Animis

Player salary caps for the EFL would be start, with an agreement for PL player contracts and therefore, salaries only to be valid whilst the club is in the PL. Once relegated a variation clause steps in that reverts the salary to the championship cap. I appreciate this is easier said than done, and the PL clubs would argue the contract length/salary is a required incentive to get the player in the first place. However, it currently allows the PL to simply wash it hands of damaging the championship by throwing parachute payment at relegated clubs. The EFL are currently ignoring the problem even exists and simply falling back on their own P&S cap, which seemingly doesn't recognize relegated PL club's wealth.

Not for me - read his book to see what he thought of SWFC.

It's all down to players wages, and agents who solicit players around europe and beyond, who inevitably get drawn to the EPL like moths, due to the sky money that perpetuates the ridiculous salaries in the first place. The top half; fairly big championship clubs are caught in a dooms-day cycle of trying to compete for even average PL cast offs, at £40k/week to reach the promised land. You only need half dozen or so of these in your squad and the 3-year P&S cap is quickly blown apart. If you step back and look at football finance in this country rationally, you'd say it's a nonsense. It's clearly unsustainable for the clubs in the championship who get caught out, and the EFL have recognized this. However, as has been said, they can't do this in isolation of the EPL, which is precisely why they both need to come up with a plan, which includes parachutes payments, which distorts the level playing field, which the EFL are seemingly powerless to stop. In the end, the only (main) reason why wealthy foreign people buy provincial championship clubs is to get into the PL. Once there, they can either sell for a profit, if the stay in the championship hasn't drained their wealth due to the debt, or cream off the PL (sky) revenue profit annual and use the ownership as a prestige badge.

On the main thread question of impact on players, it will only be a problem if we are looking to offer new contracts to those out of contract in June. I imagine the club have already got a 'retained' list and have commenced contract extension discussions. Should we get any penalties that impact the decision of either party between now and January and they don't sign, we may end up having to sell them in the window, or risk them walking away for nowt in June. It's bad timing, and hopefully will be resolved quickly but somehow I can't see that, based on no precedent for the charges. One thing that isn't clear is should we be found guilty, and we loose the ability to show the ground sale in 2017/18; we would immediately breach P&S, and face an automatic 9-point penalty. Would we also get a further points deduction for the attempted ground sale transaction, and if so what would the these be and would they be added at this point or could we defer them to say next season?

There's a couple of worked examples of football stadium DRC valuations on the RICS web site - the interesting thing in these below is the application of seat value @ £2,500 - doesn't say what this represents. If you apply the same formula, but change the seater stadium to say 40,000 as we are technically at present, you start with a figure of £100,000 for buildings before discounting. I suppose the age and condition of Hillsborough meant a bigger depreciated % to get to the £60m figure in the accounts. In the end, from the below, it's not the valuation figure that's our problem. Football stadium: purpose-built The property The property is a 5-year-old, purpose-built football stadium with 30,000 seats. The approach As the valuation is for the football club's financial statements, and the property is a type that is rarely traded and is specialised, the valuer has adopted a depreciated replacement cost approach. The land has been valued based on the highest employment land values in the town, on the basis that if the stadium had to be reprovided, the football club would secure a new site in a highly accessible location. The valuer has assessed the cost of reproviding a new 30,000-seater stadium and has depreciated this cost by 10% to reflect the physical decline of the stadium being valued, and that new stadia would have better designed circulation space. Football stadium: purpose-built BUILDINGS Modern equivalent stadium 30,000 seater @ £2,500 per seat £75,000,000 Plus Fees @ 10% £7,500,000 Finance @ 7% for half build period of 2 yrs £5,775,000 Gross replacement cost £88,275,000 Depreciated by 10% £8,827,500 Net replacement cost £79,447,500 LAND 25 acre site @ £300,000 per acre £7,500,000 Finance of land @ 7% for 2 yrs £1,086,750 Cost of land £8,586,750 Total depreciated replacement cost £88,034,250 Say £88,000,000 Football stadium: over-specified The property The property is a 20-year-old purpose-built football stadium with 30,000 seats. The football club has been relegated and they never managed to more than half-fill the stadium. The approach The valuer has reflected that the actual building is over-specified for the club. If the club were to replace the stadium, they would only build one that was half the size and on a much smaller site. So the valuer has assumed that the MEA is much smaller than the actual building, and has applied a 50% obsolescence factor. While the building is the same size as the one in the previous example, the value is significantly lower. Football stadium: over-specified BUILDINGS Modern equivalent stadium 15,000 seater @ £2,500 per seat £37,500,000 Plus Fees @ 10% £3,750,000 Finance @ 7% for half build period of 2 yrs £2,887,500 Gross replacement cost £44,137,500 Depreciated by 50% £22,068,750 Net replacement cost £22,068,750 LAND 10 acre site @ £300,000 per acre £3,000,000 Finance of land @ 7% for 2 yrs £434,700 Cost of land £3,434,700 Total depreciated replacement cost £25,503,450 Say £25,500,000

I think it's partly down to DC's loyalty moral compass. He appears to be intensely loyal to who he does business with. It's refreshingly honest on one hand, but in this cut-throat world of business, perhaps widely misguided.

Possibly - although things have changed since 2004/05 & 2011/2102. Attendances whilst fairly stable over the last 10 years are now dropping, and this counting all ticket sales is distorting the actually attendance. Arsenal and other PL teams see this, and the Stoke game I mentioned above, whilst disclosing 22k attendance had thousands of empty seats in the home areas. The caretaker manager said after the game, '"To see an empty ground at the end like we did, that's not what this club's is about. It was hard to watch, I can understand the fans walking out. It's heartbreaking." There were a literally a few thousand at the end. Once fans find something else to do they quickly move on. We shouldn't just think fans will come irrespective of events. I've said before, that I've noticed that the average age at home games is increasing - is this just disposal income taking effect, and some middle age affluent season ticket fans can choose when they turn up

Totally understand your points. I was excited in the initial 2015-2016 acquisitions as finally we were investing to compete rather than 'making up the numbers'. The 2016-2017 acquisitions onwards, were very poor and in some cases (Erby) very dubious. These acquisitions have ultimately lead us to this moment of serious P&S breaches. I think DC has a tremendous attribute of loyalty in people he works with; be they players, managers, or advisors. I'm not sure this has served him well however. It may take DC a few years to be accustomed to the anglo-saxon culture and be more ruthless. One thing I think he needs to improve on is being quicker to act and being more decisive. I agree with your point of bringing in advisors of proven quality, and yes perhaps Wilko could have advised him better than some of the other so called advisors.

I think that's the key isn't it. At present, we seem to not know how this will unravel. The EFL don't even have a precedent for the charges, if proven. This could drag on and clearly once this weekend ends, other news will take the place and we'll be preparing for the next game. However, this matter will be hovering above us until the EFL conclude the outcome. SWFC will no doubt put up a robust defence, and whilst I will still want to know why we ended up in this position, I will be hoping our defence will prove successful and we end up with just a financial penalty. It's damage limitation now for me.

I spoke to my dad yesterday, and he asked me is this serious. I said I wasn't sure but worried that the EFL would make an example and statement. We reminisced and he, as always, looked at the worst side, and said, 'they'll be playing in front of 8,000 again in't third division like when I started taking you'. I laughed this off, but did think afterwards that we really need to think about where this is all going. I watched Stoke on Sky the other night and their stadium was practically empty save for the sold out section of West Brom fans. We can not assume we've got some blind-loyal fans that will just rock up irrespective of events. 1975/76 proved to me that things can unravel very quickly.

I understand your frustration, but we, as fans must surely be allowed to challenge and ask questions. It's not disloyal, providing it's based on fact as the events show. In this case, we are currently charged by the EFL for misconduct. It's serious, and irrespective of the outcome I would like to investigation and debate how we got here without being accused of kicking the club.

I genuinely want the best for the club - I've been a supporter since 75 and seen many ups and downs. You need to differentiate questioning the club and even players abilities, to 'kicking' them. If it wasn't for the fans' questioning, we might still have Jos in charge.

When you look at this rationally and objectively it doesn't paint us, Reading or Derby in a great light. To compound the distasteful element of 'selling' our ground to ourselves to keep us afloat and hovering above financial penalties, we seemingly don't even file the accounts correctly. This is the key issue of the EFL, not the ground sale per se. Of course this needs to be proven, but the charges remain. I would like to think we could all discuss the intricacies of this matter, which is related to the wider financial management of the club rather than throwing (increasingly) random abuse at fellow posters.

That's a good point, as McCabe, as a property developer/investor, would know the market and process inside out. He very visibly separated the loss-making football club from the ground/assets, and loaded more debt onto the football club by charging a lease on the ground he retained ownership of. Not sure if this has now backfired or what the ownership structure is currently.