allani

The club have already said that the accounting period is to bring the accounting year in line with existing contracts. I suspect that means that Adidas will now fall into this year's accounts and will be a considerable increase on the revenue from Castore.

The value of the club has risen from £40m to around £500m (based on the Atairos deal). They've made a huge paper profit on their investment and the club's assets more than cover any accounting losses. I think that if anything the statement supports previous claims that we will not have to sell any major players this summer to meet our FFP commitments. If sales happen it will be to fund incoming transfers.

Their business reach extends well beyond just the TV side but all with similar connections with sports marketing. So there could be more than just as TV deal. And it will be hard to argue that it is not "justified" because they are all part of their core business and they'll have a whole heap of US based equivalent deals that they can use as a basis when breaking into the European market.

Hopefully Comcast become our more legitimate equivalent.

The danger is if you base your entire budgetary plan on reaching the CL that if you don't make it then it's a pretty massive hole to fill. Like you say it's not so much the prize money it is all the added "extras" that might disappear or be harder to renegotiate. That's why if you treat it as a bonus it can give you a massive boost and allow you to spend additional money wisely. But if you become reliant on it to make ends meet then it can very quickly become an issue. There's a difference between aiming to finish as high as possible and making it an absolute financial necessity so that if you miss it your only choice is to sell players and possibly not being able to replace them.

GA+ doesn't need to be about fans spending more to watch Villa than before. It can just be about changing where they spend their money. I'm sure there's a fair few people who stop for a drink and maybe a bite to eat before the game and possibly another drink on the way home. Getting them to spend that money at Villa Park (or Villa owned establishments) rather than elsewhere - improves the club's revenues and wouldn't necessarily increase the amount that those fans spend on the day. I suspect adding different types of packages available will ultimately be the solution but it will take some time to have the facilities in place to allow that to happen.

I've been saying this for ages. The Sky 6 have basically been able to budget on being in Europe every season AND then going a long way in Europe each season. I suspect that Chelsea probably budget on getting to the quarters or semi-finals of the CL. They look like they will probably miss out on all European competition again this season. The more that clubs like us, Newcastle, West Ham and Brighton can keep disrupting that - the more it means the Sky 6 have to be a bit more careful about their budget process. The trick is to be able to spend enough to compete on the pitch but be smart (tight) enough to regard European revenue as a bonus and not something that you are reliant on - so that you can absorb missing out on it better.

Spuds have no European competition income this season. Chelsea are looking like they'll miss out for the second season in a row. They've probably both budgeted to be in either the CL or (at worst) the Europa League. If Chelsea miss out next season and have any commercial deal waiting to be renewed, they will be hard pushed to justify increasing their asking price and will be more likely to either stay the same or even take a small drop.

Can we sell them Madge Ramsay instead? You never know Jacob Ramsay might be quite decent.

Which goes a long way - especially if you then take the Adidas deal into consideration. Obviously it's not guaranteed yet but it seems like there are quite a few ways in which our revenue position could be much stronger that don't include having to sell key players just to avoid breaching the FFP limits.

But Conference League money and improved PL position money will come in. Obviously, it won't be £50m but very £1m that comes in reduces any potential shortfall and potentially changes the type of transfers we might need to look at.

I wouldn't be surprised if we announce some sponsorship deals in the next couple of months. It doesn't need to be as "big" as naming rights for the stadium. But in America it seems like they can sell "rights" to individual parts of the stadium (even down to the scoreboard) - there's some interesting information around about some of the things that Philadelphia did around raising the revenue the clubs earned from the stadium (Comcast and Heck were both heavily involved in this). It's probably quite complicated to announce this kind of thing mid-season (without impacting on existing contracts).

The club said at the FAB meeting that the change in accounting period was down to it aligning with other contracts. Now I know they'd hardly say "we need as much time as possible because we're in a huge FFP hole". But I think that suggests (but could well be wrong!) that it would mean that the Adidas money could be added to this year's revenue?

If that is true then why would anyone buy any of our players for £50m in June? It makes more sense for them to wait and sign them in July knowing that that also means that we start next season on -10 points (or maybe -6 if we can come up with a good enough story as to why we were unlucky to miss our numbers) or to make offers at massively below market value knowing that we'd have to accept them. I don't know when the Castore / Adidas deal switches over (I assume at the end of the season)? Might that not be a reason - especially as it looks like the new deal is significantly higher and so would be a big jump in revenue.

I'm struggling to understand what point you think you are making. I mean at the top of this page you have posted: "I have no idea if we have to sell to comply, I don't think anyone does. I am pretty sure we need to sell players with book value profits to buy though." Which is exactly the same point I am making - except I'm saying that I don't believe that we do need to sell a key player in order to comply. The media and social-media posts aren't saying that clubs will need to sell players so that they can use the money and the FFP rules to fund more purchases. They are making sensational headlines about FFP compliance to scare fans into thinking that their teams could be hit with the same penalties as Everton and probably Forest have been this season. That's the bit that is mainly bull****. I am sure that there are some clubs that will be in that position but it won't be 17 or 18 clubs.

The key word in all of this is "need". I don't think we need to sell any of our core players to comply with FFP. We might "choose" to sell a player because it allows us to cover FFP and fund other purchases.

That isn't what the rumour-mongers are suggesting though. The implication they are making (because it gets fans agitated) is that if we and Newcastle don't sell key players then we will be in breach of FFP and will be deducted 10 points next season. I don't think anyone on this forum has taken the view that - well if we sell Ramsey and sign £100m worth of players then that's a disaster. It's making "waves" because the implication is that we have to sell him and there will be no money available to sign other players. All I am saying is that I don't believe we need to sell Ramsey just to stay afloat and avoid a 10 point deduction.

PS - this completely artificial market that FFP has created (as you described above) is just one example of how ridiculous the rules are. It's encouraged the behaviour of clubs like Chelsea (as an extreme example) where they could have massive issues in a couple of years (if they continue to keep finishing mid-table) because of deals they've made that have "played" the FFP rules in the short-term but with considerable longer-term risk. It certainly hasn't done anything to encourage a more sustainable approach to running a club.

The very clear insinuation being made is that we have to sell Ramsey to Newcastle just to cover our financial losses and avoid a 10 point deduction at the start of next season and that none of that money will be used to fund other purchases. That's the bit I am disagreeing with.

We are massively behind on revenue generation but that is Heck's number one issue at the moment. Just look at the extra revenue he generated in Philadelphia. This is also an area that Atairos and Comcast are experts in - their involvement in the club via VSports makes complete sense in this regard. I don't think we can make too many conclusions about revenues based on our previous history. We've already gone from a pretty poor shirt deal with Castore to a reportedly very good deal with Adidas. I think these things will start happening very quickly - especially if we do well in the Conference League and the PL. Not only will we be more marketable as a "top 6" finishing team but we're already engaging with companies in a completely different league (excuse the pun) than we have been able to through the extra contacts that Heck and Atairos have.

There is going to be a lot of noise about FFP in the next few weeks and almost all of it will be complete bull****. I noticed today that we are going to have to sell one or two star players - probably either Ramsey or Luiz to Newcastle or Ollie to Arsenal. And then the very same person says 5 minutes later that Newcastle are going to have to sell Isak or Bruno Guimaraes and that Arsenal need to sell players too. Basically, the media will get more people reading their **** if they link key players to rumours and will then spend ages saying "we told you so" for the one player that does move (even if it has nothing to do with FFP) whilst ignoring the 20 that they got wrong. Saying that we need to sell Ramsey will just get more interest than saying that we need to sell Coutinho. The media will also have no idea (or interest) in anything else that we might be doing to address any shortfall - this also gives them another "exclusive" to run later in the window - "ah Villa now don't need to sell player x because they've just signed deal z for £20m". The cynic in me also thinks that some of the member will be deliberately trying to cause unrest or raise suspicions within the team in the hope that it causes a drop off in form and allows a certain team from Manchester to claim a CL place. There will only be a handful of people who actually know what we need to do and they seem to run a pretty closed shop in terms of both player signings and commercial deals. My gut feel is that we will hit our PL and UEFA FFP commitments with maybe the departure of 1 or 2 squad players (probably already out on loan). It then becomes about who we need to sell in order to strengthen the rest of the squad - which is a completely different matter - and we'll also have more idea on what extra revenue we can expect next season to do that.

No. I think there are a lot of left backs who would fit into our system a lot better than him. I think the relegation fight is probably his ceiling. I certainly don't think he'd move us closer to Arsenal, City or Liverpool.

Without FFP all of those clubs you mentioned would have spent more money in January than us. I don't like the way it has been implemented, I don't like how some clubs have been able to bypass the spirit of the rules and I don't think that the way that money from central deals is distributed is right or fair. But we do need something.

Yep - he looked to be good at playing against a press (good ball control, quick feet, good vision and awareness of where other players are). He was good at laying the ball off and immediately looking for space to run into for the return or to drag his marker out of the way to give others more space. He made a couple of excellent long passes too (one of which was up there with Dougie's best but unfortunately Ollie mistimed his run). His run and shot in the first half brought out a great stop - another 4 or 5 inches further to the right and it would have been unstoppable - but it was really encouraging. A lot more positives than negatives for sure. Plus his height causes panic too - so gives us an extra option if needed.

I think that assessment is harsh. Luton were targetting their right (our left) but that was as much down to Moreno as it was Rogers. It didn't help that he got a yellow and was worried that one mis-timed tackle would result in a red. I mean he's definitely better going forwards than defensively (but I think we all knew that already from where he played for Boro). But I think we should have brought on Digne earlier to help shore up the defence. It would have been interesting to see how he did with a better defensive LB behind him.