Baldseagull
Well-known member
Our losses will include a lot of costs that don’t count towards P&S: Infrastructure depreciation, academy costs, women’s team losses, AITC etc. Clubs are also allowed to discount the losses caused by Covid, which for the Albion would be about 25m, I think.
As for the Ben White 50m, that will all be accounted for in this season’s accounts. It doesn’t matter when the actual cash arrives in the bank as far as the books are concerned.
Seeing as we’ve also sold or not renewed contracts of Ali J, Propper, Ryan and Izquierdo, the player amortisation costs probably won’t have gone up much, even with this seasons new signings. I’d say we have a fair amount of wriggle room as far as P&S is concerned. This doesnt mean free money however, and I don’t enjoy seeing people comment on social media or here as if Tony Bloom is obligated to continually put his hand deep in his own pockets.
For what it’s worth I support the strategy of buying players that aren’t oven-ready and loaning them out in the hope that some will kick on. The USG acquisition is another potential source and proving ground for PL quality talent. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that their transfers over the last couple of year have (apparently) been data-driven rather than splashing out.
I am not suggesting we are potless, just that the fee and wage required for Darwin Nunez (£35M fee and £4M wage?) could have taken us up to the edge of it, and the club maybe were expecting/needing to sell a player to make it work within the budget. Apart from the total losses allowed there was at one time a limit on how much you could increase your wage bill from season to season without also increasing revenue other than broadcast revenue, however, I am not sure this is still in place. Do you know where you saw the discount for covid losses? I have been looking for that info and not found it anywhere.