The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[silhillvilla]

@JamesNursey: Off to #avfc to see Lambert now club confirmed he's staying on under lerner.

[kippaxvilla2]

Has the 14.30 announcement been on?  Was it an Old Etonian sounding man, squinting in the sunlight, saying 'We were asked to advise Aston Villa.......'??

[Ron Manager]

@JamesNursey: Off to #avfc to see Lambert now club confirmed he's staying on under lerner.

Can you read that Eastie?

[Chris Jameson]

Lads, until LondonBoy has spoken don't believe a word.

LondonBoy knows, don't argue.

[silhillvilla]

Ha ha TBAR have locked the new owner thread now

[VinnieChase84]

Ha ha TBAR have locked the new owner thread now

They have made it so only certain people can view it and labelled loads of people trolls

[PaulWinch again]

I can confirm we will have a new owner at some point in the future....

[aj2k77]

I can confirm that there will be a future, although it might not be bright.

[pauliewalnuts]

We've still got our proud history to hold on to (except the last four years, obv)

[aj2k77]

New scarf being issued next season, gone has the proud history bright future general Krulak bollocks, gone has the young and hungry Lambert bollocks, now it's just ''WE EXIST''

[paul_e]

Yes, but the thing is, you're talking about our ability to spend like that and remain FFP compliant once we've got to that situation - bigger, full ground every week, large increases in sponsorship money, spending to get us to 8th place or so.

That's all fine, but we have to actually achieve that first, and to get to a situation like that, we'd have to spend a huge amount of money which would trigger an excess on the maximum losses. Even on the basis of our spending the last few years we'd only just scrape FFP compliance.

That's the problem, the whole "pulling up the ladder" thing. Man City have the biggest wage bill in football, which means that, really, they have an immense amount of wiggle room re wages. They'll shift some of the shit, and still be able to pay huge wages because not only do they start from a base of a huge wage bill, thus rendering the maximum increase thing null and void, they've also got the squad full of top notch players who will get them 49k every week, and which will win titles and qualify for the CL.

I am not saying there are not ways around it, I am sure they will be, but it is going to be much harder to do than someone said earlier, flogging naming rights to a company owned by our new billionaire overlords for a massive inflated price as a way to inject income into the club.

Ironically, I suspect the FFP rules, if taken seriously, will actually make it more encouraging for some people to buy English clubs. For a start, there's a ready made excuse reason not to invest loads of money, rather to take the "bob along" route and coin it in through the increased television money.

As I said though, I'm talking about those increases/spends over 2-3 years.  This summer, for example, you sponsor the ground and training ground for £6m a season, add on the £4m increase that's allowed and you've got £200k p/w to play with.  Let people like the fonz/alby go on frees and try to get hutton or someone similar off the bill by letting them walk for free and you can add 70-80k on top, then sign 5-6 players on £40-50k to push us up to top 8.

Once we're there next season will automatically see a commercial income increase in ticket sales, etc, add on a new shirt sponsor and the end of some big contracts and you can do the same again, but this time with only 2-3 players needed so we're shopping at the next table up.

Then the following summer we announce plans to increase capacity with a rebuild north stand, along with the stand being sponsored and we start to clear out the mid level earners who've fallen off the radar, as well as seeing the last of the big contracts drop off (Given, Nzog) and get another season the same.  So every year sees a 'spend' of £30-50m and a £5-10m wage bill increase.  All done within the restrictions.

By that point you're looking at having bought in 10-12 first team regulars, with that extra quality pushing up the performances of the rest of the squad.  It's not Man City/Chelsea levels of throwing everything at it but it's with the rules and, with the right people in senior positions, would be a good way to buy you're way up the league.

Additionally I believe spending on youth development isn't capped in the same way so you can add a much wider scouting network and coaching system and start building towards more 'organic' development in a few years.  We already have a good base for that so it's the sensible place to focus a big chunk of resources on maximising.

As I agreed, it's all hypothetical, but if you're a billionaire it's the 'plan' you'd be looking at.

Incidentallythere's a few questions I'd be interested in seeing how they handle:

1. The club 'buying out' a players contract to free up wages.  For example we get taken over next month and the new owners realise too much of the wage bill is tied up in players that aren't going to contribute so they pay up the contracts of Bent, Given, Nzog, Hutton, etc.  Would that be against the rules?  If so how long would those funds be 'locked' for?

2. When was the 'benchmark' taken for a club?  Is the £4m increase irrespective of the wage bill at the start of the process or does that serve as the basis for it long term?  For example, all the players named above (with a combined wage of 200k+) leave on the last day of this window, can we respend that money in january/next summer or does the wage bill at the end of the window/season become the new base (above the £54m that's set across the league)

[john e]

anyone else just skipping the massively boring FFP posts,

ffs don't you guys know,

we are going again

[LeeB]

anyone else just skipping the massively boring FFP posts,

ffs don't you guys know,

we are going again

Yeah, but only because I'll worry about it when we've got more money than we're allowed to spend, which seems like fucking light years away.

[paul_e]

Sorry John, I just think the FFP stuff in the league isn't anything like as scary to a billionaire investor as some people seem to believe.

[pauliewalnuts]

I appreciate what you're getting at, but I think things like sponsoring the ground and training ground for 6m a season, with the money coming from an affiliated company, are going to get jumped all over.

re raising commercial and sponsorship income, so quickly, if it was that straightforward, then even Randy would have worked out how to do it. Then what about things like the year plus it'd take to rebuild the North Stand, during which capacity and matchday revenue are restricted? Adding 500k a week to the wage bill is, say, £28m a year, £84m over three years. That 6m a year for three years for stadium sponsorship plus the allowed wage bill increase only just covers that for one single year of the increased wages - what about the other years these players will have on their contracts?

Trying to increase non-tv revenue by that amount, that quickly, to keep us FFP compliant would be nigh on impossible.

If it's that do-able, how is it that even our spending of the last three years would have failed us on FFP? £105m over three years means a maximum loss of £35m a year, which is less than we've actually already been losing.

It is going to get much, much harder to spend big money on a football club that isn't already having huge sums thrown at it, unfortunately. I think a lot of the talk here and elsewhere about potential new owners seems to overlook this.