The AVFC FFP thread

[allani]

27 minutes ago, PeterSw said:

There will be a considerable clear out in the summer of 'deadwood' and loan returns we would hope.

Olsen, Chambers, Hause, Lenglet, Dendoncker, Zaniolo, Coutinho and Sanson all likely to be shifted (fingers crossed).

Wouldn't be at all surprised if Digne and Cash were sold too, given that we've signed a coupe of young full-backs.

That would free up the guts of £750k p/w in wages.

I am beginning to start thinking that maybe extending the loan of Lenglet and trying to sell Diego Carlos might be better?  I thought Lenglet looked pretty solid (on the whole) against Fulham playing alongside Pau.  Whereas Carlos just looks like he's always about to do something a bit silly (either in terms of getting himself sent off or giving the ball away in a dangerous position).  Given that Konsa and Mings (hopefully) would likely go into the starting XI, Lenglet as a backup CB would be OK.  That would allow us to recover some funds by selling Carlos back to Spain - although I am not sure how that would work from an FFP calculation compared to Lenglet's loan fee / wages.  Maybe having Lenglet, Pau and Mings impacts our CB balance - but as has been said before people don't make a big deal about teams having lots of right footed CBs, it only evere seems to come up if teams have a possible imbalance of left footed players.

The challenge (as ever) is that how can you clear out "deadwood" and replace them with better players without there being a huge disparity between the funds you get coming out and the funds you need to spend to replace them.  We've struggled with squad depth this season and whilst a number of the players you mention haven't played any / many minutes - we do need to ensure that if we are playing CL or Europa League football next season we can rotate our players more.  There won't be as many matches where we can throw in some kids / backup players without them potentially being exposed.

[CVByrne]

3 hours ago, CVByrne said:

They have our wages for 2021/22 correct on page 29 and shows a jump in wages of 38% wow that's a huge jump. That kills our finances and I totally missed that scale of jump in forecasting the 2023 accounts. I'd gone for a wage increase of 10% (which tbf was too low). 

I'm confused now. Page 29 and 31 seem to contradict eachother

Page 29 is total wages and 31 is player wages by my reasoning. So the pay off of Gerrard + staff and singing of Emery+ staff definitely driving. 

Both in 2022 we paid if Deano + staff and paid compensation to get Gerrard in and the same in 2023 with Emery. 

Those types of events are behind us

[PeterSw]

12 minutes ago, allani said:

The challenge (as ever) is that how can you clear out "deadwood" and replace them with better players without there being a huge disparity between the funds you get coming out and the funds you need to spend to replace them.  We've struggled with squad depth this season and whilst a number of the players you mention haven't played any / many minutes - we do need to ensure that if we are playing CL or Europa League football next season we can rotate our players more.  There won't be as many matches where we can throw in some kids / backup players without them potentially being exposed.

I think the January transfer window did some of this for us - 

Olsen - Gauci signed

Chambers - Nedeljkovic signed

Hause - Hasn't featured so no impact

Lenglet - Mings back

Dendoncker - I imagine we will look to replace him

Zaniolo - Buendia back

Coutinho and Sanson - Rogers signed.

The question is actually clearing them out but Monchi will do his thing.

Sanson likely to hit the targets that will make his loan permanent, hopefully Napoli take up Dendoncker option and Coutinho has been linked with Inter Miami 

[VillaChris]

All I know from reading the last few pages is 6th wouldn't constitute a "good" season at all now.

[allani]

4 minutes ago, PeterSw said:

I think the January transfer window did some of this for us - 

Olsen - Gauci signed

Chambers - Nedeljkovic signed

Hause - Hasn't featured so no impact

Lenglet - Mings back

Dendoncker - I imagine we will look to replace him

Zaniolo - Buendia back

Coutinho and Sanson - Rogers signed.

The question is actually clearing them out but Monchi will do his thing.

Sanson likely to hit the targets that will make his loan permanent, hopefully Napoli take up Dendoncker option and Coutinho has been linked with Inter Miami 

We've not seen most of the replacements yet - so for example we don't know that Gauci will be an upgrade on Olsen yet (although it will be hard to imagine that he wouldn't be!).  But I agree that January was very positive in terms of starting the process.  I was mainly saying that we need to be careful about wanting to clear out too many non-starters at once because they need replacing and (as we've seen with several clubs this season) injuries / long term injuries are likely to remain an issue given the number of games that are being played, the amount of additional time being played and the lack of "breaks" during the year for players to recover.  We've been unlucky with the number of long-term injuries we have had but there are lots of teams who have had 7 or 8 players out at a time.  I think that will become more "normal" so it will become even more important to have squad depth.

[ender4]

8 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

All I know from reading the last few pages is 6th wouldn't constitute a "good" season at all now.

From an FFP perspective, 6th place could be a disaster and means we have to sell Ramsey.

[allani]

6 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

All I know from reading the last few pages is 6th wouldn't constitute a "good" season at all now.

To be honest if the club have gambled everything on 6th being a bad season then we'll be in deep **** sooner rather than later.  We're not the 6th best team on paper.  Planning on us always outperforming is hugely risky / dangerous / stupid.  This is exactly the type of behaviour that FFP was supposed to prevent.  I would be very surprised if our owners have gambled in this way.  I think they are ambitious not reckless. 

I do think that this might highlight why a huge change is required to the business side of the club - it is clear that generating revenue is more critical to the club's ambition than ever.  If we can't improve revenues in both the short-term and the longer-term then we'll struggle to compete on the pitch.

[tomsky_11]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

Calendar year is only for squad cost rule. I believe the accounts are published ones for financial years as they quote previous years for 2022 before rules came in and quote numbers for us that tie to our 2022 accounts

I still don't understand the two pages where they quote wages twice and different levels. It's still confusing me. 

Yep cool I'd only skim read a few posts before, noticed after I posted that you'd rec'd a couple of bits back to the accounts.

I had a quick run through the UEFA doc last night and though figures certainly higher than expected, I wasn't overly worried at least in short term. Seems like maybe some of what I thought we had to spend this season was actually spent last season. Next season still seems like the tipping point as we lose a profitable year from the front end of the assessment period and probably have to cover two large loss making ones. Getting CL and better commercial deals, eg Adidas should help cover some of this though.

[CVByrne]

1 hour ago, allani said:

The challenge (as ever) is that how can you clear out "deadwood" and replace them with better players without there being a huge disparity between the funds you get coming out and the funds you need to spend to replace them.  We've struggled with squad depth this season and whilst a number of the players you mention haven't played any / many minutes - we do need to ensure that if we are playing CL or Europa League football next season we can rotate our players more.  There won't be as many matches where we can throw in some kids / backup players without them potentially being exposed.

I think we've seen our plans for this already.

Sousa Ned Gauci Rogers look the replacements for

Digne Chambers Olsen and Zaniolo

So the wage profile there is a massive shift. 

With that we have a replacement for Lenglet as a LB/LCB who can play in the build up. 

The work to lower wages is underway and clear to me. 

[cheltenham_villa]

These recently released accounts are not a huge surprise for me but they really highlight the problem with the recent fixation on FFP.

Its important that we remember that FFP is about allowable LOSSES and that they are in fact that, Losses.

No other business in the world carries on running in this instance. Everytime we scrap out compliance with FFP, our owners are digging deeper into their pockets. In my experience this only happens for so long before they decide to cash in and pass the baton on. 

 

[eholm]

Good to see informed opinions from OPs on the latest UEFA document. We all kinda knew that the Grealish sale covered over a lot of financial mismanagemnt and now UE/Monchi have a lot of work to do to rebalance our situation. 

Even with the listed players mentioned, i.e. deadwood, being cleared, we just need to accept that at least one of our 'star' players WILL be sold this Summer. Even with CL revenue we will need funds to improve the squad and this will be the easiset way to do it within the timescales required. IMO, Luiz or Emi will leave in the Summer and I'd say Luiz is more likely.

[spiezels]

We cant ever just enjoy something can we. FFS. 

[andycv]

Villa's accounts will be published in the next 2 weeks - if history is anything to go by - so hopefully all will become clear then.....

[CVByrne]

We'll hopefully see our accounts published soon enough. However if the numbers are right we need to make a profit this season or we'll be in breach of the UEFA rules for next season when it's 22/23 and 23/24 accounts used for the max allowed of €80m loss. 

[andycv]

3 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

We'll hopefully see our accounts published soon enough. However if the numbers are right we need to make a profit this season or we'll be in breach of the UEFA rules for next season when it's 22/23 and 23/24 accounts used for the max allowed of €80m loss. 

You'd think UEFA would signal in the published document if their assessment was we couldn't play in their competitions based on the numbers they have?

[CVByrne]

1 minute ago, andycv said:

You'd think UEFA would signal in the published document if their assessment was we couldn't play in their competitions based on the numbers they have?

I don't know exactly what happens if we breach their rules on permitted losses. If our accounts are to end of June we can sell a player to help get us under but I don't think we'd put ourselves in a situation to need to sell a player so quickly just to get us under the threshold. 

Need to see our accounts first 

[allani]

56 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

I don't know exactly what happens if we breach their rules on permitted losses. If our accounts are to end of June we can sell a player to help get us under but I don't think we'd put ourselves in a situation to need to sell a player so quickly just to get us under the threshold. 

Need to see our accounts first 

Both Everton and Forest (and allegedly Wolves) have ended up in this position and been punished for holding out for better offers at the end of the summer.  I think there will be a lot of clubs circling for blood trying to land a bargain for any clubs on the brink of the FFP limit.  So the chances of selling anyone before the end of June and not getting mugged off will be remote.  I think it is fair to say that if we has to sell a player in June we wouldn't be able to get better than 50% of their value because (a) it is unlikely that other clubs will have significant FFP headroom to fund a large purchase and (b) our bargaining position will be incredibly weak - if a club offers say £40m for Luiz and we say that we want £80m then they'll just say fine - take the 10 point deduction, good luck.

[MrBlack]

3 minutes ago, allani said:

Both Everton and Forest (and allegedly Wolves) have ended up in this position and been punished for holding out for better offers at the end of the summer.  I think there will be a lot of clubs circling for blood trying to land a bargain for any clubs on the brink of the FFP limit.  So the chances of selling anyone before the end of June and not getting mugged off will be remote.  I think it is fair to say that if we has to sell a player in June we wouldn't be able to get better than 50% of their value because (a) it is unlikely that other clubs will have significant FFP headroom to fund a large purchase and (b) our bargaining position will be incredibly weak - if a club offers say £40m for Luiz and we say that we want £80m then they'll just say fine - take the 10 point deduction, good luck.

I suspect that's why you'll hear the direct line from the club being that we're fine, as you're not going to announce you have to sell.  There may be some clubs that have a sale rolling off their accounts that need to spend this season to use it,  but I don't expect there to be many. 

Any rumblings of struggle coming from media outlets that want the scum 6 to stay at the top.

You'll be able to make a good guess when are accounts are published, but it won't be 100% accurate, and if we're borderline you'd expect the club to know which side we're falling, without letting it out the bag.

[maqroll]

 

[allani]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

The issue comes in that the new UEFA rules have only a 2 season window for the calculation next season before moving to a 3 year window the season after.

I think we might be able to include a summer sale in there as mitigation. I don't know. We are totally fine for the Premier League PSR though as we have our 21/22 accounts there for calculation purposes. 

I do think that this (even if it is close to being true) paints a very different spin on some of the "crises" that the club are facing and how the landscape might have changed significantly in the last two years - especially when you take into consideration that we seem to be more at risk of missing the UEFA rules than the PL rules (which wouldn't have been such a big deal 2 seasons ago when we were in the bottom half of the table) and the fact that the Everton ruling has set a pretty strong precedence in terms of the severity of any breach AND that trying to appeal that the "final straw" was an infrastructure payment issue, will hold no water if you've been negligent / remiss elsewhere.

(1) Firstly, it offers a different perspective on why a costly rebrand might not be the best thing to be doing at the moment.  I think this also might explain why the new badge we think we are getting will look so similar to the Lerner badge (i.e. it's easier to live with two similar badges in the short term so we can take more time to rebrand the stadium, etc).

(2) It offers a very different view on why reducing capacity in the next two seasons could have a very big impact on our ability to meet our short-term FFP commitments (even if long term increasing capacity will have significant advantages).  I don't quite know how we balance that off because the case for increasing capacity closer to our rivals seems pretty solid.  But we can't afford to risk 10 point penalties or selling key players to balance the difference.

(3) It does offer a possible reason why some of the communications around (1) and (2) might have been a little less than fully transparent.  I don't think we'd want the club to be saying that the rebrand and redevelopment projects were off because they might cause us to breach FFP.

(4) It would also raise question marks about the performance of the club in certain areas and explain why we might be clearing out some departments and bringing in people that our senior team have worked with before.  (Note that this doesn't address allegations around possible breaches of employment law - but maybe does imply that (some) people who've been asked to leave might well have been asked to do so because our numbers are so adrift.)

(5) Maybe it also explains why we've had a bit of "radio silence" deliberate or not from the club - because actually the attention is on other matters.

I'm not saying that any of these are definitely true by the way but it does imply that maybe there are factors that the club have been focussed on that maybe they don't want to be discussing too openly / transparently at the moment.  I can certainly see why Heck might be spending more time trying to line up more deals rather than liasing with fan groups about reverting to something similar to the last badge we had.

It does also suggest that there's something wrong with FFP when most independent views are that we've generally bought pretty well, strengthened our team pretty sensibly (lots of people talk about how cheap some of our key players were compared to their current value) and that we've done brilliantly well on the pitch.  I would be amazed if anyone genuinely believes that our owners are acting rashly or beyond their means and that Barcelona of the pinnacle of what a well-run club should look like.