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FFP and all that.


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Freinds of mine sent me this article as a text. So apologies if I haven't managed to transfer it properly onto here. 

Not sure who it's by. But considering that FFP  is something that is likely to impact Jos' thinking this summer I wondered what you chaps make of this. The writer seems to think Villa are being hard done to....

 

 

Powered by spite, vultures are tearing at Aston Villa's carcass after relegation in 2016 destroyed their finances

 

 

Aston Villa did not end up in the Championship because they were getting it right. The same as any Premier League team, really. Poor recruitment, poor managerial choices, poor executive decisions; there are many reasons for relegation and few signpost administrative excellence.

 

Incompetence: that is the common denominator. That is why fortunes are often spent and wasted scrambling to survive. Queens Park Rangers had one final, costly splurge before disappearing below the surface. Sunderland bought 80 players during Ellis Short's time as chairman and could sell only six of them for a profit.

 

Aston Villa are no different. In the season they went down, they sold Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph for good money — which might explain it — but frittered away those proceeds on players who disappointed or were powerless to arrest the decline.

 

 

Jordan Amavi, Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Ayew, Rudy Gestede, Jordan Veretout and Adama Traore cost a combined total of £47.5million. Not one was sold on beneficially after relegation.

That is what demotion does. It makes a player damaged goods and ruins his asking price.

 

The seller begins with grandiose claims — Stoke want £30m for goalkeeper Jack Butland, it is reported — but then reality sets in and they take what the market dictates.

Relegation in 2016 destroyed Villa's finances. Their most recently reported figures confirm that. A loss of £29.6m was posted in the relegation season.

Then turnover dropped by £35.6m in 2016-17 as all commercial revenues fell, including £2.9m in gate receipts, £17m in broadcast rights, £9.1m in sponsorship and £6.4m in merchandise, royalties and corporate entertainment. Villa shed 122 full-time staff and 539 personnel in total.

 

Despite the acquisition of a stellar name in John Terry, the last two Championship years have been austere. Finishing 13th in the first season inspired the determination to recruit a player of Terry's stature and experience but, in reality, times are hard. Steve Bruce, the manager, spent only £2.5m last summer, while raising £18m in player sales.

Villa missed out on promotion to the Premier League in the play-off final against Fulham and now the vultures are descending. For there is nothing the Football League enjoys more than tearing through the carcass of a Premier League club that has stuffed up.

 

Villa still have an estimated £40m hole in their finances, left over from trying to compete in an elite division, and the Football League will not rest until it is plugged.

 

If Villa have to give up everything that is good about the club, if they have to surrender players, prospects and facilities, if they have to embrace the mediocre, join a race to the bottom, that is fine. The Football League are only too willing to embrace mundanity. It's ambition that terrifies them.

Item number one: Jack Grealish. A tiny flicker of hope for Villa fans these last two seasons that they might have a young player at last emerging as a significant performer. Grealish has had his disciplinary issues but this season, in particular, he appears to have grown up and grown comfortable with his ability, accepting responsibility as a key member of the team.

 

 

He is a Villa supporter, Solihull-born, and has been around the club since he was six. At the age of 16 he was named on the bench for a Premier League match against Chelsea and now he has made more than 100 appearances.

 

There hasn't been much for Villa fans to get excited about of late, but Grealish is the best of it. Naturally, he has to be sold.

So, what is the purpose of that? What is the purpose of a rulebook that punishes a club for its past mistakes, that strips away the best of it, the promise of it just at the time when it could most do with support?

There is even talk of Villa having to sell their Recon Training Complex, formerly known as Bodymoor Heath, one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the Championship. This is where the next generation of Villa stars learn their trade.

 

The League are not making Villa economically viable. They are forcing them to cash in on their only assets. If Villa were becoming streamlined by shedding waste, that would be different but this is a yard sale of the family silver.

How does it benefit Villa to lose Grealish and the facility that helped produce him. How is that beneficial or healthy?

From the going to the already gone: Terry, the man Grealish credits with encouraging his new professionalism and a player Bruce says has been inspirational in his influence, was not even offered a new contract. Villa cannot afford a second season of that positivity, so he has already said farewell.

 

 

Other loan players, such as Robert Snodgrass, a Scotland international, are expected to follow.

Quality is in short supply where Villa are heading. James Chester is another likely to be sold. Villa took him from West Brom in 2016 for around £8m and would have expected to turn a profit, but can they now, in the circumstances?

 

As this is a very public fire sale, clubs will try to force the price down — particularly with the transfer window closing earlier than ever, another bright idea. Take it or leave it will be the option in the knowledge that leaving could result in drastic FFP fines, and further ruination.

 

The old cliche is that Financial Fair Play prevents another crash like the ones at Portsmouth or Leeds, but Villa were not about to go skint. Owner Tony Xia has not been able to turn them back into a Premier League club but the sustainable future that he spoke of this week did not have to be reached in a state of panic.

 

Villa have suffered losses and setbacks, but the signs are Xia was beginning to bring that under control. To then have to lose his best players, maybe a good manager and a prime club facility to avoid further unjust financial punishment is a savage penalty in itself.

 

As ever, FFP causes measures to be undertaken in a mood of haste or anxiety. Wolves bet the farm on winning promotion this season, knowing if they failed the Football League would be after them. Villa fell short, so now it is their turn.

 

Far from achieving financial security, does anyone seriously believe Villa will be better off for losing their best players, including one — Grealish — who is the greatest beacon of hope?

 

In its current form, the Football League's financial rules are not fair but spiteful and potentially devastating.

 

Just by being within the grasp of the League's executives, haven't Villa been punished enough?



 

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I’ve no sympathy for Villa but it’s true the system is broken. If a club can adequately prove its ability to meet certain financial abligations they should be allowed to spend. Clubs spending money they didn’t have was the issue back in the day.

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Just now, Morepork said:

I’ve no sympathy for Villa but it’s true the system is broken. If a club can adequately prove its ability to meet certain financial abligations they should be allowed to spend. Clubs spending money they didn’t have was the issue back in the day.

1

This is true. 

 

The likes of us, Villa etc - who do have the capital to invest - are unable to do so. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, SiJ said:

That's all very well...

 

But aren't these rules voted for by the clubs? 

 

Turkeys voting for Xmas springs to mind. 

 

I haven't a clue. Possibly? Are these things voted on by clubs or just imposed by governing bodies? I haven't been paying enough attention.

 I suspect @scram will be someone who knows. 

 

The line about the football league just being spiteful though...

Like Villa are somehow victims of their own mismanagement. 

Their fans might be victims. But the people who run the club are complicit in their demise in my book.

 

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The moral of the story is Villa gambled with their own future, knowing full well that failure to get promoted would potentially see financial ruin. 

 

It is hard to have too much sympathy, irrespective of how draconian the FFP rules seem. 

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Just now, SiJ said:

This is true. 

 

The likes of us, Villa etc - who do have the capital to invest - are unable to do so. 

 

 

 

Exactly, we are in the same situation as Villa albeit for lesser amounts. The system forces clubs to weaken themselves on the playing side as a defence against a financial risk that does not exist. It’s counterintuitive and flawed.

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* My views may be slightly affected on account I hate Snodgrass. 

 

** My views maybe also slightly affected  on account I hate Terry.

 

*** I also like to see Prem teams that come down struggle.  It's really not becoming of me I know, and is silly, petty  amd bitter take on things.  But ...well.....I'm a bit like that. 

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I’d also add that the very fact that the parachute payments need to exist is evidence that the system is broken.

 

The revenue gap between prem and champ is disproportionate to the expenditure required. Any fan/layperson can see this. 

 

Until football in this counrty acknowledges that all leagues are important to the future of the game the injustice will continue and the power will remain with the big clubs. Don’t get me started on big clubs stealing and hoarding youngsters.....it’s all part of the same underlying issue.

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I’d also like to see clubs in the Championship have the ability to mitigate expense against appearances for players bought through their own youth system as part of the FFP equation. 

Edited by Morepork
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If a vote by all championship clubs could happen now with regards to scrapping FFP completely, how many do we think would vote to get rid of it now?

 

My guess would be the vast majority. 

 

FFP was brought in at a time where clubs were going into administration left right and centre, since then the tv rights for the premier league have gone up to astronomical levels, attracting some of the world's wealthiest people to buying into championship clubs in an attempt to join the party. 

 

Very wealthy owners in the championship now want to invest their money, they are happy to see it as an investment/risk to themselves, not a loan that could harm the club they own, as long as they can guarantee to the football league the club's future is not at risk, and any losses a club post each year is covered by said owner, then what's the point of FFP in the current climate? 

Edited by RichieB
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This sounds like rubbish. They wont be selling their training ground. But to stay within FFP on Championship income they wont be able to employ the likes of

John Terry. If they don't reduce the wage bill quickly enough they'll suffer a temporary embargo. What their fans can't come to terms with is that they're a

Championship club now, like the rest of us. 

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With parachute payments they should some how only be given to clubs to cover their excess wage bills from the premier league. To stop them from financial ruin. Not to do what villa did and say thank you very much now we can spend 86 million pound on players.

Makes a total mockery of it. 

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I am enjoying the schadenfreude. 

 

I used to like villa but these last few seasons put me off em and I'm happy to watch them struggle.

 

They can moan when they have had twenty years in the wilderness like us. 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, OxonOwl said:

My heart bleeds, not, for effing Villa. Poor little ex-prem club. 

 

Come back when you've been in the wilderness for 18 years. 

 

FFS 

My thoughts exactly.   They are blaming the football league for their continued downfall, that is how i read it!  They expect preferential treatment, well they are getting parachute payments, that isnt mentioned at all.

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7 hours ago, SiJ said:

This is true. 

 

The likes of us, Villa etc - who do have the capital to invest - are unable to do so. 

 

 

Didn't stop Wolves, nor Bournemouth.

 

It's about investing well and Rhodes , Hogan , etc, were ego - driven  bad buys.

 

As Collymore said about Villa, an orgy of spending naivety and Chansiri also got badly mugged by agents and their clients.

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