an allowance in November for the club to receive it), and a large part of the liabilities are due to the Ekstraklasa fee, it is hard to escape the conclusion that for four years the club has not started in terms of from the place, and additionally relegated from the Ekstraklasa.
The trio of owners managing the club for four years – Jakub Błaszczykowski, Jarosław Królewski and Tomasz Jażdżyński, who gave his property to Królewski at the end of the year – did not change their share. It did not break the Vistula River from the vicious circle of growing liabilities and budget holes.
Since the governments of Sarapata and Dukat left the Vistula in a deplorable, practically moribund state, there was only one engine that set fire to a pile of flammable materials that had been watered with gasoline for years, which was the club in Krakow.
The Vistula swam naked
Wisła in the times of Bogusław Cupiał, although it won the Polish championships on a regular basis, did not create structures or academies to help it become self-sufficient.
Therefore, the first financial crisis of the crisis – in 2012 – exposed the Vistula River so much.
“Only when the tide comes out can you see who has been swimming naked,” said legendary investor Warren Buffett.
The Vistula was swimming naked.
The then president, Bogdan Basałaj, assumed in the fund in 2011 that Wisła would advance to the Champions League, get a year of euros and leave the rest of the league for this money. There was no promotion, no plan B either, so creating a multi-million dollar hole. you have changed towards the players, coaches or the city. These commitments increased from week to week until they eventually became a requirement for the existence of the entire cycle.
Team players with players, profitable as befits a Polish champion, excellent coped with league mediocre players. It was just an overpaid team. At the end of the 2011/2012 season, he took barely seventh place, which today finds certainty near Wawel Castle like a trophy, but later he realized that it couldn’t get any worse.
This budget plan was the original sin that followed the club in the following years.
An improved move in the vicious circle of Wisła’s finances, from which the club has not been able to for a decade.
A quick Google search shows us that the budget hole in Wisła was written about in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 and now – Krok – in 2022. And these are only those cases where it was reported that the effect was in this way.
What does this vicious circle look like?
To pay back, the club needs to increase revenues. To increase revenue, you need to perform better. To achieve better results, you need to use your budget beyond your means and throw all your strength into one season.
When there is no reason, there is a hole.
Wisła, like other well-known European brands, is not able to face specific financial problems, it focuses on promoting teaching pupils. Because there just isn’t. And he cannot invest money, because he risks collecting sports results. So he has to pick up the money from the field.
When trying to get out of financial problems, there were even absurd situations. In 2015, President Robert Gaszyński set a goal for the team: to advance to the group stage of the Europa League. On the basis of this, he also planned the budget of Krakow. Again, no plan B. It was an absurd budget, because neither Wisła was on pole position in the fight for the cups, nor was it an outstanding distinction in the eliminations.
Of course, there was no promotion, so in addition a hole will begin. And the club was intended for the support pocket and proposed with the first crowdfunding action.
Despite the crowdfunding campaign, in a given season, Wisła for the first time since the 1990s flew down to the average table. It happened again that it couldn’t get any worse, but it quickly became an illusion. Bogusław Cupiał sold the club to Jakub Meresiński, who later officially gave it to the TS Wisła Kraków association, and unofficially to hooligans.
Zero budget only thanks to transfers
new management, which has just reached the pulse of gasoline. Marzena Sarapata and Damian Dukat entered the women’s group as the goal of promotion to the cups, which never happened. Swap so coaches, player wagons are pulled, and players are increased. In addition to this reduced coefficient with the frequency of the Vistula, charges were brought against the device at the beginning of 2023.
In the first season of this management board – 2016/2017 – capital was achieved by balancing the budget sales of Petar Brlek and Krzysztof Mączyński (without this layer it would amount to PLN 10 million with revenues spending about PLN 30). Transferring the tax, by introducing risk into the sport, should not be included in the budget, but additionally, a way to increase profit. Had both midfielders been injured, the club would have recorded a joint loss.
A season later, the transfer safety cushion was gone, so the club stood above the abyss, and so it was supported by the fans and the ownership trio.
But the march down stopped failed. The league realities were relentless. The club was doing worse and worse from year to year, until it was finally relegated from Ekstraklasa and another budget hole in the last decade began.
Nothing new under the sun
The budget for the previous season was on the plus side, taking into account the transfer of involvement – Aschraf El-Mahdioui, Yaw Yeboah and Mateusz Lis, which is an obvious analogy to the times of Sarapata and Dukat.
What happened, however, only a fraction of the transfer amounts went to Wisła, so the problem arose again, additionally compounded by the relegation from Ekstraklasa.
At the farewell briefing, Tomasz Jażdżyński, leaving Wisła, gave the result that I tried to find the exact circle in a different way. He was to become the president of the association, but other shareholders chose Władysław Nowak.
– In mid-July, we agreed that I would lead the company. I also said that the planned gap of PLN 4 million, if I do not take advantage of certain decisions, will be closer to PLN 14 million – wrote Jażdzyński (quoted after “Gazeta Krakowska”).
An interim decision will be issued to determine the team and will act as the first team.
This is what happened and Wisła followed the trend that had been established over the years. The team costs a lot for the first league, and for what they achieve – a lot. Once again in the last decade, it’s simply an overpaid team.
from who is the verifier who is on the board, practically everyone in Wisła Kraków comes to this examination – in accordance with the obligation to perform a sports duty, which is beyond the capabilities of footballers. And as for the ingredients, the players who come to Wawel are playing below the level of their earnings. I’m born like this, almost every year.
One step back, two forward – too much risk
Therefore, the Vistula River has been creating a harmful, self-propelling mechanism for years. The club has to pay the costs, so it throws all its strength for one season, but loses, so increase.
Each board was not established to develop structures, build a scout network, create a way out of the plan, because the strategy of “one step back, two steps forward” in Wisła’s situation would mean the departure of sports results, and thus a decrease in income, which could contribute to to a lethal result.
Therefore, the only way is always to throw all forces away for the here and now, and therefore later.
Jarosław Królewski, the new president and shareholder, swears that the strategy is both in the event of promotion to the Ekstraklasa and in the event of a potential stay in the 1st League.
But he knows very well that the lack of promotion will be a tragedy for Wisła Kraków. In this regard, the plane will cease to apply all forces for this season.
JACEK STASZAK