Does anyone really get it and it's implications on us?
Is it as easy to get around as Chelski and Citeh seem to ie. shove the money into sponsorship and call it income?
If that's the case then it's the opposite of fair play.
I just have no idea how it's going to effect us and the rest of theChampionship next year
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Also see Leicester thread...
There are a number of clubs who will find it really hard to get their losses below £7M - result no more player registrations allowed from January 2015 - both signings and giving new contracts to your own players
There are different rules for different tiers across Europe.
Clubs in the Championship can make a £3m loss next season which can be extended up to £8m, but the owner must replace that £5m with a similar sized equity stake meaning that he (or they) guarantee the loss and don't saddle the club with debt and neither can they loan the club the money. This loss goes down to £2m the season after next and to £1m the year after that.
Each club must file accounts by December 1st each year.
Failure to comply will lead to a transfer embargo at the next available window which remains until debts are brought within the rules.
There are some other details - clubs cannot spend more than a certain percentage of turnover on wages.
Expenditure on academies is ring-fenced from FFP.
The small print...a club can escape penalties if the trend of losses is improving and the over-spend is caused by the wages of players that were contracted before June 2010 (when the fair-play rules were approved).
Regarding Man City/Chelsea's attempts to get round the rules by inflating sponsorship deals - that will be very tricky to unpick legally. Teams like Man City, Chelsea, PSG etc are owned by their sponsors who simply can pump money into their clubs with humongous sponsorship deals. Say for example Abramovich wants to pump another £10-20m into Chelsea - what's stopping him selling the naming rights for Stamford Bridge to a company he owns?
There's also a legal challenge in the works from an agent called Daniel Striani, his lawyer is the same guy who represented a certain Jean-Marc Bosman all those years ago. He's basing his case on the FFP rules breaking EU fundamental freedoms eg the free movement of capital (as far as club owners are concerned), free movement of workers (players) and free movement of services (players agents). That too will take a lot of legal unpicking. Then there's the question of parachute payments - does that distort competition across the EU? And on that note the money that filters down the leagues in England from TV money, something that most other footballing nations don't do.
So what will the effects be?
As above some of the rich teams will circumvent the rules with sponsorship revenues and I think ticket prices may rise as well (and other merchandising - shirts etc). It should though put a cap on high wages and put a premium on teams playing younger/cheaper players. I can see two/three models forming at our level: a small but good squad - based on quality over quantity, perhaps supplemented with loanees, or a quantity over quality argument i.e. larger squads but they have a lot of cheaper/younger players.
It should also benefit the better attended teams - as more emphasis will be put on gate receipts and perhaps teams from the championship who have cup runs and suddenly find a windfall of a couple of £m hitting their bank accounts from a televised match against Man U (so we're screwed on that basis). Additionally teams will be encouraged to train up and sell on youth team players - so those teams with good academies might benefit as well as those who have a scouting system spread far and very wide. Sell on a player every year for £1-2m (on average) and you can pay a lot of bills. However the rules might force clubs to sell players cheaply.
Most prem teams will or should be ok as the new TV deal kicks in soon - providing they don't overspend they should be able to live within their means, but that traditionally has been a problem in itself. At our level with smaller TV revenues there could be problems especially in adjusting to the new regime.
In short the rich clubs should be able to find enough loopholes, but on the whole it's better than nothing and the debt level is wrecking the game.
It is very clear that the market for players not good enough for the Premier League is going to soften... the days of £500K+ a year for certain players in the Championship must be limited
A richer club will still have an advantage but maybe, other than those with parachute money, it will be a leveller playing field.
So CAFC could be in a better place but without the detail and funding (we are still losing 7m pa) we could still be in a big mess.
Interesting times
£7M losses each and every year are fine on one condition... you get into the Premier League every so often! The alternative is to follow another route and to slash your wage bill, grow your income, sell top players and boost your academy to replenish the squad. I wonder which one CAFC will follow?
Oh and the third alternative is to go over a cliff edge because you have no chance of getting into the Premier League and lose so much money because no one wants to go to watch... bye bye Millwall
'The Times They Are a Changing'...we have all seen how the old system has let good quality players down, had the EPPP been in place 2 years ago perhaps we wouldn't be dealing with the attrition of the likes of Scott Wagstaff home grown talent and clearly loved by club and fans...still can't get my head around this one!
moving on the EPPP is here and it's here to stay, and as far as I can see, it has lots of good points about it for the developing player - with the exception of fair remuneration from higher category clubs when they come in for one of our boys, but this deserves another thread- so we might as well get used to it!
Coupled with the FA Fair Play Finance policy vision which all clubs are now going to have operate within, in order to develop and bring through home grown talent rather than buying in each season, the sooner we get on board with it the better - 'cos it ain't going away peoples- and those clubs who get around to it too late will eventually find it harder to compete at the same level as those that embraced it from the outset.
Simple analogy, these days, Life and changes happen almost at the speed of light, blink and you missed them. The internet - still in it's relative infancy - is now a fundamental part of everyday life in the way we communicate, work and survive, Comet group - remember them? they were probably UK's largest electrical retail group, they misguidedly decided to stick with the old regime of high street shops only and chose to ignore working with new ideas of e-commerce and the internet which all of it's fellow high street retailers, Curry's etc accepted early on, was the new way of working, just 6 yrs on, Comet were simply unable to compete anymore.
The EPPP and FFPP are here and they are already 1 season old, many clubs got on board early and have looked within the structure of their club and academy for 1st team players this season, there are many examples but probably the best one would be Cardiff, who have utilised at least 8 of their academy in regular 1st team appearances this season and we all know where they are going!
Of course, it is important and fundamental to bring in experience where we need it, but because the environment the club operates in is has changed, we now have to balance that experience with our own developed assets to ensure we stay ahead of the competition...
I'd rather be a Curry than a Comet
Seems incredible that FFP will impact more on us than Man City or Chelsea, and that the EPPP is also going to shaft us for the benefit of Arsenal and Chelsea, who have already had 2 of our kids. It's a scandal that I fully expect to be ignored by our beloved press.
I am not saying the academy has to perform within FFP, what I am saying is the club, all clubs will have to adhere to spending within their budgets when bringing in new players or risk possible financial penalties! Therefore, surely it is better to grow existing academy product within 1st team -nil cost to club, recent example Callum Harriott, who will provide better service and return in the long run than spend unnecessarily bringing in loan players -for fear of playing academy players- who really only provide a temporary solution and realistically probably do not have same commitment.
What size squads will teams aim for? Can see a lot of players out of work.
also watch this space for a new feature we are hoping to run on the topic
Your point would be absolutely right were it not for the misuse and abuse of the loan system. Kids at the bigger Clubs have no fear of not getting first team football because they know they'll simply get loaned out wherever and whenever the Club they are with feels appropriate. This way the big Clubs get the best of all possible worlds. They "control" the best young talent until its clear who is going to make the grade, whilst using other Clubs to help develop them. In the meantime, the big Clubs even manage to defray the costs a little (wage contributions) and get their kids into the shop window, hence increasing the transfer fees received for those they don't want to keep.
Clubs in the Football League should give serious consideration to stopping any loans between Football League Clubs and the Premier League. Whilst there is a classic problem of collective action here, I've no doubt that overall Clubs in the Football League would benefit in the medium to long-term.
I have read your thoughts on this before and given it a reasonable amount of thought. I completely agree with what you say. Getting the collective action by the football league clubs off the ground however is I expect highly unlikely. The EPL has starved the rest of football into submission and feeding off Premier League scraps is the best very many clubs can hope for. I look forward to the day that the financial vampire that is the EPL implodes.
I'm afraid that I agree with you. The EPL has the Football League by the unmentionables and it would be very difficult, therefore, for the League to act provocatively. Morever, a majority of Clubs would have to agree to the strategy and that might prove to be problematic. For example, it's highly likely that some Clubs might think, at least in the short-term, that they can secure relative advantage by retaining the existing system - perhaps because the Manager's Dad manages a big Club in the EPL, for example.
However, I wonder whether the Fans might help with this and similar questions? Could CAS Trust, working with Supporters Trust and Supporters Direct, develop some proposals and then work to lobby the League?
My guess is that there might be a number of areas where, somewhat paradoxically, Clubs would like the Fans to make a fuss on their behalf. The use of Parachute payments is another good example. This mechanism is clearly designed to enable third tier Clubs in the EPL to be financially imprudent, hence increasing the attraction of the League to players from around the world. All focused on the next TV deal, of course, and, no doubt, Richard Scudamore's bonus. It's all bad news for the Championship though because it makes the playing field very uneven. The Clubs can do nothing about this - Scudamore had told them to put up or shut up - but the Fans are capable of making a big fuss.
Perhaps I'm being too romantic, but I think we agree that the EPL's dominance is very distasteful.
I am not 100% about the loan system - for Charlton it might work and fill the gap until the Academy can supply players to fill certain positions. What I am certain of is that poaching from Academies needs to be much more expensive.
Some Clubs may benefit from EPL loans, relative to others, either systematically (clearly not "fair") or in the short-term (might be "unfair"), but in the medium-term Clubs in the Championship are, overall, losing out compared to what would happen if the loan system reverted back to the way it operated for many, many decades. As with all problems of collective action, it is precisely these possible differences in short-term relative impact that would make agreement difficult. Ironically, I think Supporters Direct might be more capable of taking a longer-term holistic view than the Clubs themselves. After all, the long-term health of the game matters far more to Fans than it does to either the Club owners (with some exceptions perhaps) or to the management of the EPL.