Finance

[Forbury Lion]

Player bonuses have effectively been deferred as they relate to games. No game played = No appearance bonuses paid, No win bonuses paid, No goal scoring bonuses paid, No new contracts triggered (the Salako clause) etc

[Nameless]

You do realise that Reading are one of the clubs which are exploiting the system, we've just wasted the money.

EVery club ‘exploits’ the system and it would be shocking if they didn’t. There is a difference between making sure you run your business to maximise what the rules allow you to do and actually being fraudulent....

Not every club has sold their ground and training ground to a related party to generate a bit of bogus one off revenue. If the football authorities were smarter they would have based FFP on football trading revenue rather than capital sales. Maybe they'll tighten up those rules next time.

Why would they do that ? Utterly unfair. You are advocating making the game even more biased in favour of bigger clubs.
They should allow owners to invest as much money as they like, why should an owner not throw their own cash into their own club? It should be regulated to prevent owners crippling clubs with debt while taking money out of the club. It shouldn’t require owners to find work arounds for what should be a legitimate way of spending money.
When endlessly clubs breach the rules and get away with it it’s all dumb anyway.

[Greatwesternline]

EVery club ‘exploits’ the system and it would be shocking if they didn’t. There is a difference between making sure you run your business to maximise what the rules allow you to do and actually being fraudulent....

Not every club has sold their ground and training ground to a related party to generate a bit of bogus one off revenue. If the football authorities were smarter they would have based FFP on football trading revenue rather than capital sales. Maybe they'll tighten up those rules next time.

Why would they do that ? Utterly unfair. You are advocating making the game even more biased in favour of bigger clubs.
They should allow owners to invest as much money as they like, why should an owner not throw their own cash into their own club? It should be regulated to prevent owners crippling clubs with debt while taking money out of the club. It shouldn’t require owners to find work arounds for what should be a legitimate way of spending money.
When endlessly clubs breach the rules and get away with it it’s all dumb anyway.

Well there didnt used to be restrictions on investing, and clubs that didnt have rich sugar daddies couldnt compete with those that did, everyone took excessive risks, and lots of clubs went into administration. So yes, i suppose the only way to stop that would be you can only invest in equity, not through loans.

But that still screws over clubs with no rich benefactor. Maybe the biggest teams in the biggest cities with the most paying customers, should be the biggest teams, and every now and again Leicester can still win the league anyway.

[tmesis]

Not every club has sold their ground and training ground to a related party to generate a bit of bogus one off revenue. If the football authorities were smarter they would have based FFP on football trading revenue rather than capital sales. Maybe they'll tighten up those rules next time.

Why would they do that ? Utterly unfair. You are advocating making the game even more biased in favour of bigger clubs.
They should allow owners to invest as much money as they like, why should an owner not throw their own cash into their own club? It should be regulated to prevent owners crippling clubs with debt while taking money out of the club. It shouldn’t require owners to find work arounds for what should be a legitimate way of spending money.
When endlessly clubs breach the rules and get away with it it’s all dumb anyway.

Well there didnt used to be restrictions on investing, and clubs that didnt have rich sugar daddies couldnt compete with those that did, everyone took excessive risks, and lots of clubs went into administration. So yes, i suppose the only way to stop that would be you can only invest in equity, not through loans.

But that still screws over clubs with no rich benefactor. Maybe the biggest teams in the biggest cities with the most paying customers, should be the biggest teams, and every now and again Leicester can still win the league anyway.

Maybe you'd have to limit what a benefactor can spend, or what he can spend on. After all, if he wants to improve the stadium, that doesn't create a playing advantage.

[Greatwesternline]

Why would they do that ? Utterly unfair. You are advocating making the game even more biased in favour of bigger clubs.
They should allow owners to invest as much money as they like, why should an owner not throw their own cash into their own club? It should be regulated to prevent owners crippling clubs with debt while taking money out of the club. It shouldn’t require owners to find work arounds for what should be a legitimate way of spending money.
When endlessly clubs breach the rules and get away with it it’s all dumb anyway.

Well there didnt used to be restrictions on investing, and clubs that didnt have rich sugar daddies couldnt compete with those that did, everyone took excessive risks, and lots of clubs went into administration. So yes, i suppose the only way to stop that would be you can only invest in equity, not through loans.

But that still screws over clubs with no rich benefactor. Maybe the biggest teams in the biggest cities with the most paying customers, should be the biggest teams, and every now and again Leicester can still win the league anyway.

Maybe you'd have to limit what a benefactor can spend, or what he can spend on. After all, if he wants to improve the stadium, that doesn't create a playing advantage.

The current rules allow exactly that

[windermereROYAL]

I`ve just read a piece today where Nigel Howe is quoted as saying we are paying premier league wages, how the fecking hell did we come to this? they`ve been under performing now for 6 bloody years except (arguably) one. and they are being rewarded lavishly for the bloody privilege.
I`m getting more and more concerned now more than ever that the owners may think it`s not worth the investment any longer and walk away, especially with the players apparent refusal to take a deferment.

[Sutekh]

According to the Mail the FL are proposing introducing two major changes with effect next season

1. Squads to be limited to 24 with a certain number of 23-and-unders.
2. Player wages to be capped in the Championship at £7,000 per week

They are also petitioning FIFA to allow the transfer window to remain open until March to allow clubs to rebalance their books.

Presuming these proposals will be discussed by member clubs later in the summer

[SouthDownsRoyal]

According to the Mail the FL are proposing introducing two major changes with effect next season

1. Squads to be limited to 24 with a certain number of 23-and-unders.
2. Player wages to be capped in the Championship at £7,000 per week

They are also petitioning FIFA to allow the transfer window to remain open until March to allow clubs to rebalance their books.

Presuming these proposals will be discussed by member clubs later in the summer

All sounds reasonable.

[Nameless]

What would happen to players 25 and 26 currently contracted to a club ? Would the rule only kick in in 3 years time ? Or would’ve clubs be stuck with paying a player they couldn’t use ?
Doesn’t give huge scope for injury cover, presumably you could furlough long term injured
?
Would transfers be on a one out, one in basis if you had your 24 already ?

[Snowflake Royal]

According to the Mail the FL are proposing introducing two major changes with effect next season

1. Squads to be limited to 24 with a certain number of 23-and-unders.
2. Player wages to be capped in the Championship at £7,000 per week

They are also petitioning FIFA to allow the transfer window to remain open until March to allow clubs to rebalance their books.

Presuming these proposals will be discussed by member clubs later in the summer

Sounds bloody brilliant.

[tmesis]

What would happen to players 25 and 26 currently contracted to a club ? Would the rule only kick in in 3 years time ? Or would’ve clubs be stuck with paying a player they couldn’t use ?
Doesn’t give huge scope for injury cover, presumably you could furlough long term injured
?
Would transfers be on a one out, one in basis if you had your 24 already ?

I think those problems could be avoided by rules stating that any player outside the squad is available on a free transfer, to make stockpiling players a risky option.

If there's one rule I'd love the game to be able to copy from US sports, it's the ability to cut players from a squad. If they sign a player doing a bad job, he'll be gone at the end of the season, if not earlier.

26 players should be plenty as well. Squads in the past were considerably smaller than that, often with far fewer youth players to fall back on, and they typically coped. Our 93/94 title-winning team, and 94/95 play-off team used 22 and 23 players all season, respectively.

If clubs did run into injury trouble, they'd usually get a player in on loan.

[SCIAG]

What would happen to players 25 and 26 currently contracted to a club ? Would the rule only kick in in 3 years time ? Or would’ve clubs be stuck with paying a player they couldn’t use ?
Doesn’t give huge scope for injury cover, presumably you could furlough long term injured
?
Would transfers be on a one out, one in basis if you had your 24 already ?

Presumably the same rules would apply as presently apply to the PL and many other competitions. You can have more players, but you can only register x amount, and the players can only be de-registered during the transfer window.

A squad of 24 plus U23s is considerable injury cover. Two players for every position plus two spares, plus young players - loads to play with. Even in the modern age I don’t think we’d ever fall foul of that.

[Nameless]

What would happen to players 25 and 26 currently contracted to a club ? Would the rule only kick in in 3 years time ? Or would’ve clubs be stuck with paying a player they couldn’t use ?
Doesn’t give huge scope for injury cover, presumably you could furlough long term injured
?
Would transfers be on a one out, one in basis if you had your 24 already ?

Presumably the same rules would apply as presently apply to the PL and many other competitions. You can have more players, but you can only register x amount, and the players can only be de-registered during the transfer window.

A squad of 24 plus U23s is considerable injury cover. Two players for every position plus two spares, plus young players - loads to play with. Even in the modern age I don’t think we’d ever fall foul of that.

So,if it came in next season you would have to dispose of excess players, or keep paying them ?
I’d assumed it was a way of enforcing lower budgets but having players you can’t use but have to keep paying would be tricky.
It would potentially drive down wages as players effectively bid for places in a squad by accepting lower terms than a rival, although not been any sign of this in the PL.

The bit about being able to cut a player already exists and is used sometimes (we did it with Myler IIRC). Of course it involves paying the player for the duration of his contract. If you do away with that bit then you would also need to give players the ability to walk away from a team if they got a better offer or decided they were too good for the team. Alternatively you simply go to one season contracts ! That would be really interesting - ridiculous scramble every year to get hold of an entirely new squad of players !

[Elm Park Kid]

If we have a £7k salary cap then Championship sides will find it almost impossible to keep hold of decent players. They will all insist on short-term contracts so they can move on to the PL or European leagues the moment they can raise some interest. Also, players will insist on strict relegation release clauses when they sign for PL clubs. That will be good for reducing wage bills, but means that clubs will lose valuable assets for free.

I agree with the principle but I think the reality could be that the gap between championship and PL would increase drastically.

[Notts Royal]

I did mention a wage cap earlier in this thread & someone said it was a stupid idea. Now the EFL are talking about it. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all...!

I don’t think it’s the case that players will shoot off to other European leagues, as most likely wholesale changes to wage structures are going to be required across the globe.

But would be interesting to see how it would work - would every player be on £7k seeing as the lower earners at clubs are probably on that already?!

[Elm Park Kid]

I did mention a wage cap earlier in this thread & someone said it was a stupid idea. Now the EFL are talking about it. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all...!

I don’t think it’s the case that players will shoot off to other European leagues, as most likely wholesale changes to wage structures are going to be required across the globe.

But would be interesting to see how it would work - would every player be on £7k seeing as the lower earners at clubs are probably on that already?!

That's a good point, but £7k is a low level. I think that most Spanish/German/Italian and French clubs would be able to offer significantly more. Maybe even US and Chinese as well.

Anyway, I think the players and their agents will go absolutely ballistic. They will fight it in every court possible and maybe even threaten strike actions. It's hard to overstate just how much salaries have become the number one obsession in football.

Edit - I suppose that Brexit does give us the opportunity to create some new migration rules preventing players from leaving.

[SCIAG]

What would happen to players 25 and 26 currently contracted to a club ? Would the rule only kick in in 3 years time ? Or would’ve clubs be stuck with paying a player they couldn’t use ?
Doesn’t give huge scope for injury cover, presumably you could furlough long term injured
?
Would transfers be on a one out, one in basis if you had your 24 already ?

Presumably the same rules would apply as presently apply to the PL and many other competitions. You can have more players, but you can only register x amount, and the players can only be de-registered during the transfer window.

A squad of 24 plus U23s is considerable injury cover. Two players for every position plus two spares, plus young players - loads to play with. Even in the modern age I don’t think we’d ever fall foul of that.

So,if it came in next season you would have to dispose of excess players, or keep paying them ?
I’d assumed it was a way of enforcing lower budgets but having players you can’t use but have to keep paying would be tricky.

It’s a situation that already exists. The Premier League has a 25 man squad limit. Newcastle currently have 27 senior players. Jack Colback and Henri Saivet go to training and get paid but can only play in cup games.

In recent years Younes Kaboul at Watford and Andy King at Leicester have been in similar situations.

[muirinho]

I did mention a wage cap earlier in this thread & someone said it was a stupid idea. Now the EFL are talking about it. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all...!

I don’t think it’s the case that players will shoot off to other European leagues, as most likely wholesale changes to wage structures are going to be required across the globe.

But would be interesting to see how it would work - would every player be on £7k seeing as the lower earners at clubs are probably on that already?!

That's a good point, but £7k is a low level. I think that most Spanish/German/Italian and French clubs would be able to offer significantly more. Maybe even US and Chinese as well.

Anyway, I think the players and their agents will go absolutely ballistic. They will fight it in every court possible and maybe even threaten strike actions. It's hard to overstate just how much salaries have become the number one obsession in football.

Edit - I suppose that Brexit does give us the opportunity to create some new migration rules preventing players from leaving.

I'm not sure that's true, every league is going to be feeling the pinch, and I think each league will be looking at other leagues to work out what they can cap at.... I reckon all the European leagues will cap. US and China are different of course, but not everyone will want to travel that far.

[Nameless]

Presumably the same rules would apply as presently apply to the PL and many other competitions. You can have more players, but you can only register x amount, and the players can only be de-registered during the transfer window.

A squad of 24 plus U23s is considerable injury cover. Two players for every position plus two spares, plus young players - loads to play with. Even in the modern age I don’t think we’d ever fall foul of that.

So,if it came in next season you would have to dispose of excess players, or keep paying them ?
I’d assumed it was a way of enforcing lower budgets but having players you can’t use but have to keep paying would be tricky.

It’s a situation that already exists. The Premier League has a 25 man squad limit. Newcastle currently have 27 senior players. Jack Colback and Henri Saivet go to training and get paid but can only play in cup games.

In recent years Younes Kaboul at Watford and Andy King at Leicester have been in similar situations.

That’s entirely different though. There is a world of difference between the richest league in the world allowing clubs to carry a few ‘extra’ players and a league where clubs are struggling financially to be in a position where they are paying players but not allowed to use them. You would think the squad limit would need to be brought in gradually - much like some clubs have been restricted due to FFP breaches to only be allowed to sign new players when they can do so and be within the rules.
So if a club currently has 27 players they can continue to use them, but can only sign new ones once their squad size drops below 24 either due to sales, contracts ending or retirements.
Assuming the squad size is about controlling finances (which would be good) the implementation shouldn’t be done without considering unintended consequences !

[Hound]

its an odd one that 7k limit.

I can see the benefits, but how does it work if a team gets relegated from the Premier, and a player is on 50k a week?

Also, if any sort of normality is returned, nearly all players will be on 7k. Where is the motivation to push yourself for a bigger wage? Or will bonuses/signing on fees etc still be allowed?