Someone on the Leeds post-match thread on the Graun has posted this, any truth to it?"The richest match in world football. And this year the most repellent.Two teams who both cheated the profit and sustainability rules and whom the EFL didn’t have the balls even to question. One by running up losses of £130m in three years and brushing it off with things like selling the naming rights to the training ground (to themselves) and doubling the youth programme costs; the other by selling the ground to the owner for double market value and renting it back for a yield lower than a gilt.And both disguised losses by hiving staff off to separate companies so the costs of wages did not fall on the football operations."
That's from a commenter called Vastariner, a Bluenose who piles in on any Villa related article. I think he drafts his anti-Villa screed on the wall of his basement in cat blood before posting on the Guardian.
It's the burblings of somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about:Taking the issues in order:Derby selling their ground to their owner. As I said at the time, this "sale and leaseback" type agreement is standard business practice. It's not a cheat, or a way around the rules. Derby now no longer own their ground, and that has real, lasting implications. As long as the transaction was at market rates, which it must be to satisfy FFP, it's a perfectly sesnible thing to do.Doubling youth programme costs - so what? These are ignored for FFP calculations anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's £1 or £100m"And both disguised losses by hiving staff off to separate companies so the costs of wages did not fall on the football operations". Total bollocks, most football clubs have more than one company in the group, and produce consolidated accounts that basically accumulate all the profits and losses from all associated companies. There's no way of hiding expenditure in the way they're describing.
The investment they have made into our club has saved us from God knows what outcome. However they are both businessmen so where and when will the return on their investment happen ?