The General FFP (Financial Fair Play) Thread

[ROTTERDAM1982]

I would argue PieFacE that Chelsk, who aren't in the current top4, and more in partic Citeeeh, are only in the top 4 because of being allowed to massively invest in their clubs with the money of their owners, consequently this led to trophies, which led to more interest abroad, which led to more support, and an opportunity then to stabilise the club.

Chelsk and Citeeh were nothing clubs until the big takeovers.

Now imho Villa and Newcastle , if their owners are willing, should be allowed to possibly join them, instead we are in the bizarre situation whereby, although knocking on the door, we will have to sell one of our stars. 

Money has always bought the 1st  division/Prem, the introduction of FFP was blatantly to protect the current status quo.

[Zatman]

Apparently Chelsea will be facing some financial sanctions if they win the Carabao Cup by UEFA

[VillaJ100]

27 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Apparently Chelsea will be facing some financial sanctions if they win the Carabao Cup by UEFA

I'm sure the 400 grand carabao cup prize money will make a difference 

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

 

[villa89]

Didn't listing to the video but he's right about one thing, it's 100% wrong that someone thinks Mason Mount is worth £55m.

Edited February 27 by villa89

[MrBlack]

On 27/02/2024 at 03:26, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

 

He's very right.

For all his faults, he speaks very well and is clearly very intelligent and has exceptional knowledge of the financial aspects and history of football.

If he'd not forced his football visions on the club he might still be here and we might still have a new North Stand on the way.

When it comes to the longer term benefit of the club and pur ability to overcome thr FFP barriers,  I think I trust Puslow's view more than I trust Heck's. But it's in the past and Heck does seem to be making more out of what we already have. Let's hope we got all the information we could out of Purslow while he was here. 

Edited February 28 by MrBlack

[maqroll]

Mid season points manipulation like we've seen with Everton opens a big can of worms. It's done without transparency and by people who might have bias or an inherent conflict of interest. 

[MrBlack]

14 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Mid season points manipulation like we've seen with Everton opens a big can of worms. It's done without transparency and by people who might have bias or an inherent conflict of interest. 

Yup. Its why they need to set out a scale that clubs know in advance. If clubs know how many points they'll be deducted for a breach of £x million then they can't have any complaints.

Obviously there'll be the odd interpretation of a loss being counted or not,  but that should also be clear in the rules.

Having the points deduction applied in the season that the breaches took place is better than them happening the season after as was previously the case. 

[villa89]

Just now, MrBlack said:

I dont understand how we can just arbitrarily say that a month is no longer going to be accounted for in the current cycle?

Does that month 3 years ago,  where we presumably made a lot of losses, get erased from our FFP calculations now, and give us a free hit of those losses?

I assume we've done the maths and checked the extra month we add on to the end of the three year cycle will be substantially better.

What's to stop you, in theory, changing your year end every time you get three years on from a particularly expensive month?

You've summed up why FFP is such rubbish. They need to completely rewrite the rules or scrap them altogether.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

The irony is... Most people were championing FFP when we were struggling.

I knew that eventually it would bite aspiring clubs in the arse.

Needs to be amended within reason, I've always said from the get go, owners/clubs should be able to invest, and use their networks etc for deals, just like in any other form of society or business! Otherwise what's the point for owners? You keep the big clubs big, and shoot down other ambitious owners.

Obviously within some reason, because if it was left wild Man City would have a 300,000 seater stadium and 33 Galacticos.

[fightoffyour]

It's difficult to say if FFP has been/will be beneficial or a hindrance to us.

On the one hand, our owners - given their vast wealth - might have been willing to pump in more money than they have and try to improve the team faster.

On the other, I do think they are treating this as an investment (with the sporting enjoyment that comes with it for them) and might not have been willing to spend more anyway. whilst Man City and Newcastle just spent themselves further ahead of the rest. Besides, buying more, better (on paper) players may not have actually yielded as successful results as we have achieved.

[desensitized43]

15 hours ago, maqroll said:

Mid season points manipulation like we've seen with Everton opens a big can of worms. It's done without transparency and by people who might have bias or an inherent conflict of interest. 

It's very much worse than that. The ongoing case with Everton and Forest is 100% not going to be complete (including guaranteed appeals from both because it's risk free to the clubs involved) before the end of the season so you're going to have a situation where teams have been "kind of relegated" but might actually have survived. It's a massive **** mess and they'll need to change the rules again so these are dealt with before the end of the season.

[Rightdm00]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

The irony is... Most people were championing FFP when we were struggling.

I knew that eventually it would bite aspiring clubs in the arse.

Needs to be amended within reason, I've always said from the get go, owners/clubs should be able to invest, and use their networks etc for deals, just like in any other form of society or business! Otherwise what's the point for owners? You keep the big clubs big, and shoot down other ambitious owners.

Obviously within some reason, because if it was left wild Man City would have a 300,000 seater stadium and 33 Galacticos.

Football is sport not business.  Almost zero clubs turn a profit year over year. Villa have been running at a double digit million pound loss every season since NSWE took over. Not a single pound of profit made. If football was just a business then the most successful team would come down who has the best accountants not the best footballers. 

 Without FFP could our owners do a Man City and propell us to a PL title, sure. It would require a wage bill 2x our current revenue, losses over £100 million+ a year but yeah definitely possible. What happens though when they lose interest, or one of them is a victim of a massive scam, or commits a crime? Now we have unsustainable losses and we drop probably out of the EFL altogether. Give me FFP driving us towards becoming a stable club that doesn't need the benefactors of an invested owner.

In American sports with salary caps and spending limits it's common for a team to make hard choices. Trade this player, let another player walk in free agency. It creates a fairer playing field.  Good teams can't just lock down all the talent and win by default.  Look at La Liga, with the salary cap, Barcelona is no longer able to lose ungodly sums of money year after year. Now they can't go around buying whatever talent they see fit. Even Real has had to chill on their insane transfer policy.  Going forward football has to have some method of spending control. FFP can definitely be improved upon but getting away from the wild days of football success based almost solely on the financial powress of your owners is absolutely a good thing. 

[allani]

2 hours ago, MrBlack said:

I dont understand how we can just arbitrarily say that a month is no longer going to be accounted for in the current cycle?

Does that month 3 years ago,  where we presumably made a lot of losses, get erased from our FFP calculations now, and give us a free hit of those losses?

I assume we've done the maths and checked the extra month we add on to the end of the three year cycle will be substantially better.

What's to stop you, in theory, changing your year end every time you get three years on from a particularly expensive month?

I was saying the other day that it seems strange that the artificial restrictions on transfers (through two specific windows) might well come under a legal challenge soon - now that clubs can be penalised for missing their financial target.  Forest are already asking how not selling Johnson in June for £10m less than they were able to sell him for in August is financial mismanagement.  The collapse of the January transfer market this year further complicates things.  There's a lot that can happen between August and May and one of the biggest options that clubs have to deal with unforecasted costs is to sell valuable assets - namely players.  The fact that for most of that time selling players is forebidden means that a major tool for helping to balance the books has been removed.  It also means that clubs with a healthy FFP position can now use this to target clubs struggling with FFP to force them into selling players at below their market value.  Which again flies in the face of FFP supposedly being there to help make the game be run more sustainably.

Whilst I understand that the accounts should be based on the football season - I think the relationship between accounting rules and transfer windows needs to be looked at.  I would imagine that most clubs are now looking to give themselves the opportunity to sell assets at the end of the accounting period - rather than basically being in a position where the last chance to raise revenues through player sales is 8 or 9 months previously.  Clubs will also have a better idea of their final financial position in May / June than they would have done in August (i.e. they can tie spending into actual performance rather than projections) and so I suspect that June might become more active as teams either utilise extra funds or try and generate some last minute revenue.

I don't think that us moving our reporting period is concerning - more a recognition that the transfer market is changing: with the winter market looking like it is becoming more a chance to loan players and then clubs being a bit more active in June and then possibly later in the summer window.  I would be very surprised if many clubs don't do the same / haven't already done it.

[HeyAnty]

A system where clubs are having to sell their best academy graduates to established clubs isn’t fit for purpose.  Look at the way we have sold our players in past couple of years and most likely Ramsey by end of June 

[paul514]

1 hour ago, Rightdm00 said:

Football is sport not business.  Almost zero clubs turn a profit year over year. Villa have been running at a double digit million pound loss every season since NSWE took over. Not a single pound of profit made. If football was just a business then the most successful team would come down who has the best accountants not the best footballers. 

 Without FFP could our owners do a Man City and propell us to a PL title, sure. It would require a wage bill 2x our current revenue, losses over £100 million+ a year but yeah definitely possible. What happens though when they lose interest, or one of them is a victim of a massive scam, or commits a crime? Now we have unsustainable losses and we drop probably out of the EFL altogether. Give me FFP driving us towards becoming a stable club that doesn't need the benefactors of an invested owner.

In American sports with salary caps and spending limits it's common for a team to make hard choices. Trade this player, let another player walk in free agency. It creates a fairer playing field.  Good teams can't just lock down all the talent and win by default.  Look at La Liga, with the salary cap, Barcelona is no longer able to lose ungodly sums of money year after year. Now they can't go around buying whatever talent they see fit. Even Real has had to chill on their insane transfer policy.  Going forward football has to have some method of spending control. FFP can definitely be improved upon but getting away from the wild days of football success based almost solely on the financial powress of your owners is absolutely a good thing. 

The solution has always been obvious, bonds.

You want to go past your limits? Ok sign the 50m pound player, give him a 5 year deal on 10 million a year..... fine.

But you are going to have to stump up 100m now in a bond that gets drawn down on to pay for the player. That way it doesn't matter and you can invest.

[DakotaVilla]

PSR is fine in principal. 

It’s actually very easy to fix the issues. Any loss over the permitted limits needs to be fully funded by the owners in advance. If you want to lose 100m fine, stick it in escrow and you can gamble your own money and not the clubs future.

Different rules clearly needed for any club with any significant holding from any individual connected with a nation state.Any loss they make has to be met by an equivalent solidarity payment to the league to be split across all other premier league clubs. Any sponsorship deals for a nation state owned club can’t exceed the equivalent from a non nation state club. I.e. in the UK Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal would be the cap. 
 

Lots of detail required but it’s very easy to fix if the real intention is just to stop clubs going bust. 

[El-Reacho]

43 minutes ago, paul514 said:

The solution has always been obvious, bonds.

You want to go past your limits? Ok sign the 50m pound player, give him a 5 year deal on 10 million a year..... fine.

But you are going to have to stump up 100m now in a bond that gets drawn down on to pay for the player. That way it doesn't matter and you can invest.

That's the obvious solution but it allows the likes of ourselves and Newcastle to gatecrash the top six party. The fact that the current rules prevent (or make it extremely difficult)  for us to catch up with those teams makes it pretty obvious what the real intentions of FPP are. Also the fact that Everton and Forest have had to sell their best players to a club higher up the tree (Spurs) for discounted transfer fees, just to try and stay on the right side of FPP is also ludicrous.

[allani]

1 minute ago, El-Reacho said:

That's the obvious solution but it allows the likes of ourselves and Newcastle to gatecrash the top six party. The fact that the current rules prevent (or make it extremely difficult)  for us to catch up with those teams makes it pretty obvious what the real intentions of FPP are. Also the fact that Everton and Forest have had to sell their best players to a club higher up the tree (Spurs) for discounted transfer fees, just to try and stay on the right side of FPP is also ludicrous.

Everton spent a lot of time buying players from "lower" clubs - they just spent over the odds and on questionable players.  At the end of the day the reason they've had to sell their best players rather than their worst players is because they paid way over the odds for their worst players and put them on big salaries.  Everton are in the position they are in because of their mismanagement not because FFP has failed.  They are a bad example to use.

I agree with your main point - I just take issue with using Everton as a victim of it.

[Tomaszk]

2 hours ago, Rightdm00 said:

Look at La Liga, with the salary cap, Barcelona is no longer able to lose ungodly sums of money year after year. Now they can't go around buying whatever talent they see fit. Even Real has had to chill on their insane transfer policy. 

You're right. Great post.

2 hours ago, Rightdm00 said:

Going forward football has to have some method of spending control.

Sadly not. Superleague type deal will happen with teams like Barca and Real leading the charge.