FFP or A Billionaire Chairman Who Doesn’t Want to Spend

[Portis-red]

What’s the answer

[Pezo]

FFP. Close the thread? 

[WarksRobin]

6 minutes ago, Pezo said:

FFP. Close the thread? 

Yes and yes

[Mike Stone]

The later 

Dont get me wrong though we should all be forever grateful to Steve for what hes done for us over the years.

Frustratingly though after reducing the squad numbers and promoting young lads from the academy I feel we are only a couple of players light from having a real push this year

Hopefully though with ten days left in the window they will give us all a lift by bringing in a couple of new faces.

Fingers crossed!

 

[Hampshire reds]

 To be fair to steve he gave johnson alot if money. he did waste so much. players signed and not played. But for us to be safe this season we do need a couple of quality signings. interesting week ahead.

 

[1960maaan]

You are allowed to lose £39m over 3 years I believe. Wasn't it on a thread recently we've lost that over 18 months.

As for Steve Lansdon, it's his money. He wants the club to be self sustainable and he's spent about £150m on it so .......

[Port Said Red]

Some fans still don't get it though. On my way out of the ground I heard two different conversations, one moaning about the building of the HPC instead of buying a striker, the other stating it was because they had recruited so many players for basketball and womens football.

 

[tin]

There was an article in The Times this week suggesting UEFA is going to publish plans within the next month to scrap FFP and replace it with a salary cap and luxury tax.

It’ll be annoying if they do replace it when we are crying out for investment, but SL’s fully complying with current FFP rules. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. SL bet on the wrong horse in LJ and we’re paying for it now. 

[Red Exile]

9 minutes ago, Port Said Red said:

Some fans still don't get it though. On my way out of the ground I heard two different conversations, one moaning about the building of the HPC instead of buying a striker, the other stating it was because they had recruited so many players for basketball and womens football.

 

Reading a variety of thread on here this morning I agree - folk don't get it on so many levels! 

To me it seems clear that Lansdown has finally, after so many years of bluster and over-promise, appointed a competent manager to consolidate at this level. Pearson is doing exactly what's been asked, namely working with what he has got, developing a squad that can make a bid for promotion at some time in the next few years. If we are to get anyone else in we will need to sell.

Last night's result was frustrating but the performance was good, a mixture of experience and youth playing with ambition. I find it refreshing that we have straight-talking people in charge who know what they are doing.

[The Humble Realist]

I think ffp is a bit of an excuse for SL to not splurge money on transfers. O be fair it seems easy to say 'just dip into your pockets just this once'...but then come january people will say the same again and so ok

Maybe someone can confirm but feels like we will have got more IN in transfer money than we have spent in the last 5 years. Kelly, webster, kodjia, brownhill, bryan, pack, reid all went for decent sums ...plus we had some sell on money for bolasie when he got his big money move to Everton.  Kalas, Dasilva, wells and deidhou were big outlays but cant think of many others. 

He runs the clubs in a very sensible and sustainable way and this should be applauded. 

[GrahamC]

The problem is not to do with spending money now but SL and his son allowing Ashton & LJ to fritter so much away on poor signings on big wages.

That has led to where we are now, which is that under FFP we are knackered, whether SL wants to spend or not.

I never supported the appointment of Holden but to be fair to him, last summer was the start of this, he actually sold players for more cash (Eliasson, Szmodics & Morrell) than he was allowed to spend & only signed 3 on permanent deals, one of whom (Brunt) has already gone.

[Red Army 75]

God knows how much money the club has lost due to Covid. I think it’s right we need to offload a few players before we sign some. Also difficult with how much money the previous regime spent and we are definitely paying for that now. Hopefully we can shift 2 or 3 out and generate some cash flow. Thought I read that there is movement on Nagy which hopefully is true 

[Northern Red]

I think the only way some people will ever grasp it is if we're allowed to fail FFP and go under a transfer embargo.

[Port Said Red]

The Times Rich List showed SL has approximately half the value of his partner Hargreaves, I wonder where that might have gone. 

[Redrascal2]

2 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

I think the only way some people will ever grasp it is if we're allowed to fail FFP and go under a transfer embargo.

I thought we were under one already.

[PFree]

In SL’s recent interview did he not say we still had room for manoeuvre should the right potential signing come along?

 

[Fontaineofallknowledge]

14 minutes ago, The Humble Realist said:

I think ffp is a bit of an excuse for SL to not splurge money on transfers. O be fair it seems easy to say 'just dip into your pockets just this once'...but then come january people will say the same again and so ok

Maybe someone can confirm but feels like we will have got more IN in transfer money than we have spent in the last 5 years. Kelly, webster, kodjia, brownhill, bryan, pack, reid all went for decent sums ...plus we had some sell on money for bolasie when he got his big money move to Everton.  Kalas, Dasilva, wells and deidhou were big outlays but cant think of many others. 

He runs the clubs in a very sensible and sustainable way and this should be applauded. 

Wages pal, wages

[Jeez]

50 minutes ago, Mike Stone said:

The later 

Dont get me wrong though we should all be forever grateful to Steve for what hes done for us over the years.

Fingers crossed!

 

I used to think this but in reality SL chose to do it & for reasons only known to him.

The uncomfortable reality is it wasn’t well invested, as here we are with an unbalanced squad at the start of a season despite what was our largest ever wage bill.

The bitter irony is he made his fortune from a business that was driven by data & analysis - apply the same principles of potential performance identification for players as stocks managed by top level leadership and we’d be a self sustainable club by now.

 

[WarksRobin]

23 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

I think the only way some people will ever grasp it is if we're allowed to fail FFP and go under a transfer embargo.

Some would still blame SL

[Mike Stone]

1 minute ago, Red Alert said:

I used to think this but in reality SL chose to do it & for reasons only known to him.

The uncomfortable reality is it wasn’t well invested, as here we are with an unbalanced squad at the start of a season despite what was our largest ever wage bill.

The bitter irony is he made his fortune from a business that was driven by data & analysis - apply the same principles of potential performance identification for players as stocks managed by top level leadership and we’d be a self sustainable club by now.

 

Blimey mate that reply is a bit to much for me to digest on a Saturday morning. I may need a couple of hours to respond!

[Bris Red]

FFP hasn’t been around forever and Lansdown has had plenty of years and transfers windowns to ‘’go for it’’ so to speak. January 2008 and the summer of 2008 were IMO the time to really throw some cash at it well before FFP was a thing but he didn’t. It is what it is but in my honest opinion the man has never truly wanted top flight football here.

[Eastendboy1965]

7 hours ago, Portis-red said:

What’s the answer

Its a question that will be asked time and again. Why? Because Steve has a plan to use his profound wealth to own a club which is in some way sustainable and one to be proud of ... cfredit him for that... BUT Premier League status.... Nuh, it's obvious he is not interested. He may well bring in a new investor in time, who structures a way forward to the big time, that could be exciting, time will tell.

 

 

[WarksRobin]

18 minutes ago, bris red said:

FFP hasn’t been around forever and Lansdown has had plenty of years and transfers windowns to ‘’go for it’’ so to speak. January 2008 and the summer of 2008 were IMO the time to really throw some cash at it well before FFP was a thing but he didn’t. It is what it is but in my honest opinion the man has never truly wanted top flight football here.

January 2008 was certainly a missed opportunity. I don’t think anyone expected us to maintain that form or wanted to disrupt a squad performing at its peak. Hindsight is 20/20. 
That was 13 years ago and we cannot keep dwelling on what might have been. We are where we are and FFP isn’t going away.

[Bristol Rob]

Also, worth remembering that the summer transfer window is open for approximately 4 months.

Sign early in the window and you could be over 400k in on wages (assuming 25k a week before you add in other relocation and employers expenses), so what you might gain from a more settled squad, there is also the argument that by going late you give some of the kids chance to shine.

And of course, City are taking FFP seriously.

[downendcity]

At the time the contentious “sale” of Pride Park was made public, with corresponding backlash on our own ffp thread, we had some Derby fans posting on here  in their defence.

It was either on here, or on their own thread, but I Derby fans were saying that Mel Morris is a lifelong Derby fan, would not spend money they didn't have and wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardise Derby’s future. That worked out  well didn't it, and all because they (over)spent money in their quest for promotion and chose to ignore the financial rules?

I’ve said before that SL made his fortune working in the highly regulated financial services world, where a breach of those rules carries severe penalties. This being the case, why would he change his attitude when financial rules were being introduced by the EFL that impacted his own club? In hindsight some might call him naive, given that other clubs chose not to follow the rules and make the changes necessary in order to comply. Most understand that the combined impact of profligacy under LJ and Ashton’s oversight all exacerbated by the pandemic, means this season will be a struggle while Pearson’s tries to turn things around.

What sort of a struggle would it be if SL was throwing money resulting in a transfer embargo or points deduction?

Under FFP SL has spent money in areas he is allowed ( Stadium and academy) but that will generate more income for the club and that can be used on the playing side under ffp. I don’t know how much this totals ( circa £60m or more??) but he could not have spent that amount on players or wages without busting ffp. However the stadium now generates substantially more income than did the old AG and if the academy is producing the likes of Kelly, Vyner, Pring, Scott, Bell, Janneh, Britton etc etc, their future value, both as players for the club and potentially in terms of transfer fees, make SL’s judgement completely sound and justified.

 

 

 

[Port Said Red]

1 hour ago, bris red said:

FFP hasn’t been around forever and Lansdown has had plenty of years and transfers windowns to ‘’go for it’’ so to speak. January 2008 and the summer of 2008 were IMO the time to really throw some cash at it well before FFP was a thing but he didn’t. It is what it is but in my honest opinion the man has never truly wanted top flight football here.

Not this old bollox again. In the back of his mind I am sure he would have wanted a suitable stadium first, but the idea that he wouldn't want promotion if it had come was and is ludicrous. Just one season could have generated the money for the stadium (new or rebuild) without him having to sell large portions of his shares in the company he built from scratch.

[The Humble Realist]

1 hour ago, Fontaineofallknowledge said:

Wages pal, wages

Yeah I get it. We have some players on some big money, think I saw last year Kalas on 25k a week maybe. I'm sure Dasilva, diedhou, James , king and wells have not been below league average for sure. 

[Red_Alligator]

To my mind, one of the key features to have brought SL and NP together must have been the latter convincing the former that a successful team could be built without the need to spend multi-millions of his money on bringing individual players to the club. 

Only time will tell if this is the case, but I'm sure that this must be the agreed way forward - thus the three year, no quick fix caveat.

 

 

[Bristol Rob]

3 minutes ago, Red_Alligator said:

To my mind, one of the key features to have brought SL and NP together must have been the latter convincing the former that a successful team could be built without the need to spend multi-millions of his money on bringing individual players to the club. 

Only time will tell if this is the case, but I'm sure that this must be the agreed way forward - thus the three year, no quick fix caveat.

 

 

Think it might well be the reverse of that and the challenge being, with limited funds how far do you think you can take us? 

Followed up with;

Where I can, I'll back you, it isn't that there is no money that I can invest, but the FFP rules forbid it, so if you can reduce/trade our way to a more sustainable position then you will be able to buy pieces for your jigsaw.

 

[Red_Alligator]

1 minute ago, Bristol Rob said:

Think it might well be the reverse of that and the challenge being, with limited funds how far do you think you can take us? 

Followed up with;

Where I can, I'll back you, it isn't that there is no money that I can invest, but the FFP rules forbid it, so if you can reduce/trade our way to a more sustainable position then you will be able to buy pieces for your jigsaw.

 

That's a good point Rob, and a deal more eloquent too!