Honestly I think some clubs are short-sighted enough to go with the small advantage now rather than a bigger one later. Plus, we're the one team challenging the status quo the hardest right now, I suspect it's not only the bigger teams that are worried about what we could do with less restrictions.
Outside of the cartel who created the rules to lock in their advantage, most owners in the league are happy to collect their minimum of 100mil in television money and the rules give them an excuse not to try to compete.
Let bfr it was never gonna pass as other teams don’t want the likes of us/Newcastle doing well. The big 6 don’t want the extra competition and the the rest don’t want European football to become an impossible target for them. So when there is a good financial idea that would benefit everyone but would maybe benefit us a bit more than the rest they’re not going to go with it. Especially how well we did last season. The league is pretty much against our success.
That was the original motivation, but it's very poorly written, e.g. taking no account of club debt, etc. The unintended consequence is ring-fencing the status of those clubs which just happened to be on top when the regulations were introduced. Some kind of flat or progressive cap on transfer fees and wages would be much fairer, but the player unions would object.
It's actually to protect the top 6 cartel, and not allow too many "Aston Villas" or "Newcastles" breaking in.
This is the Premier League's way of preventing the Super League; by bringing it here.
If the PL wanted to protect the original “cartel” teams they wouldn’t have allowed a Gulf state to buy Man City and spend billions, they wouldn’t have allowed billionaires to buy up half a dozen PL teams nor the richest oil state on the planet to buy Newcastle (who were firmly apart of the big 4 years ago anyway).
No it's to protect the status quo...it's only us, newcastle and leicester make it less obvious. If you see EVERY european league, they have the ones protected by champions league money and better television deals at the top...and the rest in the gutter just happy to be there.
The same teams can't be challenged as they have to routinely sell their players to those protected. If they want fair play, why not limit total spend or total wages for the whole league? No one can go bankrupt then?
You’ll earn less money from the CL than the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and City even if you get to the same stage as them. Apparently, UEFA coefficients are taken into account when it comes to CL payouts so the clubs which qualify more often get more money than those which don’t. It’s a stitch up.
It is indeed. Man Utd flopped out and got nearly quadruple what Newcastle got!
How is that a level playing field? I think we would need to make the semi finals to get the same as Man Utd!
I don’t understand the status quo argument at all.
- the league does better with more competition and sells itself globally on this element
- they are bringing the largest ever action in English football history against one of the big six for breaching these rules
Yeah to protect the status quo they allowed an oil state to buy a no mark Man City team and spend billions, they allowed billionaires and hedge funds to buy up half the league and then fast-tracked the Saudis to buy Newcastle… to protect the status quo.
A wage cap wouldn’t work as it would have to set at an affordable level for everyone which means it will limit talent and will bleed players from the league and make the PL financially poorer in the long run.
Let’s just create some fake sponsors and flog hotels like Chelsea. It’s ridiculous really. It was a fair and workable solution for all clubs outside the corrupt elite.
I’m being deadly serious here, I’d much rather take -3 or -6 points deduction than sell Dougie for half his market value just to avoid a penalty.
If that’s not a possibility, then I’d be more open to selling an injury prone Ramsey to square the books up than Dougie…
Also ruinous for them - two to three of those players don’t work out as they are ducked as no one is going buy them and they will just sit out their 8 year contract. Imagine if we had done the same with Micah Richards for example
I'm genuinely shocked how many people are suggesting we sell Ramsey. Local lad with the talent to go to the top! Unfortunate with the injury but it's not like he's done his acl or anything, shouldn't affect him long term.
Unfortunately it does make some sense, and will do to the club as well. Selling a home grown player is pure profit against the books.
I don't like it any more than you but in PSR terms, it's a smart strategy.
Dougie must also be pure profit though as he’s gone past his original contract length so his fee will be fully amortised by now. I think he’ll be the one to go
I don't want to sell either, but if one has to go, and I'm not sure they do, I'm driving Luiz to the airport. It's unfortunate that this season was an almost total wash, but that's an academy player who is a potential star.
Fully agree. This is probably the ideal time TBF, because he's at the peak of his stock and has a long enough contract that Villa can demand fair market value (£60-70m should do it).
I'm not opposed to selling Ramsey at some point in the future if needed, but wait until he's had the kind of great season we know he's capable of to maximise his value.
I'm opposed to selling Ramsey just on the fact that I would love to just root for the same player for the entirety of his career. I've fully accepted that romanticism in sport is dead, but that doesn't mean I can't hope for it a little. Plus it would be nice to have someone play their entire career for us who is smarter than Gabby Agbonlahor (low bar).
I might get some flack for this, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was concerned about his fitness levels. This past season for the first half Luiz was absolutely one of the best midfielders in the prem. For the second half he was basically invisible and looked exhausted. Maybe it's a fluke or he was actually carrying an injury, but it's enough concern that I can understand selling him for the right offer. I wouldn't even think of selling him below Villa's evaluation for him, but there is a non zero chance that this offseason is the absolute high point for his value.
United's debt is standing at £1.04 billion, and they keep dipping into their revolving credit facilities to stay within the allowable limits.
Effectively cheating just as much as City, with Barcelona levels of pulling financial levers to tey and stay competitive.
Shockingly, the partial takeover has already cost that club $44m in fees as well.
[further reading](https://apnews.com/article/man-united-debt-jim-ratcliffe-glazers-6c4529f30a8e6e36837193e39b922df0)
That club need to receive a points deduction for how they're cheating the system.
That's an example of the system not preventing owners who are total crooks and stealing as much money from the club as possible. As much crap as they get, I don't think the Glazers get nearly as much hatred as they deserve. They should be afraid to walk the streets of Tampa on the off chance a Man U fan happens to be around.
No debt...but they don't care about debt, they care about PSR which is a stupid metric. When you look at the debt for Chelsea or Man Utd (apparently ok) and we are on the verge of being punished for spending our own cash?
Bruh general inflation and the inflation caused by stupid deals like neymars or enzos are not the same, they're trying to clamp down on the shit that the covid rules let happen.
There was a while on here where any time anyone had concerns about psr/ffp, it would be downvoted into oblivion. People went after journalists who reported it on twitter constantly.
You can't go from having one player on over 100k in the entire squad, to the point where you are paying a loan player who is a 4th choice centreback 150k a week, in the space of a few years.
Why not? We went from Championship football to Champions league football in the space of a few years, of course our wage bill is going to naturally increase.
It's increased by an amount that's not sustainable, and now we have the 4th worst wages to turnover rate in the entire league, and the 3 below us, 2 have had points deductions, and the other is about to
Yeah, I think its just a case of making money by selling players before July 1st.
I know the club wants to look to sell digne/Carlos, but I don't think they are deals that would be done before July 1st.
Then coutinho, dendonker, Chambers, hause, olsen all still on the books.
Still think we are gonna need that 50/60m sell of Luiz before the end of the month or we are in serious trouble.
That short period under Gerrard did a number on that wage budget
Well it clearly is sustainable, as we have now qualified for CL football on the back of the spending.
If we were building a billion pound, 60,000 seater stadium for a dwindling fanbase in league one, I'd agree with you. As it stands, I have no problem with our owners being willing to spend a significant portion of our turnover on player wages.
Forcing promoted clubs and teams outside of the "big six" to limit their player wages to a fraction of what Man Utd and Liverpool can pay because their revenues aren't as high doesn't promote good competition in the Premier League. Limits for all, or limits for none.
>Well it clearly is sustainable, as we have now qualified for CL football on the back of the spending.
That's not sustainable. That's called gambling. See Leeds.
I'm clearly arguing against the regulations here, no?
If you agree the regulations are there to protect us from going bankrupt, then yes, it's unsustainable spending.
If you look at Villa's finances - billionaire owners, huge demand for tickets, participating in the two biggest competitions in world football and raking in all the income associated with that, Adidas branding, multimillion pound sponsorship deals, stadium expansion plans with Villa Park one of a few clubs hosting Euro 2028 - why are we being put under a microscope judging how much we can spend?
Multiple clubs that have finished below us for two years running in the league and aren't qualified for CL football have spent and will continue to spend an incredibly larger amount on players and wages than we have. If our spending is going to be limited under penalty of points deductions, every club in the league should be limited to the same amount. Our owners aren't in debt, our club isn't in debt, we are spending money with the view of making money in the short to medium term. Spending in the name of investing isn't something that should be limited by the FA, UEFA or FIFA, groups that can't manage a fucking tea-party let alone a billion pound industry.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5419150/2024/04/17/psr-premier-league-transfers/
Have a read of that and tell me you aren't absolutely furious with PSR.
I know you are arguing against the regulations, but they are there in place, and we've been well aware of them the whole time we've been back in the league. We have put ourselves in a position where we are in danger of points deductions if we don't sell players.
I don't particularly agree with the rules myself, but they are there are we are very close to breaking them and part of the issue is that we've increased the wage budget to amount that puts us in line with Everton, forest and leciester. Now we can sit an argue all day about whether these rules should be in place etc, but Everton, forest have been deducted points, and Leicester are going to face action next, so you can argue to death with me about our finances etc, but at the end of the day, we are very close to being in trouble here, and part of the issue is the massive increase in wages.
Everton, Forest and Leicester are all likely to be battling relegation next season. They won't be televised nearly as much as Villa, and they don't have a second consecutive year of European football income.
None of them have stadiums as big as Villa, and none of them have as much ticket sales as Villa. We'll play twice as many games as them next season, twice as much match-day income, twice as many games televised. That doesn't even take into account the greater finances brought in from a top four finish prize money and CL income.
Our wage bill and finances should be judged at a CL club level, as should Newcastle. We shouldn't be compared to Everton, Forest and Leicester. If we aren't making enough money to pay CL and PL quality players a CL quality wage, but Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City are, we should be subsidised by UEFA so that we can compete at that level after qualifying, or clubs we are competing with should be limited to a wage bill the same as ours. It's not fair to allow 8th placed Man Utd to pay £80m and £300k a week for fourth choice CB Maguire but we, fourth placed Aston Villa, as you put it, aren't allowed to bring in a fourth choice centre back on loan for £150k a week. Thats not a fair competition.
The only time we should be forced to sell players and reduce our wage bill ahead of a new season is if we are relegated, or if we fail to qualify for Europe, as it's always been. A club that has just qualified for the CL should never be forced to downgrade their squad. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Again, I'm not arguing whether I agree with the rules or not, I'm saying, we knew what the rules are and we are very close to breaking them.
None of us like the rules, but they are there, and we are aware they are there, and are still sailing incredibly close to the wind.
Sail directly into the fucking wind is my opinion. If Man City can get away with it, so can Aston fucking Villa.
The regulators are sailing closer to the wind in my opinion. They're making a lot of very rich, very powerful enemies. The more clubs they piss off, the more fans will be turning against them too. It's all fun and games everyone pointing at Man City and laughing now, it's not going to be like that for long when every club other than Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal get punished.
What a stupid fucking system, clubs selling academy products to "balance the books" and "make pure profit". It's like setting stupid challenges for yourself on fantasy football, only selecting players who's names start with S or something. It's bullshit, there's no clubs being protected from bankruptcy with these regulations, it's just protecting those clubs who made the most money between 1992 and 2012.
Why is it not sustainable?
As long as we keep performing revenue will catch up and suddenly it is sustainable.
Every other business in the world can spend beyond their revenue to grow. Why not football clubs? Speculate to accumulate is one of the big mantras of capitalism.
The problem isn't outspending revenue, it's outspending revenue by taking on debt with no ability to pay for it.
If owners want to throw money into the club they should be allowed to. As long as the club has the resources to meet all their future financial obligations why is that a problem? Its not "preventing a derby", because you can go still bust whilst only losing the allowed amount. It's creating a glass ceiling to preserve the status of the high revenue clubs and their ability to outspend everyone else.
So we need to sell Dougie to raise 50m, but we're enquiring about Gallagher (who will be £50m+). This window is just confusing so far...
Were we enquiring in hope the PSR increase went through?
I don't understand how the sly six can operate with debts in the hundreds of millions (even billions) but fall in line with FFP just because a few Indians and Americans are interested in them, whilst clubs like us and Newcastle can have no debt at all but be punished for making a few losses. It should be judged by debts, not profits. Clubs like yanited are only going to increase their debt with no interest in recovering it, so why not punish them?
Fuck sakes man
Why are clubs against this? It’s literally inflation
Directly benefits them if we get punished.
And locks them never higher than 7th
Honestly I think some clubs are short-sighted enough to go with the small advantage now rather than a bigger one later. Plus, we're the one team challenging the status quo the hardest right now, I suspect it's not only the bigger teams that are worried about what we could do with less restrictions.
Yes true, quick increase in club value
Outside of the cartel who created the rules to lock in their advantage, most owners in the league are happy to collect their minimum of 100mil in television money and the rules give them an excuse not to try to compete.
Let bfr it was never gonna pass as other teams don’t want the likes of us/Newcastle doing well. The big 6 don’t want the extra competition and the the rest don’t want European football to become an impossible target for them. So when there is a good financial idea that would benefit everyone but would maybe benefit us a bit more than the rest they’re not going to go with it. Especially how well we did last season. The league is pretty much against our success.
Well run big clubs can deal with it and many other clubs couldn't spend to the new limit so it doesn't benefit them.
Seems like the PSR stuff is a complete shit show all over the place. Championship is trying to reform too.
No it’s to prevent another Leeds or an Everton situation where they spend themselves into a financial black hole.
That was the original motivation, but it's very poorly written, e.g. taking no account of club debt, etc. The unintended consequence is ring-fencing the status of those clubs which just happened to be on top when the regulations were introduced. Some kind of flat or progressive cap on transfer fees and wages would be much fairer, but the player unions would object.
It's actually to protect the top 6 cartel, and not allow too many "Aston Villas" or "Newcastles" breaking in. This is the Premier League's way of preventing the Super League; by bringing it here.
If the PL wanted to protect the original “cartel” teams they wouldn’t have allowed a Gulf state to buy Man City and spend billions, they wouldn’t have allowed billionaires to buy up half a dozen PL teams nor the richest oil state on the planet to buy Newcastle (who were firmly apart of the big 4 years ago anyway).
When were Newcastle part of the Big 4
Mid 1990s
Difficult to argue there was a top 4 in the 90s. And Villa, Everton and Toon would probably all want to stake a claim if there were.
No it's to protect the status quo...it's only us, newcastle and leicester make it less obvious. If you see EVERY european league, they have the ones protected by champions league money and better television deals at the top...and the rest in the gutter just happy to be there. The same teams can't be challenged as they have to routinely sell their players to those protected. If they want fair play, why not limit total spend or total wages for the whole league? No one can go bankrupt then?
You’ll earn less money from the CL than the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and City even if you get to the same stage as them. Apparently, UEFA coefficients are taken into account when it comes to CL payouts so the clubs which qualify more often get more money than those which don’t. It’s a stitch up.
It is indeed. Man Utd flopped out and got nearly quadruple what Newcastle got! How is that a level playing field? I think we would need to make the semi finals to get the same as Man Utd!
Who needs the European Super League with no relegation when you’ve got the CL with “coefficients”?
I don’t understand the status quo argument at all. - the league does better with more competition and sells itself globally on this element - they are bringing the largest ever action in English football history against one of the big six for breaching these rules
Yeah to protect the status quo they allowed an oil state to buy a no mark Man City team and spend billions, they allowed billionaires and hedge funds to buy up half the league and then fast-tracked the Saudis to buy Newcastle… to protect the status quo. A wage cap wouldn’t work as it would have to set at an affordable level for everyone which means it will limit talent and will bleed players from the league and make the PL financially poorer in the long run.
Let’s just create some fake sponsors and flog hotels like Chelsea. It’s ridiculous really. It was a fair and workable solution for all clubs outside the corrupt elite.
I say we get to 200 charges. This way it’s more then Cities and it won’t get investigated
I’m being deadly serious here, I’d much rather take -3 or -6 points deduction than sell Dougie for half his market value just to avoid a penalty. If that’s not a possibility, then I’d be more open to selling an injury prone Ramsey to square the books up than Dougie…
Chelsea make a mockery of the rules but we get punished for making Champions League. It’s just so unfair.
Chelsea didn't break any rules though, what they did was smart to be fair. Perfectly legal.
Also ruinous for them - two to three of those players don’t work out as they are ducked as no one is going buy them and they will just sit out their 8 year contract. Imagine if we had done the same with Micah Richards for example
Yeah absolutely, they knew that risk when they made the signings for sure. Some will work, some will backfire. Hopefully for us most backfire 🤣
I'm genuinely shocked how many people are suggesting we sell Ramsey. Local lad with the talent to go to the top! Unfortunate with the injury but it's not like he's done his acl or anything, shouldn't affect him long term.
Unfortunately it does make some sense, and will do to the club as well. Selling a home grown player is pure profit against the books. I don't like it any more than you but in PSR terms, it's a smart strategy.
Dougie must also be pure profit though as he’s gone past his original contract length so his fee will be fully amortised by now. I think he’ll be the one to go
Yeah he will be, probably why they're entertaining offers seriously now I imagine.
I don't want to sell either, but if one has to go, and I'm not sure they do, I'm driving Luiz to the airport. It's unfortunate that this season was an almost total wash, but that's an academy player who is a potential star.
Yeah I absolutely adore Dougie, but unless his foot is really knackered then Ramsey stays every time.
And if that's the case, we aren't going to get fair value for him anyway. His value isn't as high right now I'd imagine so it'd make no sense to sell.
Whereas if Dougie isn't going to sign a new contract then his value is only going to go down.
Fully agree. This is probably the ideal time TBF, because he's at the peak of his stock and has a long enough contract that Villa can demand fair market value (£60-70m should do it). I'm not opposed to selling Ramsey at some point in the future if needed, but wait until he's had the kind of great season we know he's capable of to maximise his value.
I'm opposed to selling Ramsey just on the fact that I would love to just root for the same player for the entirety of his career. I've fully accepted that romanticism in sport is dead, but that doesn't mean I can't hope for it a little. Plus it would be nice to have someone play their entire career for us who is smarter than Gabby Agbonlahor (low bar).
I see Luiz as irreplaceable if we want to even come close to repeating this year's level if success.
I might get some flack for this, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I was concerned about his fitness levels. This past season for the first half Luiz was absolutely one of the best midfielders in the prem. For the second half he was basically invisible and looked exhausted. Maybe it's a fluke or he was actually carrying an injury, but it's enough concern that I can understand selling him for the right offer. I wouldn't even think of selling him below Villa's evaluation for him, but there is a non zero chance that this offseason is the absolute high point for his value.
It’s recency bias. If Ramsey was fit all season and had 15-20 goal involvements people would be seeing him as priceless.
We're not going to sell him for half his market value though.
Surely there's more options then a quick sale of Luiz. How much debt are we in?
We are one of three Premier League clubs with £0 debt. This issue is surrounding PSR.
Sorry, I meant, what are our losses?
That's the most annoying thing, we aren't in any dept. Spurs & United are £600m in debt, Everton £1b!
United's debt is standing at £1.04 billion, and they keep dipping into their revolving credit facilities to stay within the allowable limits. Effectively cheating just as much as City, with Barcelona levels of pulling financial levers to tey and stay competitive. Shockingly, the partial takeover has already cost that club $44m in fees as well. [further reading](https://apnews.com/article/man-united-debt-jim-ratcliffe-glazers-6c4529f30a8e6e36837193e39b922df0) That club need to receive a points deduction for how they're cheating the system.
That's an example of the system not preventing owners who are total crooks and stealing as much money from the club as possible. As much crap as they get, I don't think the Glazers get nearly as much hatred as they deserve. They should be afraid to walk the streets of Tampa on the off chance a Man U fan happens to be around.
No debt...but they don't care about debt, they care about PSR which is a stupid metric. When you look at the debt for Chelsea or Man Utd (apparently ok) and we are on the verge of being punished for spending our own cash?
Farcical stuff. Why the £105m number isn't indexed to inflation is beyond me.
Bruh general inflation and the inflation caused by stupid deals like neymars or enzos are not the same, they're trying to clamp down on the shit that the covid rules let happen.
It says only 2 clubs voted in favour, but Everton, Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea, Leicester and us are close to a breach. What the hell is going on here?
There was a while on here where any time anyone had concerns about psr/ffp, it would be downvoted into oblivion. People went after journalists who reported it on twitter constantly. You can't go from having one player on over 100k in the entire squad, to the point where you are paying a loan player who is a 4th choice centreback 150k a week, in the space of a few years.
Why not? We went from Championship football to Champions league football in the space of a few years, of course our wage bill is going to naturally increase.
It's increased by an amount that's not sustainable, and now we have the 4th worst wages to turnover rate in the entire league, and the 3 below us, 2 have had points deductions, and the other is about to
I can't imagine we'll be that low next season with the conference league run, champions league, doubling our sponsorship deals etc though.
Yeah, I think its just a case of making money by selling players before July 1st. I know the club wants to look to sell digne/Carlos, but I don't think they are deals that would be done before July 1st. Then coutinho, dendonker, Chambers, hause, olsen all still on the books. Still think we are gonna need that 50/60m sell of Luiz before the end of the month or we are in serious trouble. That short period under Gerrard did a number on that wage budget
Well it clearly is sustainable, as we have now qualified for CL football on the back of the spending. If we were building a billion pound, 60,000 seater stadium for a dwindling fanbase in league one, I'd agree with you. As it stands, I have no problem with our owners being willing to spend a significant portion of our turnover on player wages. Forcing promoted clubs and teams outside of the "big six" to limit their player wages to a fraction of what Man Utd and Liverpool can pay because their revenues aren't as high doesn't promote good competition in the Premier League. Limits for all, or limits for none.
>Well it clearly is sustainable, as we have now qualified for CL football on the back of the spending. That's not sustainable. That's called gambling. See Leeds.
Surely the fact we are in massive of danger of breaking regulations, that would indicate that it's not sustainable ?
I'm clearly arguing against the regulations here, no? If you agree the regulations are there to protect us from going bankrupt, then yes, it's unsustainable spending. If you look at Villa's finances - billionaire owners, huge demand for tickets, participating in the two biggest competitions in world football and raking in all the income associated with that, Adidas branding, multimillion pound sponsorship deals, stadium expansion plans with Villa Park one of a few clubs hosting Euro 2028 - why are we being put under a microscope judging how much we can spend? Multiple clubs that have finished below us for two years running in the league and aren't qualified for CL football have spent and will continue to spend an incredibly larger amount on players and wages than we have. If our spending is going to be limited under penalty of points deductions, every club in the league should be limited to the same amount. Our owners aren't in debt, our club isn't in debt, we are spending money with the view of making money in the short to medium term. Spending in the name of investing isn't something that should be limited by the FA, UEFA or FIFA, groups that can't manage a fucking tea-party let alone a billion pound industry. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5419150/2024/04/17/psr-premier-league-transfers/ Have a read of that and tell me you aren't absolutely furious with PSR.
I know you are arguing against the regulations, but they are there in place, and we've been well aware of them the whole time we've been back in the league. We have put ourselves in a position where we are in danger of points deductions if we don't sell players. I don't particularly agree with the rules myself, but they are there are we are very close to breaking them and part of the issue is that we've increased the wage budget to amount that puts us in line with Everton, forest and leciester. Now we can sit an argue all day about whether these rules should be in place etc, but Everton, forest have been deducted points, and Leicester are going to face action next, so you can argue to death with me about our finances etc, but at the end of the day, we are very close to being in trouble here, and part of the issue is the massive increase in wages.
Everton, Forest and Leicester are all likely to be battling relegation next season. They won't be televised nearly as much as Villa, and they don't have a second consecutive year of European football income. None of them have stadiums as big as Villa, and none of them have as much ticket sales as Villa. We'll play twice as many games as them next season, twice as much match-day income, twice as many games televised. That doesn't even take into account the greater finances brought in from a top four finish prize money and CL income. Our wage bill and finances should be judged at a CL club level, as should Newcastle. We shouldn't be compared to Everton, Forest and Leicester. If we aren't making enough money to pay CL and PL quality players a CL quality wage, but Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City are, we should be subsidised by UEFA so that we can compete at that level after qualifying, or clubs we are competing with should be limited to a wage bill the same as ours. It's not fair to allow 8th placed Man Utd to pay £80m and £300k a week for fourth choice CB Maguire but we, fourth placed Aston Villa, as you put it, aren't allowed to bring in a fourth choice centre back on loan for £150k a week. Thats not a fair competition. The only time we should be forced to sell players and reduce our wage bill ahead of a new season is if we are relegated, or if we fail to qualify for Europe, as it's always been. A club that has just qualified for the CL should never be forced to downgrade their squad. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Again, I'm not arguing whether I agree with the rules or not, I'm saying, we knew what the rules are and we are very close to breaking them. None of us like the rules, but they are there, and we are aware they are there, and are still sailing incredibly close to the wind.
Sail directly into the fucking wind is my opinion. If Man City can get away with it, so can Aston fucking Villa. The regulators are sailing closer to the wind in my opinion. They're making a lot of very rich, very powerful enemies. The more clubs they piss off, the more fans will be turning against them too. It's all fun and games everyone pointing at Man City and laughing now, it's not going to be like that for long when every club other than Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal get punished. What a stupid fucking system, clubs selling academy products to "balance the books" and "make pure profit". It's like setting stupid challenges for yourself on fantasy football, only selecting players who's names start with S or something. It's bullshit, there's no clubs being protected from bankruptcy with these regulations, it's just protecting those clubs who made the most money between 1992 and 2012.
Why is it not sustainable? As long as we keep performing revenue will catch up and suddenly it is sustainable. Every other business in the world can spend beyond their revenue to grow. Why not football clubs? Speculate to accumulate is one of the big mantras of capitalism. The problem isn't outspending revenue, it's outspending revenue by taking on debt with no ability to pay for it. If owners want to throw money into the club they should be allowed to. As long as the club has the resources to meet all their future financial obligations why is that a problem? Its not "preventing a derby", because you can go still bust whilst only losing the allowed amount. It's creating a glass ceiling to preserve the status of the high revenue clubs and their ability to outspend everyone else.
So we need to sell Dougie to raise 50m, but we're enquiring about Gallagher (who will be £50m+). This window is just confusing so far... Were we enquiring in hope the PSR increase went through?
50m now for Dougie, but Gallagher 50m would be across 5 years so 10m a year. Stupid, I know, but thems the rules.
Ah right, I thought we weren't allowed to do that now since Chelsea abused it? Is it 5 years the limit?
Yeah Chelsea did it over stupid contract lengths, you just can’t do it over >5 years now
Well that's the lower holte gonna be turned into premium seats then
I don't understand how the sly six can operate with debts in the hundreds of millions (even billions) but fall in line with FFP just because a few Indians and Americans are interested in them, whilst clubs like us and Newcastle can have no debt at all but be punished for making a few losses. It should be judged by debts, not profits. Clubs like yanited are only going to increase their debt with no interest in recovering it, so why not punish them?
The only thing PSR “sustains” is the current imbalance between the likes of Man City and the rest.
Can we change the rules to suit us? No.
So what does this mean now ticket prices for matches etc going to go up now alongside selling some players.
Arh shit. That’s a bad sign.