Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: godzvilla on June 17, 2011, 07:38:16 AM
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Taken from an interesting article in todays Times , basically saying that Randy is looking to the future with the Financial Fair Play Rules on the horizon .
" Retaining a proud sense of tradition nurtured by a spell studying at Cambridge, Lerner, who inherited his fortune when selling his father’s MBNA credit card company in 2002, has worked in the faith that Villa could yet grow into a powerhouse in English football. Rather than gate-crashing the top four, however, they might have to take the long way round.
Now that football’s financial landscape has been skewed by the £380 million that City have invested on players since Sheikh Mansour took control, Villa find themselves on the outside looking in. Tottenham, their template, have ridden the kind of epic Champions League rollercoaster that O’Neill envisaged when he came in aspiring to emulate what he achieved as a player under Brian Clough a generation ago, when Nottingham Forest rose from anonymity to rule Europe.
If Villa, Everton and Tottenham have given the old oligarchy a run for their money, only Villa have failed to qualify for the Champions League. Has their moment gone? Has the window of opportunity closed on Lerner’s English dream for ever?
Talking to people close to the shy tycoon, it may just have been postponed. He will only be 53, a year older than McLeish, when Uefa intends to bring back greater democracy through Financial Fair Play (FFP).
If Lerner is not balancing the books now with an intention to move on — selling a prize player each summer, bringing down the wage bill, promoting the kids, aiming for a “collaborative” manager who would work under constraints — then realigning his sights for the time being could prove to be another prudent investment.
Lerner’s friends speak of staying within the Premier League’s top eight, which would be in keeping with their wage bill, until FFP kicks in and City and Chelsea have to shed exorbitant earners, superfluous to whoever is passing through as their manager. “We shouldn’t underestimate these rules,” one Villa source said. “They will become a reality for leagues across Europe. No one knows what kind of reality that will be because the rules must reflect the collective acceptance for football to be more sustainable than it is. But it is seeping into people’s world view and it’s going to help, hopefully, everyone get to a sustainable model.”
My only worry with these new rules is that real power-houses of European Soccer will , with all their high priced Accountants and Lawyers , find a way around them and further divide Football into the 'haves' and have-nots ' ........Godzvilla!
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Of course they friggin well will.
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Why not spend until the rules come in like everyone else?
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I always remember old Doug saying when everyone else is skint we will be ready to rule.
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Sounds like Dougs rationale about us being the only ones left standing !
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Financial prudency and balancing the books is all very well, but whats that got to do with appointing a shit manager?
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Dave Woodhall also has a piece in the Times today - on the same page as the article above - in which he argues that AM's record doesn't qualify him for the Villa job.
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What a load of bollocks. If anybody thinks this is going to make a blind bit of difference to the likes of Man U, City, Arsenal, Barcelona et al, they're living in cloud cuckoo land. As the poster above says, this is just the same as Doug waiting for the bubble to burst. We're a mid table team now battling it out with the likes of Sunderland and Stoke, get used to it.
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Financial prudency and balancing the books is all very well, but whats that got to do with appointing a shit manager?
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What a load of bollocks. If anybody thinks this is going to make a blind bit of difference to the likes of Man U, City, Arsenal, Barcelona et al, they're living in cloud cuckoo land. As the poster above says, this is just the same as Doug waiting for the bubble to burst. We're a mid table team now battling it out with the likes of Sunderland and Stoke, get used to it.
I'm sure Im not alone in thinking that the Financial Fair Play rules will end up being seriously watered down. The big clubs will hire the finest barristers to find a way around it like giving them a basic salary and the 50 grand a week in Luncheon vouchers
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I may be being a bit thick here (wouldn't be the first time) but won't the new rules further strengthen the current divide between the 'big' clubs and the rest? Yes, it may stop rich Arabs or Russians throwing silly money at players but as they have higher turnover they can pay more for players, whereas the lesser/normal clubs will by definition get poorer
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UEFA will probably come a cropper over EU employment and fair trade laws among other things, and have to back down. Clubs will find back door ways of paying players more, such as via sponsors. RL will probably be the only one trying to play by the rules and it will mean we are operating with one hand tied behind our backs. It may reveal why we weren't going for the really good managers, but as someone said, it still doesn't justify appointing a manager who's made PL relegation something of a specialism.
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I may be being a bit thick here (wouldn't be the first time) but won't the new rules further strengthen the current divide between the 'big' clubs and the rest? Yes, it may stop rich Arabs or Russians throwing silly money at players but as they have higher turnover they can pay more for players, whereas the lesser/normal clubs will by definition get poorer
Good point - At the moment the only way to genuinely elevate yourselves into the upper reaches is by getting rich owners pumping stupid money in, a la Chelsea and Citeh. If UEFA have their way, that will no longer be an option, and the status quo will be more difficult to breach. Plus the bigger clubs will no doubt push for individual TV rights like Real and Barca have, in order to boost their turnover, and thus their wager limit.
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Still doesn't excuse appointing a very average manager.
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And doesn't it only stop you entering European compitions ..which we are not lookly likely to be doing anyway !!
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the new rules are purely intended to keep the status quo - platini's supporters are the Mancs, Real Madrid's of this world who no matter how many millions of pounds of debts they owe will still be able to compete as long as they make a profit, while any upstart club with a rich owner will be excluded even if its coming out of their own pocket. could only happen in FIFA corrupt football world where a a club with an owner worth billions could be seen less financially secure that a club who owe 500m to hedgefunds. Bascially we can look forward to the same names winning everything and we can forget it
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only the clubs in the champions league will be able to afford the best players so guess what, the same clubs will qualify for the champions league year after year, with maybe the odd exception if a club vastly over achieves.
the new rules will make it more of a closed shop than it currently is
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only the clubs in the champions league will be able to afford the best players so guess what, the same clubs will qualify for the champions league year after year, with maybe the odd exception if a club vastly over achieves.
the new rules will make it more of a closed shop than it currently is
It's like bringing in a new rule where you can only buy the same make & model of car that you drive now, for the rest of your life.
Imagine all the blokes driving Bentleys and Porsches saying: "Damn! Really? Do I have to? Oh, well".
It's all academic now anyway cos by the time FFP kicks in, we'll be playing in the Chamionship or League One.
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I haven't read the proposed rules in any great detail, but I agree that if clubs are limited to their turnover only then it kills of the ambition of the 2nd tier clubs, of which I'd count us as one, who would wish to either invest or borrow to crash the party.
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As far as I'm concerned, the new rules are just the same as it ever was. The clubs who are already in the CL will have larger revenue streams and therefore greater possibility of buying the players to maintain their position. The clubs outside the CL will not have such revenue and so will not be able to break into the exclusive Gentleman's club. It is for this reason that we always hit a glass ceiling everytime we get close. There's only two ways to break this. 1. Go all Man City on it and spend fractions of a billion on buying superstars and prima donnas to smash through OR 2. Build your club up by consistently unearthing many future superstars, selling them to the mega rich clubs and reinvesting the proceeds. If you can do this consistently then you can develop the critical mass of players needed to break through.
We know option 1 is beyond us (and will probably be beyond everyone when the new rules come in), so we have to go for option 2. To achieve this we need a manger who is well connected and has a top level scouting network, which for me makes it all the more odd that the club went for McLeish. He has no real history of taking this approach and this is what worries me about him.
In my opinion the primary focus of the manager of Aston Villa should be on player development and scouting. Of course we need to keep an eye on results and football quality, but I do not think the objectives are mutually exclusive. Maybe we need to go the Spurs route and at least have a temporary DOF to find the talent, with a coach looking after the first team. Again I know this model is not favoured in the UK, but had we appointed McLeish supported by a DOF I would feel a lot better about the appointment. I just don't see what it achieves bar ensuring PL survival, and he doesn't even have the greatest of records with that!
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If Financial fair play. I suppose a club will pay player 50 grand a week plus 20 grand a week on pension instead of say 110 grand a week and will player's pension be included in figures.
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To be successful under these constraints then our management needs the following skill sets:
1. Ability to coach and develop our young players;
2. A state-of-the-art scouting network - to identify and obtain the best young players whilst they're still relatively cheap; or to spot foreign bargains;
3. Good links with agents of the above;
4. Competent management capable of keeping us at least competitive against our rivals - Everton, Newcastle, Sunderland.
5. Ability to manage and reduce the expectations of the fans whilst this happens.
How many of the boxes do our Board and new Manager tick?
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Maximising and making the best use of revenue is going to involve appointing a manager who can play winning, attractive football that people will pay to see, exploiting commercial revenue, a fruitful scouting network to get players at reasonable prices, and a good youth system. We need to do a lot of work on commercial revenue and scouting.
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I may be being a bit thick here (wouldn't be the first time) but won't the new rules further strengthen the current divide between the 'big' clubs and the rest? Yes, it may stop rich Arabs or Russians throwing silly money at players but as they have higher turnover they can pay more for players, whereas the lesser/normal clubs will by definition get poorer
In my view that is the whole reason it has been brought in. To protect the elite from some johnny come lateley, like a Man City, from upsetting the CL elite that has been in existence for the last 10 years plus. In my view we had a chance to break the elite, we didn't and this is now accepting that fate.
If anything the gap is going to get wider and wider and it will kill football completely
Good point - At the moment the only way to genuinely elevate yourselves into the upper reaches is by getting rich owners pumping stupid money in, a la Chelsea and Citeh. If UEFA have their way, that will no longer be an option, and the status quo will be more difficult to breach. Plus the bigger clubs will no doubt push for individual TV rights like Real and Barca have, in order to boost their turnover, and thus their wager limit.
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I am waiting to win the lottery one day. It has to happen.
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Well we are quite frankly deluded if we are waiting for financial fair play to save us. As others say it will only serve to propagate a natural order that will be deeply difficult to penetrate. We are a second tier club in a largely industrial city which undermines us. We cannot charge the ticket prices of a Spurs and we don't have the level of support that Liverpool have. The rules will only serve to push us further behind these clubs unless we are lucky as our turnover will be miles behind. Then there is the additional income from Champions League football that will reinforce this order of teams. The other big issues I see are loopholes. For example sponsorship deals and teams who will go out on big sprees in the years leading up to the introduction of the rules. And of course this is all forgetting that these rules will probably never be strong enough to actually work.
By all means try to run the club in a sustainable fashion. Just don't expect to be particularly successful when doing it or relay on external factors as you have no control over these.
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what stop abramovich or sheikh mansour, well one of there companies sponsoring the corner flags for £200m,
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The following is as good a plain explanation as I have seen, taken from Liverpool supporting Paul Tomkins Blog. If you follow the link you will see an extended analysis of Liverpool’s position which is very inetersing – if like me you like that sort of thing:
• UEFA Financial Fair Play. A phrase that has been used in recent times by even the most lay of football fans. But what is it? And does it matter for LFC? This article attempts to keep things extremely simple but at the same time demystify UFFP and explain how it impacts Liverpool Football Club.
Our principal owner, John W Henry, has given 2 interviews to The Guardian where he has talked definitively about FSG’s approach to ownership and UFFP. First of all in November 2010:
Henry said UEFA’s impending financial fair play rules, which will be introduced in 2012-13 and eventually require clubs to break even on football operations, had been a key factor in persuading NESV [now FSG] to buy the club. He said they would leave Liverpool much better-placed to compete with such clubs as Manchester City and Chelsea: “They are operating under the current rules. The rules are going to change.”
Then in an extended interview in February 2011:
“The big question is just how effective the financial fair-play rules are going to be. Perhaps some clubs support the concept in order to limit the spending of other clubs, while implementing activities specifically designed to evade the rules they publicly support. We can only hope that UEFA has the ability and determination to enforce what they have proposed.”
“We’ve always spent money we’ve generated rather than deficit-spending and that will be the case in Liverpool…it’s up to us to generate enough revenue to be successful over the long term. We have not and will not deviate from that.”
“We intend to get younger, deeper and play positive football…our goal in Liverpool is to create the kind of stability that the Red Sox enjoy. We are committed to building for the long term.”
So there we have it straight from the horse’s mouth. Not only do FSG embrace UFFP but they’re already planning to exploit it. However John Henry is right to raise the one big unknown about UFFP: how strictly will the rules be enforced? In a nutshell, if a club wants to compete in UEFA competitions it needs to be granted a UEFA license. The UEFA licensing system is already in operation. In recent times the highest profile club to have been denied a license is Real Mallorca who were unable to take their place in the Europa League (UEFA say a total of 27 clubs have been refused a license over the years). For 2011-12, 3 clubs have been refused a licence, including FC Timisoara for next season Champions League. UFFP is simply a complicated extension to the UEFA licensing system. So in theory a team in breach could be denied entry to the Champions League group stage and the £25m minimum that comes with it.
There are a lot of cynics and sceptics who think that UFFP will come to nothing and when push comes to shove UEFA will not stand up to the big boys. There’s also been a lot of ignorant discussion about loopholes in the regulations and scenarios that will never be allowed like the £100m half time pie for Sheikh Mansour or the £250m Chelsea sponsorship deal with Sibneft. However a lot of the concern is valid but is not in scope for this article because it’s too early to tell how possible any workarounds for clubs are. Instead my starting assumption is: can any owner or chief executive of a major club accept the risk of UEFA strictly implementing the UFFP regulations? i.e. will any club be brazen enough to spend with impunity and carry on regardless? Or will in fact all clubs come in line to some degree?
Why are UEFA doing this?
Despite the game being more popular than ever and with more money than ever, UEFA say that:
o 37% of clubs are in negative equity (their debts are more than their assets)
o the total income of all European clubs is 11.7bn EUR but the total costs are 12.9bn EUR
o no less than 7.4bn EUR of total costs are players wages
o The average club in Europe spends 64% of its income on player wages
o 73 clubs spend more than 100% of their revenue on player wages (note in 09/10 this included Manchester City)
UEFA want to start forcing clubs to live within their means, almost to save the clubs from themselves. It’s also no coincidence that the momentum behind UFFP grew during the global credit crunch that had been caused by too many people spending too much money today in the over-optimistic hope that they would have more money in the future and be able to pay it off later.
How Do The Rules Work?
All terms used in this section are defined in great detail in the UFFP regulations
Break Even Result = Relevant Income - Relevant Expenses
Deviation = SUM of BREAK EVEN RESULTS for each year in ACCOUNTING PERIOD
What is “Relevant Income”?
In a nutshell:
Revenue + Profit From Player Trading (Revenue is income from media, matchday and commercial)
NB: Profit from player trading is NOT as most football fans see profit on trading – more later
(There are a host of caveats and clarifications in the detail)
What is “Relevant Expenses”?
In a nutshell:
All Staff Wages + Cost Of Transfers + “Other Costs” (e.g. finance costs)
NB: “Other Costs” EXCLUDES the costs of youth/academy programmes, community programmes and stadium development [technical note from Graeme Riley - this also includes interest on the development, which can be capitalised and amortised, rather than immediately expensed].
This is because UEFA wants clubs to plan for the future by investing in these things rather than spending all their money on players wages.
The “Cost of Transfers” will be covered when later on when I talk about AMORTISATION. Understanding this as well as the profit from player trading is absolutely essential if you want to realise how FSG are likely to exploit UFFP.
What Are The Rules?
UFFP has “Accounting Periods” that are aligned to the UEFA licensing cycle and came into effect on 1st June 2011. The first “accounting period” is 2 years, 1st June 2011 to 31st May 2013. The niceties regarding exchange rates have been ignored for this article.
For each year in UFFP, a club’s “Break Even Result” is allowed to be up to a 5m EUR loss. This is known as “acceptable deviation”. Clubs are allowed to make bigger losses for “Accounting Periods” but only if their owners invest more of their own cash into the club to cover the loss.
For the first 2 year accounting period, clubs are allowed a maximum “acceptable deviation” of 45m EUR but owners will be tasked with finding up to an extra 35m EUR in cash to cover losses. The grey areas will start with aggregate losses >45m EUR and at what point UEFA will draw the line. The general feeling is that clubs who are significantly reducing their losses year on year will still be given a ‘pass’ (Annex XI of the regulations)
The first impact on licensing decisions will be in place for the 2014/15 season (i.e. the first time a club may be denied entry to the CL is 2014/15). Things get gradually stricter from that point on. The 2nd accounting period extends the 1st by a year license (i.e. to May 31st 2014) and from this point 3 years’ worth of accounts are required to be submitted in order to gain a license. However, acceptable deviation STILL an aggregate 45m EUR. Then there’s a rolling 3 year accounting period where acceptable deviation reduces to 30m EUR and finally to less than 30m EUR in 2018/19.
The rest is Liverpool based, but interesting nonetheless.
http://tomkinstimes.com/2011/06/fair-play-for-fenway/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheTomkinsTimes+%28The+Tomkins+Times%29
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The amount of work that has gone into understanding and explaining the issues in that Liverpool fan's post is remarkable. The detail stats and graphs are a thing of beauty to a nerd like me...
(http://tomkinstimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/LTCC_LTPV_Data.png)
"The colours are used as indicators specifically relating to each column of data. The purpose is to allow for a targeted deeper analysis of the ‘red’ cells and maybe the ‘oranges’ too. For Age it’s simple, the ‘red’ zone is over 30, for contract length it’s any player with contract ending in 1 year, for LTCC it’s any contract with a total monetary commitment over £10m."
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Ooh, that's quite lovely. Will have a better read at home tonight.
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I'm going to ask Santa for an Aston Villa one.
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It is lovely. I too would like to see an analysis from our perspective in terms of our capabilities to adapt to the new rules.
Interesting that Alex made direct reference to FFP in his presser today.
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The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
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Does anyone believe Randy is going to try and upgrade certain elements of VP to increase revenue?
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Does anyone believe Randy is going to try and upgrade certain elements of VP to increase revenue?
Yes.
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Nope, you can't increase revenue significantly without success on the field. Without spending money you don't get success on the field. Platini's Catch22 to ensure another 100 years of the same clubs winning everything.
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yes Greg but that's without taking the development of Aston Church into a, 'bells are ringing Villa experience' and Aston Hall into a, 'Villa mediaeval (I know, I know) banqueting and jousting with Jane Austen experience' into account. Whatever floats our boat with FIFA, let's go for it!
Actually think that the yoof development at Bodymoor will be very important in this context.
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The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
Interesting that. Basically the income from Commercial activities is whats stopping us competing with Citeh/Spurs, and the fact our expenses have got out of kilter with our income. As was suspected under Doug and not improved much under Lerner we are light years behind the others in the commercial income area and are struggling to catch up. This is where Faulkner really needs to pull his finger out IMO over the next 2 seasons.
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The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
Interesting that. Basically the income from Commercial activities is whats stopping us competing with Citeh/Spurs, and the fact our expenses have got out of kilter with our income. As was suspected under Doug and not improved much under Lerner we are light years behind the others in the commercial income area and are struggling to catch up. This is where Faulkner really needs to pull his finger out IMO over the next 2 seasons.
It's an area I thought we would do much better at when Randy took over.
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It's an area I thought we would do much better at when Randy took over.
I think we've improved, but there was and still is a lot of catching up to do. We also suffer from an image problem as nobody expects us to really achieve anything or sign the glamorous players.
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Is it time for me to dust off the M5 corridor argument again?
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When you look at the figures it is glaringly obvious that we are miles behind in the commercial revenues and will never compete with the matchday revenues that Arsenal get etc.
I also believe that we will never catch up commercially if we don't improve our image. Being branded a 'selling club' whilst every club is in a similar boat makes me mad, our image with the press is awful and all of this could be improved if we had a well qualified football person on the baord to firstly improve relations with the press and make us be seen to be more communciative. We also need someone who can help us be more creative commercially. We are improving in that area but there is so much we could do better.
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The likelihood of Paul Tomkins's wife having a full and satisfying marital sex life can be expressed as follows:
IRG (Inherent Rampant Geekishness) * SHLCS (Stephen Hawking-Like Conversation Skills) Minus TSAK (Time Spent at Keyboard) = Zero
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As far as I'm concerned, the new rules are just the same as it ever was. The clubs who are already in the CL will have larger revenue streams and therefore greater possibility of buying the players to maintain their position. The clubs outside the CL will not have such revenue and so will not be able to break into the exclusive Gentleman's club. It is for this reason that we always hit a glass ceiling everytime we get close. There's only two ways to break this. 1. Go all Man City on it and spend fractions of a billion on buying superstars and prima donnas to smash through OR 2. Build your club up by consistently unearthing many future superstars, selling them to the mega rich clubs and reinvesting the proceeds. If you can do this consistently then you can develop the critical mass of players needed to break through.
We know option 1 is beyond us (and will probably be beyond everyone when the new rules come in), so we have to go for option 2. To achieve this we need a manger who is well connected and has a top level scouting network, which for me makes it all the more odd that the club went for McLeish. He has no real history of taking this approach and this is what worries me about him.
In my opinion the primary focus of the manager of Aston Villa should be on player development and scouting. Of course we need to keep an eye on results and football quality, but I do not think the objectives are mutually exclusive. Maybe we need to go the Spurs route and at least have a temporary DOF to find the talent, with a coach looking after the first team. Again I know this model is not favoured in the UK, but had we appointed McLeish supported by a DOF I would feel a lot better about the appointment. I just don't see what it achieves bar ensuring PL survival, and he doesn't even have the greatest of records with that!
Good post apart from the DoF bit. We just need good quality and far reaching scouts and need to build up a reputation for giving youngsters a chance.
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Football more than it's ever been is about money this fair rule is nothing but a way to stop rich people buying a club and pumping funds in to push the club forward.Of course you could say that was unfair ,and certainly watching what has happened at Man city it's easy to think well thats's not fair.
This new rule prohibts that but the downside is that it protects the established champions league clubs.They are starting with something like £30mil for being in CL plus the extra sponsorship they will no doubt get.Without someone pumping cash into the club how can anyone else compete.
UEFA created a monster with the champions league and this new rule just makes it worse.They might as well just create a european league and leave the rest of us alone
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The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
Interesting that. Basically the income from Commercial activities is whats stopping us competing with Citeh/Spurs, and the fact our expenses have got out of kilter with our income. As was suspected under Doug and not improved much under Lerner we are light years behind the others in the commercial income area and are struggling to catch up. This is where Faulkner really needs to pull his finger out IMO over the next 2 seasons.
This isn't one that can be laid at Doug's door. There was full financial disclosure under Doug and we were never significantly behind our peers in terms of commercial revenues.
Spurs and Man City (the other two non-Sky 4 teams in the Deloitte money list) have both increased commercial revenue by a significant percentage since 2006, ours has gone backwards.
All 3 clubs have increased broadcasting and matchday income, the football side of things, by similar percentages. This is driven by TV deals and increasing the charges to us mugs…, customers…, supporters. This is the stuff the board haven’t had to do much thinking about.
……………….2006….….2011
Spurs……..£43.7m….£88.3m +102%
Man City…£42.6m….£78.4m +84%
Villa ……....£39.6m….£76.5m +93%
Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
I’ve been banging on about it for ages now and most people seem happy to accept the board’s assertion that wages are the issue.
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The andersred blog, although compiled by a Man U fan is sound, and completes an authoratative comparison of us,Liverpool, Spurs, Manu/City, Arsenal Spurs.It also shows why we have some cost cutting to do:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/04/financial-fair-play-crunching-numbers.html
Interesting that. Basically the income from Commercial activities is whats stopping us competing with Citeh/Spurs, and the fact our expenses have got out of kilter with our income. As was suspected under Doug and not improved much under Lerner we are light years behind the others in the commercial income area and are struggling to catch up. This is where Faulkner really needs to pull his finger out IMO over the next 2 seasons.
This isn't one that can be laid at Doug's door. There was full financial disclosure under Doug and we were never significantly behind our peers in terms of commercial revenues.
Spurs and Man City (the other two non-Sky 4 teams in the Deloitte money list) have both increased commercial revenue by a significant percentage since 2006, ours has gone backwards.
All 3 clubs have increased broadcasting and matchday income, the football side of things, by similar percentages. This is driven by TV deals and increasing the charges to us mugs…, customers…, supporters. This is the stuff the board haven’t had to do much thinking about.
……………….2006….….2011
Spurs……..£43.7m….£88.3m +102%
Man City…£42.6m….£78.4m +84%
Villa ……....£39.6m….£76.5m +93%
Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
I’ve been banging on about it for ages now and most people seem happy to accept the board’s assertion that wages are the issue.
So this leaves two possible explainations:
1. The club's commercial revenue is more or less fixed around 10 to 20 Million mark and can't be increased because we're simply not marketable enough
2. Somebody at the club needs to lose their job.
For my part, I keep saying that our media image is appalling and must be affecting Aston Villa as a business and that the Board are doing nothing to improve it but I keep getting told that it makes no odds. That potential signings take no notice of the Media when considering whether or not to sign for us and potential sponsors take no notice either. As if sponsors don't care what image their product is associated with.
To increase revenue from sponsorship we need to attract the ones that pay big money. These types of businesses want to present themselves as successful by associating themselves with a successful football club. This will not happen whilst the Media contine to portray us as an unambitious, mid-table club with a clueless board at the helm.
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Success has to come first before revenue increases - thats just how it works. Anyone think West ham will be packing them in when they finally move? Course not. The whole thing is designed to ensure the clubs with the biggest revenue (the mancs, Madrids of this world) stay at the top - its so transparent to be almost laughable. If they were really interested in the financial security of the game they'd penalise clubs owing million in loans to third parties, but as stands, its like someone who's maxed out his credit cards on loans but making 30k a year being more financially secure that someone who doesn't work but has 1 million in the bank
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To increase revenue from sponsorship we need to attract the ones that pay big money. These types of businesses want to present themselves as successful by associating themselves with a successful football club. This will not happen whilst the Media contine to portray us as an unambitious, mid-table club with a clueless board at the helm.
You can't blame them for making that assumption after the board made such a pigs ear out of appointing a new manager. Then after all the to-ing and fro-ing, they appointed Alex McLeish. That's about as unambitious as it gets.
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Success has to come first before revenue increases - thats just how it works.
Man City were no more successful than us during the period 2006 to 2010. They still more doubled their commercial revenue according to those figures.
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Success has to come first before revenue increases - thats just how it works.
Man City were no more successful than us during the period 2006 to 2010. They still more doubled their commercial revenue according to those figures.
Would moving to the new stadium not account for a large chunk of that?
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Another thing that gets my goat about the way we discuss finance, is when we talk about Randy spending £200m. About half of that money is debt and the club is charged full commercial rates for the privilege. The last comparative figures I have are for 2008/9, there's very little altruistic about the interest Villa pay in comparison to other clubs with a similar ownership structure
Club, debt, annual interest.
Villa 72.3m 5.7m
West Ham 114.9 3.0m
Fulham 164m 1.0m
Sunderland 48.8m 0.7m
Chelsea £511.6m £0.7m
Wigan £54m £1.5m
Wolves £13m £0.0m
Blackburn £20m £0.8m
Hull £17m £0.4m
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Success has to come first before revenue increases - thats just how it works.
Man City were no more successful than us during the period 2006 to 2010. They still more doubled their commercial revenue according to those figures.
Would moving to the new stadium not account for a large chunk of that?
Not really. We're not talking about Matchday Revenue but Commercial Revenue which, as I understand it, includes sales of merchandise & sponsorship deals, which for us means the money from Nike plus whoever's name ends up on our shirts next season.
Oh, and Man Shitty moved to Wastelands in 2003.
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Another thing that gets my goat about the way we discuss finance, is when we talk about Randy spending £200m. About half of that money is debt and the club is charged full commercial rates for the privilege. The last comparative figures I have are for 2008/9, there's very little altruistic about the interest Villa pay in comparison to other clubs with a similar ownership structure
Club, debt, annual interest.
Villa 72.3m 5.7m
West Ham 114.9 3.0m
Fulham 164m 1.0m
Sunderland 48.8m 0.7m
Chelsea £511.6m £0.7m
Wigan £54m £1.5m
Wolves £13m £0.0m
Blackburn £20m £0.8m
Hull £17m £0.4m
Not to mention the management charge.
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Another thing that gets my goat about the way we discuss finance, is when we talk about Randy spending £200m. About half of that money is debt and the club is charged full commercial rates for the privilege. The last comparative figures I have are for 2008/9, there's very little altruistic about the interest Villa pay in comparison to other clubs with a similar ownership structure
Club, debt, annual interest.
Villa 72.3m 5.7m
West Ham 114.9 3.0m
Fulham 164m 1.0m
Sunderland 48.8m 0.7m
Chelsea £511.6m £0.7m
Wigan £54m £1.5m
Wolves £13m £0.0m
Blackburn £20m £0.8m
Hull £17m £0.4m
Ouch! The Bank of Randy looks like an expensive place to shop for a loan!
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Presumably going two seasons without a sponsor made a significant dent in our commercial revenue.
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Perhaps that shows with Man City ,spending money makes money.Having big stars in the team I imagine attracts sponsorship ,more shirt sales etc.
As for Randy if he is going to charge us interest like that ,isn't able to improve the commercial revenue and improve footballing matter's ie a proper scouting network then what is his end game ?
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Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
Blimey, good analysis. That's pretty staggering actually.
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As for Randy if he is going to charge us interest like that ,isn't able to improve the commercial revenue and improve footballing matter's ie a proper scouting network then what is his end game ?
This is the question that is occupying my thoughts more and more.
As has been said on here, the McLeish appointment doesn't seem like a long term strategy, more of a short term stability one. If we see a scaling back in investment on playing side this summer I will start to wonder if this is the beginning of an exit strategy. Any such strategy would require Randy to tread carefully between recouping his loans whilst ensuring that we stay in the Premier League to remain attractive to potential buyers. Maybe he believes McLeish will do that and will work within any financial constraints imposed.
Villadawg, would you like to hazard a guess at the current (or near-future) market value of AVFC as a debt-free Premier League Club?
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Villadawg, would you like to hazard a guess at the current (or near-future) market value of AVFC as a debt-free Premier League Club?
We aren't debt free though, that's the point.
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Presumably going two seasons without a sponsor made a significant dent in our commercial revenue.
Wasn't the 32 Red deal only worth about £600k in the first season and £800k for the second? We've never managed to get any decent sponsorship revenue for as long as I can remember. For the sake of an extra few quid, I guess Randy preferred to give it away.
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We're not talking about Matchday Revenue but Commercial Revenue which, as I understand it, includes sales of merchandise & sponsorship deals, which for us means the money from Nike plus whoever's name ends up on our shirts next season.
But that alone is fueled by playing matters. If you're going to have mego signings parading around you can rightly charge more to have logos/names on their shirts or associated with the club.
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Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
Blimey, good analysis. That's pretty staggering actually.
This is where the general's thread comes into it's own.
General,
What are the club doing to redress it's pitiful commercial income?
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Villadawg, would you like to hazard a guess at the current (or near-future) market value of AVFC as a debt-free Premier League Club?
We aren't debt free though, that's the point.
My point was if Lerner begins to claw back the loan money through player transfers. He could begin that process right now by selling both Young & Downing and bringing in replacements on a free and loan deals. For example signing Seb Laarson and bringing back NRC.
He could generate £20 to £25 million in this transfer window in order to start paying down the debt.
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My point was if Lerner begins to claw back the loan money through player transfers. He could begin that process right now by selling both Young & Downing and bringing in replacements on a free and loan deals. For example signing Seb Laarson and bringing back NRC.
He could generate £20 to £25 million in this transfer window in order to start paying down the debt.
The thing about that though is the value of the playing squad id reflected in the value of the club. So that £25-25m would come off the debt, but then also come off the club's value were he to sell up.
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As for Randy if he is going to charge us interest like that ,isn't able to improve the commercial revenue and improve footballing matter's ie a proper scouting network then what is his end game ?
This is the question that is occupying my thoughts more and more.
As has been said on here, the McLeish appointment doesn't seem like a long term strategy, more of a short term stability one. If we see a scaling back in investment on playing side this summer I will start to wonder if this is the beginning of an exit strategy. Any such strategy would require Randy to tread carefully between recouping his loans whilst ensuring that we stay in the Premier League to remain attractive to potential buyers. Maybe he believes McLeish will do that and will work within any financial constraints imposed.
Villadawg, would you like to hazard a guess at the current (or near-future) market value of AVFC as a debt-free Premier League Club?
Very difficult to come up with football club valuations even on a revenue or discounted cash flow basis. Forbes valued the club at £168m in 2009.
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My point was if Lerner begins to claw back the loan money through player transfers. He could begin that process right now by selling both Young & Downing and bringing in replacements on a free and loan deals. For example signing Seb Laarson and bringing back NRC.
He could generate £20 to £25 million in this transfer window in order to start paying down the debt.
The thing about that though is the value of the playing squad id reflected in the value of the club. So that £25-25m would come off the debt, but then also come off the club's value were he to sell up.
But in accounting terms isn't their current value much lower than what we paid due to amortisation? So, if I have it right, Young's value is only a couple of million as a current asset, so a sale at £17M represents a £15M profit from this sale alone. Downing by the same token is currently a £6M asset which could generate a further £14M profit (say). In total £29M for £8M worth of assets.
I'm not being negative or scare-mongering here, I'm just thinking out loud whilst continuing to try and make sense of this managerial appointment which even the Media, with their creative talents, seem to be baffled by.
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Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
Blimey, good analysis. That's pretty staggering actually.
This is where the general's thread comes into it's own.
General,
What are the club doing to redress it's pitiful commercial income?
FROM THE GENERAL
'Bren-d...You say 'pitiful commercial income' This disappoints me. Randy KNOWS the tasks we face with commercial revenue, but to say 'pitiful' is an insult to all the HARD WORKING people behind the scenes at our club, yes, OUR CLUB. I can take criticism when it is constructive and justified, what I can not take is when you imply THAT WE ARE NOT UP TO THE TASK.
Bren-d when you say the commercial income is 'pitiful' you are effectively wiping your ass on an Aston Villa flag, you insult me, that's fine, I have broad shoulders.
But NOBODY should slate Randy for the investment he makes in the club (APR 23.76%).
You've more or less said that you won't renew your season ticket bren-d, that's a real shame, do that if you must, but PLEASE don't ever call us 'wasters' which you more or less did with your unwarranted attack on the club, it's staff and all of it's immediate families.'
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The general is always underlining how he has broad shoulders although judging by his reactions to criticism they seem pretty thin to me. Rather than throwing out slogans in capital letters perhaps he should address the issues at hand.
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Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
Blimey, good analysis. That's pretty staggering actually.
This is where the general's thread comes into it's own.
General,
What are the club doing to redress it's pitiful commercial income?
FROM THE GENERAL
'Bren-d...You say 'pitiful commercial income' This disappoints me. Randy KNOWS the tasks we face with commercial revenue, but to say 'pitiful' is an insult to all the HARD WORKING people behind the scenes at our club, yes, OUR CLUB. I can take criticism when it is constructive and justified, what I can not take is when you imply THAT WE ARE NOT UP TO THE TASK.
Bren-d when you say the commercial income is 'pitiful' you are effectively wiping your ass on an Aston Villa flag, you insult me, that's fine, I have broad shoulders.
But NOBODY should slate Randy for the investment he makes in the club (APR 23.76%).
You've more or less said that you won't renew your season ticket bren-d, that's a real shame, do that if you must, but PLEASE don't ever call us 'wasters' which you more or less did with your unwarranted attack on the club, it's staff and all of it's immediate families.'
Ya daft apeth Fletcha.
Very good, though.
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The general is always underlining how he has broad shoulders although judging by his reactions to criticism they seem pretty thin to me. Rather than throwing out slogans in capital letters perhaps he should address the issues at hand.
Fetch the keepnet.
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Are you sure our commercial income is less now than when Douglas was in charge?
That just doesn't seem to scan. I'm sure I've read and seen figures before stating inroads had been made there, certainly not that we were down 20%. ???
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Commercial revenue is a different story altogether. This is the business side of the business.
.................2006.......2011
Spurs.......£22.6m....£31.5m +72%
Man City...£19.3m....£46.7m +242%
Villa..........£16.3m....£13.1m -20%
Blimey, good analysis. That's pretty staggering actually.
This is where the general's thread comes into it's own.
General,
What are the club doing to redress it's pitiful commercial income?
FROM THE GENERAL
'Bren-d...You say 'pitiful commercial income' This disappoints me. Randy KNOWS the tasks we face with commercial revenue, but to say 'pitiful' is an insult to all the HARD WORKING people behind the scenes at our club, yes, OUR CLUB. I can take criticism when it is constructive and justified, what I can not take is when you imply THAT WE ARE NOT UP TO THE TASK.
Bren-d when you say the commercial income is 'pitiful' you are effectively wiping your ass on an Aston Villa flag, you insult me, that's fine, I have broad shoulders.
But NOBODY should slate Randy for the investment he makes in the club (APR 23.76%).
You've more or less said that you won't renew your season ticket bren-d, that's a real shame, do that if you must, but PLEASE don't ever call us 'wasters' which you more or less did with your unwarranted attack on the club, it's staff and all of it's immediate families.'
Scarily accurate as ever by the Talented Mr Fletcher.
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Are you sure our commercial income is less now than when Douglas was in charge?
That just doesn't seem to scan. I'm sure I've read and seen figures before stating inroads had been made there, certainly not that we were down 20%. ???
The figures are from the Deloitte football rich list, although I've just realised the first figures were from the 2005 rich list not 2006.
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Are you sure our commercial income is less now than when Douglas was in charge?
That just doesn't seem to scan. I'm sure I've read and seen figures before stating inroads had been made there, certainly not that we were down 20%. ???
It's not the figures are wrong.
Commercial: ...income from commercial activities of £9.9m (2005: £10.5m) was broadly in line overall with the previous year, other than the conference and banqueting business which suffered as a result of tougher competition from other conference centres and as a result of the Holte Suite being closed for a period during refurbishment works.
Also, apart from the 2006 edit - (and 2005) end edit- figures being wrong, the 2011 figure is not available, yet.
So the 2006 figure (http://www.avfc.co.uk/staticFiles/3a/ad/0,,10265~44346,00.pdf) is wrong and the 2011 figure is not available yet, and the 2010 accounts had commercial income at approx 14mill which is up by >50%.
I should also say that it looks like the figures for Spurs and Man City are compiled differently to Villa - they count hospitality as commercial revenue, whereas Villa count it as matchday revenue, for example.
For example, Spurs:
2010 Turnover £119m (up from £113m in 2009)
Gate and match-day income £27m
TV and broadcasting £52m
Sponsorship and corporate hospitality £26m
Merchandising £8m
Commercial activities £8m
i.e. Spurs commercial and merchandising was 4 mill higher than Villa. [Sponsorship excluded (as ours was given away)]. They do much better in a number of areas, but on pure commercial terms, not as much claimed in the analysis. I would wager their sponsorship deal would be significantly better and bext year their Champs league involvement will show up and make a huge difference.
Manchester City
2010 Turnover £125m (up from £87m in 2009)
Gate and match-day income £18m
TV and broadcasting £54m
Commercial £53m - staggering amount, even allowing that it includes what Villa and Spurs record differently. Then again, who is it that sponsors them, Ah, that's it, their owners and Etihad, whatever one of those is, but perhaps they pay more than market worth? [just a guess]
Aston Villa (these seem to be figures from a year before the City and Spurs ones, possibly)
Turnover £91m (up from £84m in 2008)
Gate and match-day income £24m
TV and broadcasting £52m
Commercial £14m
Spurs and Man City seem to count corporate hospitality as "commercial" while Villa count it as "Matchday revenue" - so Villa have significantly higher matchday revenue than City, despite the relative crowd sizes, while Spurs matchday revenue is similar, despite much higher prices.
It's far from simple, and a bean counter with a thinking head on would need ot look at it and point out all my mistakes etc.
The Villa accounts, I've linked, the other clubs is from this link (http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/55741334), as I didn't want to spend ages fishing them all out from individual sites
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Nice story but............
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Another thing that gets my goat about the way we discuss finance, is when we talk about Randy spending £200m. About half of that money is debt and the club is charged full commercial rates for the privilege. The last comparative figures I have are for 2008/9, there's very little altruistic about the interest Villa pay in comparison to other clubs with a similar ownership structure
Club, debt, annual interest.
Villa 72.3m 5.7m
West Ham 114.9 3.0m
Fulham 164m 1.0m
Sunderland 48.8m 0.7m
Chelsea £511.6m £0.7m
Wigan £54m £1.5m
Wolves £13m £0.0m
Blackburn £20m £0.8m
Hull £17m £0.4m
Clearly we borrowed cash on our MBNA credit card!
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Dave Woodhall also has a piece in the Times today - on the same page as the article above - in which he argues that AM's record doesn't qualify him for the Villa job.
Can someone post Mr Woodhall's article on here please?
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I'm not an expert on this by any means, but seeing as RL's wealth is inherited and the money invested is from the Lerner trust, maybe that's why we pay more back than Sunderland do to Ellis Short, for example.
The interest may seem on the high side compared to other clubs, but would we have been better off without the money available between 2006/2010? Money that -even if it didn't achieve the main aim of top 4 and silverware- still made us competitive an re-established us as one of the better sides in the league?
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I'm sorry, just to make things clear. The figures I used are taken from the Deloitte Annual Football Money League report. It's a comparative analysis of the top 20 revenue generating clubs in Europe and is regarded as definitive by the football industry. The reports published in 2005 and 2011 are the 2 most recent that included Aston Villa.
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The general is always underlining how he has broad shoulders although judging by his reactions to criticism they seem pretty thin to me. Rather than throwing out slogans in capital letters perhaps he should address the issues at hand.
Fetch the keepnet.
DOH :)
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My point was if Lerner begins to claw back the loan money through player transfers. He could begin that process right now by selling both Young & Downing and bringing in replacements on a free and loan deals. For example signing Seb Laarson and bringing back NRC.
He could generate £20 to £25 million in this transfer window in order to start paying down the debt.
The thing about that though is the value of the playing squad id reflected in the value of the club. So that £25-25m would come off the debt, but then also come off the club's value were he to sell up.
But in accounting terms isn't their current value much lower than what we paid due to amortisation? So, if I have it right, Young's value is only a couple of million as a current asset, so a sale at £17M represents a £15M profit from this sale alone. Downing by the same token is currently a £6M asset which could generate a further £14M profit (say). In total £29M for £8M worth of assets.
I'm not being negative or scare-mongering here, I'm just thinking out loud whilst continuing to try and make sense of this managerial appointment which even the Media, with their creative talents, seem to be baffled by.
That may very well be the case, but especially in the Young situation taking what we can now as opposed to nothing in 12-months makes sound football sense aswell as business sense. What I'd like to see is that money re-invested in the squad and Downing told he's not being sold this summer, so we may lose £5m+ if he does go next summer, but we should be able and willing to take that hit.
So what we'd be doing is protecting the club financially, which can be viewed as 'fattening the calf' or as just keeping the club sustainable, depending on your perspective.
As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
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...
As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
.. who is willing to work under their conditions
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As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
.. who is willing to work under their conditions
Off course.
What those conditions are, however, remains to be seen.
I think it's right we give our youth a shot to avoid another Bolton Defender scenario. I think it's right that the club wants to get the wagebill under control and shift out the higher earning wastes of space. But I don't think we'll be doing those two things to the detriment of continued player investment. In fact I think the money that doing these things will save will allow us to be more competitive in the transfer market.
But I said this all remains to be seen.
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As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
.. who is willing to work under their conditions
While I quite like the idea of a 'Get Lerner' Campaign, you have no idea of what conditons the ginger ninja is being asked to work under.
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...
As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
.. who is willing to work under their conditions
While I quite like the idea of a 'Get Lerner' Campaign, you have no idea of what conditons the ginger ninja is being asked to work under.
True, but his ruling out a move for Scott Dann, a player he rates highly and would obviously want to bring to Villa, might be a clue. Being out-muscled in the transfer market by Stoke City might be another.
I'm not part of a 'Get Lerner' Campaign but I am very much part of a 'Rose-Tinted Specs are Now Well & Truly Off - Now WTF is Lerner Up To?' Campaign.
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True, but his ruling out a move for Scott Dann, a player he rates highly and would obviously want to bring to Villa, might be a clue. Being out-muscled in the transfer market by Stoke City might be another.
When did he do that? I saw the press conference on the BBC i-player and when asked the question about Blues players in general he was very cagey and said he never talks about other clubs players, or some such question dodge.
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mebbe he thinks Dann is overpriced, or his priorities lie elsewhere.Who know's really..... The proof as they say will be in the pudding. Obviously with these new rules coming in, its totally pointless for Lerner to spend millions trying to get into the CL when the losses incured will disqualify us anyway, but I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
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True, but his ruling out a move for Scott Dann, a player he rates highly and would obviously want to bring to Villa, might be a clue. Being out-muscled in the transfer market by Stoke City might be another.
When did he do that? I saw the press conference on the BBC i-player and when asked the question about Blues players in general he was very cagey and said he never talks about other clubs players, or some such question dodge.
McLeish apparently told Talk Shite Radio: 'It’s unlikely I’ll go back to Birmingham to sign players'
My read on this is that funds are not available which ties in with him saying elsewhere that there's nothing wrong with the centre-halfs we've already got (!). Do you really believe that if he had funds available, he wouldn't go in for Scott Dann?
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True, but his ruling out a move for Scott Dann, a player he rates highly and would obviously want to bring to Villa, might be a clue. Being out-muscled in the transfer market by Stoke City might be another.
When did he do that? I saw the press conference on the BBC i-player and when asked the question about Blues players in general he was very cagey and said he never talks about other clubs players, or some such question dodge.
McLeish apparently told Talk Shite Radio: 'It’s unlikely I’ll go back to Birmingham to sign players'
My read on this is that funds are not available which ties in with him saying elsewhere that there's nothing wrong with the centre-halfs we've already got (!). Do you really believe that if he had funds available, he wouldn't go in for Scott Dann?
Funds are going to have to be available to a decent level, or we're going to be in some pretty deep trouble.
We need practically an entire defence for starters, so they're going to have to stump up a fair wedge to pay for that.
If it comes from selling Downing, then I think we've got a pretty clear idea of where they're going with their policy for the club.
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
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McLeish apparently told Talk Shite Radio: 'It’s unlikely I’ll go back to Birmingham to sign players'
My read on this is that funds are not available which ties in with him saying elsewhere that there's nothing wrong with the centre-halfs we've already got (!). Do you really believe that if he had funds available, he wouldn't go in for Scott Dann?
I haven't heard that interview, but I understood it to be equally ambiguous on the subject?
Evenif this is the case, there are a number of scenarios that don't involve a lack of funds:-
1. Maybe he knows that Dann to Liverpool is a done deal?
2. He thinks £12m is overpriced and can get better value elsewhere?
3. Collins and Dunne were as good as anything around in 09/10, so maybe he intends to work with them and save the cash to spend elsewhere?
4. Maybe things are so bad between the two clubs he thinks they'll try to sting us so won't get involved?
You can't judge a transfer budget based on going for one player. Under MON we spent a load of cash without going for the logical target of Darren Bent, for example.
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
Way i see it Lerner has two choices.
1. He can carry on spending like mad, get us into a CL place, then try and stay there for 3 years with no spending and hoping our revenue increases.
2. He can cut down the size of the squad, get rid of the deadwood, spend on quality players rather than overpriced players and get in that way. Its not easy and it will mean spending not much more than we have, and probably selling a "Young" every two years, but hey we've been doing that anyway
Now personally i don't think either of those options are attractive but that's more down to the corrupt little shit Platini than Lerner
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Looking at the Paul Tomkins blog, the inclusion of the financing costs in the breakeven result will affect clubs like Man Yoo who were "bought" through their owners raising debt against the assets they were buying. Their interest payments are fairly hefty to say the least. I'd have thought Real Madrid woudlneed to siginficantly reduce their debts as well althoguht they seem to get bailed out by the authorities whenever the shit hits the fan. But I'm not sure how that affects clubs like City and Chelsea whose owners have put money in and maybe don't get interest or expect a return. Surely their financing costs are going to be much lower, giving them a much healthier break even result. In any case it irrelevant because anything that might adversley affect Madrid, Man Yoo and the like will be ignored by them and UEFA won't have the balls to stand up to them.
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In any case it irrelevant because anything that might adversley affect Madrid, Man Yoo and the like will be ignored by them and UEFA won't have the balls to stand up to them.
Pretty much sums up the overall impact these rules will have!
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that contract clause is a doozy. basically any players signed before 2010 won't have thier wages taken into account which will give the likes of Citeh and chelsea some breathing space, but overall unless you sign for a big club with massive turnover in the CL, the days of players getting massive contracts will be over. Again it will favour the elite, as if we have a player on 50k a week and man U can offer him 100k, we won't be able to at least offer him a massively improved contract without flogging someone. As in the Barry case, it doesn't mean they'll stay anyway but at least before we had the option to offer him more money
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In any case it irrelevant because anything that might adversley affect Madrid, Man Yoo and the like will be ignored by them and UEFA won't have the balls to stand up to them.
Pretty much sums up the overall impact these rules will have!
That's the problem, UEFA feels it needs those clubs more than they need UEFA.
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This was thought up by the big clubs. and put forward by their stooge platini. It will happen. Guaranteed. And if Citeh and Chelsea can't match the criteria they will be excluded. Thing is with their turnover its still going to be unlikely clubs below them will take thier place even with their reduced spending power and a lower wage bill in force
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Again it will favour the elite, as if we have a player on 50k a week and man U can offer him 100k, we won't be able to at least offer him a massively improved contract without flogging someone. As in the Barry case, it doesn't mean they'll stay anyway but at least before we had the option to offer him more money
I think the theory here, or call it a convenient excuse if you will, is that they want to prevent the club paying the £50k a week from going to £100k, unless they can afford it, and possibly going bust as a result.
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Again it will favour the elite, as if we have a player on 50k a week and man U can offer him 100k, we won't be able to at least offer him a massively improved contract without flogging someone. As in the Barry case, it doesn't mean they'll stay anyway but at least before we had the option to offer him more money
I think the theory here, or call it a convenient excuse if you will, is that they want to prevent the club paying the £50k a week from going to £100k, unless they can afford it, and possibly going bust as a result.
well thats the theory except its massively flawed. As i said earlier in the thread its the equavilent of someone who's on 2grand a month, maxed up to his eyeballs in debt but having £50 left at the end of the year, being thought of as better off than someone who is in the red each year but has a million pounds in another bank account. If this was all about financial stability they could have forced clubs competing in the CL to put up a financial guarantee that they could complete their fixtures.
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
Way i see it Lerner has two choices.
1. He can carry on spending like mad, get us into a CL place, then try and stay there for 3 years with no spending and hoping our revenue increases.
2. He can cut down the size of the squad, get rid of the deadwood, spend on quality players rather than overpriced players and get in that way. Its not easy and it will mean spending not much more than we have, and probably selling a "Young" every two years, but hey we've been doing that anyway
Now personally i don't think either of those options are attractive but that's more down to the corrupt little shit Platini than Lerner
Lerner has a 3rd Choice:
3. Decide that, whilst he still loves the club and won't get rid of the tattoo, he cannot now realistically take the club where the fans want it to go, UFFP being the last nail in that coffin. So, recoup his loans to the club through the sale of assets (players) and get the club debt-free within (say) 3 years and ready to be sold to somone who might have the means and crucially the desire that he no longer has. First step? Appoint a 'yes man', a manager who can't believe his luck to be managing a club like Villa, who'll work to a set (negative) transfer budget but who's used to scrapping it out and who must keep us in the Premier League (anywhere will do as far down as 17th position as this won't really affect the club's value).
It's a possible scenario, as his 5-year plan for CL football has come to nothing, he's had no luck with managers and now he's getting dog's abuse from the fans. Plus, he's the owner and, as he has just made abundantly clear, he can do what likes.
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...
As for Mcleish - I don't find it baffling. He was simply the best manager they could get!
.. who is willing to work under their conditions
Off course.
What those conditions are, however, remains to be seen.
I think it's right we give our youth a shot to avoid another Bolton Defender scenario. I think it's right that the club wants to get the wagebill under control and shift out the higher earning wastes of space. But I don't think we'll be doing those two things to the detriment of continued player investment. In fact I think the money that doing these things will save will allow us to be more competitive in the transfer market.
But I said this all remains to be seen.
Only if the youth team is able to provide players good enough for the prem. Fucking hell, are we turning into West Ham or something? I've got no problem with bringing through our own youth players, there's nothing better to see, but to try and establish a whole purchasing ethos around the assumption that the academy will produce prem quality players is madness. Utter madness. It's a huge gamble when looking at the need for competitiveness and I really hope that the board aren't thinking like this, even though it appears that this is the line they're looking at.
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
Way i see it Lerner has two choices.
1. He can carry on spending like mad, get us into a CL place, then try and stay there for 3 years with no spending and hoping our revenue increases.
2. He can cut down the size of the squad, get rid of the deadwood, spend on quality players rather than overpriced players and get in that way. Its not easy and it will mean spending not much more than we have, and probably selling a "Young" every two years, but hey we've been doing that anyway
Now personally i don't think either of those options are attractive but that's more down to the corrupt little shit Platini than Lerner
Lerner has a 3rd Choice:
3. Decide that, whilst he still loves the club and won't get rid of the tattoo, he cannot now realistically take the club where the fans want it to go, UFFP being the last nail in that coffin. So, recoup his loans to the club through the sale of assets (players) and get the club debt-free within (say) 3 years and ready to be sold to somone who might have the means and crucially the desire that he no longer has. First step? Appoint a 'yes man', a manager who can't believe his luck to be managing a club like Villa, who'll work to a set (negative) transfer budget but who's used to scrapping it out and who must keep us in the Premier League (anywhere will do as far down as 17th position as this won't really affect the club's value).
It's a possible scenario, as his 5-year plan for CL football has come to nothing, he's had no luck with managers and now he's getting dog's abuse from the fans. Plus, he's the owner and, as he has just made abundantly clear, he can do what likes.
Two flaws in that assumption. He risks getting relegated and losing even more money and if he wanted a manager to just keep us up then why pick the ginger ninja? He's failed at that job twice.
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
Way i see it Lerner has two choices.
1. He can carry on spending like mad, get us into a CL place, then try and stay there for 3 years with no spending and hoping our revenue increases.
2. He can cut down the size of the squad, get rid of the deadwood, spend on quality players rather than overpriced players and get in that way. Its not easy and it will mean spending not much more than we have, and probably selling a "Young" every two years, but hey we've been doing that anyway
Now personally i don't think either of those options are attractive but that's more down to the corrupt little shit Platini than Lerner
Lerner has a 3rd Choice:
3. Decide that, whilst he still loves the club and won't get rid of the tattoo, he cannot now realistically take the club where the fans want it to go, UFFP being the last nail in that coffin. So, recoup his loans to the club through the sale of assets (players) and get the club debt-free within (say) 3 years and ready to be sold to somone who might have the means and crucially the desire that he no longer has. First step? Appoint a 'yes man', a manager who can't believe his luck to be managing a club like Villa, who'll work to a set (negative) transfer budget but who's used to scrapping it out and who must keep us in the Premier League (anywhere will do as far down as 17th position as this won't really affect the club's value).
It's a possible scenario, as his 5-year plan for CL football has come to nothing, he's had no luck with managers and now he's getting dog's abuse from the fans. Plus, he's the owner and, as he has just made abundantly clear, he can do what likes.
Sounds a most likely scenario to me.
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Only if the youth team is able to provide players good enough for the prem. Fucking hell, are we turning into West Ham or something? I've got no problem with bringing through our own youth players, there's nothing better to see, but to try and establish a whole purchasing ethos around the assumption that the academy will produce prem quality players is madness. Utter madness. It's a huge gamble when looking at the need for competitiveness and I really hope that the board aren't thinking like this, even though it appears that this is the line they're looking at.
It's all based on assumption, but when it comes to the kids they can see what they can see what they've got and make an at least part educated judgement. In summer 1995 Man Utd sold Kanchelskis, Hughes and Ince as they knew what they had coming through. Not saying we've got the next Beckham and Scholes on our hands, but this may be their thinking.
My own opinion is that this needs to be done alongside player investement. Just prior to that summer of 1995 Man Urd had bought Andy Cole for a then record fee - sound familiar??
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Only if the youth team is able to provide players good enough for the prem. Fucking hell, are we turning into West Ham or something? I've got no problem with bringing through our own youth players, there's nothing better to see, but to try and establish a whole purchasing ethos around the assumption that the academy will produce prem quality players is madness. Utter madness. It's a huge gamble when looking at the need for competitiveness and I really hope that the board aren't thinking like this, even though it appears that this is the line they're looking at.
It's all based on assumption, but when it comes to the kids they can see what they can see what they've got and make an at least part educated judgement. In summer 1995 Man Utd sold Kanchelskis, Hughes and Ince as they knew what they had coming through. Not saying we've got the next Beckham and Scholes on our hands, but this may be their thinking.
My own opinion is that this needs to be done alongside player investement. Just prior to that summer of 1995 Man Urd had bought Andy Cole for a then record fee - sound familiar??
So what? We're not in a similar position in any way to Man U were back then, it's not really a good comparison. Relying on unproven youngsters to compete in the prem is a shortcut to relegation. Yeah, it might save money in the short term, but long term it'd be a disaster. Particularly if we keep selling our best player every summer.
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What is the sanction against clubs not adhering to FFP? Banned from Europe? If so, so what? While those obsessed with CL trim their finances accordingly, others could carry on spending and concentrate on winning Leagues and domestic trophies. Suits me.
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So what? We're not in a similar position in any way to Man U were back then, it's not really a good comparison. Relying on unproven youngsters to compete in the prem is a shortcut to relegation. Yeah, it might save money in the short term, but long term it'd be a disaster. Particularly if we keep selling our best player every summer.
I don't see it as a comparison as much as an example.
I see the benefit from it being that if we have £30m to spend and 5 players needed, then having two kids coming through we can rely on means we can spend that £30m on only 3 players and therefore increase the overall quality. It's not a case of using kids so not spending, it's using the kids AND spending.
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What is the sanction against clubs not adhering to FFP? Banned from Europe? If so, so what? While those obsessed with CL trim their finances accordingly, others could carry on spending and concentrate on winning Leagues and domestic trophies. Suits me.
Depends if you've got an owner who's happy making a massive loss each year. People look at chelsea's and citeh's losses but without the CL money they'd be double that - not just the prize money but all the sponsers who'd pull out without CL exposure
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So what? We're not in a similar position in any way to Man U were back then, it's not really a good comparison. Relying on unproven youngsters to compete in the prem is a shortcut to relegation. Yeah, it might save money in the short term, but long term it'd be a disaster. Particularly if we keep selling our best player every summer.
I don't see it as a comparison as much as an example.
I see the benefit from it being that if we have £30m to spend and 5 players needed, then having two kids coming through we can rely on means we can spend that £30m on only 3 players and therefore increase the overall quality. It's not a case of using kids so not spending, it's using the kids AND spending.
An example that is pretty much a one off. The exception to the rule. Not only that, but football has been tipped in the balance towards the richer clubs since 1996.
And using youth players and spending is what most clubs do anyway if you think about it. This isn't some brilliant new idea from the Villa board, its been around for as long as football has. However, to base the future of the club on the assumption that the academy will produce prem level players is mental.
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An example that is pretty much a one off. The exception to the rule. Not only that, but football has been tipped in the balance towards the richer clubs since 1996.
And using youth players and spending is what most clubs do anyway if you think about it. This isn't some brilliant new idea from the Villa board, its been around for as long as football has. However, to base the future of the club on the assumption that the academy will produce prem level players is mental.
I wouldn't call it a one off. Liverpool had Owen, Carragher and Garrard coming though around the same time also. And yes, all clubs try to do this, the difference is that we seem to have a pretty good crop right now. As I said, it's not a case of relying on them and nothing else, just taking into account their potential when drawing up financial plans and transfer targets.
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So what? We're not in a similar position in any way to Man U were back then, it's not really a good comparison. Relying on unproven youngsters to compete in the prem is a shortcut to relegation. Yeah, it might save money in the short term, but long term it'd be a disaster. Particularly if we keep selling our best player every summer.
I don't see it as a comparison as much as an example.
I see the benefit from it being that if we have £30m to spend and 5 players needed, then having two kids coming through we can rely on means we can spend that £30m on only 3 players and therefore increase the overall quality. It's not a case of using kids so not spending, it's using the kids AND spending.
An example that is pretty much a one off. The exception to the rule. Not only that, but football has been tipped in the balance towards the richer clubs since 1996.
And using youth players and spending is what most clubs do anyway if you think about it. This isn't some brilliant new idea from the Villa board, its been around for as long as football has. However, to base the future of the club on the assumption that the academy will produce prem level players is mental.
Why is it mental? They almost all start out at an academy somewhere or other and ours as well as producing Gabby, Albrighton, Bannan, Clarke etc has also brought in cash for Cahill, Ridgwell, Gardner etc.
If it's your only strategy then you're in trouble but there is no suggestion that it is.
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Why is it mental? They almost all start out at an academy somewhere or other and ours as well as producing Gabby, Albrighton, Bannan, Clarke etc has also brought in cash for Cahill, Ridgwell, Gardner etc.
If it's your only strategy then you're in trouble but there is no suggestion that it is.
I really hope it isn't, but I'm sure I read somewhere that this is the direction that Faulkner wanted to go.
The mental part is to assume players of the quality you mention will be churned out all the time. RL is going to have to spend money and that's all there is to it.
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I think chris is saying its part of the solution. Perhaps if we'd followed it earlier, we'd now have a young 15+m rated asset on the books instead of on boltons.
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I think chris is saying its part of the solution. Perhaps if we'd followed it earlier, we'd now have a young 15+m rated asset on the books instead of on boltons.
Ha ha, don't mention that name :P
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I think chris is saying its part of the solution. Perhaps if we'd followed it earlier, we'd now have a young 15+m rated asset on the books instead of on boltons.
How many times do Cahill's quotes have to be trotted out (pun intended) before you accept that is was his decision to leave? That he wanted guaranteed first team football but we couldn't give it him because he wasn't good enough at the time.
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I think chris is saying its part of the solution. Perhaps if we'd followed it earlier, we'd now have a young 15+m rated asset on the books instead of on boltons.
How many times do Cahill's quotes have to be trotted out (pun intended) before you accept that is was his decision to leave? That he wanted guaranteed first team football but we couldn't give it him because he wasn't good enough at the time.
yeah because that's why he's quoted as saying his bolton form is down to wanting to prove MON wrong for getting rid of him. Not really in line with your assumptions, but anyway it wasn't meant as a dig. - I was just backing up your sound point, and i'm hurt you took it that way frankly *sniff*
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I'll be surprised if we won't be spending at least a bit more than we bring in on players sales overall. with maybe a big sale every season or so, to keep the accounts on track
The way I'm reading his language in interviews, alongside quotes from Alex Ferguson, I'm starting to think that our spending will be significantly lower than what we recoup in sales.
I know managers will never say "I've got shedloads to spend" but all this "tread carefully", "no pot of gold" stuff, smacks of sending a message to fans to lower their expectations.
As if they weren't already drastically lowered!
Way i see it Lerner has two choices.
1. He can carry on spending like mad, get us into a CL place, then try and stay there for 3 years with no spending and hoping our revenue increases.
2. He can cut down the size of the squad, get rid of the deadwood, spend on quality players rather than overpriced players and get in that way. Its not easy and it will mean spending not much more than we have, and probably selling a "Young" every two years, but hey we've been doing that anyway
Now personally i don't think either of those options are attractive but that's more down to the corrupt little shit Platini than Lerner
Lerner has a 3rd Choice:
3. Decide that, whilst he still loves the club and won't get rid of the tattoo, he cannot now realistically take the club where the fans want it to go, UFFP being the last nail in that coffin. So, recoup his loans to the club through the sale of assets (players) and get the club debt-free within (say) 3 years and ready to be sold to somone who might have the means and crucially the desire that he no longer has. First step? Appoint a 'yes man', a manager who can't believe his luck to be managing a club like Villa, who'll work to a set (negative) transfer budget but who's used to scrapping it out and who must keep us in the Premier League (anywhere will do as far down as 17th position as this won't really affect the club's value).
It's a possible scenario, as his 5-year plan for CL football has come to nothing, he's had no luck with managers and now he's getting dog's abuse from the fans. Plus, he's the owner and, as he has just made abundantly clear, he can do what likes.
Two flaws in that assumption. He risks getting relegated and losing even more money and if he wanted a manager to just keep us up then why pick the ginger ninja? He's failed at that job twice.
It's not an 'assumption' Greg, it's simply an alternative scenario to the ones you proposed. And your point about McLeish's relegation record doesn't discount my scenario. Just because you and I believe that relagation is real possibility under McLeish, doesn't mean Randy shares that view.
This scenario allows us to view the appointment in a different light. We're all scratching our heads wondering how Lerner can expect to Villa to challenge the top six with this man in charge, but we're assuming that's what Lerner's goal/expectation actually is, when that might not even be the case.
As I said i a previous post, his strategy might be to tread the fine line between Premiership survival and selling assets to pay down the Club's debt (to his holding company) until he's in a position to sell.
This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
There have been quotes from McLeish which hint at limited money. Not to mention the ones from our recruitment consultant, Ferguson.
From our part it might all be a bit of a smokescreen for summer spending, but making what looks like a cheap managerial appointment in itself hints at something
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if with nothing else, at least when it comes to negotiations related to transfer spending it's always better giving others the impression you're skint. No point adding a 0 to the end of anything if you can avoid it.
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
There have been quotes from McLeish which hint at limited money. Not to mention the ones from our recruitment consultant, Ferguson.
From our part it might all be a bit of a smokescreen for summer spending, but making what looks like a cheap managerial appointment in itself hints at something
Can't really see it.
Firstly, Ferguson's comments can be read as 'look what he did with no money' in terms of highlighting his ability, and not just saying 'we have no money so McLeish is the man for us'. And all he said himself is there is 'no huge pot of gold', which in the context of a post Chelsea/Man City arena could mean £40m+.
I guess anything can be read into any comment as they actually say very little of substance, but I'm sticking to the 'wait and see' philosophy and expecting £20m + sales to be available.
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
There have been quotes from McLeish which hint at limited money. Not to mention the ones from our recruitment consultant, Ferguson.
From our part it might all be a bit of a smokescreen for summer spending, but making what looks like a cheap managerial appointment in itself hints at something
Can't really see it.
Firstly, Ferguson's comments can be read as 'look what he did with no money' in terms of highlighting his ability, and not just saying 'we have no money so McLeish is the man for us'. And all he said himself is there is 'no huge pot of gold', which in the context of a post Chelsea/Man City arena could mean £40m+.
I guess anything can be read into any comment as they actually say very little of substance, but I'm sticking to the 'wait and see' philosophy and expecting £20m + sales to be available.
The quote from Ferguson:
"At Rangers, for instance, by the time Alex took over, they weren't spending the kind of money which they had done previously, so Alex did a great job there. He managed to unite a unit there and do very well. In all his jobs he's had to deal with that kind of situation of making do with what you have and making the best of it and that's a quality that. He's got the experience now of doing all of these things and Aston Villa will represent the same type of challenge."
Seems pretty clear to me. You might say: "Yeah, but wtf does he know about our finances and future aspirations etc" To which I would reply: "Probably more than most, seeing as we sought his advice on whether or not to appoint him."
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
There have been quotes from McLeish which hint at limited money. Not to mention the ones from our recruitment consultant, Ferguson.
From our part it might all be a bit of a smokescreen for summer spending, but making what looks like a cheap managerial appointment in itself hints at something
Can't really see it.
Firstly, Ferguson's comments can be read as 'look what he did with no money' in terms of highlighting his ability, and not just saying 'we have no money so McLeish is the man for us'. And all he said himself is there is 'no huge pot of gold', which in the context of a post Chelsea/Man City arena could mean £40m+.
I guess anything can be read into any comment as they actually say very little of substance, but I'm sticking to the 'wait and see' philosophy and expecting £20m + sales to be available.
The quote from Ferguson:
"At Rangers, for instance, by the time Alex took over, they weren't spending the kind of money which they had done previously, so Alex did a great job there. He managed to unite a unit there and do very well. In all his jobs he's had to deal with that kind of situation of making do with what you have and making the best of it and that's a quality that. He's got the experience now of doing all of these things and Aston Villa will represent the same type of challenge."
Seems pretty clear to me. You might say: "Yeah, but wtf does he know about our finances and future aspirations etc" To which I would reply: "Probably more than most, seeing as we sought his advice on whether or not to appoint him."
Do you honestly think we'd tell the manager we are heavily expecting to bid for our best player this summer what our budget was? Don't see it myself!
As I've said before, it's a matter of 'wait and see', but actuions speak louder than words and form that I'd look more to use breaking our transfer record 6 months ago than I would anything SAF says about us.
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Did we seek Whisky Nose's advice or was he just asked his opinion on McLeish by the press?
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Did we seek Whisky Nose's advice or was he just asked his opinion on McLeish by the press?
The General, in his Facebook Rant, stated that they had consulted people in the Game who were better qualified than Villa fans to know whether or not McLeish was decent manager. He then challenged the guy whose 'wall' he was posting on, to"ask Alex Ferguson what he thinks of McLeish and you'd get a different answer.'
Ferguson's subsequent comments in the press have left many people on here in little doubt that the Board consulted him in some capacity.
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The Facebook rant that was as real as my chances as taking Megan Fox up the arse?
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This summer's transfer dealings, in terms of net spend, will give us more of a clue but as I said, the early signs are not good.
Fully agree with the 'wait and see' approach, but out of interest what signs have we seen thus far that indicate anything?
There have been quotes from McLeish which hint at limited money. Not to mention the ones from our recruitment consultant, Ferguson.
From our part it might all be a bit of a smokescreen for summer spending, but making what looks like a cheap managerial appointment in itself hints at something
Can't really see it.
Firstly, Ferguson's comments can be read as 'look what he did with no money' in terms of highlighting his ability, and not just saying 'we have no money so McLeish is the man for us'. And all he said himself is there is 'no huge pot of gold', which in the context of a post Chelsea/Man City arena could mean £40m+.
I guess anything can be read into any comment as they actually say very little of substance, but I'm sticking to the 'wait and see' philosophy and expecting £20m + sales to be available.
The quote from Ferguson:
"At Rangers, for instance, by the time Alex took over, they weren't spending the kind of money which they had done previously, so Alex did a great job there. He managed to unite a unit there and do very well. In all his jobs he's had to deal with that kind of situation of making do with what you have and making the best of it and that's a quality that. He's got the experience now of doing all of these things and Aston Villa will represent the same type of challenge."
Seems pretty clear to me. You might say: "Yeah, but wtf does he know about our finances and future aspirations etc" To which I would reply: "Probably more than most, seeing as we sought his advice on whether or not to appoint him."
Do you honestly think we'd tell the manager we are heavily expecting to bid for our best player this summer what our budget was? Don't see it myself!
As I've said before, it's a matter of 'wait and see', but actuions speak louder than words and form that I'd look more to use breaking our transfer record 6 months ago than I would anything SAF says about us.
Did you honestly think 4 weeks ago that our Board would so clueless and lacking in self-respect as to ask a rival manager for advice on appointing a manager? Nothing this board does now would surprise me.
And I'm not suggesting we told him exactly what our budget was, but if there's no truth in it, why did he say it? If he's so cosy with our board as to be asked for advice, why didn't he just say nothing about it?
Maybe it's because we told him what our search criteria were and one of them was 'managing on a tight budget'.
You're argument seems to be: The Board are clueless enough to ask a rival manager who to appoint but not clueless enough to tell him he'll be on a tight budget.
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All you doubters get ready to eat some humble pie. It might not happen net season, but come the following one I think we'll be ready to push on.
I was looking forward to Houliers 2nd season, as coming to the end of last we were begining to get things right.
You're not giving AMcL a fair crack chaps. Forget that he came from 'Them' He was the manager of a poor team with no board backing, even Morinho would have struggled given that. If he'd come from elsewhere it wouldn't be a problem.
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The Facebook rant that was as real as my chances as taking Megan Fox up the arse?
Apparently Megan is quite partial to some backdoor action..........................
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The Facebook rant that was as real as my chances as taking Megan Fox up the arse?
To my knowledge the General has never denied that it was him and posters from Vital Villa were convinced it was genuine.
Do you have any evidence to suggest it was a fake?
If not, any chance of a Spit Roast with Megan?
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If he'd come from elsewhere it wouldn't be a problem.
Yes it would.
His record is poor and, precisely because he came from Them, the poor bloke won't even get a chance to get it right.
For the umpteenth time: Poor decision.
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He was the manager of a poor team with no board backing, even Morinho would have struggled given that.
No he wouldn't.
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He was the manager of a poor team with no board backing, even Morinho would have struggled given that.
No he wouldn't.
Of course he would, Morinho has always been able to spend, spend, spend at whatever club he's been at.
There's no point in getting into arguments as 'tunnel vision' syndrome has alraedy set in.
McLeish will never get a chance with some of you.
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He was the manager of a poor team with no board backing, even Morinho would have struggled given that.
No he wouldn't.
Of course he would, Morinho has always been able to spend, spend, spend at whatever club he's been at.
There's no point in getting into arguments as 'tunnel vision' syndrome has alraedy set in.
McLeish will never get a chance with some of you.
I honestly can't believe what you're saying. To suggest that Jose Mourinho could have taken charge of the same Blose team and still got relegated is effectively stating that Alex McLeish is as good a manager as Jose Mourinho. Utter nonsense!
As to your other argument, it's not me who won't be giving him a chance. As Gregnash alluded to on the 'fans meeting' thread, the people he has to win over are aged between 15 and 25, sit at the back of the Holte and, barring an outrageously good seaon, will never, ever accept him. More to the point, one slip up and they'll be trying to hound him out of B6 on the end of a pitchfork.
Tunnel vision? No.
Realism? Yes.
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Did you honestly think 4 weeks ago that our Board would so clueless and lacking in self-respect as to ask a rival manager for advice on appointing a manager? Nothing this board does now would surprise me.
And I'm not suggesting we told him exactly what our budget was, but if there's no truth in it, why did he say it? If he's so cosy with our board as to be asked for advice, why didn't he just say nothing about it?
Maybe it's because we told him what our search criteria were and one of them was 'managing on a tight budget'.
You're argument seems to be: The Board are clueless enough to ask a rival manager who to appoint but not clueless enough to tell him he'll be on a tight budget.
Personally, I'm glad they asked advice given the lack of football knowledge on the board.
My argument is that they would have known Fergie was set to go after Ash, so giving ANY indication of our budget would tip our hand. It's of course possible that this deal was sealed ages ago and we spoke to him afterwards about the manager, but like everythign else that's just speculation, as is the simple idea that he's assuming what our plans are. It's equally possible that when he said what he did, he was coming from the angle of us trying to competing with the likes of Man City and them with a lower budget, which could still be in the £20-£30m range.
And as I said, I'd class the Bent signing as being more indicative of our intent than a comment by the manager of another club.
So I'm still in the 'wait and see camp'!
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Did you honestly think 4 weeks ago that our Board would so clueless and lacking in self-respect as to ask a rival manager for advice on appointing a manager? Nothing this board does now would surprise me.
And I'm not suggesting we told him exactly what our budget was, but if there's no truth in it, why did he say it? If he's so cosy with our board as to be asked for advice, why didn't he just say nothing about it?
Maybe it's because we told him what our search criteria were and one of them was 'managing on a tight budget'.
You're argument seems to be: The Board are clueless enough to ask a rival manager who to appoint but not clueless enough to tell him he'll be on a tight budget.
Personally, I'm glad they asked advice given the lack of football knowledge on the board.
My argument is that they would have known Fergie was set to go after Ash, so giving ANY indication of our budget would tip our hand. It's of course possible that this deal was sealed ages ago and we spoke to him afterwards about the manager, but like everythign else that's just speculation, as is the simple idea that he's assuming what our plans are. It's equally possible that when he said what he did, he was coming from the angle of us trying to competing with the likes of Man City and them with a lower budget, which could still be in the £20-£30m range.
And as I said, I'd class the Bent signing as being more indicative of our intent than a comment by the manager of another club.
So I'm still in the 'wait and see camp'!
We're all in that camp at the moment, John(!)
It's just that this appointment has made me doubt the Board for the first time ever, and to such a degree that I'm not sure of anything anymore.
I always believed that the Bent signing was a statement of intent that wrong-footed the Media, but now I'm afraid I think it almost as likely that it was a panic measure. That Lerner intended to use the Milner money to service the Club's debt and that he would not have sanctioned Bent's signing if we had been at or near the 40-point mark, come Jan 1st 2011.
As you said, we must wait and see but I will be less surprised than most, if the Ashley Young money isn't used to claw back Lerner's unexpected outlay on Bent.
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Of course he would, Morinho has always been able to spend, spend, spend at whatever club he's been at.
There's no point in getting into arguments as 'tunnel vision' syndrome has already set in.
McLeish will never get a chance with some of you.
[/quote]
I honestly can't believe what you're saying. To suggest that Jose Mourinho could have taken charge of the same Blose team and still got relegated is effectively stating that Alex McLeish is as good a manager as Jose Mourinho. Utter nonsense!
As to your other argument, it's not me who won't be giving him a chance. As Gregnash alluded to on the 'fans meeting' thread, the people he has to win over are aged between 15 and 25, sit at the back of the Holte and, barring an outrageously good seaon, will never, ever accept him. More to the point, one slip up and they'll be trying to hound him out of B6 on the end of a pitchfork.
Tunnel vision? No.
Realism? Yes.
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I didn't say that he was as good as Morinho, or that Morinho would have got relegated with the same team. If you read what I wrote it said 'even Morinho would struggle given that' I doubt he would have got into the top 2/3ds with that team
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Well Man City have apparantly sold naming rights to Eastlands for £100mil to Eithad Airlines so looks like they have found a way to keep spending.
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Well Man City have apparantly sold naming rights to Eastlands for £100mil to Eithad Airlines so looks like they have found a way to keep spending.
I believe there is a clause in FFP that disregards commercial income that is above 'true value'. Not sure how they work out that value though. The clause is included to stop deals like this by-passing the new rules.