TheBrownBottle

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.

You’ve been consistent tbf ETB

Losses to the accounts ledger - they’re not losses based on player wages & transfers. The 70% of turnover rule doesn’t allow for going over that

And they definitely are. As you’ve stated, I’m just not seeing how the club voting the rules in ties with their publicly stated ambitions. Wonder if certain parties got themselves a wee bit carried away and were unguarded with a microphone in front of them. Wouldn’t be the only time.

I’d happily play at the SOS. Gateshead would need us to build an entire new ground there, then move back a couple of years later.

Don’t be shy - which tweeter?

Agreed re middle ground on rules, but Spurs’ success was still built on huge income. The year they reached the Champions League final - five seasons ago - their income was roughly double ours was in 22/23. In fact you have to go back a decade before their income was the same as ours last season - well before the explosion in income levels. We’re not likely to hit £400m in income any time soon with the current rules in place and no new stadium - I just don’t see how we do that. Depressing or not, that is the current position. We can’t compete without being put on financial steroids for a period to bring in sustained success - that’s how you get the big sponsors and international revenues. Sad cases the world over need to buy the merchandise and consume shite with our badge slapped on it.

With no acceptable losses - it is stricter edit: completely agree re ‘luxury tax’ element

Your guess is as good as mine. The fact that they’re simply mirroring UEFA’s rules puts me in the mind of ‘resistance is futile’. What would be the point of the PL having different FFP rules? Or perhaps our owners know of other changes coming? Or perhaps … they’re not actually all that fussed about being hemmed-in.

No, the rules are stricter

Yep, hope I didn’t seem disappointed

England not getting that 5th CL place at this rate

It has to, otherwise the league will stagnate under the new rules. They offer far less leeway than the existing rules, so if clubs are hemmed-in in terms of earnings then we might as well give up

There won’t be allowable losses under the new system

Nothing. We would need to sell to buy. That applies at the moment too - our turnover is unlikely to increase next season. We’ve taken most of the low-hanging commercial fruit at this point. Growth is likely to stagnate unless something extraordinary occurs.

The vote was unanimous on the new rules - all twenty clubs were in favour. Our owners aren’t as unhappy about this as our support imagines, would be my conclusion.