[Football] The ticking Profit and Sustainability (FFP) timebomb...

[Springal]

You may not have noticed but Villa and Newcastle are both backed by billionaires. The Grealish transfer might have held off any issue with Villa and Newcastle have been reasonably prudent, but I think both might find themselves in trouble down the line like Everton did and Chelsea probably will.

We are the exception, owing to Uncle Tony's genius. Our wage bill is in the bottom 4 in the league I think.

Our wage bill is now 14th I think

 

[Simster]

Our wage bill is now 14th I think

Good spot:

Ranking every Premier League club by their wage bill in 2023-24: Arsenal above Chelsea...

Manchester United's wage bill is over 35 times higher than Luton Town's in a stark reminder of quite how stratified the Premier League will be in the 2023-24 season. Here’s the full rundown of how much each Premier League club pays in wages.

www.planetfootball.com

By the way, this just goes to show how well GON has done at Wolves.

 

[Bob!]

Could be an interesting Summer...

But if the penalty is a 6 point deduction as per Everton then the clubs wont be worried.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I am not making excuses for those breaking the rules as they are now, but surely football needs to think of a better way to police its spending? This model is uncompetitive and almost locks everybody into their current status.

We all know the answer - there needs to be a salary cap. Chance of it happening? Zero.

UEFA is the real issue, they have tougher rules than the PL, they do need to change.

PL is pretty lax really, whilst stopping billionaires coming in and spending vast sums you are still able to spend well each summer.

Villa have a pretty large and expensive squad assembled Buendia is still lurking around Villa park somewhere, not a shock they are in trouble.

Arsenal/Spurs/Brighton are the example of how to grow a club, clubs just want it all now.

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

Good spot:

Ranking every Premier League club by their wage bill in 2023-24: Arsenal above Chelsea...

Manchester United's wage bill is over 35 times higher than Luton Town's in a stark reminder of quite how stratified the Premier League will be in the 2023-24 season. Here’s the full rundown of how much each Premier League club pays in wages.

www.planetfootball.com

By the way, this just goes to show how well GON has done at Wolves.

And how bad Man Utd and Chelsea are!

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

You may not have noticed but Villa and Newcastle are both backed by billionaires.

But you said ...

This model is uncompetitive and almost locks everybody into their current status.

Now I don't think it does. It prevents billionaires blowing everyone away. Had there been no PSR rule in place, who knows, we may have seen Newcastle in for Mbappe, Bellingham etc. PIF has the money. As it is, they have to exercise some restraint and in practice develop some players

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

UEFA is the real issue, they have tougher rules than the PL, they do need to change.

PL is pretty lax really, whilst stopping billionaires coming in and spending vast sums you are still able to spend well each summer.

Villa have a pretty large and expensive squad assembled Buendia is still lurking around Villa park somewhere, not a shock they are in trouble.

Arsenal/Spurs/Brighton are the example of how to grow a club, clubs just want it all now.

The rules should be stricter in my view.

All the time ticket prices are £40ish and agents are multi millionaires, heat still needs to be taken out of the system

 

[jackanada]

Villa? Surely £100m for Grealish will keep them safe for a bit

To go a bit Dullard it depends on the structure of the deal.
Transfer was in 2021 so whatever bump they got from the first installment is now outside the latest 3 year accounting period.
Now if say they had equal installments over 4 years of 25million then there would still be 75million of grealish profit for the current 3 year period, as there would have been for the previous one.
This seems unlikely however as I believe villa were due to bust out on FFP before they sold sockboy and the structure outlined above would only have got 25 million in for that first accounting period they were due to fail.
Seems much more likely they got the bulk of the cash immediately. Let's pretend a 3 year period going 70 - 20 - 10.
In this scenario while they got an immediate 70 million bump to get them out of trouble in 2021 and last year's 3 year period would have contained the full 100 million for the latest period they would only have £30 million of that gravy left to account for this time around. So a £70 million hole on the year before.
I await correction from @El Presidente

 

[Simster]

But you said ...

This model is uncompetitive and almost locks everybody into their current status.

Now I don't think it does. It prevents billionaires blowing everyone away. Had there been no PSR rule in place, who knows, we may have seen Newcastle in for Mbappe, Bellingham etc. PIF has the money. As it is, they have to exercise some restraint and in practice develop some players

I think you're wrong. It doesn't prevent billionaires blowing everyone away at all. That's exactly what Man Utd, Chelsea and Man City have done over the past 30 years. What it does do is prevent new billionaires from muscling in. The ones who built Man City's infrastructure and world beating squad can no longer be reached by Aston Villa or Newcastle or anyone else wanting to compete by throwing money at glory, because City got there first.

I'd prefer to see a European-wide salary cap in place. One that reigns in the top EPL & La Liga clubs a little bit. I'd also ban the type of independent TV deals that the Spanish clubs are allowed to negotiate that render domestic leagues totally uncompetitive.

 

[Bozza]

To go a bit Dullard it depends on the structure of the deal.
Transfer was in 2021 so whatever bump they got from the first installment is now outside the latest 3 year accounting period.
Now if say they had equal installments over 4 years of 25million then there would still be 75million of grealish profit for the current 3 year period, as there would have been for the previous one.
This seems unlikely however as I believe villa were due to bust out on FFP before they sold sockboy and the structure outlined above would only have got 25 million in for that first accounting period they were due to fail.
Seems much more likely they got the bulk of the cash immediately. Let's pretend a 3 year period going 70 - 20 - 10.
In this scenario while they got an immediate 70 million bump to get them out of trouble in 2021 and last year's 3 year period would have contained the full 100 million for the latest period they would only have £30 million of that gravy left to account for this time around. So a £70 million hole on the year before.
I await correction from @El Presidente

Player sales don't work like that - the whole transfer fee hits the accounts at the point the transfer takes place.

How the payment is made, lump sum or instalments, makes no difference either - the whole transaction hits the books when the deal is completed.

 

[Jim in the West]

Player sales don't work like that - the whole transfer fee hits the accounts at the point the transfer takes place.

How the payment is made, lump sum or instalments, makes no difference either - the whole transaction hits the books when the deal is completed.

I was just about to post the same....the only caveat is where a deal contains some incentives based on appearances, achievements, etc. So (for example) if an element of the Grealish fee was conditional on Man City winning the EPL in 22/23, then that part of the fee wouldn't be booked in 21/22's accounts, but in 22/23's.

Also - going back to jackanada's post, the deal happened in the 21/22 accounting period - so still within the three year FFP period running to end-June 2024.

 

[SAC]

You may not have noticed but Villa and Newcastle are both backed by billionaires. The Grealish transfer might have held off any issue with Villa and Newcastle have been reasonably prudent, but I think both might find themselves in trouble down the line like Everton did and Chelsea probably will.

We are the exception, owing to Uncle Tony's genius. Our wage bill is in the bottom 4 in the league I think.

That was prior to paying Barca/Fati £8 million! Although a lot of the reports are still guesswork.

 

[nicko31]

Good spot:

Ranking every Premier League club by their wage bill in 2023-24: Arsenal above Chelsea...

Manchester United's wage bill is over 35 times higher than Luton Town's in a stark reminder of quite how stratified the Premier League will be in the 2023-24 season. Here’s the full rundown of how much each Premier League club pays in wages.

www.planetfootball.com

By the way, this just goes to show how well GON has done at Wolves.

Depressing how its so similar to the league table

 

[Simster]

Depressing how its so similar to the league table

Predictable rather than depressing, IMO.

It doesn't depress me because it's the same in any sport. I mean really, what do you expect?

 

[SAC]

Depressing how its so similar to the league table

It is but it's worth repeating that so much of it is guesswork. Very few salaries outside the top 10 are verified.

 

[nicko31]

Predictable rather than depressing, IMO.

It doesn't depress me because it's the same in any sport. I mean really, what do you expect?

I know. Thank f**k for Tony's computer

 

[El Presidente]

To go a bit Dullard it depends on the structure of the deal.
Transfer was in 2021 so whatever bump they got from the first installment is now outside the latest 3 year accounting period.
Now if say they had equal installments over 4 years of 25million then there would still be 75million of grealish profit for the current 3 year period, as there would have been for the previous one.
This seems unlikely however as I believe villa were due to bust out on FFP before they sold sockboy and the structure outlined above would only have got 25 million in for that first accounting period they were due to fail.
Seems much more likely they got the bulk of the cash immediately. Let's pretend a 3 year period going 70 - 20 - 10.
In this scenario while they got an immediate 70 million bump to get them out of trouble in 2021 and last year's 3 year period would have contained the full 100 million for the latest period they would only have £30 million of that gravy left to account for this time around. So a £70 million hole on the year before.
I await correction from @El Presidente

Cash flows are irrelevant when calculating player sale profits.

 

[schmunk]

Our wage bill is now 14th I think

Good spot:

Ranking every Premier League club by their wage bill in 2023-24: Arsenal above Chelsea...

Manchester United's wage bill is over 35 times higher than Luton Town's in a stark reminder of quite how stratified the Premier League will be in the 2023-24 season. Here’s the full rundown of how much each Premier League club pays in wages.

www.planetfootball.com

By the way, this just goes to show how well GON has done at Wolves.

Acknowledging that there is a vast amount of guesswork in these figures, but recall that Uncle Tone apparently paid a 20% bonus to all staff at the end of last season for achieving Europa qualification - without that our wage bill would be 17th.

 

[Creaky]

If Everton to all intents get away with it, it’s a mockery.

They spent £100m’s more than the rules they signed up for, blamed the vast and sustained losses on behind closed doors despite ordinarily having modest match day income in a decrepit stadium, then stayed up with that improved squad by the skin of their teeth.

£19.5 million

 

[southstandandy]

There should be a standard rule for every £1m over FFP limits in the 3 year period, then 1 point is deducted. Then everyone would know where they stood. Simples.