Jackie Broon

The challenge for now is taking over a club in a relegation battle with League One/Two level facilities and building from ground up. He does have relevant experience of that.

Bruce was 9th choice but crowd didn't really turn on him en masse until his last match, and that was just a few rounds of 'we want Brucey out'.

Same, impressed by what I've seen and from what I can tell Bournemouth were very unlucky in his final season with injuries and big signings not working out, seems like the supporters generally didn't blame him for it, wished him well and thought he would go on to better things. It's a rare thing for a manager to leave on good terms with the supporters like that and I think it says a lot.

Isn't this all just coming from Balague, who is notoriously inaccurate and the bits regarding doubts about the vision and Howe are clearly just speculation about what he thinks the issue might be?

Yes, the FFP calculations are just based on pre-tax profit/loss, but third party ownership rules only apply to players so there might be ways of non-playing staff being paid by another company and not affecting the club's accounts.

I don't think there is any set protocol, it will depend on the terms of the manager's contract. When a player transfers what the club is essentially buying is the player's registration. In the case of a manager its just an employment contract that needs to be bought out of.

The clubs hold player's registrations and there are rules about approaching them, a manager is just like any other member of staff and they can talk to other potential employers without the knowledge / permission of the club.

Although, the lawyers involved in the contract bit would probably be solicitors rather than barristers.

If it turns out to be Ten Hag and Overmars

They're the basket case of the 'big 6', how many top class managers to they have to hire and fire before they realise the manager is not the issue there? Conte would be mad to agree to be their manager.

Yeah, but in that time they essentially appointed Fonseca, then changed their mind because their new DOF thought his philosophy was too attack minded, then essentially appointed Gattuso, then changed their mind again when people pointed out that he'd made homophobic comments in the past.

I'd take Nuno as our manager right now.

You have a point. I still find it hard to believe that anyone outside of a very small circle knew that, but that doesn't mean I'm completely discounting that possibility.

I find it very hard to believe that you were aware that PIF never withdrew. You may have formed that opinion, as did I and stated it on here many times before the event, but that does not mean you were aware of the fact. The difference between you and me (other than knowing that "you and I" is hypercorrection in that context), is that I speculated that PIF might still be involved but also acknowledged other possibilities. On the other hand you continually stated your opinion as fact, which it was not, it was your opinion, even if it was eventually shown to be correct.

I was one of the very few on here that didn’t take PIF’s public statement withdrawing their interest in the cub on face value and continued to argue with the likes of FB and JL that there was a possibility that they were still interested in buying us even when just about everyone thought the takeover was dead and buried. There were things that led me to believe that could be a possibility, I did not state it was the case because I didn’t know, I just said I thought it was possible. FB, JL and the like simply dismissed that, treating their opinion that PIF had gone as fact, rather than accepting that there could be more than one possibility. That is what you are doing now. You come across as someone completely unwilling or unable to see that there is more that one side to and argument, more than one possibility outside of your opinion, the archetype of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Just like PIF’s statement about withdrawing their interest, I also don’t simply take the statements about this being a long term project on face value. It is obviously going to take some time to turn us into a competitive club, but that long term will not be an unlimited one, relegation would put that project back and they would make an analysis of where it is worth continuing with it or not. PIF are ruthless, they have cut losses on multi-billion investments in the past, it’s incredibly naive to discount any possibility of that in our case. I’m not saying that would be the case, just that it is one possibility, my response was in the context of some people saying relegation might not be all that bad.

Some folks are struggling with the concept of there being more than one possible outcome.

I'm not saying they would, but it is a possibility. Going down would extend the term of the project by at least a year, in reality a lot more because it would affect the amount we could spend under FFP for at least 3 years, amongst other stuff.

Yeah, there's every chance they would just cut their losses and move on.

There will be ways around it for us, we've got the power and wealth of a nation ruled by an absolute monarchy behind us, they'll be able to get unconnected Saudi companies to sponsor us with no paper trail. That's not the case for other clubs owned by rich individuals. I think the clubs outside of the big six are just focussed on being overtaken by us, but they can't see the wood for the trees that the FFP rules as they are only really benefit the big six.

I'm not concerned about us getting around it, I'm sure we will one way or another whatever they do. My point is more about clubs outside of the big six voting in favour of rules that are basically designed to stop them from ever bridging the financial gap to the big 6.

No need to get aggressive, I'm talking about the current rules about related party sponsorships have been in place for years: A.1.163. “Related Party Transaction” means a transaction disclosed in a Club’s Annual Accounts as a related party transaction or which would have been disclosed as such except for an exemption under the accounting standards under which the Annual Accounts were prepared; Pursuant to Rules E.18 to E.20, the Board may require further information from the Club including (but not limited to): a) confirmation that Club Own Revenue Uplift has been calculated on a like-for-like basis; and b) satisfactory evidence that revenue included within the calculation of Club Own Revenue Uplift has not been artificially inflated. In addition, the Board may adjust a Club Own Revenue Uplift by assessing any revenue within it from Related Party Transactions to Fair Market Value. As set out in the definition of Club Own Revenue Uplift (Rule A.1.33), the Board must give the Club the opportunity to make submissions before it does so.

I'd say that the current rules are fact, they restrict related party sponsorships to fair market value. Clubs outside of the big 6 voted for that, but how could they ever bridge this sort of gap in 'fair market value'? The model of FFP that they have already voted for has already pulled up the drawbridge on them.

The current FFP rules already have that effect, they just don't seem to have been particularly rigidly enforced. They've already unanimously voted for a temporary rule to ban new related party sponsorship and whatever is proposed at the next meeting will not make FFP any more equitable for the clubs outside of the bix 6.

Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense for anyone other than Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and maybe Chelsea. The rules devalue all of the other clubs and condemns them to being also-rans. They're pulling up the drawbridge on themselves just to prevent another club from competing with the big six.

No, the PL rules require clubs to submit accounts with that information each season. The rules allow the PL to discount any income over fair market value from the FFP calculation.