Blues managing director Ian Milne says owner Marcus Evans “remains as committed as ever” to Town and has no thoughts of selling the club or looking for external investment.

“Marcus remains as committed as ever with the Premier League remaining the target, he’s not thinking of selling,” Milne said.

“He wants to get in the Premier League, he’s still very much up for that challenge, he wants to go for it.

“We appreciate that with the teams that have come down it’s going to make it harder to get up but on the other hand we came pretty close [to the play-offs] this time.”

Would he look to bring in external investment? “Like most of his businesses, he won’t want to share it with anybody else and it sometimes can make things more complicated for the manager.

“A manager doesn’t want to have to go through a whole load of owners to get their permission because that’s when things screw up.”

He says that even with the Blues having brought in a fee of £8 million plus top-ups for Tyrone Mings last summer - although not all of the initial figure was paid up front - Town will still make a loss during the financial year to the end of June.

“Overall the club will make a loss,” he added. “They all think Marcus is not putting money in but even with the Tyrone fee money still had to be put in and a lot of money it was as well.”

Where does that money go? “Wages, 3G pitches. Certainly Marcus doesn’t feel he’s put any of it in his pocket.

“It’s gone on wages, the Ryan Frasers of this world aren’t cheap wages-wise. It’s gone in those sorts of areas.

“We got stages of the fee and then part of it was also appearance money and of course he hasn’t had many of those, poor chap. I know Tyrone is currently in Philadelphia doing some rehab.”

Milne says Evans and manager Mick McCarthy work closely on transfers and contracts and it’s often the latter who decides where to draw a line.

“Some people think Marcus won’t pay that and all the rest of it, but to be fair to him he takes the advice of Mick, and Mick will not overpay.

“I’ve seen it many a time, ‘He’s not worth it’ or if someone is extending their contract or having a new contract but their demands are too high, he’ll say ‘He’s not worth it, we’ll find somebody else’.

“So they know the value and I think this has made us a much more financially stable club, which I hope the fans understand.

“That’s the first thing we want, a financially stable club, that the owner’s not going to use it as a two or three-year toy and then turn it over to somebody else or just leave it.

“Marcus is coming up towards 10 years now and he has consistently put money into it, and more importantly he really enjoys it.

“Those who have seen him, he will hide behind the seats when things go wrong and leap for joy when things go right. And will moan and laugh the same as all the rest of us when things happen. He enjoys it very much as a fan.”

Will Evans become a more public figure than he has been during his time with the Blues up to now?

“He picks and chooses, we occasionally persuade him to do things. He will do it in his way.

“We come up with novel ways to get out there and he knows when is best to do things, which tends to be at the start or the end of the season so he can give a summary, and at other times it can look like interfering.

“The timing of this recent [interview in the programme] we thought about a lot in detail and we thought it was the right thing to do at that time.”

Photo: Action Images

poldark added 14:53 - May 22 Middlesbrough attendance averages 24 thousand and they pay the wages on Downing , Nugent and all the others so come on you Town supporters just imagine the team we could have with another 5 to 6 thousand on the gate
2

Cloddyseedbed added 18:06 - May 22 Poldark, better players, better football, better attendances. Poor players, poor football, poor attendances. Always has been, always will be. You will never get huge crowds watching poor footballers and poor football to fund the arrival of better players, unfortunately.
4

blueboy1981 added 18:56 - May 22 Slambo ......... ever thought of 'getting real'..... ?? 'A fool and his money are soon parted' ......... seems to fit sometimes !!
2

ivegottheblues added 19:00 - May 22 Slambo - I'm pleased for you that you're so happy with hoofball. I can imagine you 'sitting on the edge of your seat' wondering how high each clearance will be hoofed. If you really want all fans of entertaining football to stay away the attendances would be very small.
3

poldark added 20:21 - May 22 Cloddyseedbed it was meant with sarcasm as Milne says wages have been sent unfortunately Evans ,McCarthy and Milne do not realise what you say is true we will never get anywhere with this lot in charge excuses excuses that's all we hear
2

maninashed added 21:27 - May 22 Fascinating. Some of you moan about the lack of investment in the club and yet are not prepared to spend your own money watching them. You don't like Evans, McCarthy or Mine and think most of the players are rubbish. Why do you bother to support the club? Or perhaps you don't!
2

Warkys_Tash added 21:59 - May 22 Poldark, that's a fair comment. Although, I think you will find Middlesborough had attendances of around 17,000 last year & only just this season gone as they stayed near the top,did the crowds come back. However, would we really want Downing at PR on £50k per week, Nugent probably on at least £30k (both sitting on their bench!) and goodness knows what Rhodes is on, £70k? And then there is Gaston Ramirez on loan from Saints. Realistically even if Evans put his hand further in his pocket, Ipswich couldn't sustain those level of wages & I for one wouldn't want to see the club do a Boltion (£176M in the red?).. Even if we average a gate of 25k (we I would love to see once again), we still could pay those wages.. Middlesborough must have been running on a huge loss & they only just scraped it on goal diff, as must Derby be, the latter will surely have to reign in its spending this season?

1

HarryS_H added 09:01 - May 23 If you need to see attractive football to warrant seeing the team you "support" then I'd argue that you're not that much of a committed fan. Yes the season tickets are expensive, I mean really expensive! But have any of you run a championship football club before?? I'm sure you can on fifa or whatever but in the real world in the past 4 years we've gone from bottom to 7th with a go at the playoffs last year. And every season we've had mick the squad haso improved, I'd say this year's squad was stronger than last year's it just wasn't to be. Saying we won't improve this summer goes completely against what we've seen and straight away Marcus Evans is spending money and everyone is going about their business properly at this club. I'd rather we were financially stable and not pissing the money available away. For example, say we bought Ryan Fraser for 5mill he could be out for the whole season and our squad won't be any better. What our lot I think will do this summer is buy 5 1mill players and improve the whole team. Id prefer things like that myself...

-1

Swansea_Blue added 09:49 - May 23 HarryS_H. Nobody can argue that we haven't improved since the dark days of Keane and PJ (both who were appointed by Evans). But that's a bit of a false benchmark. I think people are frustrated that we haven't noticeably improved our position since ME took over.
2

Cloddyseedbed added 13:24 - May 23 HarryS H, I agree with most things you say. I don't want the club to squander a lot of money on just one player, I too would prefer it to be spread over getting 3-4 better ball playing players with more skill who are comfortable with the ball and don't treat it like a bomb. I would also like the youngsters to be given a chance as they should get better with games as they did under Bobby Robson, and not kept out of the side by under performing players who are out of position and out of their comfort zone.

2

bigautographs added 13:24 - May 23 Marcus evans the owner who never shows his face.. and why? so he cant jump ship whenever he feels like it without any flack
-2

Blogs 297 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls