Abacus

The contingent liabilities note basically says they've accrued for it so probably moved it there from provisions at some point, but that's a nicety due to being more sure of it since 2017, so either way it's accounted for already. The only thing it does say is that they haven't accounted for anything additional re it (e.g. at a guess, if it was higher than they thought / any additional fines or penalties they weren't expecting, should there be any).

This was a known issue at the time of the takeover so will have been factored in to the deal. But for NUFC, my reading of the most recent accounts is that they had already accrued for expected liabilities due to this. I.e., unless that £6.2m figure was much more than they expected, it should have no real new effect on FFP, since they've already accounted for it.

Agreed, and while I don't pay much attention to online scuttlebutt I do think their club themselves are a bit to blame here by coming out in support of Arteta's comments. Fine if a manager loses his rag in the heat of the moment, but not too surprising if it's been said by the club as well.

Perhaps every match should have a second VAR to review the decisions of the first VAR. Only if that goes wrong should we consider introducing a third VAR.

So, if you doubt Villa will have much chance as well, is it Spurs for that 4th slot? I think it would take a hell of a turnaround for us to make top 4 given our squad right now. But Spurs seem catchable to me for one of us, you or Villa.

Villa are an interesting one - very good team and wouldn't be surprised if they finished in or near the top 4. I do think though that the pressure will be on now. Probably I expected them to finish as part of the chasing pack, like a lot of others. But now they look a genuine threat a lot more teams will be looking at them much more seriously and that's when it starts to count. Long old season and when we made it last season we became pretty relentless. Not saying they can't do that as well, but this is where the real test for them starts.

Yeah, it's probably just me then. And damn, 3-0

Are Sky doing something to the crowd noise here, as well as blurring out the red cards? Some of it sounds oddly false, like the piped in crowd noise during COVID. Might well be imagining that, though.

Emery doing good things at half time, look a different team. Now let's see what Postecoglou can, err, Postecog-do.

If only some of them bought a ticket.

This is an interesting point. I expect most left the more established / high profile leagues for the wages, rather than to genuinely grow the Saudi league. So, if they get a chance to go back, without a wage cut (however it's funded), why wouldn't they? But anyway, now I'm just speculating about stuff too and am therefore hoist by my own petard.

It's a nonsense article, deliberately taking a perfectly reasonable statement and twisting it to inflame. Coy about January plans? Who the hell isn't? But yes, he should definitely tell them all his plans just so they can stop wildly speculating about things that likely won't happen.

I doubt we'll do it anyway, so it's purely hypothetical. But I think if that happened (and the Saudis decided to dilute their own league which they're clearly trying to grow, so I'm dubious of as well), that could well fall foul of existing rules anyway. E.g. if they paid 100% of the wages, the PL could also argue that we weren't paying fair market value for that transaction, and not allow it for FFP reasons, presumably. There's possibly an argument to be made about what a fair contribution would be for a PL player. You could say that Saudi wages aren't that, because it's being spent for a specific reason - to attract players to a growing league. I.e. maybe you could make an argument that a wages contribution equivalent to what that player would earn in the PL would be fair. Well, maybe. But again, not sure it would fly even if we (and they) wanted to do that. It's all ifs and buts for now, though.

It's amusing, because we haven't even done anything wrong. It's all everyone second guessing what we might do - hopefully gives them sleepless nights making up hypotheticals. In the meantime, it's being reported that Spurs may have broken agent payment rules that were actually in place several years ago. If true, Luton got a points deduction for that at the time. Quite glad our owners seem to be canny and operating within the rules, but should do everything they can within them. Unlike the previous jokers who'd have probably forgotten to turn up and vote, citing the high cost of train fares.

I'm not even sure we'll take anyone on loan from Saudi, it would still have complications, but it's fun causing the meltdowns about it anyway.

More posts on there about it than on any other fans forum, I'd bet.

I doubt there was any way to make that work in the first place, it was a crackers rule. Anyway, time for an evil laugh. Mwhahaha!

Yeah, I was sort of thinking that when I typed it but pressed send anyway. Allowable losses surey need to be linked with a club's ability to stay afloat, so the figure will obviously differ depending on the club's circumstances / wealth of your owner. Then we come round in a circle again as to what the whole point of it is.

Looking forward to Shite of the Living Dead.

NB @The College Dropout, I do agree that maybe the £30m per year limit on losses may need to be raised. The inflation in player transfer fees over the last couple of years is insane and I wonder where that arbitrary limit comes from, but it starts to look like chicken-feed in that context. But what should it be? Wouldn't know where to start.

The only trouble with that is, we could do that and then we could buy the league in perpetuity. I'm not sure I'd like that either. Even though I do think we're being overly restricted right now and are only just making up for the damage Ashley caused.

It was all much simpler when Jack Walker bought the league title for Blackburn. Point being, that money has always influenced the league. But for every Blackburn, there's a Leeds or Portsmouth. So, I agree that sustainability has to be something that should be a factor in what a club spends and I also agree that I wouldn't want us to just buy the league either. The main thing that's missing is a way to counterbalance the historic advantages of a few big clubs who built their advantages before FFP was a thing. Can't really think what that would be though - salary caps, spending limits etc all have flaws. I'm a bit sick of thinking about it all to be honest. I'm just going to enjoy the football and let our owners and their lawyers worry about it as I'm just enjoying us being competitive and ruffling a few feathers.

Saying that it's a personal matter is only going to cause speculation about that which is likely nobody's business. Would rather they'd just said he'd had a mild illness like a dose of the shits, a paper-cut or tennis elbow.

Everton tried to break into the top 5, and gambled that their spending would get them there. Yes, they spent badly and the gamble didn't work, but the point of FFP was surely originally to stop a situation like Portsmouth - a club going bust and unable to compete, not just wrecking them but also the league itself. It's now been twisted to stop another Chelsea / Man City problem, which is a different issue altogether and should have been stopped at the time. But now the horse has bolted and they're cemented as top clubs based on it. Ironically, those two were also the two least keen on wrecking football in a different way with the ESL, so I don't really hold as much of a grudge against them as I should. It's a right muddle. At least we're trying to do things the right way. But the PL definitely can't be trusted to make the right decisions as they're too in thrall to a few clubs who want to pull up the drawbridge to anyone that wants to compete. It's Villa and Brighton, along with us, that I really want to see smash things up. Big 6 my arse.

Trouble with that is, you'd no doubt get extra punishment for deliberately breaking the rules. And of course there would be new rules introduced the minute we tried it.