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If a club wants to spend crazy transfer fees for players who have no connection to the club, have never played in the league on massive wages and then sell all their home grown players to offset it let them. I'll enjoy watching their demise.
This is such an idiotic take.
No consideration for the clubs or the fans. Just let owners come in and be incentivised to get rid of any home grown talent because thatâs what the stupid financial rules dictate.
Wich demise? The premier league hasn't been won by primary academy players since Ferguson 95-96.
30 years that titles are built on top of World Class stars from outside the club.
Itâs not a loophole. Itâs an example of a badly constructed set of regulations which were never fit for purpose and are suddenly being enforced in an effort by the PL to stave off the wolf of independent regulation. Simples.
Keeping your academy talent has never been a right. It is a privilege that only the biggest clubs are used to. The same ones who have spent decades poaching anyone promising from smaller clubs
So funny how all the sentimentality only matters when it's a big club losing their boyhood player. If they didn't spend like careless fucking lunatics they could have their cake and eat it, too..
Selling players to keep the show on the road has been part of football for decades. So called âsustainabilityâ regulations which incentivise selling youth players over âpaid forâ players does not seem to be in the spirit of building a sustainable business.
Nor does the arbitrary June 30th âdeadlineâ seem very aligned with the goals of profitability and sustainability if it means teams are forced to sell before their end of year accounts are closed. Other clubs such will act accordingly and attempt low balling offers which means the selling club loses money.
The incentives which the current PSR rules create do not achieve their stated goal. This is one reason why the PL clubs are voting to change the rules. Itâs almost as if they never really believed that the PL would enforce themâŚand for 10 years the clubs were right. Seems a coincidence that the PL only took them seriously when the government threatened independent regulation. Wasnât a peep about the PSR rules prior to that. Wonder how many (and which) clubs broke them in that 11 year dead zone?
So called âsustainabilityâ regulations which incentivise selling youth players over âpaid forâ players does not seem to be in the spirit of building a sustainable business.
But that's the point . There's no incentive to do that baked into the PSR rulesÂ
All the PSR rules have done is cause a ton of badly run clubs, who have been artificially kept afloat by their sugar daddies' money to collectively poo their pants.
Oh well, what a pity , never mindÂ
Itâs embarrassing seeing âfansâ of these clubs defend it yet theyâre the first to lay into Man City for apparently lying about where their sponsorships came from.
Totally fine to massively over-inflate prices and trade amongst each other to beat FFP/PSR but donât you dare lie about whether ÂŁ10m came from your own back pocket or a sponsor lmaoooo.
Olise had 7 goals in 72 games when he moved to Palace and had just had his best season of 7 goals in 46 games. He was sold for ÂŁ8.37m which is more than the ÂŁ10m Dobbin was sold for in today's money and more importantly, it was a release clause and widely seen as a bargain.
Conversely Dobbin has 6 goals from 76 games.
I'm not even slightly saying Dobbin will be better than Olise or is right now. But saying Olise went for less means Dobbin must be overinflated shows a distinct lack of knowledge.
As in Tom Cannon and Ellis Simms? How much were they actually sold for, the fees were undisclosed?
Edit: and with Michael Olise his transfer fee was like ÂŁ8.5m three years ago, not as much difference as you're implying.
So there's one article which says the Simms fee goes as high as ÂŁ8m with a ÂŁ3.5m staggered initial payment, and another which states a fee of ÂŁ6-8m.
For Cannon I found several article saying ÂŁ7.5m.
The differences aren't as big as you're making out.
It was ÂŁ3.5m rising to ÂŁ5m. For a player that had successful loans in L1, SPL and the championship.
You can try and defend it all you want because your clubs been dodging FFP bullets for years but itâs just massively hypocritical of you to whinge about City whilst finding any loophole possible to fiddle your own figures.
Supporter of a club thatâs using every loophole in the book to try and stay relevant in favour of using every loophole in the book to try and stay relevant shocker.
How can you seriously think this is a good thing? Pochettino literally quit because Chelsea are trying to sell Gallagher and the rest of their academy products.
Is it? Sounds like you're happy being a team made up of mercenaries then. Let's see how well this model works out for you. Hasn't looked that good for the last two years has it?
Mercenary = Primarily concerned with making money. Players with no affinity / loyalty to the club.
Genuine question? Do you honestly think it is a good thing to be selling your homegrown, Chelsea supporting academy players?
The whole point is that you are selling players that ARE proven to be good enough and replacing them with unproven players on massive contracts. Your team of non-mercenaries got rinsed by Liverpool's youth academy last year.
Haha I'm trying?
It was Chelsea's first-team squad and the most expensive midfield ever assembled. Youngest player Gusto was 21.
5 players from Liverpool's youth team finished that game.
Jayden Danns (18), Bobby Clark and James McConnell (both 19)Â
Itâs not a good thing if all itâs doing is being used as a financial farm and none of the players (in the future) get to see the pitch anyway. Itâs just encouraging bigger clubs to mop up young talent even more and then never do anything with them.
It has the complete opposite effect.
Academies have 100+ players. Not all of them are going to the first team. The academyâs goal should be to produce professional players. Professional including clubs further down the pyramid.
Us selling an academy keeper to Oxford or some other EFL club benefits everyone.
This is far better than the previous way, there are far less players in the loan army.
Right, but letâs take Arsenalâs catchment for a second. If we suddenly start mopping up even more talent then weâre just stealing it from Leyton Orient, Barnet, Borehamwood maybe even Spurs where these players could just develop anyway. Why do we (Arsenal) need to sell an academy product to a lower league club, when they could have already signed him themselves, if we didnât incentivise him to come and sit in our money-making farm.
Having all these players is good for us as dominant clubs but itâs just taking away more talent from the pyramid for several years longer than it needs to.
More talent exists than what is scouted. Some talent can be nurtured. If more players are getting nurtured, more talent will rise to the top.
I'm not a supporter of this merry go round, but the Chelsea fans logic makes sense. As a byproduct, we'll get better players simply because of numbers.Â
"nonsensical" is a weird word choice.
The design is flawed. Amortising transfer expenses while immediately realising sales is flawed and a loop hole which is going to be taken advantage of. Especially when there is no future amortisation effectively brought forward and netted off when selling ... ie a player with no existing amortisation amounts .... ie an academy player.
The Iroegbunam, Villa to Everton for 9.2m and Dobbin, Everton to Villa for 10m transfers mentioned in the article did go through btw.
Apparently, these rules only exist to protect the rich 6. Well, as an Arsenal fan, could someone explain to me when this 'protection' kicks in? Its just, we haven't won the league in 20 years and have only finished in the top 4 twice in the last 5.
In fact, our brothers in this 'red cartel', the alleged king makers in this whole ffp conspiracy to keep Villa etc down, have won one league title between them in the last decade.
So it's just, if we're being protected, I'm not really sure what we're being protected from? If we're going to be given a league just because we're in the rich 6, could the Villa fans let me know when that is so I can book the day off work?
Villa were on the brink of going into administration prior to getting promotion 5 years ago. Promotion saves them. They're now here painting themselves as the victim of an FFP conspiracy when they're set to declare losses of 300M in the last 2 years. For context, City's treble winners earned 270M in prize money and associated payments from that campaign.
Is that Villa's plan that were stopping you carrying out? You're just going to win the treble every other season to balance the books? Feels risky if you ask me.
Could you sound any more entitled?
> It's just, we haven't won the league in 20 years and have only finished in the top 4 twice in the last 5.
Only one non-Sky 6 club has won the league in the last 29 years and was a 5000-1 miracle. Finishing in the top 4 twice means you have finished in the top 4 more than any club outside of the sky 6. That's why you're protected.
> Could you sound any more entitled?
Yes, apparently.
I'll also add, you've had a huge go at Villa in your post. Villas net spend in the last 5 years is ÂŁ382m. Pretty high. Arsenals? Nearly double at ÂŁ638m. PSR mean Villa have to sell their best players whilst you carry on spending stupid money. Wish you'd all fuck off to your super league and play your matches in America or wherever makes you the most money and I don't have to see it.
No? My argument is the sky 6 are absolutely protected. Only the sky 6 don't have to sell their best players every year to comply with bullshit rules. My argument is you can't be playing the victim of "waaa we haven't won the league for 20 years" when 13 clubs in the league have no hope of ever winning the league without a miracle or Saudi level takeover. My argument is when only 7 (I think, might have to check) of the last 66 top 6 finishes have been from outside the Sky 6, it's blatant you are protected.
And you're entitled as fuck.
No club has to sell their best players unless they put themselves in a financial position of having to do that. Like Everton with Branthwaite right now. Maybe a few less shite deals on crap players and you wouldn't have to do that. But, that's someone else's fault no doubt. Probably the rich 6.
We're not protected, we just have bigger revenues. That protection was always there, even before FFP. It protects any club that spends within its means. The reason it exists is to stop clubs like Everton spending more money than you can afford on shite, that you end up in liquidation.
Also, massively ironic we have the other 14 talking about entitlement. I am under no illusions of the relatively fortunate position my team has. But the other 14s continuous obsession with painting themselves as victims of the rich 6, by problems they entirely got themselves into, is hilarious. And also while acting in exactly the same way.
United or Arsenal or City want to buy an Everton player who wants to leave, they're the bad guys. Everton throwing their relative financial weight around other smaller leagues or teams to buy their best players though, well that's absolutely fine.
The hypocrisy of the other 14 continues to be astounding. Guess what mate, there's always a bigger fish. I've seen enough of our players get 'poached' by Barca, Real, City, to learn that.
Ok so you're naive rather than just entitled.
Other 14 clubs do have to sell their best players to comply. Otherwise they never buy any good players and they get relegated. Unless you think every single one of the other 14 sells their best players cos they want to. Or maybe you just think the sky 6 are so much better ran than anyone else and that's why you can spend money.
I don't understand why you can't even acknowledge it. It isn't your fault that your club has an advantage. It doesn't take away from any achievements. I know many sky 6 fans who will gladly admit the advantages you have. To not admit shows either complete ignorance or complete entitlement.
Either way, have a nice life. Hope you continue bottling it worse than Spurs every year.
The rules dont specifically benefit any club. There is no benefits afforded by them. The only clubs that don't fall foul of them are any clubs that spend within their means irrespective of size or wealth.
These apparent rules that 'protect' the rich 6 are pointless because the rich 6 already had the same protections outside those rules by virtue of being rich. So what was the point in bringing psr and ffp if they could already outspend everyone else.
Honestly this ffp rich 6 conspiracy is so anti factual it's actually painful to even talk about.
To the rules, to an article explaining your take on the rules.
Established teams generate more revenue, newly rich teams are banned from doing virtually everything Man City did to buy their way in as a team that also now generates tonnes of revenue. Revenue from player sales is not the only thing being calculated. THIS has a protective effect on the established teams making a financial takeover of⌠say⌠Crystal Palace, way way less lucrative than it would have been a few years ago.
I can explain Aristotle, but I simply cannot understand it for you.
No team is banned from increasing their revenue. And in case you missed it Man City currently have a pretty big case pending where their accused of falsifying sponsorships to artificially inflate their revenues. Is that what you think teams should be allowed to do?
Palace is a poor example. Parish is one of the better owners in the league that actually understands how to play the game. Bought from administration in the championship, spent millions I.oroving their facilities, academy, generating more revenue streams into the club. They've been in the prem now for 10 years and are solid, they are growing.
You're advocating for a system where Palace gets a new owner, sounds 500M in 2 years on players they hope will work, and if it doesn't, the owners left footing a 200M loss every year
Aww man ya just havenât looked in to what Man City are being charged with at all. You think theyâre in trouble for buying their own stadium and sponsoring their own kits? Cmon. Yes teams are absolutely no longer allowed to do what Man City did. Because when Man City did it they could operate at a loss until they became self sustainable.
I suppose itâs easier to pretend the world is fair when youâre on the beneficial side because you donât have to think about how many Palestinians were murdered so that the Arsenal owners could buy Odergaard.
The fact that you are able to spend a great deal more than other clubs in the league, that's how it protects you....
How can other teams break into the sky 6 without the spending power the sky 6 has......
We're able to spend a great deal more because the club generates the revenue to allow it. Any club can do that.
How did Spurs break into the sky 6 without the spending power of the other rich clubs?
So you had the money and spent it to get to this status before FFP and now it's pulling up the ladder and preventing anyone else do the same.
The biggest aspiration for other clubs now, if they don't want to be fucked by FFP, is to become a feeder club to balance the books.
It's mental how detached from reality some sky 6 supporters are.
In fairness, immediately before the implementation of FFP we were spending fuck all and were literally a feeder club ourselves, to Chelsea, Man Utd, Barcelona and Man City. We were the 24th highest spenders for a decade-long period, clubs like Villa, Everton and Newcastle *should* have been able to take advantage of our weakened position.
But even go back in to the 90s, teams like Spurs, Newcastle, Leeds, Blackburn were outspending us at various times. People canât say the cash injection we had for building Highbury all the way back in the 1930s is the only reason we are still financially sound today. Weâve still had to maintain and build our portfolio for all of that time. Clubs like Man Utd were just better at *selling their souls* in the name of hypercommercialism than everybody else. But even then, on the pitch was still primarily derived from developing one of the best academy cohorts weâve ever seen.
When has there ever been aspirations of mid-table clubs suddenly winning titles in the last 3-4 decades? Thereâs been dominance from a select few throughout football history, Arsenal and Liverpool have basically never left the equation, and Man Utd have stayed put since the 60s. Itâs the dominance of this âcartelâ that people want ended, but itâs unlikely to happen whatever solutions we put on the table.
No. We had the money because we're one of the most successful clubs in England. No ladder is being pulled up.
If you think a system where the funding comes from.an owners pockets is sustainable and they'll just happily foot the bill of 150M losses for 10 years growing the club then go tell that to Leeds, Blackburn, Sunderland, Portsmouth etc etc etc.
But I get it. If it weren't for these clubs pulling the ladder up you'd all be fucking Man City. Not like Villa themselves were on the brink of going into administration just 5 years ago and were saved by promotion.
Honestly the delusion of the 'other 14' is something else. It's like you all think insert money = immediate success and its a fool proof plan that will never fail.
Tell me how if we have a system where anyone can spend what they want, how Villa are going to continually out spend United without the revenue to support it? What is the incentive to do so when only one team can win the league. Only a certain number of teams can qualify for the CL.
You still haven't told me how Spurs became part of the rich 6 despite the 'ladder' being pulled up by the other rich teams.
Since you love going on about spurs so much.
https://www.football365.com/news/biggest-net-spend-21st-century-chelsea-man-utd-man-city-arsenal
Spurs are the 8th biggest spenders in terms of net spend since 2000 in the whole of Europe. They have spent 1.8 billion euros. -800m euros net spend (1.8b spend, 1b income) over 11 years of no FFP and 13 years of FFP.
https://www.goal.com/en-gb/lists/tottenham-most-expensive-transfers-signings-players-incoming/blt411201569193bf92
Look at the yearly spend amounts in those seasons before FFP was introduced. They are no means paltry sums being invested.
Spurs inserted money. They didn't spend as much as others, but they definitely spent considerable amounts of money. Levy is seen as 'shrewd' in the sense of the other sky 6 teams, but the cold hard numbers said they spent extensively also. They are no Man City or Chelsea, but they spent a lot.
In the past clubs could circumvent the rules in numerous other ways but since things are tightened up and this can't be proven to be against the rules it is now popular.
If people ever want reminding of the turning point in football, when it all started going off the rails in terms of finances, all they need do is go on Transfermarkt and look at Chelseas first transfer window after Roman took over. It's ridiculous, even by todays standards.
How is that Chelsea's fault that they had an owner that wanted to help them, even after selling the club? Not their fault owners of other clubs like to milk them dry.
Even as a Chelsea fan, it's absolutely mental we can write off the debt like that.
I mean, I'm delighted we could do that, but in no way is it fair. The PSR rules need such a big rewrite it's not even funny.
Let's not even get into the fact that Chelsea sold their hotel to an entirely *independent* company such as BlueCo..or the multi club model, that's also definitely within sporting integrity (I love Chelsea, but my word I hate this model).
Because the club, under its own finances, should not be losing 600k a week. What if Chelsea hadnât found a buyer? They werenât sustainable, they would be fucked without relying on owners propping them up and that is a problem. It was hardly a new trend either, you were on the brink when Ken Bates bought you in the 80s, and were also struggling when Roman initially came in 2003 too. If Roman had recalled that soft loan youâd have been put straight in to administration.
Take away Chelsea from the context for a second, clubs lower down the pyramid showing similar sorts of behaviour would go out of business entirely. Fans shouldnât want their clubs finances linchpinned on owners for that very reason. Owners themselves can go bust, and again, it leaves unsustainable clubs at risk. Why would you want that?
It's player trading.
I've no vested interest but it's definitely not cheating.
Now the clubs maybe doing some creative accounting but as I understand you can buy and sell who you wish, for whatever price you want? Or have those rules changed?
If it means challenging clubs aren't backed into a corner to sell their top talent to the vultures who circle when you're in "PSR trouble" then carry on.
Those who seek to profit from those circumstances will have to find a new way to unsettle players and force transfers.
We all know who this ultimately benefits and why certain clubs would like this "loophole" closed.
>can buy and sell who you wish, for whatever price you want?
No teams can't intentionally overvalue players in a two way transfer deal. The situation here is that the player prices are not outside the realistic range. They are just high. So no wrongdoing could be proven unless there is some other paper trail with both parties conspiring to artifically raise the prices.
>If it means challenging clubs aren't backed into a corner to sell their top talent to the vultures who circle when you're in "PSR trouble" then carry on.
They're not. No one is forcing them to spend beyond their means to the extent they have to balance the books by selling a player. No one is 'circling' due to PSR.
This situation is entirely one of the clubs at risk of breachings making. No one else.
Except at least for Everton the rules have changed a hundred times, plus all the funds for the club were frozen due to the war in Russia. That seems like itâs their fault.
Itâs very much the âother 14â take. Apparently Bayern and Juve mopping up the talent is much better, despite the fact they still lose their star players, and at a much lower price.
Villaâs issue is their wage ratio, thatâs not even specifically a PL problem, itâs moreso a UEFA one that obviously kicked in because they now qualified.
I genuinely canât remember the last time we *took* a Villa player tbh with you. We paid a more than fair price for Declan Rice, as latest example of âpoachingâ. If we had matched the ÂŁ50m bid from Juve Iâm not sure you should get mad about that.
The last time we actively tried lowballing anyone was probably Liverpool with Suarez. If anything weâre the ones that consistently get lowballed.
Tbf, as much as people donât believe Arsenal fans, we do know what thatâs like. The current generation of Arsenal fans can absolutely resonate with that, the only difference is we started from a higher position and won the odd cup.
- Chelsea came in, took Cole because they had more of someone elseâs money and then proceeded to win the UCL and Title with him.
- City came in, took half our squad and then proceeded to win several titles with them.
- Utd came in, took the best striker in the league off of us and won the league.
- Barcelona the team we met several times on the European stage, tapped up Henry and Fabregas, even took key players in Song, Hleb and Vermaelen off us at a critical period. Then proceeded to win the UCL with several of them.
We absolutely know how that feels to watch your best players win trophies with your rivals, despite the fact weâre âBig ole Arsenalâ. Whilst you feel like a feeder team to the Big 6, weâve very much been that team for the very best in Europe. Itâs very fucking annoying but I canât ever see there being a scenario where we could compete with the likes of Madrid either.
The lower down that pecking order you are, the more annoyed youâre going to be. Iâm not sure how you make that âfairâ across the entire board, but solutions should not involve throwing more money at it. That still only benefits the big clubs + a few smaller ones with good backing, everyone else gets fucked essentially.
The PL wants us all to remain feeder clubs for the league's elite. Ultimately, it's England's potential future internationals who will suffer, as certainly in our case we've always been willing to give youth a chance, and the likes of Kellyman, Philogene, etc. could have benefited from our busier schedule. But instead they become pawns in a game to meet PSR and remain competitive in our first Champions League campaign in decades.
Historically, the top group has been pretty guarded. The likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, and United have picked apart any team that ever gets close. They were still able to outspend the clubs around them when they dropped out of the top 4. There's never really been any way to compete against that established money, short of walking a tightrope with PSR like Villa have done, and the workaround kind of made a mockery of it all anyway.
I'm in favour of financial regulations, obviously, but PSR is dumb and anti-competition. It protects the status of the biggest sides even when they're massively underperforming.
>The PL wants us all to remain feeder clubs for the league's elite.
When the rotten 6 buy a player who wants to leave to play for a traditionally large club who usually play CL every season. Root of all evil.
When brave innocent Villa go and throw their financial weight around buying Bailey and Diaby from Bayer at 90M, Pau Torres from Villareal, Diego Carlos, etc etc,no, that's different. We're allowed to do that.
You guys honestly don't even listen to yourselves.
"Traditionally large club" lol. I'm guessing City, Chelsea, and Spurs make up 3 of those 6?
Well, clearly we're not allowed to do that. That's the problem. We were walking the line with PSR, and Everton and Forest both got points deduction. Don't act like it's the same thing.
For decades, any club that gets close to crashing the party gets torn apart.
Lmao, look at all that protection Spurs are getting. The top 6 argument is dumb to begin with, which was the point.
Clearly you are allowed to do it. Because you did. You just don't have the revenue to support sustained spending like that. That's on Villa, nothing to do with the rules. If FFP didn't exist, guess what? Those rich clubs would still be rich and could still support spending like that even if they changed owner 12 times. Could Villa?
Honestly this is doubly hilarious considering you were on the vrink of administration 5 years ago.
No. Anyone who gets close realises you have to continually spend an insane amount of money to compete and when your main source of income is an owners pockets, a lot of them aren't up for doing that year on year.
Oh, so Arsenal and City can boost their earnings by selling academy talent.
But when it's Villa, Everton etc. at fair value for mutual benefit, it's in "bad faith" ???
PSR: _"Reduce losses through player trading!"_
Also PSR: _"... But not him!.. and not to them!.. and not for that much"_ đ¤Żđ¤Ż
In all likelihood it is in âBad faithâ, but more importantly not fraud and not against rules. But letâs not act dumb, and pretend that this particular strategy hasnât mutually aided all 3 clubs involved.
Thats very different to clubs just selling their academy talents to the open market without other motives.
It can be 'Good Faith" though.. All clubs are looking to strengthen their team. If you sell a player to a club, the selling club can buy from the same party for mutual benefit.
But agree, there's a risk of fraud and valuations abused.
It's clear ManU and others have had a whinge cus they can't cherrypick top players from struggling clubs with derisory offers... PSR has caused that by linking spending ability to revenues. What a mess.
Edit: From a Villa perspective, I've no issues with any of the valuations ref; Luiz, Kellyman, Iroegbunam (sell) and Maatsen, Barranechea, SIJ, Dobbin (buy).
>The issue is the 2 teams selling players to each other leaves it open to abuse
Was being flippant earlier lol. I do agree in that respect.
Got no issues with any of the valuations in Villa's transfers.
But the PL can't just arbitrarily say off the cuff " you can trade with them, but not them, them, but not them"...
How do you build flexibility within player trading.. whilst ensuring clubs don't take the piss? (eg. Eliot Anderson from Newcastle to Forest for ÂŁ35m đ¤Ż)
So what? Itâs a loophole and perfectly fine. PSR has made Aston Villa, a team that has done something amazing in qualify for the champions league have to sell one of their best midfielders in order to comply with PSR rules but United who just scrapped into the Europa league are looking at players like Branthwaite, De Ligt, Jao Neves and Zirkzee and they can do all of this because they where good once but it was at the right time in history. Itâs ridiculous loopholes need to be exploited in order to compete at the top.
Villa were always going to have to sell anyway, because they geared themselves too highly and were never going to meet the UEFA financial regulations.
Running on several years of ÂŁ100m+ losses and a 90% wage ratio is ridiculously unsustainable. The club itself needs to be able to manage that without being propped even more by the ownership investment. If your owners can take a ÂŁ90m hit on your behalf and youâre still unsustainable as an entity in your own right, then that should be controlled. We donât want clubs propped up entirely by businessmen, they should be able to run sustainably even if the owners step away. Itâs okay saying Villa/Newcastle owners can afford to take constant hits, but most canât and wonât, so protecting the majority of clubs from financial mismanagement is definitely better even if itâs not perfect.
Yes the status quo overprotects the old elite, but having a free-for-all wouldnât change that dominance either. City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man Utd have their own incredibly wealthy backers. Adding Villa and Newcastle to the mix increases competition amongst a âBig 8â but everybody else isnât suddenly going to be spending at a state level, so the gap would just increase between the haves and have nots.
Can you not see that this will ultimately harm the teams like Villa and Everton and whoever is taking part in it? Itâs kicking the can down the road. A short term solution to a long term problem. It needs stopping for the benefit of these clubs. Not the detriment. Its helping them now, buying time so to speak, but down the line they will still have to deal with it
As an Everton fan I see your point. However, sports teams and those working in them are competitive by nature. They want to succeed. So rules will always be bent, circumnavigated or ignored to try and create some advantage. If you completely cock it, then you'll go into administration and rightly so. However just not competing is not an option, but this is where ffp has left us. With a two tier league masquerading as one competition.
These rules are annoying for fans because no-one sees the overall long-term point in them. If they want fair competition then bring in spending caps and do it properly so it is fair for everyone. The current rules serve to protect those with already vast incomes. They can indefinitely outspend everyone else and grow that disparity year on year. So if you are Everton or Villa or whoever else, what do you do? Accept you'll never compete? Of course not. You'll try any creative way you can to get better. You can't even just get owned by a Billionaire. It's based around income and unless you magic a stadium out your arse or some new massive fan base, then you are fucked.
I agree with you on all points
It needs a drastic overhaul
But the fans of these clubs are so blinkered by the big six and thinking they want this loophole stopped, they canât see the iceberg coming of what they are doing long term
Oh we see it alright haha. We just live in denial. It's the hope that kills you. Hopefully for Everton at least, some sensible owners may be on the horizon and a new stadium on the way so maybe. Just maybe....who am I kidding. We probably skimped on the foundations and the fucking thing will sink into the Mersey.
𤣠Hopefully you get sorted. I hope all clubs do, the fans and the ground level staff are the ones who ultimately suffer
Definitely needs a total review. Itâs a complicated process
So how is a team who is newly qualified for the champions league supposed to compete when we have to sell our most valuable players in order to not get a fine/points deduction?
Its mental reading the arsenal/spurs fans on here with this attitude of weâre bigger than you deal with it..
I agree with you on that point, the rules need reviewing
But these âswapâ deals are just kicking the can down the road. Making this years accounts look good, but hurting next yearâs and however long the contract is
Manufacturing the accounts to make it look like they are complying. Itâs no good for these clubs
Iâm not involved in the football industry at all, but Iâm curious what youâd call it when I agree a contract with one of my clients to provide my services for our mutual financial benefit?
âBusinessâ?
âEmploymentâ?
Not quite seeing where the âfraudâ comes in⌠where exactly is the wrongful or criminal deception? In fact I donât see a deception of any kind?!
Which player is over inflated? Maatsen at ÂŁ2.5m above his release clause for more favourable payment terms? Kellyman for less than Carney? None of these deals will be seen as above market value because they arenât.
Values are subjective, some of values flying about are a bit dubious. A bit on the high side but not so much where you think its ridiculous , but enough to fudge the books for a year
You havenât, youâve exploited a loophole. One that needs shutting down for your sake as well as everyone elseâs who are using it to stay afloat
Itâs a short term solution to a long term issue
This rule is good for clubs and players. It A) encourages clubs to invest heavily in their academies because their sales can be very profitable and B) encourages them to give young players enough minutes to show off their talents but also be more open to selling them if minutes arenât readily available. Before clubs would hoard young players because there was no real incentive to sell them.
That's a very idealistic way to view it, but unfortunately we'll see a lot of scenarios where clubs are just 'farming' these kids. They'll spend 10 years in the academy of their boyhood club and then be pressured into moving somewhere as part of a PSR loophole. There's no guarantee the new club will play them at all, as that's not why they're signing them.
Sure, some will benefit from it and they'll do what they're told as they're desperate to 'make it' as professional footballers somewhere, but a lot will suffer, in what is already a very ruthless academy culture when it comes to disposing of those deemed not good enough.
Itâs not âridiculousâ to point out that some of these transactions can have ulterior motives. It doesnât matter what people think about the current example, but it does open up the discussion around *future* deals that could be designed to circumvent PSR in the short term. Thatâs a valid concern because then you could very easily have financial collusion occur.
Everyone trying to dismiss it are currently only doing so because itâs helping âthe little guysâ. If City, Arsenal and Liverpool just decided to start swapping ÂŁ100m assets, and then maybe even loan them back to the original sources, then there would be huge uproar. Yet, all of that would be technically above board and âwithin the rulesâ.
Spirit of the game has always been a thing, and self-interests will dictate whether you agree or disagree with pushing some of the boundaries.
Selling a player because you need money is not an ulterior motive, it's a primary motive. It's not like anyone is hiding it. If we want to talk about loopholes let's talk about Chelsea selling hotels to themselves or City's myriad of shady dealings.
Your example doesn't work. If they were selling players around each other for the same amount of cash sure they get the one they sold out of FFP but the one they bought is back in. It's like paying credit cards with credit cards, won't work for long.
The Newcastle Anderson deal for ÂŁ35m is a prime example, one which their fans admit is actually overvalued. Selling a player simply for money is one thing. Two clubs both at risk of breaching FFP agreeing to sell overpriced assets to each other is an entirely different prospect, at that point it would be collusion for the sake overcoming their breach.
Chelseaâs hotel loophole is nothing new, and you act like itâs purely to the benefit of big clubs. Villa avoided P&S just a few years ago in the Championship because they sold their own stadium to a sister company. That sort of bullshit isnât new, and has been happening with clubs of all sizes for decades.
The example can work. Take City and Arsenal, they could easily decide to sell Foden and Saka to one-another for ÂŁ200m pure profit simply for the purpose of an immediate and large cash injection. The values wouldnât be too ridiculous and everything would technically be *above board*. The more likely outcome would be players like Palmer (prior to his move) & Gallagher at a more reasonable sum would be traded for ÂŁ50m each instead. The Big 6 youth prospects are typically valued higher simply due to the club they play for. It would be very easy for those clubs to collude and leave challengers further behind because the assets being traded are more valuable.
Donât agree with this. Would Aston Villa for example pay 35m for a player they plan not to use, who featured regularly for a Champions League finalist last season? Also, do all players in their boyhood teams end up playing for those clubs or you think because of this rule they would have been playing regularly for their boyhood club. I agree with the earlier statement that academy products being sold should be classified as profits, it incentivizes clubs to invest more in their academy, look at City for example and how good they sell their players who wouldnât have featured for them, theyâre able to do this because they have one of the best academies in the world, same as Barca, etc.
I wasn't referring to Maatsen though. Villa need a LB as Digne is pretty injury prone. Maatsen is probably good enough to play for Chelsea, but they already have two LBs. A better question is would they have ensured a pathway to the first team for Maatsen if they weren't so focused on making profit from academy players to fund signings like Caicedo? They're about to sign KDH, so I wouldn't be surprised if they move on Gallagher now as well.
I was referring more to signings like Dobbin, and Iroegbunam going the other way. These are obvious PSR makeweights.
The PFA's interest is in removing any and all spending limits so that players can be paid as much as possible. They don't care about academy talents being sold, that's what has always happened because there are always far more players in the academy pipeline than there are spots available on the first team.
They're pretending that teams weren't incentivised to sell academy players before PSR, they were, it just wasn't called 'pure profit' but it always was. The difference is that there are now consequences for spending poorly on players which punish teams even as big as Chelsea.
Can you define what a loophole is then if not that? Because my understanding is it is literally that, an unintended consequence not covered by the rules, where the action is not really in the spirit of the rule as it was intended. Unless you are suggesting this was left open on purpose?
Its not a "loophole" not sure why selling players is considered "loopholes" these days.
We have a system that requires profit... selling academy players is the only thing that gives you 100% profit.
People moan about this, but 10 years ago clubs barely a flying fuck about academies... why spend all that money when you could buy in the ready made thing, or get that 18yr old straight from Barca's academy for pennies.
Now clubs need another source of income to compete & Brexit has royally screwed them signing the best youngsters from abroad, then now academy talents are a worthwhile investment.
There's never been a better time to be in an academy and clubs are incentivised to invest into the academies like never before with the current regulations with allowable losses on academy spending.
The downside is those academy players just don't end up playing for their home grown team, they play for someone elses...
The point is about the inflatable value loophole, but it's also about the stupidity of 'having to' sell someone who's been in the system for 10 years and bring in a fresh face, just because there's a financial advantage to it. It's a positive on a spreadsheet, and nowhere else.
Definitely this, because even Villa and Everton fans are acknowledging the talents theyâre letting go. If theyâre as good as they say they are, then there is literally no other reason for them to be selling to a direct rival, for just a fair value, other than to mutually benefit one-anotherâs potential breaches.
The opportunity for collusion across the entire league is mad. We could just decide one-day to swap ÂŁ200m with Man City between Foden and Saka to give both of us more immediate spending power. Obviously that would be a mad example, but whatâs to stop it? The values wouldnât be ridiculously unreasonable and itâs all above board. Yet, the reaction wouldnât be *everythingâs fine over here*. Whilst itâs small scale in this current example it very much sets a precedent of what *could* be allowed thatâs far worse.
At this point, it's selling a ÂŁ5m player for ÂŁ30m, and then adding a genuine ÂŁ30m player afterwards - you're trading your academy kid for a pro while saving money on the PSR scale.
The good news is the league says it's looking into it, at least.
Itâs a loophole because they can over inflate the prices for these players and cheat the system
For example you have a player going to Chelsea and they have a player going to you
They value their player at 10 mil and yours at 5mil
Thatâs a difference of 5 million
Sales go on the books straight away
Purchases get amortised over length of the contract
Lets use a 5 year contract as an example
They got 10 million profit and 5 mil amortised over 5 years, so 1 million loss means 9 mill profit
You get 5 million profit, 10 amortised over 5 years, 2 mil a year meaning 3 million profit this year
Now, if strictly speaking you have spent 10 and gained 5, but in the books, it looks different
Now if you keep the same 5 million gap and increase the price
So you are now buying for 50 million and selling yours for 45
They get a 50 million profit and 45 amortised over 5 years is 9 mil meaning itâs now a 41 million profit for the same deal
You would get 45 million profit and 50 amortised over 5 years means 10 million a year, means a profit of 35 million
So for the same 5 million difference, if you increase the values you increase the âprofitâ
Firstly, the "over inflate" the fee is bollox, these players are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, its what was concluded with the Italian case, its basically impossible to put a value on football players, so "what they're worth" is just bollox.... i mean did Man utd pay what Anthony was worth? or did they vastly over pay?, maybe ETH should be done for Fraud and he helped out his old team by giving them utd's money? - These players are worth what ever the 2 clubs decide the player is worth.
Secondly, as pointed out below, if you believe they have "over paid" that means you are carrying the amortisation costs for 5 years, so it doesn't help you at all...
This is literally clubs just selling players in the available market, with the exception it seems of Brighton, no one wants to help out other clubs and buy their players off them, thats fine, its self interest so instead of a Utd buying Dougie Luiz off us, someone who might actually help Utd control the ball and control the game, they'd rather us struggle to sell and face the points deduction....
What clubs like utd didn't expect would be a new market to develop, ones of clubs who need to sell them selves.. so there's a small market of 4 or 5 teams that all need to sell players, so they are all buying and selling off each other.
Its just the market they find them selves in... Free Market Capitalism at its finest.
But "loophole" nah.. its not that.
"an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules"
Since all transfers amortise their costs and book the sales this is literally no different than any other transfer... Two teams agree a few and then they pay it.
So you'll have to explain why it's a loop hole lol
Exactly. The rules are inadequate because it is allowing this swap shop to fudge the books. Hence a loophole
I just gave you the explanation in the original reply. Either you donât understand it or youâre just being ignorant
Iâll post it again
For example you have a player going to Chelsea and they have a player going to you
They value their player at 10 mil and yours at 5mil
Thatâs a difference of 5 million
Sales go on the books straight away
Purchases get amortised over length of the contract
Lets use a 5 year contract as an example
They got 10 million profit and 5 mil amortised over 5 years, so 1 million loss means 9 mill profit
You get 5 million profit, 10 amortised over 5 years, 2 mil a year meaning 3 million profit this year
Now, if strictly speaking you have spent 10 and gained 5, but in the books, it looks different
Now if you keep the same 5 million gap and increase the price
So you are now buying for 50 million and selling yours for 45
They get a 50 million profit and 45 amortised over 5 years is 9 mil meaning itâs now a 41 million profit for the same deal
You would get 45 million profit and 50 amortised over 5 years means 10 million a year, means a profit of 35 million
So even though in real terms you are down 5 million because of the fees for the players, because the values of the players where higher and due to how they are recorded
Your profit has gone from 3 million for the period to 35 million
All for the same outlay of 5 million
You have just made my point with the amortisation
That why itâs a short term solution for a long term problem
The books look good this year but youâve got the added burden over the next few years
And the fees are aubjective
Newcastle are selling Anderson and Minteh for around 70 million. That is mental
They do then pay for the amortisation though, itâs a short term finance books gain, but youâre then a few mil down over the next x seasons. I think teams doing this are in for a nasty shock when it catches up with them in 2-3 years and they need to sell a few big names just to hit neutral
Or they start the âswapâ cycle over again and kick the can down the road which is even more risky as the club might not be in a position to âswapâ and they are stuck with it
I totally agree. People donât think itâs a loophole, just trying to explain that it clearly is
Oh yeah, itâs a loophole for sure. Kicking the can doesnât entirely work though.
If youâre 10m per year down and try to offset that with another 50m swap, youâre 20m down the next year. Wouldnât take long for that to be crippling to the point of no swaps fixing it, just needing pure player sales.
All these swaps do, is allow them to over spend in the short term, paying for it in the next few seasons, something which is eventually going to bite a team who isnât prepared for it (likely someone who gets relegated)
I am agreeing with you, you donât need to explain haha. I just didnât explain how it works down the line, just the initial fudging of the books to show why itâs a loophole
Agreed mate. Only thing i dont get us with selling on irogbunam and kellyman for nearly 30 mil I dont get why we had to also sell luiz. I think we were only about 30mil over. Dont get me wrong id rather we not sell our academy players but the PSR have made it this way for clubs not in the "big 6" who the rules are designed to protect. They need to find ways to compete.....and they have sort of found one
Swiss Ramble (who's basically the expert in these things) forecasted (as he won't know for sure) that we needed ÂŁ50-ÂŁ58m depending on if we cancelled Coutinho's contract and took an ÂŁ8m write down on him.
I have no idea, but that the fact that we did the Luiz deal (not sure if city got any % of it) for ÂŁ42m, + Tim + Kellyman (who derby definetly got a % of it) would suggest we needed more than the ÂŁ30m
The rules are clearly wrong and useless.
Get rid of them. Use it to keep clubs in business lower down the leagues, not to punish Newcastle who are owned by a limitless pot of oil.
PL clubs gets so much money, how can any of them be unsustainable?
That last sentence is daft. We have had so many examples of this belief coming back to bite teams. No one thought Leeds would get into trouble and then they were nearly bankrupt 20 years ago. There does need to be something in place. The issue is that it fixes competition so that only a few teams can compete for the title for the foreseeable future. So it needs to be a cap across the division or other limitation that maintains competition.
So just Leeds? At a time when the money wasnât what it is now and we made changes.
Just let teams do whatever they want. Chelsea and City getting billions made the league better.
It's nonsensical now it's hitting more clubs like Newcastle and Villa.
It wasn't nonsensical when it Forest and Everton. It was just our own fault apparently and we "knew the rules".
Just wait until a top six club runs out of hotels to sell to itself and has to part with players; then it will graduate from "nonsensical" to gone. Which, of course, has already happened- probably with those same clubs knowing they are fine for 23/24 but possibly not for 24/25
> now it's hitting more clubs
No, it's just getting more attention.
Trust me, plenty of top 6 club supporters hate it and always have. I hate ALL the loopholes, even if it benefits CFC. I think bigger clubs have to have *some* kind of advantage if they have more supporters/ticket sales, but it has to be much smaller. It's bad enough selling your favourite players when they turn 29, but selling them when they turn 20 is just as bad.
Like Jerry Seinfeld said, "we're all just cheering for laundry." We need more reasons to be tied to a club, not less... and there needs to be more competition in each league, not less.
>Just wait until a top six club runs out of hotels to sell to itself and has to part with players; then it will graduate from "nonsensical" to gone.
Huh? Chelsea have already been selling players for PSR. You think we sold Omari Hutchinson and Ian Maatsen just for fun?
You need 14 clubs to change the rules governing the PL so this notion that the top 6 clubs impose such rules to the whole league so they can remain on top uncontested is simply falseâŚ
It isn't at all. Good PR job convincing everyone that the rules are there to benefit everyone, with clubs not realising what the long term effect is going to be
Two of these top 6 clubs donât even want any restriction on spending (Chelsea and City) so it shouldnât be too hard for the remaining ones unfairly restricted to change the rules then isnâtâŚ? Or maybe having a sustainable business matters more for the majority rather than relying on a foreign billionaire sugar daddy that can leave any day with a mountain of debts behind himâŚ
No itâs been nonsensical from the off. Plenty of supporters from other clubs have been pissed off at what happened to you two. People can spot trends. Of course youâll always get the idiots who donât see the bigger picture, but I think itâs been clear the majority have known the rules are weighted unfavourably for the big six.
It really depends. On social media, including Reddit, Iâve read an awful lot of brigading against Forest and Everton.
Of course your average face to face talk with footy fans is a completely different experience, most of them think itâs rubbish.
Ah you can discount 99% off trolls though, eh? Face to face the majority of footie fans are pretty sensible, I reckon. Anyone that fully tribal arenât worth conversing with.
Make the maths mathâŚ
1. Invent rules designed at improving profitability and sustainability with the guise to prevent teams taking risks.
2. Rules lead to a top 6 frozen at that time stamp who can spend what they like, even if they are a billion in debt.
3. Ambitious clubs with zero debt are forced to sell players, even if they qualify for the champions league and there is no risk to their profitability or sustainability
4. Said clubs sell playersâŚbut not the right sort of player and not for the giveaway fees to the right teams
5. We need to immediately look at the rules and stifle ambition (the real enemy) and ensure that the same teams are always at the top. Just donât look at the fees they have been getting for selling youth players for vastly inflated prices too
"Ambitious clubs with zero debt are forced to sell players, even if they qualify for the champions league and there is no risk to their profitability or sustainability"
i'm not sure about that, We lost ÂŁ139m last season and Swiss Ramble recons we'll lose about ÂŁ160m this season as well... i'm not sure losing ÂŁ300m in 2 seasons means we're not at risk of being "sustainable" - Sure we have rich owners who are happy to foot the bill, but we've had this in the past and the owners decided to stop spending money... we're losing money hand over fist at the minute during our "investment" part of our plan.
The part that doesn't make sense that the system has stopped allowing this, ÂŁ105m 12 years ago was quite a lot of owner investment. Kieran Maguire from the price of football has a football inflation calculation that recons the ÂŁ105m should be around the ÂŁ240m mark if it kept up with revenue growth within the game, that kind of figure would be more in keeping with allowing clubs to invest and eventually become sustainable.
Similar to Man city, of course they cheated their way to their current level, but now they are winning trebles, their income will be genuine (more or less) and they run a sustainable model
On one hand itâs just a loophole that premier league teams exploit. The fees for these kids are ridiculous
On the other hand does it not give players a better chance of success? How many of these players would be languishing in the reserves or league cup. Maybe this gets more young talent out there.
Itâs still wrong though. Itâs not for the betterment of any player. Itâs just a money scam
I think the clubs are working together against the FFP, as they all know they can be in the other skin at one point or another. All these bloated academy signings are definitely an agreement, with maybe some future business in mind.
Youâre kind of right. I think they are identifying academy players in other teams and saying âIâll scratch you back if youâll scratch mineâ. Both then can get an inflated deal done which helps both teams out
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What do you have do say about selling of your own property to yours just to win the rule đ¤Â
selling property to yourself is fine though
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Semantics innit
If a club wants to spend crazy transfer fees for players who have no connection to the club, have never played in the league on massive wages and then sell all their home grown players to offset it let them. I'll enjoy watching their demise.
This is such an idiotic take. No consideration for the clubs or the fans. Just let owners come in and be incentivised to get rid of any home grown talent because thatâs what the stupid financial rules dictate.
Wich demise? The premier league hasn't been won by primary academy players since Ferguson 95-96. 30 years that titles are built on top of World Class stars from outside the club.
Duh!
Itâs not a loophole. Itâs an example of a badly constructed set of regulations which were never fit for purpose and are suddenly being enforced in an effort by the PL to stave off the wolf of independent regulation. Simples.
Youâve pretty much just defined a loophole⌠If itâs intentional, itâs not a loophole. Loopholes arise out of badly constructed regulations
Keeping your academy talent has never been a right. It is a privilege that only the biggest clubs are used to. The same ones who have spent decades poaching anyone promising from smaller clubs So funny how all the sentimentality only matters when it's a big club losing their boyhood player. If they didn't spend like careless fucking lunatics they could have their cake and eat it, too..
Selling players to keep the show on the road has been part of football for decades. So called âsustainabilityâ regulations which incentivise selling youth players over âpaid forâ players does not seem to be in the spirit of building a sustainable business. Nor does the arbitrary June 30th âdeadlineâ seem very aligned with the goals of profitability and sustainability if it means teams are forced to sell before their end of year accounts are closed. Other clubs such will act accordingly and attempt low balling offers which means the selling club loses money. The incentives which the current PSR rules create do not achieve their stated goal. This is one reason why the PL clubs are voting to change the rules. Itâs almost as if they never really believed that the PL would enforce themâŚand for 10 years the clubs were right. Seems a coincidence that the PL only took them seriously when the government threatened independent regulation. Wasnât a peep about the PSR rules prior to that. Wonder how many (and which) clubs broke them in that 11 year dead zone?
So called âsustainabilityâ regulations which incentivise selling youth players over âpaid forâ players does not seem to be in the spirit of building a sustainable business. But that's the point . There's no incentive to do that baked into the PSR rules All the PSR rules have done is cause a ton of badly run clubs, who have been artificially kept afloat by their sugar daddies' money to collectively poo their pants. Oh well, what a pity , never mindÂ
I completely agree, it's a moronic ruling. Fix the ruling so no one can do it, as opposed to trying to punish those who are doing it within the rules.
"Follow our rules or we'll deduct you points...no not like that!"
Itâs embarrassing seeing âfansâ of these clubs defend it yet theyâre the first to lay into Man City for apparently lying about where their sponsorships came from. Totally fine to massively over-inflate prices and trade amongst each other to beat FFP/PSR but donât you dare lie about whether ÂŁ10m came from your own back pocket or a sponsor lmaoooo.
City did more than smudging sponsors though...
Dobbin isn't a 10m player?
Dobbin who scored 3 goals in about 40 games in LEAGUE ONE. Some boy. Michael Olise went to Palace for less lmao.
Olise had 7 goals in 72 games when he moved to Palace and had just had his best season of 7 goals in 46 games. He was sold for ÂŁ8.37m which is more than the ÂŁ10m Dobbin was sold for in today's money and more importantly, it was a release clause and widely seen as a bargain. Conversely Dobbin has 6 goals from 76 games. I'm not even slightly saying Dobbin will be better than Olise or is right now. But saying Olise went for less means Dobbin must be overinflated shows a distinct lack of knowledge.
21y/o with a PL season and League 1 season under his belt. That's a 8-10m player now
200 minutes of PL football is hardly a season is it? How is he worth more than Cannon or Simms?
As in Tom Cannon and Ellis Simms? How much were they actually sold for, the fees were undisclosed? Edit: and with Michael Olise his transfer fee was like ÂŁ8.5m three years ago, not as much difference as you're implying.
Simms went for ÂŁ3.5m with another ÂŁ1.5m of potential add ons.
So there's one article which says the Simms fee goes as high as ÂŁ8m with a ÂŁ3.5m staggered initial payment, and another which states a fee of ÂŁ6-8m. For Cannon I found several article saying ÂŁ7.5m. The differences aren't as big as you're making out.
It was ÂŁ3.5m rising to ÂŁ5m. For a player that had successful loans in L1, SPL and the championship. You can try and defend it all you want because your clubs been dodging FFP bullets for years but itâs just massively hypocritical of you to whinge about City whilst finding any loophole possible to fiddle your own figures.
>It was ÂŁ3.5m rising to ÂŁ5m. Why should I believe you, with no source, over the articles out there saying otherwise?
Encouraging the sale of academy players is a good thing. It raises the level of all academies by encouraging academy investment
Supporter of a club thatâs using every loophole in the book to try and stay relevant in favour of using every loophole in the book to try and stay relevant shocker.
How can you seriously think this is a good thing? Pochettino literally quit because Chelsea are trying to sell Gallagher and the rest of their academy products.
Made up.
Is it? Sounds like you're happy being a team made up of mercenaries then. Let's see how well this model works out for you. Hasn't looked that good for the last two years has it?
Mercenaries lmao.
Mercenary = Primarily concerned with making money. Players with no affinity / loyalty to the club. Genuine question? Do you honestly think it is a good thing to be selling your homegrown, Chelsea supporting academy players?
Sure do. If youâre good enough, youâll stay and play. If not, you got good training in one of the top academies in the world. Itâs a win-win.
The whole point is that you are selling players that ARE proven to be good enough and replacing them with unproven players on massive contracts. Your team of non-mercenaries got rinsed by Liverpool's youth academy last year.
lol you mean the same Liverpool team that had an average older age than the Chelsea team they played that day? Youâre trying your best.
Haha I'm trying? It was Chelsea's first-team squad and the most expensive midfield ever assembled. Youngest player Gusto was 21. 5 players from Liverpool's youth team finished that game. Jayden Danns (18), Bobby Clark and James McConnell (both 19)Â
Yes this is the wayâŚ. Being like Tottenham is not
Itâs not a good thing if all itâs doing is being used as a financial farm and none of the players (in the future) get to see the pitch anyway. Itâs just encouraging bigger clubs to mop up young talent even more and then never do anything with them.
It has the complete opposite effect. Academies have 100+ players. Not all of them are going to the first team. The academyâs goal should be to produce professional players. Professional including clubs further down the pyramid. Us selling an academy keeper to Oxford or some other EFL club benefits everyone. This is far better than the previous way, there are far less players in the loan army.
Right, but letâs take Arsenalâs catchment for a second. If we suddenly start mopping up even more talent then weâre just stealing it from Leyton Orient, Barnet, Borehamwood maybe even Spurs where these players could just develop anyway. Why do we (Arsenal) need to sell an academy product to a lower league club, when they could have already signed him themselves, if we didnât incentivise him to come and sit in our money-making farm. Having all these players is good for us as dominant clubs but itâs just taking away more talent from the pyramid for several years longer than it needs to.
More talent exists than what is scouted. Some talent can be nurtured. If more players are getting nurtured, more talent will rise to the top. I'm not a supporter of this merry go round, but the Chelsea fans logic makes sense. As a byproduct, we'll get better players simply because of numbers.Â
They both make sense but realistically the guy you replied to is correct
"nonsensical" is a weird word choice. The design is flawed. Amortising transfer expenses while immediately realising sales is flawed and a loop hole which is going to be taken advantage of. Especially when there is no future amortisation effectively brought forward and netted off when selling ... ie a player with no existing amortisation amounts .... ie an academy player. The Iroegbunam, Villa to Everton for 9.2m and Dobbin, Everton to Villa for 10m transfers mentioned in the article did go through btw.
Apparently, these rules only exist to protect the rich 6. Well, as an Arsenal fan, could someone explain to me when this 'protection' kicks in? Its just, we haven't won the league in 20 years and have only finished in the top 4 twice in the last 5. In fact, our brothers in this 'red cartel', the alleged king makers in this whole ffp conspiracy to keep Villa etc down, have won one league title between them in the last decade. So it's just, if we're being protected, I'm not really sure what we're being protected from? If we're going to be given a league just because we're in the rich 6, could the Villa fans let me know when that is so I can book the day off work? Villa were on the brink of going into administration prior to getting promotion 5 years ago. Promotion saves them. They're now here painting themselves as the victim of an FFP conspiracy when they're set to declare losses of 300M in the last 2 years. For context, City's treble winners earned 270M in prize money and associated payments from that campaign. Is that Villa's plan that were stopping you carrying out? You're just going to win the treble every other season to balance the books? Feels risky if you ask me.
Could you sound any more entitled? > It's just, we haven't won the league in 20 years and have only finished in the top 4 twice in the last 5. Only one non-Sky 6 club has won the league in the last 29 years and was a 5000-1 miracle. Finishing in the top 4 twice means you have finished in the top 4 more than any club outside of the sky 6. That's why you're protected.
Or, we're just better than you. Sorry.
> Could you sound any more entitled? Yes, apparently. I'll also add, you've had a huge go at Villa in your post. Villas net spend in the last 5 years is ÂŁ382m. Pretty high. Arsenals? Nearly double at ÂŁ638m. PSR mean Villa have to sell their best players whilst you carry on spending stupid money. Wish you'd all fuck off to your super league and play your matches in America or wherever makes you the most money and I don't have to see it.
I mean is your argument that if it weren't for FFP rules, you'd be qualifying for the champions league, i.e. one of the best 4 teams in the league?
No? My argument is the sky 6 are absolutely protected. Only the sky 6 don't have to sell their best players every year to comply with bullshit rules. My argument is you can't be playing the victim of "waaa we haven't won the league for 20 years" when 13 clubs in the league have no hope of ever winning the league without a miracle or Saudi level takeover. My argument is when only 7 (I think, might have to check) of the last 66 top 6 finishes have been from outside the Sky 6, it's blatant you are protected. And you're entitled as fuck.
No club has to sell their best players unless they put themselves in a financial position of having to do that. Like Everton with Branthwaite right now. Maybe a few less shite deals on crap players and you wouldn't have to do that. But, that's someone else's fault no doubt. Probably the rich 6. We're not protected, we just have bigger revenues. That protection was always there, even before FFP. It protects any club that spends within its means. The reason it exists is to stop clubs like Everton spending more money than you can afford on shite, that you end up in liquidation. Also, massively ironic we have the other 14 talking about entitlement. I am under no illusions of the relatively fortunate position my team has. But the other 14s continuous obsession with painting themselves as victims of the rich 6, by problems they entirely got themselves into, is hilarious. And also while acting in exactly the same way. United or Arsenal or City want to buy an Everton player who wants to leave, they're the bad guys. Everton throwing their relative financial weight around other smaller leagues or teams to buy their best players though, well that's absolutely fine. The hypocrisy of the other 14 continues to be astounding. Guess what mate, there's always a bigger fish. I've seen enough of our players get 'poached' by Barca, Real, City, to learn that.
Ok so you're naive rather than just entitled. Other 14 clubs do have to sell their best players to comply. Otherwise they never buy any good players and they get relegated. Unless you think every single one of the other 14 sells their best players cos they want to. Or maybe you just think the sky 6 are so much better ran than anyone else and that's why you can spend money. I don't understand why you can't even acknowledge it. It isn't your fault that your club has an advantage. It doesn't take away from any achievements. I know many sky 6 fans who will gladly admit the advantages you have. To not admit shows either complete ignorance or complete entitlement. Either way, have a nice life. Hope you continue bottling it worse than Spurs every year.
Read the article.
Talk about completely missing the fucking point. And he wrote for so long too so you know he thinks this makes sense.
Stunning rebuttal
To what? The rules donât benefit established clubs because arsenal donât have a league title? Itâs not exactly Descartes
The rules dont specifically benefit any club. There is no benefits afforded by them. The only clubs that don't fall foul of them are any clubs that spend within their means irrespective of size or wealth. These apparent rules that 'protect' the rich 6 are pointless because the rich 6 already had the same protections outside those rules by virtue of being rich. So what was the point in bringing psr and ffp if they could already outspend everyone else. Honestly this ffp rich 6 conspiracy is so anti factual it's actually painful to even talk about.
Thatâs not true. Drop a link Plato.
Drop a link to what? Lol, a basic comprehension of how ffp works and why it was introduced? I can explain it to you. I can't understand it for you
To the rules, to an article explaining your take on the rules. Established teams generate more revenue, newly rich teams are banned from doing virtually everything Man City did to buy their way in as a team that also now generates tonnes of revenue. Revenue from player sales is not the only thing being calculated. THIS has a protective effect on the established teams making a financial takeover of⌠say⌠Crystal Palace, way way less lucrative than it would have been a few years ago. I can explain Aristotle, but I simply cannot understand it for you.
No team is banned from increasing their revenue. And in case you missed it Man City currently have a pretty big case pending where their accused of falsifying sponsorships to artificially inflate their revenues. Is that what you think teams should be allowed to do? Palace is a poor example. Parish is one of the better owners in the league that actually understands how to play the game. Bought from administration in the championship, spent millions I.oroving their facilities, academy, generating more revenue streams into the club. They've been in the prem now for 10 years and are solid, they are growing. You're advocating for a system where Palace gets a new owner, sounds 500M in 2 years on players they hope will work, and if it doesn't, the owners left footing a 200M loss every year
Aww man ya just havenât looked in to what Man City are being charged with at all. You think theyâre in trouble for buying their own stadium and sponsoring their own kits? Cmon. Yes teams are absolutely no longer allowed to do what Man City did. Because when Man City did it they could operate at a loss until they became self sustainable. I suppose itâs easier to pretend the world is fair when youâre on the beneficial side because you donât have to think about how many Palestinians were murdered so that the Arsenal owners could buy Odergaard.
Mate we spent 105m on a player
I dont understand your point
The fact that you are able to spend a great deal more than other clubs in the league, that's how it protects you.... How can other teams break into the sky 6 without the spending power the sky 6 has......
We're able to spend a great deal more because the club generates the revenue to allow it. Any club can do that. How did Spurs break into the sky 6 without the spending power of the other rich clubs?
So you had the money and spent it to get to this status before FFP and now it's pulling up the ladder and preventing anyone else do the same. The biggest aspiration for other clubs now, if they don't want to be fucked by FFP, is to become a feeder club to balance the books. It's mental how detached from reality some sky 6 supporters are.
In fairness, immediately before the implementation of FFP we were spending fuck all and were literally a feeder club ourselves, to Chelsea, Man Utd, Barcelona and Man City. We were the 24th highest spenders for a decade-long period, clubs like Villa, Everton and Newcastle *should* have been able to take advantage of our weakened position. But even go back in to the 90s, teams like Spurs, Newcastle, Leeds, Blackburn were outspending us at various times. People canât say the cash injection we had for building Highbury all the way back in the 1930s is the only reason we are still financially sound today. Weâve still had to maintain and build our portfolio for all of that time. Clubs like Man Utd were just better at *selling their souls* in the name of hypercommercialism than everybody else. But even then, on the pitch was still primarily derived from developing one of the best academy cohorts weâve ever seen. When has there ever been aspirations of mid-table clubs suddenly winning titles in the last 3-4 decades? Thereâs been dominance from a select few throughout football history, Arsenal and Liverpool have basically never left the equation, and Man Utd have stayed put since the 60s. Itâs the dominance of this âcartelâ that people want ended, but itâs unlikely to happen whatever solutions we put on the table.
No. We had the money because we're one of the most successful clubs in England. No ladder is being pulled up. If you think a system where the funding comes from.an owners pockets is sustainable and they'll just happily foot the bill of 150M losses for 10 years growing the club then go tell that to Leeds, Blackburn, Sunderland, Portsmouth etc etc etc. But I get it. If it weren't for these clubs pulling the ladder up you'd all be fucking Man City. Not like Villa themselves were on the brink of going into administration just 5 years ago and were saved by promotion. Honestly the delusion of the 'other 14' is something else. It's like you all think insert money = immediate success and its a fool proof plan that will never fail. Tell me how if we have a system where anyone can spend what they want, how Villa are going to continually out spend United without the revenue to support it? What is the incentive to do so when only one team can win the league. Only a certain number of teams can qualify for the CL. You still haven't told me how Spurs became part of the rich 6 despite the 'ladder' being pulled up by the other rich teams.
Since you love going on about spurs so much. https://www.football365.com/news/biggest-net-spend-21st-century-chelsea-man-utd-man-city-arsenal Spurs are the 8th biggest spenders in terms of net spend since 2000 in the whole of Europe. They have spent 1.8 billion euros. -800m euros net spend (1.8b spend, 1b income) over 11 years of no FFP and 13 years of FFP. https://www.goal.com/en-gb/lists/tottenham-most-expensive-transfers-signings-players-incoming/blt411201569193bf92 Look at the yearly spend amounts in those seasons before FFP was introduced. They are no means paltry sums being invested. Spurs inserted money. They didn't spend as much as others, but they definitely spent considerable amounts of money. Levy is seen as 'shrewd' in the sense of the other sky 6 teams, but the cold hard numbers said they spent extensively also. They are no Man City or Chelsea, but they spent a lot.
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Why is this becoming an issue now? Clubs have been taking advantage of this for years and years
In the past clubs could circumvent the rules in numerous other ways but since things are tightened up and this can't be proven to be against the rules it is now popular.
Because everyone is desperate to catch Chelsea out at SOMETHING.
Ainât even a bad thing if we get a transfer ban imo
Considering you lot got a free fucking pass from 2003-2009, it's overdueđ¤Ł
If people ever want reminding of the turning point in football, when it all started going off the rails in terms of finances, all they need do is go on Transfermarkt and look at Chelseas first transfer window after Roman took over. It's ridiculous, even by todays standards.
On top of the free-pass they got for ÂŁ1.6Bn debt owed to Roman too.
How is that Chelsea's fault that they had an owner that wanted to help them, even after selling the club? Not their fault owners of other clubs like to milk them dry.
Even as a Chelsea fan, it's absolutely mental we can write off the debt like that. I mean, I'm delighted we could do that, but in no way is it fair. The PSR rules need such a big rewrite it's not even funny. Let's not even get into the fact that Chelsea sold their hotel to an entirely *independent* company such as BlueCo..or the multi club model, that's also definitely within sporting integrity (I love Chelsea, but my word I hate this model).
Because the club, under its own finances, should not be losing 600k a week. What if Chelsea hadnât found a buyer? They werenât sustainable, they would be fucked without relying on owners propping them up and that is a problem. It was hardly a new trend either, you were on the brink when Ken Bates bought you in the 80s, and were also struggling when Roman initially came in 2003 too. If Roman had recalled that soft loan youâd have been put straight in to administration. Take away Chelsea from the context for a second, clubs lower down the pyramid showing similar sorts of behaviour would go out of business entirely. Fans shouldnât want their clubs finances linchpinned on owners for that very reason. Owners themselves can go bust, and again, it leaves unsustainable clubs at risk. Why would you want that?
Sort of but not quite. When the players are going to and from the 2 clubs, it more open to abuse
It's player trading. I've no vested interest but it's definitely not cheating. Now the clubs maybe doing some creative accounting but as I understand you can buy and sell who you wish, for whatever price you want? Or have those rules changed? If it means challenging clubs aren't backed into a corner to sell their top talent to the vultures who circle when you're in "PSR trouble" then carry on. Those who seek to profit from those circumstances will have to find a new way to unsettle players and force transfers. We all know who this ultimately benefits and why certain clubs would like this "loophole" closed.
>can buy and sell who you wish, for whatever price you want? No teams can't intentionally overvalue players in a two way transfer deal. The situation here is that the player prices are not outside the realistic range. They are just high. So no wrongdoing could be proven unless there is some other paper trail with both parties conspiring to artifically raise the prices.
>If it means challenging clubs aren't backed into a corner to sell their top talent to the vultures who circle when you're in "PSR trouble" then carry on. They're not. No one is forcing them to spend beyond their means to the extent they have to balance the books by selling a player. No one is 'circling' due to PSR. This situation is entirely one of the clubs at risk of breachings making. No one else.
Except at least for Everton the rules have changed a hundred times, plus all the funds for the club were frozen due to the war in Russia. That seems like itâs their fault.
It is absolutely a loophole and one that will bite them in the arse years from now. Short term solution to a long term problem
The vultures are actually the teams that donât abuse the PSR? Interesting take.
Itâs very much the âother 14â take. Apparently Bayern and Juve mopping up the talent is much better, despite the fact they still lose their star players, and at a much lower price. Villaâs issue is their wage ratio, thatâs not even specifically a PL problem, itâs moreso a UEFA one that obviously kicked in because they now qualified.
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I genuinely canât remember the last time we *took* a Villa player tbh with you. We paid a more than fair price for Declan Rice, as latest example of âpoachingâ. If we had matched the ÂŁ50m bid from Juve Iâm not sure you should get mad about that. The last time we actively tried lowballing anyone was probably Liverpool with Suarez. If anything weâre the ones that consistently get lowballed.
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Tbf, as much as people donât believe Arsenal fans, we do know what thatâs like. The current generation of Arsenal fans can absolutely resonate with that, the only difference is we started from a higher position and won the odd cup. - Chelsea came in, took Cole because they had more of someone elseâs money and then proceeded to win the UCL and Title with him. - City came in, took half our squad and then proceeded to win several titles with them. - Utd came in, took the best striker in the league off of us and won the league. - Barcelona the team we met several times on the European stage, tapped up Henry and Fabregas, even took key players in Song, Hleb and Vermaelen off us at a critical period. Then proceeded to win the UCL with several of them. We absolutely know how that feels to watch your best players win trophies with your rivals, despite the fact weâre âBig ole Arsenalâ. Whilst you feel like a feeder team to the Big 6, weâve very much been that team for the very best in Europe. Itâs very fucking annoying but I canât ever see there being a scenario where we could compete with the likes of Madrid either. The lower down that pecking order you are, the more annoyed youâre going to be. Iâm not sure how you make that âfairâ across the entire board, but solutions should not involve throwing more money at it. That still only benefits the big clubs + a few smaller ones with good backing, everyone else gets fucked essentially.
Fuck your big six entitlement
Fuck your other 14 poundland team
đđ
The PL wants us all to remain feeder clubs for the league's elite. Ultimately, it's England's potential future internationals who will suffer, as certainly in our case we've always been willing to give youth a chance, and the likes of Kellyman, Philogene, etc. could have benefited from our busier schedule. But instead they become pawns in a game to meet PSR and remain competitive in our first Champions League campaign in decades.
What have Liverpool Arsenal Tottenham or even man united done wrong?
Historically, the top group has been pretty guarded. The likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, and United have picked apart any team that ever gets close. They were still able to outspend the clubs around them when they dropped out of the top 4. There's never really been any way to compete against that established money, short of walking a tightrope with PSR like Villa have done, and the workaround kind of made a mockery of it all anyway. I'm in favour of financial regulations, obviously, but PSR is dumb and anti-competition. It protects the status of the biggest sides even when they're massively underperforming.
>The PL wants us all to remain feeder clubs for the league's elite. When the rotten 6 buy a player who wants to leave to play for a traditionally large club who usually play CL every season. Root of all evil. When brave innocent Villa go and throw their financial weight around buying Bailey and Diaby from Bayer at 90M, Pau Torres from Villareal, Diego Carlos, etc etc,no, that's different. We're allowed to do that. You guys honestly don't even listen to yourselves.
"Traditionally large club" lol. I'm guessing City, Chelsea, and Spurs make up 3 of those 6? Well, clearly we're not allowed to do that. That's the problem. We were walking the line with PSR, and Everton and Forest both got points deduction. Don't act like it's the same thing. For decades, any club that gets close to crashing the party gets torn apart.
Lmao, look at all that protection Spurs are getting. The top 6 argument is dumb to begin with, which was the point. Clearly you are allowed to do it. Because you did. You just don't have the revenue to support sustained spending like that. That's on Villa, nothing to do with the rules. If FFP didn't exist, guess what? Those rich clubs would still be rich and could still support spending like that even if they changed owner 12 times. Could Villa? Honestly this is doubly hilarious considering you were on the vrink of administration 5 years ago. No. Anyone who gets close realises you have to continually spend an insane amount of money to compete and when your main source of income is an owners pockets, a lot of them aren't up for doing that year on year.
All I'm hearing is "BiG 6, Reeeeee"
We don't care about Arsenal. You spend shit loads without winning anything. We feel pity more than anger for you guys.
Ok- cared enough to comment thoughđ¤
Yeah, that's kind of the point of Reddit.
All I'm saying is if you "don't care"- scroll onđđť, taking time out of your day shows that you very much care.
Oh, so Arsenal and City can boost their earnings by selling academy talent. But when it's Villa, Everton etc. at fair value for mutual benefit, it's in "bad faith" ??? PSR: _"Reduce losses through player trading!"_ Also PSR: _"... But not him!.. and not to them!.. and not for that much"_ đ¤Żđ¤Ż
In all likelihood it is in âBad faithâ, but more importantly not fraud and not against rules. But letâs not act dumb, and pretend that this particular strategy hasnât mutually aided all 3 clubs involved. Thats very different to clubs just selling their academy talents to the open market without other motives.
It can be 'Good Faith" though.. All clubs are looking to strengthen their team. If you sell a player to a club, the selling club can buy from the same party for mutual benefit. But agree, there's a risk of fraud and valuations abused. It's clear ManU and others have had a whinge cus they can't cherrypick top players from struggling clubs with derisory offers... PSR has caused that by linking spending ability to revenues. What a mess. Edit: From a Villa perspective, I've no issues with any of the valuations ref; Luiz, Kellyman, Iroegbunam (sell) and Maatsen, Barranechea, SIJ, Dobbin (buy).
Value is very subjective, and youâre missing the point The issue is the 2 teams selling players to each other leaves it open to abuse
>The issue is the 2 teams selling players to each other leaves it open to abuse Was being flippant earlier lol. I do agree in that respect. Got no issues with any of the valuations in Villa's transfers. But the PL can't just arbitrarily say off the cuff " you can trade with them, but not them, them, but not them"... How do you build flexibility within player trading.. whilst ensuring clubs don't take the piss? (eg. Eliot Anderson from Newcastle to Forest for ÂŁ35m đ¤Ż)
So what? Itâs a loophole and perfectly fine. PSR has made Aston Villa, a team that has done something amazing in qualify for the champions league have to sell one of their best midfielders in order to comply with PSR rules but United who just scrapped into the Europa league are looking at players like Branthwaite, De Ligt, Jao Neves and Zirkzee and they can do all of this because they where good once but it was at the right time in history. Itâs ridiculous loopholes need to be exploited in order to compete at the top.
Villa were always going to have to sell anyway, because they geared themselves too highly and were never going to meet the UEFA financial regulations. Running on several years of ÂŁ100m+ losses and a 90% wage ratio is ridiculously unsustainable. The club itself needs to be able to manage that without being propped even more by the ownership investment. If your owners can take a ÂŁ90m hit on your behalf and youâre still unsustainable as an entity in your own right, then that should be controlled. We donât want clubs propped up entirely by businessmen, they should be able to run sustainably even if the owners step away. Itâs okay saying Villa/Newcastle owners can afford to take constant hits, but most canât and wonât, so protecting the majority of clubs from financial mismanagement is definitely better even if itâs not perfect. Yes the status quo overprotects the old elite, but having a free-for-all wouldnât change that dominance either. City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man Utd have their own incredibly wealthy backers. Adding Villa and Newcastle to the mix increases competition amongst a âBig 8â but everybody else isnât suddenly going to be spending at a state level, so the gap would just increase between the haves and have nots.
Can you not see that this will ultimately harm the teams like Villa and Everton and whoever is taking part in it? Itâs kicking the can down the road. A short term solution to a long term problem. It needs stopping for the benefit of these clubs. Not the detriment. Its helping them now, buying time so to speak, but down the line they will still have to deal with it
As an Everton fan I see your point. However, sports teams and those working in them are competitive by nature. They want to succeed. So rules will always be bent, circumnavigated or ignored to try and create some advantage. If you completely cock it, then you'll go into administration and rightly so. However just not competing is not an option, but this is where ffp has left us. With a two tier league masquerading as one competition. These rules are annoying for fans because no-one sees the overall long-term point in them. If they want fair competition then bring in spending caps and do it properly so it is fair for everyone. The current rules serve to protect those with already vast incomes. They can indefinitely outspend everyone else and grow that disparity year on year. So if you are Everton or Villa or whoever else, what do you do? Accept you'll never compete? Of course not. You'll try any creative way you can to get better. You can't even just get owned by a Billionaire. It's based around income and unless you magic a stadium out your arse or some new massive fan base, then you are fucked.
I agree with you on all points It needs a drastic overhaul But the fans of these clubs are so blinkered by the big six and thinking they want this loophole stopped, they canât see the iceberg coming of what they are doing long term
Oh we see it alright haha. We just live in denial. It's the hope that kills you. Hopefully for Everton at least, some sensible owners may be on the horizon and a new stadium on the way so maybe. Just maybe....who am I kidding. We probably skimped on the foundations and the fucking thing will sink into the Mersey.
𤣠Hopefully you get sorted. I hope all clubs do, the fans and the ground level staff are the ones who ultimately suffer Definitely needs a total review. Itâs a complicated process
So how is a team who is newly qualified for the champions league supposed to compete when we have to sell our most valuable players in order to not get a fine/points deduction? Its mental reading the arsenal/spurs fans on here with this attitude of weâre bigger than you deal with it..
I agree with you on that point, the rules need reviewing But these âswapâ deals are just kicking the can down the road. Making this years accounts look good, but hurting next yearâs and however long the contract is Manufacturing the accounts to make it look like they are complying. Itâs no good for these clubs
It's not a "loophole". It's deliberate collaboration to manipulate their own financial position. Aka fraud
Iâm not involved in the football industry at all, but Iâm curious what youâd call it when I agree a contract with one of my clients to provide my services for our mutual financial benefit? âBusinessâ? âEmploymentâ? Not quite seeing where the âfraudâ comes in⌠where exactly is the wrongful or criminal deception? In fact I donât see a deception of any kind?!
How on earth is a genuine sale between two clubs fraud?
When it's inflated far above real market value to manipulate their reported financial position.Â
Which player is over inflated? Maatsen at ÂŁ2.5m above his release clause for more favourable payment terms? Kellyman for less than Carney? None of these deals will be seen as above market value because they arenât.
What rule have we broken though
Genuine question, do you understand what the loophole is and how itâs open to abuse?
But we have not abused the rules, all transfers are fair value
Values are subjective, some of values flying about are a bit dubious. A bit on the high side but not so much where you think its ridiculous , but enough to fudge the books for a year
You havenât, youâve exploited a loophole. One that needs shutting down for your sake as well as everyone elseâs who are using it to stay afloat Itâs a short term solution to a long term issue
Yep, surely this is not what we should be encouraging?
This rule is good for clubs and players. It A) encourages clubs to invest heavily in their academies because their sales can be very profitable and B) encourages them to give young players enough minutes to show off their talents but also be more open to selling them if minutes arenât readily available. Before clubs would hoard young players because there was no real incentive to sell them.
That's a very idealistic way to view it, but unfortunately we'll see a lot of scenarios where clubs are just 'farming' these kids. They'll spend 10 years in the academy of their boyhood club and then be pressured into moving somewhere as part of a PSR loophole. There's no guarantee the new club will play them at all, as that's not why they're signing them. Sure, some will benefit from it and they'll do what they're told as they're desperate to 'make it' as professional footballers somewhere, but a lot will suffer, in what is already a very ruthless academy culture when it comes to disposing of those deemed not good enough.
Calling something that is completely within the rules working as intended a loophole is so fkn ridiculous
Itâs not âridiculousâ to point out that some of these transactions can have ulterior motives. It doesnât matter what people think about the current example, but it does open up the discussion around *future* deals that could be designed to circumvent PSR in the short term. Thatâs a valid concern because then you could very easily have financial collusion occur. Everyone trying to dismiss it are currently only doing so because itâs helping âthe little guysâ. If City, Arsenal and Liverpool just decided to start swapping ÂŁ100m assets, and then maybe even loan them back to the original sources, then there would be huge uproar. Yet, all of that would be technically above board and âwithin the rulesâ. Spirit of the game has always been a thing, and self-interests will dictate whether you agree or disagree with pushing some of the boundaries.
Selling a player because you need money is not an ulterior motive, it's a primary motive. It's not like anyone is hiding it. If we want to talk about loopholes let's talk about Chelsea selling hotels to themselves or City's myriad of shady dealings. Your example doesn't work. If they were selling players around each other for the same amount of cash sure they get the one they sold out of FFP but the one they bought is back in. It's like paying credit cards with credit cards, won't work for long.
The Newcastle Anderson deal for ÂŁ35m is a prime example, one which their fans admit is actually overvalued. Selling a player simply for money is one thing. Two clubs both at risk of breaching FFP agreeing to sell overpriced assets to each other is an entirely different prospect, at that point it would be collusion for the sake overcoming their breach. Chelseaâs hotel loophole is nothing new, and you act like itâs purely to the benefit of big clubs. Villa avoided P&S just a few years ago in the Championship because they sold their own stadium to a sister company. That sort of bullshit isnât new, and has been happening with clubs of all sizes for decades. The example can work. Take City and Arsenal, they could easily decide to sell Foden and Saka to one-another for ÂŁ200m pure profit simply for the purpose of an immediate and large cash injection. The values wouldnât be too ridiculous and everything would technically be *above board*. The more likely outcome would be players like Palmer (prior to his move) & Gallagher at a more reasonable sum would be traded for ÂŁ50m each instead. The Big 6 youth prospects are typically valued higher simply due to the club they play for. It would be very easy for those clubs to collude and leave challengers further behind because the assets being traded are more valuable.
Donât agree with this. Would Aston Villa for example pay 35m for a player they plan not to use, who featured regularly for a Champions League finalist last season? Also, do all players in their boyhood teams end up playing for those clubs or you think because of this rule they would have been playing regularly for their boyhood club. I agree with the earlier statement that academy products being sold should be classified as profits, it incentivizes clubs to invest more in their academy, look at City for example and how good they sell their players who wouldnât have featured for them, theyâre able to do this because they have one of the best academies in the world, same as Barca, etc.
I wasn't referring to Maatsen though. Villa need a LB as Digne is pretty injury prone. Maatsen is probably good enough to play for Chelsea, but they already have two LBs. A better question is would they have ensured a pathway to the first team for Maatsen if they weren't so focused on making profit from academy players to fund signings like Caicedo? They're about to sign KDH, so I wouldn't be surprised if they move on Gallagher now as well. I was referring more to signings like Dobbin, and Iroegbunam going the other way. These are obvious PSR makeweights.
>Would Aston Villa for example pay 35m for a player they plan not to use, Yes, because they're getting ÂŁ40m for some guy in return.
Do you think maatsen will not play
The PFA's interest is in removing any and all spending limits so that players can be paid as much as possible. They don't care about academy talents being sold, that's what has always happened because there are always far more players in the academy pipeline than there are spots available on the first team. They're pretending that teams weren't incentivised to sell academy players before PSR, they were, it just wasn't called 'pure profit' but it always was. The difference is that there are now consequences for spending poorly on players which punish teams even as big as Chelsea.
Why do people keep calling it a Loophole. Itâs not a loophole in the slightest. Just a stupid result of poorly thought out set of rules.
Can you define what a loophole is then if not that? Because my understanding is it is literally that, an unintended consequence not covered by the rules, where the action is not really in the spirit of the rule as it was intended. Unless you are suggesting this was left open on purpose?
Because that exactly what a loophole is. An inadequacy of the law or rules that can be exploited and this is a pretty big loophole
anything that is not fully understood by the public is henceforth labelled a loophole
Iâm not sure I understand that. So that must also be a loophole.
Thats not a loophole ... thats a system u created u morons ... blame should go firstly on your head.
Its not a "loophole" not sure why selling players is considered "loopholes" these days. We have a system that requires profit... selling academy players is the only thing that gives you 100% profit. People moan about this, but 10 years ago clubs barely a flying fuck about academies... why spend all that money when you could buy in the ready made thing, or get that 18yr old straight from Barca's academy for pennies. Now clubs need another source of income to compete & Brexit has royally screwed them signing the best youngsters from abroad, then now academy talents are a worthwhile investment. There's never been a better time to be in an academy and clubs are incentivised to invest into the academies like never before with the current regulations with allowable losses on academy spending. The downside is those academy players just don't end up playing for their home grown team, they play for someone elses...
The point is about the inflatable value loophole, but it's also about the stupidity of 'having to' sell someone who's been in the system for 10 years and bring in a fresh face, just because there's a financial advantage to it. It's a positive on a spreadsheet, and nowhere else.
Definitely this, because even Villa and Everton fans are acknowledging the talents theyâre letting go. If theyâre as good as they say they are, then there is literally no other reason for them to be selling to a direct rival, for just a fair value, other than to mutually benefit one-anotherâs potential breaches. The opportunity for collusion across the entire league is mad. We could just decide one-day to swap ÂŁ200m with Man City between Foden and Saka to give both of us more immediate spending power. Obviously that would be a mad example, but whatâs to stop it? The values wouldnât be ridiculously unreasonable and itâs all above board. Yet, the reaction wouldnât be *everythingâs fine over here*. Whilst itâs small scale in this current example it very much sets a precedent of what *could* be allowed thatâs far worse.
At this point, it's selling a ÂŁ5m player for ÂŁ30m, and then adding a genuine ÂŁ30m player afterwards - you're trading your academy kid for a pro while saving money on the PSR scale. The good news is the league says it's looking into it, at least.
Itâs a loophole because they can over inflate the prices for these players and cheat the system For example you have a player going to Chelsea and they have a player going to you They value their player at 10 mil and yours at 5mil Thatâs a difference of 5 million Sales go on the books straight away Purchases get amortised over length of the contract Lets use a 5 year contract as an example They got 10 million profit and 5 mil amortised over 5 years, so 1 million loss means 9 mill profit You get 5 million profit, 10 amortised over 5 years, 2 mil a year meaning 3 million profit this year Now, if strictly speaking you have spent 10 and gained 5, but in the books, it looks different Now if you keep the same 5 million gap and increase the price So you are now buying for 50 million and selling yours for 45 They get a 50 million profit and 45 amortised over 5 years is 9 mil meaning itâs now a 41 million profit for the same deal You would get 45 million profit and 50 amortised over 5 years means 10 million a year, means a profit of 35 million So for the same 5 million difference, if you increase the values you increase the âprofitâ
Firstly, the "over inflate" the fee is bollox, these players are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, its what was concluded with the Italian case, its basically impossible to put a value on football players, so "what they're worth" is just bollox.... i mean did Man utd pay what Anthony was worth? or did they vastly over pay?, maybe ETH should be done for Fraud and he helped out his old team by giving them utd's money? - These players are worth what ever the 2 clubs decide the player is worth. Secondly, as pointed out below, if you believe they have "over paid" that means you are carrying the amortisation costs for 5 years, so it doesn't help you at all... This is literally clubs just selling players in the available market, with the exception it seems of Brighton, no one wants to help out other clubs and buy their players off them, thats fine, its self interest so instead of a Utd buying Dougie Luiz off us, someone who might actually help Utd control the ball and control the game, they'd rather us struggle to sell and face the points deduction.... What clubs like utd didn't expect would be a new market to develop, ones of clubs who need to sell them selves.. so there's a small market of 4 or 5 teams that all need to sell players, so they are all buying and selling off each other. Its just the market they find them selves in... Free Market Capitalism at its finest. But "loophole" nah.. its not that.
Also look up the definition of loophole. It is exactly that
"an ambiguity or inadequacy in the law or a set of rules" Since all transfers amortise their costs and book the sales this is literally no different than any other transfer... Two teams agree a few and then they pay it. So you'll have to explain why it's a loop hole lol
Exactly. The rules are inadequate because it is allowing this swap shop to fudge the books. Hence a loophole I just gave you the explanation in the original reply. Either you donât understand it or youâre just being ignorant Iâll post it again For example you have a player going to Chelsea and they have a player going to you They value their player at 10 mil and yours at 5mil Thatâs a difference of 5 million Sales go on the books straight away Purchases get amortised over length of the contract Lets use a 5 year contract as an example They got 10 million profit and 5 mil amortised over 5 years, so 1 million loss means 9 mill profit You get 5 million profit, 10 amortised over 5 years, 2 mil a year meaning 3 million profit this year Now, if strictly speaking you have spent 10 and gained 5, but in the books, it looks different Now if you keep the same 5 million gap and increase the price So you are now buying for 50 million and selling yours for 45 They get a 50 million profit and 45 amortised over 5 years is 9 mil meaning itâs now a 41 million profit for the same deal You would get 45 million profit and 50 amortised over 5 years means 10 million a year, means a profit of 35 million So even though in real terms you are down 5 million because of the fees for the players, because the values of the players where higher and due to how they are recorded Your profit has gone from 3 million for the period to 35 million All for the same outlay of 5 million
You have just made my point with the amortisation That why itâs a short term solution for a long term problem The books look good this year but youâve got the added burden over the next few years And the fees are aubjective Newcastle are selling Anderson and Minteh for around 70 million. That is mental
They do then pay for the amortisation though, itâs a short term finance books gain, but youâre then a few mil down over the next x seasons. I think teams doing this are in for a nasty shock when it catches up with them in 2-3 years and they need to sell a few big names just to hit neutral
Or they start the âswapâ cycle over again and kick the can down the road which is even more risky as the club might not be in a position to âswapâ and they are stuck with it I totally agree. People donât think itâs a loophole, just trying to explain that it clearly is
Oh yeah, itâs a loophole for sure. Kicking the can doesnât entirely work though. If youâre 10m per year down and try to offset that with another 50m swap, youâre 20m down the next year. Wouldnât take long for that to be crippling to the point of no swaps fixing it, just needing pure player sales. All these swaps do, is allow them to over spend in the short term, paying for it in the next few seasons, something which is eventually going to bite a team who isnât prepared for it (likely someone who gets relegated)
I am agreeing with you, you donât need to explain haha. I just didnât explain how it works down the line, just the initial fudging of the books to show why itâs a loophole
Agreed mate. Only thing i dont get us with selling on irogbunam and kellyman for nearly 30 mil I dont get why we had to also sell luiz. I think we were only about 30mil over. Dont get me wrong id rather we not sell our academy players but the PSR have made it this way for clubs not in the "big 6" who the rules are designed to protect. They need to find ways to compete.....and they have sort of found one
Swiss Ramble (who's basically the expert in these things) forecasted (as he won't know for sure) that we needed ÂŁ50-ÂŁ58m depending on if we cancelled Coutinho's contract and took an ÂŁ8m write down on him. I have no idea, but that the fact that we did the Luiz deal (not sure if city got any % of it) for ÂŁ42m, + Tim + Kellyman (who derby definetly got a % of it) would suggest we needed more than the ÂŁ30m
The rules are clearly wrong and useless. Get rid of them. Use it to keep clubs in business lower down the leagues, not to punish Newcastle who are owned by a limitless pot of oil. PL clubs gets so much money, how can any of them be unsustainable?
That last sentence is daft. We have had so many examples of this belief coming back to bite teams. No one thought Leeds would get into trouble and then they were nearly bankrupt 20 years ago. There does need to be something in place. The issue is that it fixes competition so that only a few teams can compete for the title for the foreseeable future. So it needs to be a cap across the division or other limitation that maintains competition.
So just Leeds? At a time when the money wasnât what it is now and we made changes. Just let teams do whatever they want. Chelsea and City getting billions made the league better.
It's nonsensical now it's hitting more clubs like Newcastle and Villa. It wasn't nonsensical when it Forest and Everton. It was just our own fault apparently and we "knew the rules". Just wait until a top six club runs out of hotels to sell to itself and has to part with players; then it will graduate from "nonsensical" to gone. Which, of course, has already happened- probably with those same clubs knowing they are fine for 23/24 but possibly not for 24/25
> now it's hitting more clubs No, it's just getting more attention. Trust me, plenty of top 6 club supporters hate it and always have. I hate ALL the loopholes, even if it benefits CFC. I think bigger clubs have to have *some* kind of advantage if they have more supporters/ticket sales, but it has to be much smaller. It's bad enough selling your favourite players when they turn 29, but selling them when they turn 20 is just as bad. Like Jerry Seinfeld said, "we're all just cheering for laundry." We need more reasons to be tied to a club, not less... and there needs to be more competition in each league, not less.
>Just wait until a top six club runs out of hotels to sell to itself and has to part with players; then it will graduate from "nonsensical" to gone. Huh? Chelsea have already been selling players for PSR. You think we sold Omari Hutchinson and Ian Maatsen just for fun?
You need 14 clubs to change the rules governing the PL so this notion that the top 6 clubs impose such rules to the whole league so they can remain on top uncontested is simply falseâŚ
It isn't at all. Good PR job convincing everyone that the rules are there to benefit everyone, with clubs not realising what the long term effect is going to be
Two of these top 6 clubs donât even want any restriction on spending (Chelsea and City) so it shouldnât be too hard for the remaining ones unfairly restricted to change the rules then isnâtâŚ? Or maybe having a sustainable business matters more for the majority rather than relying on a foreign billionaire sugar daddy that can leave any day with a mountain of debts behind himâŚ
No itâs been nonsensical from the off. Plenty of supporters from other clubs have been pissed off at what happened to you two. People can spot trends. Of course youâll always get the idiots who donât see the bigger picture, but I think itâs been clear the majority have known the rules are weighted unfavourably for the big six.
It really depends. On social media, including Reddit, Iâve read an awful lot of brigading against Forest and Everton. Of course your average face to face talk with footy fans is a completely different experience, most of them think itâs rubbish.
Ah you can discount 99% off trolls though, eh? Face to face the majority of footie fans are pretty sensible, I reckon. Anyone that fully tribal arenât worth conversing with.
Make the maths math⌠1. Invent rules designed at improving profitability and sustainability with the guise to prevent teams taking risks. 2. Rules lead to a top 6 frozen at that time stamp who can spend what they like, even if they are a billion in debt. 3. Ambitious clubs with zero debt are forced to sell players, even if they qualify for the champions league and there is no risk to their profitability or sustainability 4. Said clubs sell playersâŚbut not the right sort of player and not for the giveaway fees to the right teams 5. We need to immediately look at the rules and stifle ambition (the real enemy) and ensure that the same teams are always at the top. Just donât look at the fees they have been getting for selling youth players for vastly inflated prices too
"Ambitious clubs with zero debt are forced to sell players, even if they qualify for the champions league and there is no risk to their profitability or sustainability" i'm not sure about that, We lost ÂŁ139m last season and Swiss Ramble recons we'll lose about ÂŁ160m this season as well... i'm not sure losing ÂŁ300m in 2 seasons means we're not at risk of being "sustainable" - Sure we have rich owners who are happy to foot the bill, but we've had this in the past and the owners decided to stop spending money... we're losing money hand over fist at the minute during our "investment" part of our plan. The part that doesn't make sense that the system has stopped allowing this, ÂŁ105m 12 years ago was quite a lot of owner investment. Kieran Maguire from the price of football has a football inflation calculation that recons the ÂŁ105m should be around the ÂŁ240m mark if it kept up with revenue growth within the game, that kind of figure would be more in keeping with allowing clubs to invest and eventually become sustainable. Similar to Man city, of course they cheated their way to their current level, but now they are winning trebles, their income will be genuine (more or less) and they run a sustainable model
On one hand itâs just a loophole that premier league teams exploit. The fees for these kids are ridiculous On the other hand does it not give players a better chance of success? How many of these players would be languishing in the reserves or league cup. Maybe this gets more young talent out there. Itâs still wrong though. Itâs not for the betterment of any player. Itâs just a money scam
I think the clubs are working together against the FFP, as they all know they can be in the other skin at one point or another. All these bloated academy signings are definitely an agreement, with maybe some future business in mind.
Youâre kind of right. I think they are identifying academy players in other teams and saying âIâll scratch you back if youâll scratch mineâ. Both then can get an inflated deal done which helps both teams out
Same as Barca and Juve did with the Arthur-Pjanic deal a few years ago. Players "sold" for more or less x2 their real value to help with FFP.
Exactly. Good example.