TheBrownBottle

Hard to see this finishing 0-0 like. I still think we can outscore them.

We'll be alright, as long as the ball doesn't come into our final third of the pitch

They weren't 20-30 quid for those adidas ones; mine was 35 quid. With inflation, that would be 85 quid today. Most of the kits were manufactured in sweatshops in Turkey, not the UK. And I seem to remember a former chairman boasting to a News of the Screws fake sheikh in a Spanish brothel about just how much they cost to make; just how quality they were; and just how much we were stupid enough to pay.

Most will disagree because it wouldn't be a good thing for the club. It would actually impact our earnings and seeding in the CL if we qualified next season.

Yeah, weirdly a red card would be better than one yellow in terms of suspension time

She's actually taking the moral high ground

Prediction: Newcastle win, and Bruno at the end of a MOTM performance gets booked in the 89th minute for something completely daft after about ten games of being a good lad.

With a van, it's like you've got an MBA, but you've also got a fucking van. You're not just a man anymore - you are a man with a van.

Chelsea's income will continue to be high for the foreseeable, even if they remain mediocre on the pitch - the commercial revenues are effectively baked-in; long term deals, plus they've got a sizeable 'global fanbase' at this point. Plus the usual benefits of being in London. I reckon they'd need a decade of consistent mediocrity / failure - i.e. what Chelsea was for pretty much its entire history pre-Harding - to take a real knock on the income levels.

I can remember singing ‘Nayim from the halfway line’ when playing Arsenal. I don’t recollect a time when it was any different (though English clubs were banned from Europe when I first started watching football. So maybe pre-Heysel it was different)

I read this thinking ‘it wasn’t long ago Ipswich were in the top flight’, then realised it’s been over twenty years. Christ I feel old

I can’t argue that tbf. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though

It’s not about entitlement nor impatience. It’s about being owned by one of the vilest regimes on planet earth, whose presence at the club is a stain on it. What they’re doing - and what they’re likely to do - could be achieved by any wealthy, competent owner. So why do we need a Faustian pact with them?

I think they’d get more than that tbh. I also don’t think we’re at peak investment

It would mean that the SOS‘s official attendances would actually be reflective of the number of people in the ground. Well, at least 19 times per season, anyway

It’s afternoon here in Australia. But the time of day hasn’t impacted my doom mongering

At the moment, my money would be on a traditional investment. Maximise what the club can be in the current market under its own steam, potentially sell when it’s judged to have peaked.

Yes, which is not the same as being ‘no 1’ or ‘we will win the premier league, we will win the champions league’ etc.

I didn’t think it was ok when Chelsea, PSG and Man City did it tbh. But that’s just my view.

The stated ambitions aren’t; I also think it’s notable that the club has went quite quiet in terms of public statements over the last 12 months

Amortisation is sat at around £90m. So yeah, we’re crippled by it. UEFA won’t see the rules as being worse - they’ll see it at protecting clubs by forcing only sustainable growth (limiting to 70% outgoings directly out of the clubs) and preventing financial doping (which causes costs to rise). I think they have a point. The problem is that it effectively locks into place the current order of things. For most European football nations this isn’t an issue - pretty much every European league looks similar to what it did 10, 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Same old clubs. The difference is that England has far more potentially big clubs than any other country - we don’t view Chelsea as being bigger than Villa, Spurs as being bigger than Everton, Man City as being bigger than Newcastle (all historically). We know that they could all easily swap positions without the current finances being locked in

Yeah, they’re pretty prescriptive. I just don’t see UEFA backing down on it just because it would put Newcastle, Villa and any other English club’s danders up. Personally, I think the regs are locked in and unlikely to change any time soon. My concern is how slow the club have been to act and get their shit together. They’re not going to be able to just chuck money at the playing staff - so what can be pumped with cash (ground, training facilities etc) would’ve been target number one. Target number two should have been sponsoring everything they can at ‘fair market value’. I’ve seen little on either so far.

The regs are worth a read tbh, they’re not written in legalese

Yep, under rule J.2 of UEFA’s Club Licensing and FFP Regs. It also makes provision for a correction for overvaluation of sponsorship deals. It’s there to prevent financial ‘doping’. And it is 70% of this income that can be spent on salaries, agents and amortised transfers (ignore the 85% - we should be aiming for European football). https://documents.uefa.com/r/UEFA-Club-Licensing-and-Financial-Sustainability-Regulations-2023/J.2-Relevant-income-Online

I reckon our lot would revel in it. They’d shit a collective brick, though.