The Football Thread.

joneve

thecolourbox said:

joneve said:

mrkb said:

Its been a weird transfer market so far with the non FFP compliant clubs selling each other "2 appearance" players for £30m on 6 year contracts to get round the rules.

Make silly rules, get silly responses to them. 

Also, "non-FFP compliant clubs" is a bit of a generalisation. It's ridiculous that Villa were being reported as having to sell marquee players to meet FFP - when they're playing in the Champion's League this season. 

No-mention of Chelsea selling off assets (hotels) to get round it either - which is just as weird. 

To be fair Villa have been courting it for years - I think they were "saved" from it by getting relegated if I recall correctly, and then when they eventually got promoted again it was just-in-time before they had issues at EFL level so the playoffs were literally their last chance saloon. Then when they stayed up (due in no small part to VAR not working in one match) they avoided the EFL punishment again by not getting relegated. Now they are doing well as they finally have a manager who is good, it doesn't suddenly make them immune to the rules - however silly the rules may be.

I don't know what the answer is though as to how they can make FFP work fairly across the board for all the different clubs' situations

Yea, that's a fair assessment. But it does always feel like when ant of the Other 14 start sniffing around the top half of the league, that it's them that needs to sort their shit out, yet United, Chelsea and the like can spunk £1 billion on players and lose ridiculous money on player sales (i.e. Selling Donny Van Der Beek for a loss of 30m (or an amortised proportion) and they're somehow never at threat of FFP seems ludicrous. 

thecolourbox

Yes I agree absolutely, they don't seem to want to find a way that sorts it fairly, notwithstanding the fact that it would also be really hard to do so but it must surely be possible if the will is there. It does seem to punish the middle to lower table clubs - like your team for example, when you got promoted I think it came as a shock even to you, half the team were loans, what are you supposed to do? Just field a bunch of kids, throw in the towel and take the parachute money and hope to do better next time? Rinsing and repeating until you've made enough to not fall foul if you spend any money. 

My club West Brom seem to not be able to spend any money, but if we went up we'd need to or we'd just have to face that yo-yo thing again for however long it takes. Feels like there's no point going up - if we were to chance upon some great players on free transfers they'd just get sold to a better club anyway, and we'd have to use the money to pay off debts leaving about £300k for another league 2 striker

Lestratcaster

As an Arsenal fan I'm hoping Arteta will address that proven goalscorer signing because if he believes the front line we had last season will be enough to win titles and CL's then he's got something wrong with him. I will admit I wasn't a fan of the Havertz signing at the beginning of the season but he's proved he brings something to the team. Looking forward to seeing more of Timber, as he got injured very early on last season. If he can play at LB instead of Zinchenko we will have a very strong backline. Cover for Saka and rotation is important as he played a lot of games in the past 2 seasons. 

I want us to push City again next season and try to go one further but they just have that bit more and will probably win it again. Utd I don't think will improve much and Liverpool have their new manager to get used to.

guitars4you

joneve said:

thecolourbox said:

joneve said:

mrkb said:

Its been a weird transfer market so far with the non FFP compliant clubs selling each other "2 appearance" players for £30m on 6 year contracts to get round the rules.

Make silly rules, get silly responses to them. 

Also, "non-FFP compliant clubs" is a bit of a generalisation. It's ridiculous that Villa were being reported as having to sell marquee players to meet FFP - when they're playing in the Champion's League this season. 

No-mention of Chelsea selling off assets (hotels) to get round it either - which is just as weird. 

To be fair Villa have been courting it for years - I think they were "saved" from it by getting relegated if I recall correctly, and then when they eventually got promoted again it was just-in-time before they had issues at EFL level so the playoffs were literally their last chance saloon. Then when they stayed up (due in no small part to VAR not working in one match) they avoided the EFL punishment again by not getting relegated. Now they are doing well as they finally have a manager who is good, it doesn't suddenly make them immune to the rules - however silly the rules may be.

I don't know what the answer is though as to how they can make FFP work fairly across the board for all the different clubs' situations

Yea, that's a fair assessment. But it does always feel like when ant of the Other 14 start sniffing around the top half of the league, that it's them that needs to sort their shit out, yet United, Chelsea and the like can spunk £1 billion on players and lose ridiculous money on player sales (i.e. Selling Donny Van Der Beek for a loss of 30m (or an amortised proportion) and they're somehow never at threat of FFP seems ludicrous. 

Donny Van Der Beek - signed for 40 mill inc 'bonus/add ons' on a 5 year deal - Amortise that and it is 8 million a year allowed - 4 years have gone, so that is 32 mill allowed within the amortise allowance - How much he has gone for is a bit distorted as an a small initial fee can rise to 7.6 million - The later figure just puts it in with the appropriate guidelines

Greenwood will bring in good 'profit' money as an academy player - But otherwise without looking in detail I don't recall many outgoings that will help keep Man U under the required PSR/FFP

It does appear that ins seriously outweigh outs for them - But revenue, sponsorship, prize money all need to come into play, less wages to arrive at the final figure - But on transfers alone they are spend heavy

RaymondLin

Arsenal do need a good focal point striker to make take that next step forward, I agree.  

Man United is in a serious rebuilding phase right now.  Their starting 11 includes Garnacho, Mainoo, Højlund and probably Yoro.

That's 4 out of the starting 11 under the age of 21.  Who knows how they will gel and link up next season.

Liverpool with a new manager....statistically, not going to be the same.

Spurs, I quietly have high hopes for them...but their opening 5 games includes Arsenal, Man U & Newcastle away.  

Philly_Q

RaymondLin said:

Man United is in a serious rebuilding phase right now.  Their starting 11 includes Mainoo, Garnacho, Mainoo, Højlund and probably Yoro.

That's 5 out of the starting 11 under the age of 21.  Who knows how they will gel and link up next season.

Mainoo's going to be knackered having to play two positions at the same time.

joneve

thecolourbox said:

Yes I agree absolutely, they don't seem to want to find a way that sorts it fairly, notwithstanding the fact that it would also be really hard to do so but it must surely be possible if the will is there. It does seem to punish the middle to lower table clubs - like your team for example, when you got promoted I think it came as a shock even to you, half the team were loans, what are you supposed to do? Just field a bunch of kids, throw in the towel and take the parachute money and hope to do better next time? Rinsing and repeating until you've made enough to not fall foul if you spend any money. 

My club West Brom seem to not be able to spend any money, but if we went up we'd need to or we'd just have to face that yo-yo thing again for however long it takes. Feels like there's no point going up - if we were to chance upon some great players on free transfers they'd just get sold to a better club anyway, and we'd have to use the money to pay off debts leaving about £300k for another league 2 striker

This is part of the problem - apart from "reaching the promise land" of the Premier League - there's no real incentive to go up and STAY UP. Going up its great, injection of cash, sort out a few things (stadium, buy a few half decent players that you can afford to pay for a year or two)...but since the allowed losses is so skewed, staying up is so, so hard. 

Forest have managed it by the skin of their teeth, having had 12 first team players on the books when we were promoted - hence the large number of signings. they could have done a better job, in hindsight and not signed so much guff, but we're finally in a place (it seems) that gives a bit of stability and we can look to push on...but it wasn't easy. Ipswich will have a similar problem this season - in the same way Luton, Sheffield United and Burnley did last season. 

TeleMaster

People need to stop talking about Pep and Klopp for England, it's not going to happen.

It'll be Potter, Howe, Carsely, Lampard or Gerrard I reckon. No way it'll be one of the big boys. 

Philly_Q

TeleMaster said:

It'll be Potter, Howe, Carsely, Lampard or Gerrard I reckon. No way it'll be one of the big boys. 

Sixty years of hurt...
Sixty two years of hurt...
etc.

LionAquaLooper

I'm gonna put a fiver each with the bookies on Graham Potter and Howe.

McSwaggerty

A whole Fiver !....ooft !

menamestom

guitars4you said:

joneve said:

thecolourbox said:

joneve said:

mrkb said:

Its been a weird transfer market so far with the non FFP compliant clubs selling each other "2 appearance" players for £30m on 6 year contracts to get round the rules.

Make silly rules, get silly responses to them. 

Also, "non-FFP compliant clubs" is a bit of a generalisation. It's ridiculous that Villa were being reported as having to sell marquee players to meet FFP - when they're playing in the Champion's League this season. 

No-mention of Chelsea selling off assets (hotels) to get round it either - which is just as weird. 

To be fair Villa have been courting it for years - I think they were "saved" from it by getting relegated if I recall correctly, and then when they eventually got promoted again it was just-in-time before they had issues at EFL level so the playoffs were literally their last chance saloon. Then when they stayed up (due in no small part to VAR not working in one match) they avoided the EFL punishment again by not getting relegated. Now they are doing well as they finally have a manager who is good, it doesn't suddenly make them immune to the rules - however silly the rules may be.

I don't know what the answer is though as to how they can make FFP work fairly across the board for all the different clubs' situations

Yea, that's a fair assessment. But it does always feel like when ant of the Other 14 start sniffing around the top half of the league, that it's them that needs to sort their shit out, yet United, Chelsea and the like can spunk £1 billion on players and lose ridiculous money on player sales (i.e. Selling Donny Van Der Beek for a loss of 30m (or an amortised proportion) and they're somehow never at threat of FFP seems ludicrous. 

Donny Van Der Beek - signed for 40 mill inc 'bonus/add ons' on a 5 year deal - Amortise that and it is 8 million a year allowed - 4 years have gone, so that is 32 mill allowed within the amortise allowance - How much he has gone for is a bit distorted as an a small initial fee can rise to 7.6 million - The later figure just puts it in with the appropriate guidelines

Greenwood will bring in good 'profit' money as an academy player - But otherwise without looking in detail I don't recall many outgoings that will help keep Man U under the required PSR/FFP

It does appear that ins seriously outweigh outs for them - But revenue, sponsorship, prize money all need to come into play, less wages to arrive at the final figure - But on transfers alone they are spend heavy

There’s also wages to consider, the previous regime offered ridiculous contracts.  Varane was on £340k a week, Martial £250k.  The 2 new signings combined will be on less than Martial.

Outgoings so far around £46 million apparently.  I think it’s helped having a few players that didn’t actually play for us anyway, so funds could be generated and wage bill cut without any major detriment to the squad.

Transfer funds this summer are supposed to be around £35 million, so we’re effectively about spent up but the key will be moving out some more big salaries and offering contracts that adjust the balance.

victorludorum

McSwaggerty said:

A whole Fiver !....ooft !

A fiver each! ;-)

guitars4you

PSR/FFP info

Commercial revenue (largely sponsorship inc shirt deals) and Broadcast deals form the largest part of most clubs revenue today - But don't underestimate match day revenue - Ticket sales, inc season tickets, food, corporate, drinks etc - Granted it is only the 3rd largest form of income for the clubs- But for Man U and Spurs, the 2 clubs with the largest match day revenue, their match day revenue is so big, it dwarfs the commercial/sponsorship deals of all but 4 other clubs 

Spurs and Man U match day revenue is 118 million and 136 million respectively - That is more than some clubs earn from broadcasting rights - And as I said, higher than commercial/sponsorship deals of nearly all the other clubs - In fact, the match day revenue of all the 6 'big clubs' is larger than the commercial/sponsorship deals of the other 14 clubs 



Kieran Maguire is one of the leading  UK reporters for such data and you'll often hear is name on the BBC, Sky press etc for financial reports into football 

Interesting that Leeds, a poor EFL club, only have 8 PL clubs ahead of them for match day revenue - And only the 6 big clubs have a significantly higher commercial/sponsorship deal - It might not be a big brand on the pitch, but it can still match/beat most other PL clubs 

Full article is here if you are interested - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68713522 - The interesting chart is lower down the page - point 5 when you look at wages as a % of income - With the exception of Chelsea, all the other 5 big clubs have a relatively lower % of wage to income, compared to the other 'smaller' clubs - Interesting that Forest, Everton and Leics are worse - 2 charged and one to follow (and rumours are talking about 9-12 points) 

TTony

There's the "big6"

guitars4you

@ttony - That set of figures above - I wonder how much of that Man City revenue includes the over inflated sponsorship deals via Emirates etc - I suspect all the 'inflated' part of the deal, hence their ability to navigate a safe passage thru' FFP/PSR

Plus interesting how the Arsenal 2023 revenue is significantly below their 2022 revenue level - at least 100 mill differential 

guitars4you

The Everton saga continues - Glad the 777 deal did not go thru' to a bunch of fraudsters - But during the summer month's it has all gone quite - Yet it appears that part of the worry for TFG (Friedkin Group)  is the level of a loan that is owed to 777 who are currently in the hands of insolvency experts - But TFG has already lent Everton £200m to repay another debt of £158m to a group of investors led by American firm MSP Sports Capital and pay the latest bill from Laing O’Rourke, the construction firm building Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock. Including TFG’s new loan, Everton owe more than £600m to three external lenders — A-Cap/777, Cheshire-based Rights and Media Funding and TFG — as well as £450m in shareholder loans to current owner Farhad Moshiri - https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5646876/2024/07/19/everton-takeover-friedkin-group-latest/# for the full article - Hope they resolve this asap - If it was a chain of high street stores, a business man/venture capitalist would be paying £1 for the business, to take on the debt and then to try and trade out of the current mess

From the BBC read below

Everton have released a joint-statement, external from Blue Heaven Holdings and The Friedkin Group.

"Following a period of exclusivity, discussions between Blue Heaven Holdings and The Friedkin Group over a potential sale of a majority stake in Everton have ended and The Friedkin Group will not be progressing with a purchase of the club.

"Both Blue Heaven Holdings and The Friedkin Group entered discussions in good faith to explore whether a sale could be agreed. Those discussions have concluded. The parties agree it is in both their interests for Everton to explore alternative options.

"The Friedkin Group will remain a lender to the club and is proud to have played a key role in enabling the new stadium to be built, which will help ensure a bright future for both Everton and the City of Liverpool.

"Blue Heaven Holdings maintains a positive relationship with The Friedkin Group and would like to thank them for the time and effort they have put into this process.

"When there is further news to share, it will be provided via the club’s official communication channels."

mrkb

guitars4you said:

@ttony - That set of figures above - I wonder how much of that Man City revenue includes the over inflated sponsorship deals via Emirates etc - I suspect all the 'inflated' part of the deal, hence their ability to navigate a safe passage thru' FFP/PSR

Plus interesting how the Arsenal 2023 revenue is significantly below their 2022 revenue level - at least 100 mill differential 

You read the chart wrong, 23 revenue is higher (due to champions league)

guitars4you

mrkb said:

guitars4you said:

@ttony - That set of figures above - I wonder how much of that Man City revenue includes the over inflated sponsorship deals via Emirates etc - I suspect all the 'inflated' part of the deal, hence their ability to navigate a safe passage thru' FFP/PSR

Plus interesting how the Arsenal 2023 revenue is significantly below their 2022 revenue level - at least 100 mill differential 

You read the chart wrong, 23 revenue is higher (due to champions league)

Thanks - I can see why I thought that but agree with you - Bit confusing base labelling - But agree - Thanks

guitars4you

See below, from the BBC released today  - It doesn't say you can sit in an arm chair, or the pub and have a carte blanche opinion on everything you see as wrong - Funny that, as I thought we'd have at least 15 million potential candidates in place for the job 

England men's head coach job descriptionpublished at 13:3613:36

England

The Football Association's job advert for the next England manager breaks down the role into key areas, as you would expect in any job description:

The role:

• Lead and develop the England senior men's team to win a major tournament and be consistently ranked as one of the top teams in the world
• Provide inspiring leadership to a world class, multi-disciplinary technical team based at St. George's Park
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with clubs who employ English qualified players.

The successful candidate:

• Will hold a Uefa Pro License
• Will have significant experience of English football, with a strong track record delivering results in the Premier League and/or leading international competitions
• Will be an exceptional leader who understands and will enjoy the international football environment
• Will be experienced in successfully identifying, managing and developing English qualified players
• Will be highly resilient and comfortable in a very high-profile role with intense public scrutiny
• Will have a track record of creating a high performing, positive team culture and environment.
• Will have strong personal values and integrity and understand and embrace the role that the England men's senior team head coach has inspiring the nation.

Our values

• Aim high
• Achieve together
• Embrace difference.