FFP

[brontebilly]

This may have been answered multiple times already....but why did we buy Rogers in January if we are as tight to the mat on FFP as it is being reported? 50m on Diaby last summer, did we really need to??

The thought of having to sell Luiz or Ramsey after qualifying for the CL is beyond depressing. We won't get better by selling our best players. There was me hoping we could get Grealish or a player of his quality in this summer!

[Somniloquism]

10 was reduced to 6 because Everton said their error was inadvertent and that was accepted on appeal.

The benchmark for a deliberate breach would still be 10.

The appeals also stated that 6 should be the benchmark due to there not being any precedent in the Prem, so they should have looked at the EFL's punishment points for the same breach of finances as the guide mark. I think the "inadvertent" decision might have been to stop the other clubs who might sue (not sure if any have) from being able to use that in court, especially as the PL gave them the option to.

[paul_e]

The case for extra capacity is irresistible.
Capital  expenditure  on a stadium doesn't count, but income does.
Thus £150m on a new north Stand is  not only a legitimate spend, but an extra 10k capacity at £50 a ticket is £500k a game, or £10m over a   twenty home game season..

Honestly, as much an extra £10m-ish a year would be lovely, it's not going to make a serious dent in catching up with the teams regularly in the top 6. We're behind all of these teams by £100m+ in revenue terms.  By all means lets grow the match-day revenue, and a bigger stadium definitely has benefits beyond just more ticket sales, but we're only going to compete long term by increasing our income away from the pitch.

This is why I still think the cancelling of the North Stand redev is about them looking bigger. If we go ahead with that development we pretty much lock ourselves into the same site, same pitch placement, etc. So an extra £10m a year becomes most of the improvement we can get, with maybe a few million on top for work with the Doug Ellis Stand.

If the owners don't think that's enough to make things up on those around us and it limits our options to add more value into the ground then I can see the logic in thinking it's better to cancel and look for an alternative that might see a much bigger increase. With us taking on the funding from a company dedicated to running stadiums, etc I think that'much more likely than the idea that they've just decided to do nothing.

I get that it will take longer and mean a few more seasons of struggling to compete but you just don't sepnd the sort of money involved in the North Stand if you already have plans to do something else.

[VillaTim]

This may have been answered multiple times already....but why did we buy Rogers in January if we are as tight to the mat on FFP as it is being reported? 50m on Diaby last summer, did we really need to??

The thought of having to sell Luiz or Ramsey after qualifying for the CL is beyond depressing. We won't get better by selling our best players. There was me hoping we could get Grealish or a player of his quality in this summer!

Come May i'd get Diaby packaged up and shipped to Saudi if they are still interested . Thats assuming we need to make some big sales.

[Somniloquism]

This may have been answered multiple times already....but why did we buy Rogers in January if we are as tight to the mat on FFP as it is being reported? 50m on Diaby last summer, did we really need to??

The thought of having to sell Luiz or Ramsey after qualifying for the CL is beyond depressing. We won't get better by selling our best players. There was me hoping we could get Grealish or a player of his quality in this summer!

Because we are not that tight? Until we know what deductibles from the loss total we could be anywhere from 5 to 50mil under the loss having an affect on PSR.

And whilst I wouldn't want to lose Luiz (Ramsey will depend if he takes his glass feet off), we have seen teams bigger then us sell really good players and bring in as good, if not better for the overall team. If we don't replace them because of funding issues, then it becomes a problem.

[Sexual Ealing]

This may have been answered multiple times already....but why did we buy Rogers in January if we are as tight to the mat on FFP as it is being reported? 50m on Diaby last summer, did we really need to??

The thought of having to sell Luiz or Ramsey after qualifying for the CL is beyond depressing. We won't get better by selling our best players. There was me hoping we could get Grealish or a player of his quality in this summer!

Come May i'd get Diaby packaged up and shipped to Saudi if they are still interested . Thats assuming we need to make some big sales.

Let's say we got our money back on him (which is unlikely), how much is that going to help?

[Pat Mustard]

The case for extra capacity is irresistible.
Capital  expenditure  on a stadium doesn't count, but income does.
Thus £150m on a new north Stand is  not only a legitimate spend, but an extra 10k capacity at £50 a ticket is £500k a game, or £10m over a   twenty home game season..

Honestly, as much an extra £10m-ish a year would be lovely, it's not going to make a serious dent in catching up with the teams regularly in the top 6. We're behind all of these teams by £100m+ in revenue terms.  By all means lets grow the match-day revenue, and a bigger stadium definitely has benefits beyond just more ticket sales, but we're only going to compete long term by increasing our income away from the pitch.

This is why I still think the cancelling of the North Stand redev is about them looking bigger. If we go ahead with that development we pretty much lock ourselves into the same site, same pitch placement, etc. So an extra £10m a year becomes most of the improvement we can get, with maybe a few million on top for work with the Doug Ellis Stand.

If the owners don't think that's enough to make things up on those around us and it limits our options to add more value into the ground then I can see the logic in thinking it's better to cancel and look for an alternative that might see a much bigger increase. With us taking on the funding from a company dedicated to running stadiums, etc I think that'much more likely than the idea that they've just decided to do nothing.

I get that it will take longer and mean a few more seasons of struggling to compete but you just don't sepnd the sort of money involved in the North Stand if you already have plans to do something else.

£10 million a season probably isn't remotely close to the uplift we would be looking at from the North Stand though - single adult match tickets are already more than £50 a pop for most games.  The work for the new stand was going to cater for far higher corporate and GA+ numbers and included a redevelopment of Trinity Road, so I would hazard a guess that the club would be aiming for an uplift of £20 million+ a season. 

The more I think about Heck's words now the more it makes sense following the latest figures.  When he is saying 10k seats was too many too soon, it wasn't that we wouldn't sell them, it was that we wouldn't sell them at the price required.  A couple more years of squeezed demand (potentially together with Champions League football), and I am betting he expects to be able to put ticket prices through the roof.  I also wouldn't be surprised if the price of memberships doubles or triples this year.

[Somniloquism]

Diaby has still directly contributed to 9 of our points this season to put us in the position we are now in. That is a lot more points then more expensive players have.

I expect you could point to times he should have definitely scored and we didn't get any points, and I could point to ones where he setup up other players who didn't score so that would probably even it out.

[Brazilian Villain]

Has anyone managed to put a positive spin on the numbers yet. (full stop)

It would be worse if it were a £150m loss.

[Sexual Ealing]

There's so much nonsense talked about transfers in football.

"A manager needs his own players." What about the ones that just coach the players they've got/are given?
"You don't improve by selling your best players." Well, there are lots of teams to have done just that.
"If you don't sign players every window you'll go backwards as a club." Just total horseshit.

I have no evidence, but I think the importance of transfers was talked up over the decades by managers with sticky fingers, and now we're stuck with the obscene situation we see today.

[rooboy316]

Not that I am advocating this, but what rules are in place to stop us selling Jacob Ramsey to Chelsea for £80 million, then buying Conor Gallagher from them for the same amount?  Both clubs book the £80 million profit in year one, then spread the cost over 5 years.

I think Juventus and Barcelona did something akin to this with swapping two players Pjanic and Arthur. Don't know if that loophole was closed afterward. 

Haven’t we done similarly, albeit smarter/less dodgy? E.g. sell Archer, book pure profit, buy Rogers and amortise the fee over length of contract.


Obviously in terms of attributes they aren’t like for like, but financially we achieve the outcomes you propose.

[VillaTim]

This may have been answered multiple times already....but why did we buy Rogers in January if we are as tight to the mat on FFP as it is being reported? 50m on Diaby last summer, did we really need to??

The thought of having to sell Luiz or Ramsey after qualifying for the CL is beyond depressing. We won't get better by selling our best players. There was me hoping we could get Grealish or a player of his quality in this summer!

Come May i'd get Diaby packaged up and shipped to Saudi if they are still interested . Thats assuming we need to make some big sales.

Let's say we got our money back on him (which is unlikely), how much is that going to help?

That is a fair point, we'd probably take a loss on him.

[Skerra]

What better way for the PL to deduct us points so we can’t get top 4/5. We all know that the likelihood as they wouldn’t want manure not getting a European place. So, most likely outcome is they deduct us 10 points and give them to Manure, not for any other reason that they wouldn’t want the media darlings to miss out!

[danno]

What better way for the PL to deduct us points so we can’t get top 4/5. We all know that the likelihood as they wouldn’t want manure not getting a European place. So, most likely outcome is they deduct us 10 points and give them to Manure, not for any other reason that they wouldn’t want the media darlings to miss out!

They would have had to have charged us by now. So take a deep breath and relax.

[Risso]

Let's say we got our money back on him (which is unlikely), how much is that going to help?

About £14m profit, and then you'd save his wages of £6.7m a year, so in the first year, £20m.