The AVFC FFP thread

[omariqy]

The fine is from 4 years ago no? 

[A'Villan]

On 14/06/2018 at 16:42, OutByEaster? said:

The modern game is first and foremost a television rights entity, that's where its value lies. It's a sporting entity second. I remember almost a decade ago reading Peter Scudamore saying how much the "big four" had helped the Premier league in Asian markets - having a settled group of teams at the top allows for viewers in other regions to more easily access the league. 

If a man in China picks Chelsea as his English team, he can be fairly sure they'll be modestly successful for some time; they'll be involved at the top and that will keep him interested. You need enough of those teams to allow for choice, but you don't want too many - too many teams like that is like a soap opera with too many new characters, it's hard to keep track of and your favourite might not be involved in as many stories. If that happens, people will turn over to Eastenders.....sorry, I mean La Liga.

TV wants leagues like they have in Scotland and Spain, the Premier league is probably a tiny bit too top heavy for them at the moment - big teams aren't making the Champions league - they'll find a way to fix that. It doesn't want someone like Southampton suddenly finding a fortune and pushing into the top 4. That'd be like when Jeremy Renner became Bourne - it'd be confusing and devalue the franchise. FFP is primarily about protecting the value of TV rights by keeping the cast list for the show nice and consistent.

 

 

I was at a friends place the other night and there was a group of us that hadn't met before and the discussion of football came up.

"Who do you follow?"

"Arsenal"

"Liverpool"

"United"

"Aston Villa"

Liverpool fan screws up his face and says disapprovingly, "Aston Villa, that's random".

While I fully grasp the concept of what you've said @OutByEaster? I don't understand it.

It reminds me of the lyrics, "The military ain't there for the people's protection, they're just there to protect an investment"

As you say FFP is a measure taken to ensure TPTB keep their agenda running to schedule.

My opinion is that it's often a detriment to the culture and spirit of the sport, or country in a military setting.

[Hornso]

7 hours ago, A'Villan said:

I was at a friends place the other night and there was a group of us that hadn't met before and the discussion of football came up.

"Who do you follow?"

"Arsenal"

"Liverpool"

"United"

"Aston Villa"

Liverpool fan screws up his face and says disapprovingly, "Aston Villa, that's random".

Australian football fans in a nutshell . Had this for the last 20 years!

[memoryof82]

I don't quite get the workings of FFP, is it a case that if Tony could release his funds from China and lodge them against the losses, the books would balance to FFP and we could, therefore, keep the likes of Jack?...

[LakotaDakota]

On 05/07/2018 at 17:01, A'Villan said:

I was at a friends place the other night and there was a group of us that hadn't met before and the discussion of football came up.

"Who do you follow?"

"Arsenal"

"Liverpool"

"United"

"Aston Villa"

Liverpool fan screws up his face and says disapprovingly, "Aston Villa, that's random".

While I fully grasp the concept of what you've said @OutByEaster? I don't understand it.

It reminds me of the lyrics, "The military ain't there for the people's protection, they're just there to protect an investment"

As you say FFP is a measure taken to ensure TPTB keep their agenda running to schedule.

My opinion is that it's often a detriment to the culture and spirit of the sport, or country in a military setting.

Every sport is the same really though, In any city you will see loads of people wearing New York Yankees stuff but you won't see many San Diego Padres caps/shitrs anywhere, Same with american football etc You'll have a few fatties who grew up watching channel 4 coverage in the 80's with Redskins, NYG, Miami, SF49, Chicago alliances and the younger folks will be partiots/packers but nobody will be cheering on Cleveland/Jacksonville.

For some reason i actually own a Paul Di Resta Force India F1 shirt, I have never, ever seen another one anywhere yet i see ferrari,mercedes,mclaren stuff on a pretty much daily basis

[richp999]

11 minutes ago, memoryof82 said:

I don't quite get the workings of FFP, is it a case that if Tony could release his funds from China and lodge them against the losses, the books would balance to FFP and we could, therefore, keep the likes of Jack?...

Not really, no. This is just one of the problems. If I remember rightly the club can lose £5m a year, and the owner can cover another £8m, so a total of £13m loss per year. Its worked out over 3 years ;but basically you can only show a loss of £13m per year. 

As far as I understand to get money 'into' the club, you have to show it as a 'sale', so Tony would have to sponsor something.. But whatever you do, it can be looked at by the league and if its not commercially 'viable' they won't let you include it in your ffp calculations. 

So if you sponsor the gents for £200m per year, they will just say nobody else would reasonably pay this to sponsor the toilets, and you couldn't show it as income. 

Its can be quite difficult - but he hasn't got the money so it's not much use trying to think about how he could get it into villa. If you really have the cash, there are ways.. 

[jackbauer24]

I'm getting really annoyed with this FFP excuse. It is absolutely nothing to do with our current situation and doesn't impact us in the slightest.

Unless I'm seriously getting my facts mixed up there are basically very very minimal sanctions for breaking FFP. From nothing more than rumour and speculation (very little of this has come to pass) they are;

Transfer embargo - haven't we decided this ourselves, admitted it's all sales and can't afford even loans

Reduction in squad size - we're going to do this ourselves, outgoings and no ins

Point deduction - will any points deduction be greater than the amount that could be attributed to likes of Johnstone, Grealish, Chester and Kodjia plus?!

No Europe - yeah relevant...

A fine (normally small anyway) - can't afford it anyway so will come to an agreement

Prevention of promotion - we're going to be nowhere close anyway.

So FFP is an excuse. It's completely irrelevant to real teams anyway, but especially to us in our current situation. All we're doing is selling every asset we have under the guise of FFP when really it's about topping up gross mismanagement of finances. Once these have been used up, Xia will put us in administration anyway. 

Why are we still pretending FFP has anything to do with this? It's complete crap. Our bank balance is the only reason this is all happening, otherwise selling £40m worth of assets for £20 to turn a £5m fine in to a £2.5m one makes no sense whatsoever. So angry no one is highlighting this. Somehow, even though he's despised, Xia has managed to convince the masses that this is largely due to the big bad wolf of FFP and not just topping up the bank balance/asset stripping.

[VILLAMARV]

15 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

Every sport is the same really though, In any city you will see loads of people wearing New York Yankees stuff but you won't see many San Diego Padres caps/shitrs anywhere, Same with american football etc You'll have a few fatties who grew up watching channel 4 coverage in the 80's with Redskins, NYG, Miami, SF49, Chicago alliances and the younger folks will be partiots/packers but nobody will be cheering on Cleveland/Jacksonville.

For some reason i actually own a Paul Di Resta Force India F1 shirt, I have never, ever seen another one anywhere yet i see ferrari,mercedes,mclaren stuff on a pretty much daily basis

Patriots because their name had England in it when I used to read it the sports bit as a kid

Cleveland in baseball because, well, Major League.

[daggy_333]

1 hour ago, memoryof82 said:

I don't quite get the workings of FFP, is it a case that if Tony could release his funds from China and lodge them against the losses, the books would balance to FFP and we could, therefore, keep the likes of Jack?...

Apparently we need to find £40mil to comply with FFP.

 

Grealish £20mil + £25k??per week x52= £21.3m

Kodjia £7mil +  £30k??? x 52 = £8.56m

Chester £8mil = £30k??? x 52 = £9.56m

Total = £39.42m so that would be there or there abouts.

 

I must also point out i know sod all about how this FFP stuff works.

 

Problem solved 

Edited July 9, 2018 by daggy_333

[A'Villan]

3 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

Every sport is the same really though, In any city you will see loads of people wearing New York Yankees stuff but you won't see many San Diego Padres caps/shitrs anywhere, Same with american football etc You'll have a few fatties who grew up watching channel 4 coverage in the 80's with Redskins, NYG, Miami, SF49, Chicago alliances and the younger folks will be partiots/packers but nobody will be cheering on Cleveland/Jacksonville.

For some reason i actually own a Paul Di Resta Force India F1 shirt, I have never, ever seen another one anywhere yet i see ferrari,mercedes,mclaren stuff on a pretty much daily basis

True.

Although the NBA has fans for most teams here in Aus.

Perhaps Cleveland being the only team in which I wonder about, if they didn't have LBJ.

[richp999]

18 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

I'm getting really annoyed with this FFP excuse. It is absolutely nothing to do with our current situation and doesn't impact us in the slightest.

Unless I'm seriously getting my facts mixed up there are basically very very minimal sanctions for breaking FFP. From nothing more than rumour and speculation (very little of this has come to pass) they are;

Transfer embargo - haven't we decided this ourselves, admitted it's all sales and can't afford even loans

Reduction in squad size - we're going to do this ourselves, outgoings and no ins

Point deduction - will any points deduction be greater than the amount that could be attributed to likes of Johnstone, Grealish, Chester and Kodjia plus?!

No Europe - yeah relevant...

A fine (normally small anyway) - can't afford it anyway so will come to an agreement

Prevention of promotion - we're going to be nowhere close anyway.

So FFP is an excuse. It's completely irrelevant to real teams anyway, but especially to us in our current situation. All we're doing is selling every asset we have under the guise of FFP when really it's about topping up gross mismanagement of finances. Once these have been used up, Xia will put us in administration anyway. 

Why are we still pretending FFP has anything to do with this? It's complete crap. Our bank balance is the only reason this is all happening, otherwise selling £40m worth of assets for £20 to turn a £5m fine in to a £2.5m one makes no sense whatsoever. So angry no one is highlighting this. Somehow, even though he's despised, Xia has managed to convince the masses that this is largely due to the big bad wolf of FFP and not just topping up the bank balance/asset stripping.

 

It impacts us massively. 

Whilst all of your points are correct, the ffp rules basically screw us in terms of what we can now do going forward. 

Of course its all correct that it's all down to financial mismanagement.. Well really the massive gamble the club took last year going for promotion. 

Personally I think xia was a chancer looking to make money by either :

Getting the club promoted, then selling for a fat profit when the Premier league cash came in

Or by running the club in the Premier league, extracting huge amounts of money in yearly 'management fees' 

The issue with ffp is the amount we could 'lose' each year dropped down this year from about 100m to 13m. How can you just 'ignore' that? Also the parachute payments stopped, making the problem worse from the other side. 

It runs over 3 years too, so whatever sanctions you get this year you might face next, and the one after. 

Man city were fined around 49M, QPR 40m, not really money we have, is it? 

Leicester got away with 3.1m by a shady deal to sell marketing rights. 

That's all fine if you get promoted after breaching the rules, but if you don't you can't perpetually afford those sorts  of fines in the championship. 

The top and bottom of it is that we spend far more than we get in, we simply don't have the revenue streams, especially now. 

Even with a new owner, ffp would stop anyone coming in and throwing £100m in the bank balance. 

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by richp999

[Jas10]

FFP is a joke 

 

[John]

5 minutes ago, richp999 said:

I think man city were fined around 40m, not really money we have, is it?

That's the most annoying thing it was introduced to ensure financial fair play but has  achieved the opposite. Clubs like Manchester City are fined money that represents chump change for cash rich clubs but cash strapped clubs (which clearly now include us) that dare to spend money to get in the same league as the financial big hitters are punished unmercifully for daring to do so. Basically football has become a closed shop. Our owner if he has any money anywhere is not prepared to put it into the club and has used our parachute payments to gamble on owning a club that would reach the Premier League gravy chain and make him substantial money as a result in the long term having repaid loans he had taken out. Clubs with money are able to get around FFP or pay fines that represent peanuts to them the likes of us are forced to sell players if we don't want to face disproportionately harsh penalties and are ruined on the football pitch and/or off it by financial unfair play. Do I not like that!

[Jas10]

24 minutes ago, John said:

That's the most annoying thing it was introduced to ensure financial fair play but has  achieved the opposite. Clubs like Manchester City are fined money that represents chump change for cash rich clubs but cash strapped clubs (which clearly now include us) that dare to spend money to get in the same league as the financial big hitters are punished unmercifully for daring to do so. Basically football has become a closed shop. Our owner if he has any money anywhere is not prepared to put it into the club and has used our parachute payments to gamble on owning a club that would reach the Premier League gravy chain and make him substantial money as a result in the long term having repaid loans he had taken out. Clubs with money are able to get around FFP or pay fines that represent peanuts to them the likes of us are forced to sell players if we don't want to face disproportionately harsh penalties and are ruined on the football pitch and/or off it by financial unfair play. Do I not like that!

FFP has actually caused/worsened the situation that it was “advertised” or promoted as being a solution to. Of course, there was a different agenda to it that wasn’t revealed...

[blandy]

On 10/07/2018 at 16:51, Jas10 said:

FFP has actually caused/worsened the situation that it was “advertised” or promoted as being a solution to. Of course, there was a different agenda to it that wasn’t revealed...

It really hasn't. To an extent it's protected Villa, for example, from being a worse mess.

There's about three or four different themes in the last few posts, not all of them (IMO) quite accurate or relevant.

Man City's (mis-)adventures with UEFA FFP rules and their subsequent fine etc. - utterly irrelevant to Villa or the completely different Championship FFP rules under which we must operate.

The Premiership didn't have FFP rules the last time I looked. That may have changed, but they relatively recently introduced a rule about how much wages could go up, and that was pretty much it.

The Championship FFP has partly protected Villa from being in a worse mess, while not protecting the club enough, perhaps. With no FFP rules, hypothetically XIa could have borrowed and spent even more than he did on his mad gamble, and when it failed, which it did, we'd have been even worse off. FFP limited the amount that could be foolishly gambled. It's put a block on any further gambling, basically.

It's also true that it appears to being used to mask or excuse or cover up some monumentally bad circumstances. It's one thing to do what Randy Lerner did and fund overspending by putting in his own money, it's another level of reckless entirely to borrow money and then use that to overspend, because, obviously, you're left owing people money you don't have. if/when the gamble doesn't come off. Which is where Xia is at. Money appears to have been borrowed against the promise of future riches and value arising from promotion, but instead there was no promotion, no increase in club value and the various people now want their money back. Massively effed is what we are. It seems like he's looking to sell 30% of a basically bankrupt Villa for loads of money, so he can pay back people who are owed money from the proceeds. It won't happen. No one will buy a third of nothing for a lot.

[Jas10]

In no way am I excusing Xia, he is completely at fault, but what I meant is that the big clubs are protected and any club that wants to grow, progress and try and compete is held back by FFP. It makes no sense that a club has to sell its best assets and players just to survive too, that there isn’t any alternative.

I don’t have the information, but I would direct a lot of anger at Wyness too (I don’t know who else is involved in ownership and running of the club), probably more than Xia, he would be the most informed and most aware of anyone regarding our situation, finances and sustainability. He was just lying through his teeth the whole time, fed us fans so much bullshit!

I guess we need a new owner and regime, but how likely is that now?

[jackbauer24]

My point is FFP is irrelevant to us at the moment. If we were worried about FFP, you wouldn't sell £40m of players on the cheap to save a possible small fine. You'd hold to them to get their true value and make a proper dent in FFP regulations. Get a fine of 5m but sell them for £20m in January or whenever and you're £15m up. Simple economics. You only sell assets on the cheap if YOU desperately need money, not to balance the books for an audit.

These firesales are NOTHING to do with FFP and everything to do with needing cash asap to pay back whoever we owe, government or loan shark. It might be an added plus that we avoid a further fine but it's not the reason for these sales at all.

It's going to be a lot harder to stay within FFP regs if you're selling assets for a fraction of their true value. This is about asset stripping.

[eholm]

19 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

My point is FFP is irrelevant to us at the moment. If we were worried about FFP, you wouldn't sell £40m of players on the cheap to save a possible small fine. You'd hold to them to get their true value and make a proper dent in FFP regulations. Get a fine of 5m but sell them for £20m in January or whenever and you're £15m up. Simple economics. You only sell assets on the cheap if YOU desperately need money, not to balance the books for an audit.

These firesales are NOTHING to do with FFP and everything to do with needing cash asap to pay back whoever we owe, government or loan shark. It might be an added plus that we avoid a further fine but it's not the reason for these sales at all.

It's going to be a lot harder to stay within FFP regs if you're selling assets for a fraction of their true value. This is about asset stripping.

Completely agree, I’ve posted similar on the TX thread. 

[Nabby]

Its not going to be a small fine though thats the point , the QPR fine is 40 mil that they are still appealing against .Now the EFL can give points reductions  and its assessed earlier , as far as I can tell say we don't sell Jack and rip up the league are are top in March the EFL will just wack us with a massive point reduction .The whole point with their new system is to stop teams ignoring FFP getting promoted and they they are limited to what they can do , the Prem League won't sanction teams for what happened before they were promoted.Just like we got relegated just as TV cash went up we have now hit FFP when its been escalated 

 

Edited fine total 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/10/24/qpr-ordered-pay-world-record-40million-ffp-fine-losing-three/

Quote

But, after winning that season’s Championship play-off final, they reported a loss of just £9.8m after then owner Tony Fernandes, now the club’s co-chairman, and other shareholders wrote off £60m in loans as an “exceptional item”.

As you see the QPR owners tried to write off the loss's as a loan and the EFL were having none of it which is why Xia or any other owner can't just write off the loss's with a cash injection 

 

Edited July 11, 2018 by Nabby

[TheStagMan]

One thing that gets me is if we are broke, why have we sent everyone to Portugal for "hot weather training", when we have perfectly good training pitches at Bodymore Heath (and hot weather) that would effectively cost next to nothing. I'm sure the facilities, hotels and travel costs aren't free! Whilst it may be a drop in the ocean, if we are as flat broke as we think we are, then surely that's money we cannot afford to waste? You have to be talking about £100K spent on this, surely.