Out of Contract 2022

[Nameless]

Are we the only club in the league under these restrictions? If we are restricted to only one year deals then next year we could possibly have every player OOC which seems just a tad unfair.
Feel like it gives everyone a competitive edge over us in every circumstance. I know its the rod we made for our own back but we must be allowed to be competitive to at least retain our players that are OOC. It is basically punishing us by allowing every club to circle and turn heads.
If we are not allowed to have clauses written in contracts, for example if player A makes 15 appearances on June 30th 2023 and Reading remain in Championship, he will be offered a new deal. If we cant sell our future to players then there is absolutely nothing we can offer a player that makes them want to stay.

You could argue that by spending way above our means we have had a competitive edge over other teams and now we have to put that right …,

[Hound]

It wouldn’t surprise me if we could offer more than 1 year deals, it would be the guarantees of huge pay rises in year 2 that would’ve the issue. There is nothing to say that we can afford to double someone’s pay next season. Our budget this year is what we can afford next year as well….

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

[Nameless]

It wouldn’t surprise me if we could offer more than 1 year deals, it would be the guarantees of huge pay rises in year 2 that would’ve the issue. There is nothing to say that we can afford to double someone’s pay next season. Our budget this year is what we can afford next year as well….

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

Sensible to assume we would stick at 16 million, it’s what we can afford. Would be stupid to start paying double our income again

[Coppells Lost Coat]

Are we the only club in the league under these restrictions? If we are restricted to only one year deals then next year we could possibly have every player OOC which seems just a tad unfair.
Feel like it gives everyone a competitive edge over us in every circumstance. I know its the rod we made for our own back but we must be allowed to be competitive to at least retain our players that are OOC. It is basically punishing us by allowing every club to circle and turn heads.
If we are not allowed to have clauses written in contracts, for example if player A makes 15 appearances on June 30th 2023 and Reading remain in Championship, he will be offered a new deal. If we cant sell our future to players then there is absolutely nothing we can offer a player that makes them want to stay.

You could argue that by spending way above our means we have had a competitive edge over other teams and now we have to put that right …,

I think it is clear to everyone it did not. except for a 30 game stint in 4 seasons

[Nameless]

Are we the only club in the league under these restrictions? If we are restricted to only one year deals then next year we could possibly have every player OOC which seems just a tad unfair.
Feel like it gives everyone a competitive edge over us in every circumstance. I know its the rod we made for our own back but we must be allowed to be competitive to at least retain our players that are OOC. It is basically punishing us by allowing every club to circle and turn heads.
If we are not allowed to have clauses written in contracts, for example if player A makes 15 appearances on June 30th 2023 and Reading remain in Championship, he will be offered a new deal. If we cant sell our future to players then there is absolutely nothing we can offer a player that makes them want to stay.

You could argue that by spending way above our means we have had a competitive edge over other teams and now we have to put that right …,

I think it is clear to everyone it did not. except for a 30 game stint in 4 seasons

We had the advantage, we failed to make use of it
Double stupidity really !

[Snowflake Royal]

It wouldn’t surprise me if we could offer more than 1 year deals, it would be the guarantees of huge pay rises in year 2 that would’ve the issue. There is nothing to say that we can afford to double someone’s pay next season. Our budget this year is what we can afford next year as well….

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

[Nameless]

It wouldn’t surprise me if we could offer more than 1 year deals, it would be the guarantees of huge pay rises in year 2 that would’ve the issue. There is nothing to say that we can afford to double someone’s pay next season. Our budget this year is what we can afford next year as well….

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

And I would expect that if we did breach again there would be no suspended deduction, and quite possibly more than 12 points.

[Franchise FC]

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

And I would expect that if we did breach again there would be no suspended deduction, and quite possibly more than 12 points.

Why would it be more than 12 points ?

[Nameless]

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

And I would expect that if we did breach again there would be no suspended deduction, and quite possibly more than 12 points.

Why would it be more than 12 points ?

I can’t find the relevant document now but I believe the points deduction is decided by an independent panel and whilst 12 points is the guideline they have the power to hand down lesser deductions, suspend part of them or increase them. I would think a second breach would be seen as deserving a greater punishment. Perhaps that might mean the 6 points woukdn’t Be suspended but equally they could decide to punish a team more heavily the second time.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I think it's pretty reasonable to say there is punishment on the one hand (the points) and the requirement to bring ourselves back within the rules on the other.
I think there is a restriction in the agreement on making financial commitments beyond the period of the agreed settlement. If we were allowed to just back end big contracts it would be a way of avoiding the current restrictions. if we fail to achieve FFP compliance but have a load of big pre agreed contracts kicking in we could be worse off than when we started !

Following on from this, it might be wrong, but can we still only offer players a one year deal for this season as well?

They can't babysit us forever, if we want to have big pre-agreed contracts outside of our restrictions next season, surely that's our decision? I could understand why the EFL would say no now, but if that's the risk we want to take again, it's on the clubs head to do so is it not? Obviously I wouldn't want it to be the case but I don't see why we shouldn't be able to offer players what we want after the end of this season.

We'll never be able to offer 'what we want'. we have to have learned our lesson and just offer what we can afford. The first part of that is achieving an FFP comlpliant set of accounts. An attitude that says 'at the end of the season we'll just do what we want' will probably see us in massive trouble....

I'm confident that the club won't just offer what they want again and grossly overpay a lot of players and end up with a ridiculously high wage bill again, but ultimately we could do that after this season if we wanted providing we comply with our agreed business plan and the EFL wouldn't step in again until we broke the rules again, which we inevitably would if that was to be the case.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

It wouldn’t surprise me if we could offer more than 1 year deals, it would be the guarantees of huge pay rises in year 2 that would’ve the issue. There is nothing to say that we can afford to double someone’s pay next season. Our budget this year is what we can afford next year as well….

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

We don't "have" to remain in FFP it would just be ridiculously inept and ridiculous not to. I doubt we will start spending ridiculous amounts of money again, but plenty of clubs in this league spend significantly more than they earn and still comply with FFP regulations which are changing anyway, so it will be different for all clubs in a season or two anyway.

The key for me is, if we were to start spending significant amounts on player wages again, our recruitment and blooding through our youth talent has to be spot on in order to sell for a profit.

[Nameless]

Following on from this, it might be wrong, but can we still only offer players a one year deal for this season as well?

They can't babysit us forever, if we want to have big pre-agreed contracts outside of our restrictions next season, surely that's our decision? I could understand why the EFL would say no now, but if that's the risk we want to take again, it's on the clubs head to do so is it not? Obviously I wouldn't want it to be the case but I don't see why we shouldn't be able to offer players what we want after the end of this season.

We'll never be able to offer 'what we want'. we have to have learned our lesson and just offer what we can afford. The first part of that is achieving an FFP comlpliant set of accounts. An attitude that says 'at the end of the season we'll just do what we want' will probably see us in massive trouble....

I'm confident that the club won't just offer what they want again and grossly overpay a lot of players and end up with a ridiculously high wage bill again, but ultimately we could do that after this season if we wanted providing we comply with our agreed business plan and the EFL wouldn't step in again until we broke the rules again, which we inevitably would if that was to be the case.

Of course they would step in.

[Hound]

We’d have to be sensible and certainly not suggesting we start paying 25k pw again to anyone

But guess we don’t have to stick at 16m wage budget which is relatively low

And also Moore and Joao - prob 2 biggest earners at the club - will no longer be there so there will be some extra available over this season

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

We don't "have" to remain in FFP it would just be ridiculously inept and ridiculous not to. I doubt we will start spending ridiculous amounts of money again, but plenty of clubs in this league spend significantly more than they earn and still comply with FFP regulations which are changing anyway, so it will be different for all clubs in a season or two anyway.

The key for me is, if we were to start spending significant amounts on player wages again, our recruitment and blooding through our youth talent has to be spot on in order to sell for a profit.

To stay within FFP don’t we need to lose less than 39m over the 3 years

With the wage bill so low this coming year, I doubt we’ll lose more than 6-7m. Last year maybe that 13-15m figure. So we should have fair leeway to stay within FFP in 23/24

Obvs pulling figures out of my backside but can’t see that 39m figure being breached unless we do something very silly

[Hound]

We'll never be able to offer 'what we want'. we have to have learned our lesson and just offer what we can afford. The first part of that is achieving an FFP comlpliant set of accounts. An attitude that says 'at the end of the season we'll just do what we want' will probably see us in massive trouble....

I'm confident that the club won't just offer what they want again and grossly overpay a lot of players and end up with a ridiculously high wage bill again, but ultimately we could do that after this season if we wanted providing we comply with our agreed business plan and the EFL wouldn't step in again until we broke the rules again, which we inevitably would if that was to be the case.

Of course they would step in.

Why? And why are they not stepping in with every club who is blowing a fortune every season?

Aren’t we totally free from restriction after this season? We’ll be treated the same as everyone else

[YorkshireRoyal99]

I'm confident that the club won't just offer what they want again and grossly overpay a lot of players and end up with a ridiculously high wage bill again, but ultimately we could do that after this season if we wanted providing we comply with our agreed business plan and the EFL wouldn't step in again until we broke the rules again, which we inevitably would if that was to be the case.

Of course they would step in.

Why? And why are they not stepping in with every club who is blowing a fortune every season?

Aren’t we totally free from restriction after this season? We’ll be treated the same as everyone else

Exactly. They won't intervene midway through a season or even in the summer if we were to spend a boatload on whoever. They won't intervene until we break the rules again, which would inevitably happen if we start giving 12 players over £1m a year and spend millions on each player we buy.

[Nameless]

I'm confident that the club won't just offer what they want again and grossly overpay a lot of players and end up with a ridiculously high wage bill again, but ultimately we could do that after this season if we wanted providing we comply with our agreed business plan and the EFL wouldn't step in again until we broke the rules again, which we inevitably would if that was to be the case.

Of course they would step in.

Why? And why are they not stepping in with every club who is blowing a fortune every season?

Aren’t we totally free from restriction after this season? We’ll be treated the same as everyone else

They stepped in before we actually breached FFP, we had am embargoin place 18 months before we got the deduction. They will be monitoring our position in the same way they monitor all the clubs. Because we have breached once they’ll want to make sure we don’t breach again - preventative rather than punitive measures.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Of course they would step in.

Why? And why are they not stepping in with every club who is blowing a fortune every season?

Aren’t we totally free from restriction after this season? We’ll be treated the same as everyone else

They stepped in before we actually breached FFP, we had am embargoin place 18 months before we got the deduction. They will be monitoring our position in the same way they monitor all the clubs. Because we have breached once they’ll want to make sure we don’t breach again - preventative rather than punitive measures.

They placed our initial embargo (in 2019) for breaching profit an sustainability rules, which was also reactive because of how poor our finances were due to ridiculous amounts of overspending, but then allowed us to go and spend over £15m in that summer as well whilst also placing Birmingham under a similar embargo, a registration embargo, but yet they purchased Kristian Pedersen for £2m.

Overall though, the point is they wouldn't step in again next summer unless we were to breach either profit & sustainability rules or FFP again, in which case they'd step in either in January 23 if our finances really were that bad or the following accounting year.

[Lower West]

Why? And why are they not stepping in with every club who is blowing a fortune every season?

Aren’t we totally free from restriction after this season? We’ll be treated the same as everyone else

They stepped in before we actually breached FFP, we had am embargoin place 18 months before we got the deduction. They will be monitoring our position in the same way they monitor all the clubs. Because we have breached once they’ll want to make sure we don’t breach again - preventative rather than punitive measures.

They placed our initial embargo (in 2019) for breaching profit an sustainability rules, which was also reactive because of how poor our finances were due to ridiculous amounts of overspending, but then allowed us to go and spend over £15m in that summer as well whilst also placing Birmingham under a similar embargo, a registration embargo, but yet they purchased Kristian Pedersen for £2m.

Overall though, the point is they wouldn't step in again next summer unless we were to breach either profit & sustainability rules or FFP again, in which case they'd step in either in January 23 if our finances really were that bad or the following accounting year.

Far more detailed than that.

The Club has also agreed to adhere to a Business Plan focused on a number of financial targets, including controlling player-related expenditure, with the objective of moving the Club towards P&S compliance in forthcoming reporting periods.

[Elm Park Kid]

We'll still have to remain within FFP.

That's calculated using past season's numbers. We met the FL business plan this year (presumably) and will do next season (presumably). But that may just be to keep us within acceptable loss limits, meaning any increased loss the season after tips us back into breach.

Remember, even with a budget of £16m, we'll almost certainly make a loss of several million next season.

We don't "have" to remain in FFP it would just be ridiculously inept and ridiculous not to. I doubt we will start spending ridiculous amounts of money again, but plenty of clubs in this league spend significantly more than they earn and still comply with FFP regulations which are changing anyway, so it will be different for all clubs in a season or two anyway.

The key for me is, if we were to start spending significant amounts on player wages again, our recruitment and blooding through our youth talent has to be spot on in order to sell for a profit.

To stay within FFP don’t we need to lose less than 39m over the 3 years

With the wage bill so low this coming year, I doubt we’ll lose more than 6-7m. Last year maybe that 13-15m figure. So we should have fair leeway to stay within FFP in 23/24

Obvs pulling figures out of my backside but can’t see that 39m figure being breached unless we do something very silly

I think you'll be surprised how much we lost this season and will lose next season. I'm pretty sure that the club has a running cost of around £12-15m without player wages and a revenue of not much more than £17-18m. So, even a £16m wage bill could see us losing £13m. I might be wrong with this - I guess we'll only know next April when we release last season's accounts.

[Hound]

We don't "have" to remain in FFP it would just be ridiculously inept and ridiculous not to. I doubt we will start spending ridiculous amounts of money again, but plenty of clubs in this league spend significantly more than they earn and still comply with FFP regulations which are changing anyway, so it will be different for all clubs in a season or two anyway.

The key for me is, if we were to start spending significant amounts on player wages again, our recruitment and blooding through our youth talent has to be spot on in order to sell for a profit.

To stay within FFP don’t we need to lose less than 39m over the 3 years

With the wage bill so low this coming year, I doubt we’ll lose more than 6-7m. Last year maybe that 13-15m figure. So we should have fair leeway to stay within FFP in 23/24

Obvs pulling figures out of my backside but can’t see that 39m figure being breached unless we do something very silly

I think you'll be surprised how much we lost this season and will lose next season. I'm pretty sure that the club has a running cost of around £12-15m without player wages and a revenue of not much more than £17-18m. So, even a £16m wage bill could see us losing £13m. I might be wrong with this - I guess we'll only know next April when we release last season's accounts.

That may well be the case