Financial (Un)Fair Play.

[marmor]

Financial fair play simplified:
Can spend what you earn from your clubs revenue so the big clubs stay at the top and the up and coming clubs can’t afford to compete.

Keep the big rich clubs popular, and the littler clubs must know their place.

The most Tory of Tory rules.

 

[Villa_Fan]

I do believe this is a super valid point.

But at the same time, I feel this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If a club, lets say villa, want to bridge the gap to top 6, they attempt to buy players that are slightly better, or completely better than what they currently have, all of a sudden then need to overspend in order to get there, thats not just picking the right or wrong players, on a deal by deal basis the club is always at a disadvantage. our clubs need to "convince" players to join us with some silly tag like a "project" or mainly, with much higher wages.

Haaland went for 51 million to city, can Aston Villa afford that? of course they can! so why isnt it a reality, because you cant compete as a brand, players have to be convinced, there is of course players that would love to step up to play for Villa, and they could be great but you are trying to reach above your means so you need to convince better players to sign, and it all comes down to wages thats the only tool you have at your disposal, so it becomes real easy to get into a mess, have a bunch of players that failed on high wages. and all of sudden bam. you stuck.


i dont know how that problem gets fixed tbh, but FFP will punish down the line for getting it wrong, we got it wrong for many years buying the outcasts of bigger sides and turns out they were outcasts for good reason, then we made terrible calls on players that were rising too

You talk a lot of sense. It highlights how difficult a problem it is to resolve. No matter what some people may believe or use as an excuse for their club underperforming the bottom line is that the neither Premier League nor UEFA want the clubs to go bankrupt. As you say, for Villa or most other clubs to attract players the only real tool at their disposal is wages. Villa isn't going to win anything for the foreseeable unless we have a lucky cup run, so why would a player join us ahead of a top 6 club? Villa fans will say that it is for the potential, the manager, the history blah blah blah but everyone knows that is BS. They join for the £££.
If Villa and Everton tried to buy the same player I am guessing that the majority of the time, it would be down to who pays the most cash. If we wanted Tarkowski and paid him an extra 20k a week I am sure he would be a Villa player today. Equally, if Everton wanted Boubacar Kamara and offered him 20k more a week than we did then he would now be an Everton player. So, as u suggest, the system is a self-fulfilling prophecy to overspend. I think that is why the positions of CEO, DoF and manager are the most important at any football club. These are the people that stop the proverbial hitting the fan and ensure that a club can grow within their means. It's funny how fans always want their club to buy better players but I think getting the right management in the club should be the priority. Get the foundation right and the house will stay standing.

 

[Villa_Fan]

I find it laughable that the majority of other clubs have just allowed these rules to take place. The whole of the football pyramid has now been shaped and it will likely never change. There are 6 clubs who will always reap the rewards that none of the others will ever have a chance to taste.

Everton have gone from a team who had potential to break the monopoly to now being a team battling relegation. Man City never got restrained after their first few seasons of bad spending. In fact they got rewarded and spent more and more until they got it right and due to good timing or rather perfect timing they will be up there forever. They are even stealing our 16 year old youth top talents now as well.

I hold no hope for the future of this club at all now. The rules are too bias towards a select few. Even if we had got it right like Leicester seemed to. It would only be a matter of time until we would be forced to sell our top players and find ourselves tumbling down the league again like they are.

Isn't it going to be exciting watching us play the likes of city and Liverpool and get smashed by 3+ goals home and away for the next decade. The probability of the top 6 getting even stronger and the rest getting weaker is greater than ever with the rules how they are. They all finished in their 'rightfull' positions again last season didn't they.

As someone posted earlier its the way of this world. A select few all reap the majority while the majority all feed on scraps. Unless if the rest of the majority all come together and do something about it then it will just get worse and worse and worse.

Don't get me wrong, the club do take some blame for this. But maybe they weren't at fault for the way things have gone under Moshiri. Maybe Newcastle will suffer a similar fate with their riches. You can't attract the top players unless if you are competing in the top competitions and for trophies and the top players only want to join the top clubs. Everton got the players who all the top clubs didn't want under Moshiri and there is a reason they didn't want them.

How has FFP put Everton in this position? It has been free reign for the last 5 or 6 years. The position Everton is in is 100% down to the management of Everton Football Club and has nothing to do with FFP

 

[Gilbert..]

How has FFP put Everton in this position? It has been free reign for the last 5 or 6 years. The position Everton is in is 100% down to the management of Everton Football Club and has nothing to do with FFP

I really want to come back kicking and screaming at that. But i cant. i start at 28m for bolasie. 25m for cenk tosun...and now i just want to stop before i reel off another dozen.
FFP just means we cant buy our way out of our own mess.

 

[canuckblue]

If u ignore the conspiracy stories FFP is designed to stop a club from spending beyond its limits so that the club won't go out of business.

FFP is judged over a 3 year period and allows a club to lose an average of 35m a year for each of the 3 years, so total losses over 3 years cannot exceed 105m. In yr 1 a club can make a loss of 200m but if they make a profit of 75m in years 2 and 3 they will not be in breach of FFP.

Different things count towards FFP. Investment in youth, infrastructure, training facilities etc are not counted towards FFP. Operating costs: wages, player purchases, travel, bonuses, payoffs for sacking managers etc are counted towards FFP.

It is important to understand Amortisation when thinking FFP. Amortisation just means that a player's purchase price is accounted for over the term of a player's contract. If Everton buys a player for 20m in this window and gives him a 4-year contract, that will account for a 5m loss each year for the next 4 years. So for FFP, buying a 20m player only costs a 5m loss this year. That is just for the transfer fee, if u pay the player 3m a year the total cost to Everton is 8m a year for the next 4 years.

If you sell a player, you must account for all years of amortisation remaining on their contract. Everton bought Gomes for 22m in 2019 and gave him a 5 year contract. So that is 22/5 = 4.4m in amortisation cost each of the 5 years of his contract. If Everton sells Gomes this window for say, 5m, they have to account for the 2 years left on his contract which would be 4.4m x 2 = 8.8m. So if Everton sold Gomes for 5m, you would have a 3.3M loss on your accounts that impact FFP. However, you would also save 4m on his wages so Everton would be better off by about 700k this year. But if you want to replace Gomes with a new player then that will have a new amortisation cost and a new set of wages to pay. In short, getting rid of underperforming players can be very expensive.

How much for the pair?

 

[Villa_Fan]

I really want to come back kicking and screaming at that. But i cant. i start at 28m for bolasie. 25m for cenk tosun...and now i just want to stop before i reel off another dozen.
FFP just means we cant buy our way out of our own mess.

I think u are highlighting the full purpose of FFP. Everton management made bad decisions after bad decisions for the last 6 years and the club is now curtailed from spending another half a billion in the next 5/6 years. If Moshiri was allowed to continue with spending and he wasted another half a billion that could put the future of Everton FC at risk. This is exactly what FFP is trying to stop happening. What happens if Moshiri spends a bucket load of cash in the coming years and decides enough is enough and leaves the club or stops funding the repayments on debt?

As I said in a previous post if an owner wants to spend his/her money which is beyond the financial means of the club they should be permitted to do so as long as there is a mechanism to guarantee the funds from the owner should viability of the club become under threat. But, imo, owners should not be permitted to gamble the future of a football club for perceived gain

 

[Gilbert..]

I think u are highlighting the full purpose of FFP. Everton management made bad decisions after bad decisions for the last 6 years and the club is now curtailed from spending another half a billion in the next 5/6 years. If Moshiri was allowed to continue with spending and he wasted another half a billion that could put the future of Everton FC at risk. This is exactly what FFP is trying to stop happening. What happens if Moshiri spends a bucket load of cash in the coming years and decides enough is enough and leaves the club or stops funding the repayments on debt?

As I said in a previous post if an owner wants to spend his/her money which is beyond the financial means of the club they should be permitted to do so as long as there is a mechanism to guarantee the funds from the owner should viability of the club become under threat. But, imo, owners should not be permitted to gamble the future of a football club for perceived gain

We're already there. As are many clubs. If television ever pulled the plug virtually every club would collapse.
I cant disagree with it. Its not just Everton. All clubs spend beyond their means because fee's and salaries are mental. Isn't digne now on something like 170k a week at villa? Thats lunacy.

 

[Villa_Fan]

We're already there. As are many clubs. If television ever pulled the plug virtually every club would collapse.
I cant disagree with it. Its not just Everton. All clubs spend beyond their means because fee's and salaries are mental. Isn't digne now on something like 170k a week at villa? Thats lunacy.

I agree, the entire football business has a lot of risks. The TV deals are essential and as the market for content delivery changes, there will be an extra risk. But football is a popular sport globally and there will always be an opportunity for clubs to earn huge money from selling TV rights whether that be to the likes of Sky or directly via a club's own channel or something in between.
Re Digne, I thought he was on about 130k a week, which is enormous money, but he could be on 170k, I didn't think Villa were able to pay that high a wage but I could be wrong.

 

[OneTrueLegend]

The thing that doesn’t sit right with me on the premier league profit and loss and FFP is that clubs can be £1bn in debt, but if they have a high income, they still comply with the rules.

Barcelona are a major example of this, but closer to home, Man Utd have a debt of £580m, but are still fine for FFP, where as we have debt of £58m, but are in danger of breaching the rules. Surely these teams should have to use their huge incomes to pay down the debt, rather than paying out share dividends or spending £200m in the transfer market.

 

[Gilbert..]

The thing that doesn’t sit right with me on the premier league profit and loss and FFP is that clubs can be £1bn in debt, but if they have a high income, they still comply with the rules.

Barcelona are a major example of this, but closer to home, Man Utd have a debt of £580m, but are still fine for FFP, where as we have debt of £58m, but are in danger of breaching the rules. Surely these teams should have to use their huge incomes to pay down the debt, rather than paying out share dividends or spending £200m in the transfer market.

In a nutshell.
Theory. All good on the glossy brochure.
Reality. Its trampled over by clubs who see it as nothing.

 

[johnjoeefc]

How has FFP put Everton in this position? It has been free reign for the last 5 or 6 years. The position Everton is in is 100% down to the management of Everton Football Club and has nothing to do with FFP

Free reign? Have a word with yourself mate. We signed players who were the players the top clubs didn't want. We couldn't go and break the bank and sign a tevez or Robinho like city did. Or a david silva, yaya toure or Vincent kompany where they offered wages that the other clubs simply couldn't match. The kind of marquee signing that lifts you to the next level.

Instead we got declining world class players like james Rodrigues who was massively injury prone and unwanted by real Madrid. Or Rooney who was clearly declining from his late 20s.

Its a bit similar to you signing continho. Do you think any of the big 6 wanted him? Clearly not because they would have signed him and not bottom half of the table villa. You just watch your club in the next few years it will follow the same trend just like when you sold grealish. You will lose your best talent to the big 6 and you will have to start again. Its the way the pyramid has been set up to be.

 

[Villa_Fan]

Free reign? Have a word with yourself mate. We signed players who were the players the top clubs didn't want. We couldn't go and break the bank and sign a tevez or Robinho like city did. Or a david silva, yaya toure or Vincent kompany where they offered wages that the other clubs simply couldn't match. The kind of marquee signing that lifts you to the next level.

Instead we got declining world class players like james Rodrigues who was massively injury prone and unwanted by real Madrid. Or Rooney who was clearly declining from his late 20s.

Its a bit similar to you signing continho. Do you think any of the big 6 wanted him? Clearly not because they would have signed him and not bottom half of the table villa. You just watch your club in the next few years it will follow the same trend just like when you sold grealish. You will lose your best talent to the big 6 and you will have to start again. Its the way the pyramid has been set up to be.

The players u signed were the choice of Everton. There were lots of top class players that u could have signed that other clubs identified as better players than the players u decided to buy. You are kidding yourself if u think u bought the best u could have because the good players went to top 6 clubs. Everton's wage bill last year was about the same as Arsenal's and about 10m more than Spurs and significantly higher than a lot of other PL clubs.

 

[stony]

If u ignore the conspiracy stories FFP is designed to stop a club from spending beyond its limits so that the club won't go out of business.

FFP is judged over a 3 year period and allows a club to lose an average of 35m a year for each of the 3 years, so total losses over 3 years cannot exceed 105m. In yr 1 a club can make a loss of 200m but if they make a profit of 75m in years 2 and 3 they will not be in breach of FFP.

Different things count towards FFP. Investment in youth, infrastructure, training facilities etc are not counted towards FFP. Operating costs: wages, player purchases, travel, bonuses, payoffs for sacking managers etc are counted towards FFP.

It is important to understand Amortisation when thinking FFP. Amortisation just means that a player's purchase price is accounted for over the term of a player's contract. If Everton buys a player for 20m in this window and gives him a 4-year contract, that will account for a 5m loss each year for the next 4 years. So for FFP, buying a 20m player only costs a 5m loss this year. That is just for the transfer fee, if u pay the player 3m a year the total cost to Everton is 8m a year for the next 4 years.

If you sell a player, you must account for all years of amortisation remaining on their contract. Everton bought Gomes for 22m in 2019 and gave him a 5 year contract. So that is 22/5 = 4.4m in amortisation cost each of the 5 years of his contract. If Everton sells Gomes this window for say, 5m, they have to account for the 2 years left on his contract which would be 4.4m x 2 = 8.8m. So if Everton sold Gomes for 5m, you would have a 3.3M loss on your accounts that impact FFP. However, you would also save 4m on his wages so Everton would be better off by about 700k this year. But if you want to replace Gomes with a new player then that will have a new amortisation cost and a new set of wages to pay. In short, getting rid of underperforming players can be very expensive.

Conspiracy theory? You mean the one that ffp was brought in to stop anyone else from joining the party after Chelsea? It isn't a theory it's a fact. If you genuinely think it was to stop clubs going bump I have a bag of magic beans for sale.

 

[Villa_Fan]

Conspiracy theory? You mean the one that ffp was brought in to stop anyone else from joining the party after Chelsea? It isn't a theory it's a fact. If you genuinely think it was to stop clubs going bump I have a bag of magic beans for sale.

Who was it that voted in FFP? was it the PL clubs at the time or was it the top 6?

 

[johnjoeefc]

The players u signed were the choice of Everton. There were lots of top class players that u could have signed that other clubs identified as better players than the players u decided to buy. You are kidding yourself if u think u bought the best u could have because the good players went to top 6 clubs. Everton's wage bill last year was about the same as Arsenal's and about 10m more than Spurs and significantly higher than a lot of other PL clubs.

Could everton have signed better? Possibly yes. But the actual top players always chose the big 6 over everton. Everton wanted aubemayang before he joined arsenal, but he chose arsenal. In that sort of situation before ffp City would just offer significantly more than arsenal would have and got their target. Everton couldn't do that because of ffp.

So this Is the issue. Everton couldn't just splash whatever they wanted. And the only way to truly bridge the gap in the way chelsea and city did and become a long term mainstay at the top of the league is to significantly outspend your rivals. FFP or P&S as it is in the Premier league is designed to stop other teams from growing and keep the select teams where 'they belong.'