The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[LeeB]

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 stadium sponsorship plus the allowed wage bill increase only just covers that for one single year of the increased wages.

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.

I'm sure the way around all this is to just cheat in exactly the same way as someone like Inter or Real Madrid will inevitably do, and then we'd be ok.

[pauliewalnuts]

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.

In some ways, you could say that is actually now, strictly speaking.

For example, we've just got that 72m, whatever it was, for last year's telly money.

We couldn't go out and spend all that cash on increased wages right now even if we wanted to.

[PaulWinch again]

Doesn't FFP only restrict you in terms of European competition?

[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 stadium sponsorship plus the allowed wage bill increase only just covers that for one single year of the increased wages.

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.

I'm sure the way around all this is to just cheat in exactly the same way as someone like Inter or Real Madrid will inevitably do, and then we'd be ok.

But that's why Man City have just been fined 50m and had those restrictions applied, and it's why UEFA did PSG, too.

That's also just the UEFA FFP rules, there are also the Premier League rules which will start to be evaluated in December - ie the first evaluations will be out, and penalties considered.

I am sure there will still be some way around stuff like this, but it is going to be much, much harder than it was before.

[pauliewalnuts]

Doesn't FFP only restrict you in terms of European competition?

No.

[john 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.

billionaire investor  ?    at the moment even Helenius wants out,

[PaulWinch again]

In which case why is Man City's punishment mainly based around European competition? Are there different rules for domestic competitions?

[pauliewalnuts]

In which case why is Man City's punishment mainly based around European competition? Are there different rules for domestic competitions?

Yes, there are UEFA FFP rules and Premier League ones, which are going to start to result in punishments at the end of this year.

re Man City, one reason they spent so big, so quickly, is to make sure they got into the elite group of clubs before the ladders got pulled up.

The ones Man City have been in the news about are in relation to the UEFA fair play rules.

[LeeB]

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 stadium sponsorship plus the allowed wage bill increase only just covers that for one single year of the increased wages.

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.

I'm sure the way around all this is to just cheat in exactly the same way as someone like Inter or Real Madrid will inevitably do, and then we'd be ok.

But that's why Man City have just been fined 50m and had those restrictions applied, and it's why UEFA did PSG, too.

That's also just the UEFA FFP rules, there are also the Premier League rules which will start to be evaluated in December - ie the first evaluations will be out, and penalties considered.

I am sure there will still be some way around stuff like this, but it is going to be much, much harder than it was before.

Man City, PSG = New money, needs to be kept in check

Inter, Real = Original G14 gangsters

If the old guard come close to falling foul of these rules, there'd soon be talk of the 'system not working' and a need for it 'to be scrapped'.

[itbrvilla]

TBARs Troll thread is a fantastic read. They're comparing ADMINs coundown to his BS announcment and response to Londoy Boys ITK on here, as apparently they are similar.

[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 stadium sponsorship plus the allowed wage bill increase only just covers that for one single year of the increased wages.

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.

I'm sure the way around all this is to just cheat in exactly the same way as someone like Inter or Real Madrid will inevitably do, and then we'd be ok.

But that's why Man City have just been fined 50m and had those restrictions applied, and it's why UEFA did PSG, too.

That's also just the UEFA FFP rules, there are also the Premier League rules which will start to be evaluated in December - ie the first evaluations will be out, and penalties considered.

I am sure there will still be some way around stuff like this, but it is going to be much, much harder than it was before.

Man City, PSG = New money, needs to be kept in check

Inter, Real = Original G14 gangsters

If the old guard come close to falling foul of these rules, there'd soon be talk of the 'system not working' and a need for it 'to be scrapped'.

I suspect these rules will do far more to protect the old guard than they will to get some sort of fair play into football. If you're spending the money already, you're OK.

If you've just won the lottery and been bought by someone extremely rich, it is going to be much, much harder to do things like they used to be done.

[PaulWinch again]

Ah ok that makes more sense thanks.

[paul_e]

It's only fair to have it be based on market value, which means we could cite the recent deal (18months ago but still valid) between Arsenal and Emirates wich was £30m a year for the stadium and shirts.  I have no idea what we're getting for Dafabet but I reckon switching us to a deal more inline with that Arsenal one would make up well over half of the difference straight away.

Add on that stadium improvements are considered extraordinary expenses and I believe part of the ground closed for redevelopment wouldn't restrict the allowed spending which matchday earnings were down, so that's probably not relevant.

I agree the idea of a company owned by the owner or someone closely associated with the owner may be considered a red flag but so long as the deal is within the acceptable range of the expected sponsorship deals for a premier league club then it'd would be a big risk for the FA to try to jump on that, to the point where I reckon a club legally challenging a restriction like that would win pretty easily.

Again stick with the Anshultz/AEG example, if the AEG board ratified a sponsorship deal of £25m a year for the training ground, villa park and the shirts what could the FA do about it given there are bigger deals that that in place in the premier league already?  If the sponsorship was PA football holdings which had no board of directors other than him then it'd be open season, but a company listed on the NY stock exchange would have it justified as a commercial expense in line with their company goals.

What I'm saying is, if you wanted to increase the income quite quickly you could do it to a reasonable level without too many problems.  Our sponsors are worth a lot less than a number of other clubs so manipulating them to be on a par with the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, etc shouldn't be a big problem.  Man City style piss-taking with a £600m over 10 years ground sponsorship is clearly taking the piss but £250m for ground and shirts over the same timescale has precedence.

[mr underhill]

wouldn't it be marvellous if these issues were actually relevant! As it stands, we probably have a few quid to spend on a couple of loan players, a few players leaving, the possibility of head Tweedle being reunited with an assistant Tweedle and enough petty cash to replace the corner flags if Randy's feeling extra generous. Oh, and latest from the ITK scene is we are being taken over by Randy's mom's bezzie mate, Richard Rich.

[paul_e]

wouldn't it be marvellous if these issues were actually relevant! As it stands, we probably have a few quid to spend on a couple of loan players, a few players leaving, the possibility of head Tweedle being reunited with an assistant Tweedle and enough petty cash to replace the corner flags if Randy's feeling extra generous. Oh, and latest from the ITK scene is we are being taken over by Randy's mom's bezzie mate, Richard Rich.

As it stands we have no idea where things are in a takeover, but we do know that the current owner has agreed a short term plan with the current manager to allow us to keep operating to a decent extent in the meantime, that could be 6 weeks or 6 months or a lot longer, no one knows and anyone who says they do is guessing.