ExiledAjax

Of course they don't. Most men's teams don't either. Just like the men's team they rely on the cash injection every season.

And in the season prior to Dean's exploits George Camsell scored 59 in just 37 games in the second division for Boro. That's 1.59 goals per game so if Haaland matches that (he's currently on 1.75 per game) across a 38 game season then he'll land on 61 at the end.

If he keeps going at the rate he's scoring and plays every game then yes he would break the record with four or five games to spare. Dean's record was also set in a 42 game season - 1.43 goals per game. An adjusted record for Haaland could be said to be 55 goals as 38*1.43 is 55 (I've rounded up to whole goals). But people will hold 60 up as the record so that's really what he's aiming for.

Accounts for Bristol City Women Football Club Limited were published on 5 October. Available to view here: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11460716/filing-history It's an interesting read and underpins two things. Firstly, women's football makes no money, and secondly, the women's team is just as reliant on the Lansdowns as the men's team is. Overall the Women's team made a £500,000 loss in 2021/22, up slightly from the £470,000 loss they made in 2020/21. This is mainly down to a drop of 75% in the income from player sales (down from £40,000 to just £10,000), but there is also a huge drop in "other operating income" (and if anyone knows what that might be then please speak up) this has gone from £170,000 in 2020/21 to just £10,500 last season...if anyone knows where that £160,000 is I am sure the Club would be interested to know. The Men's team, which wholly owns the Women's team, ultimately covers these costs. In turn those costs are covered by Bristol City Holdings Ltd, and so on and so on up the chain through Guernsey to Lansdown's bank account. That half a million quid that is paid down the chain to cover the losses is paid in cash - not a loan and seemingly undocumented - and sits as debt on the books of the Women's club. Therefore that company is now £1.4m in debt to the men's team as opposed to the £0.9m it owed last season. Other debts total about £100,000. There has been an overall increase in debt of 50%. There is some good news, although even that must be delivered with caution. Turnover was up about 20% from £312,000 to £370,000, a decent % increase even if the actual figures are tiny in the grand scheme of things. Staff costs (ie wages) have come down 17% from £690,000 to £574,000. That all sounds really good, but it still means that the Women's team is spending a staggering 155% of its turnover on wages. This is down from a ludicrous 221% in season 2020/21. That 221% figure would be completely and utterly unsustainable, so well done to those involved for getting that ratio down from "insane" to merely "pretty silly". All in all these numbers are chicken feed compared to the full group accounts which we expect to be published later this month - just as an example a spend of £574,000 on 34 staff gives an average annual wage of just under £17,000 also known as one week's wages for a high-profile men's team player. However it clearly shows that for all the growth and hype around the Women's game it is still nowhere near being a money making activity.

Which is of course an example of the privileged position that Guardiola and Man City are in. You can wait for Haaland and rely on midfielders (and Jesus) to "chip in" when those midfielders are De Bruyne, the two Silvas, Grealish, Mahrez, Gundogan etc. It's harder to do when you have Fred and McTominay, or Pulisic and Havertz, or the litany of other options that other clubs have.

Not sneaky enough though Major. Not sneaky enough.

Thank you for reading it. I wondered whether to stick it in the transfer forum, but thought people might find it interesting. To your point, yeh a sell-on could be phrased in any manner of ways, the bit published seems like a pretty simple sell-on clause. That might be because the player in question was an academy kid and so Brighton probably didn't anticipate much in the way of risk or reward. Note it was capped at EUR 750,000 - obviously that's a decent wedge, and Brighton were still a Championship club at the time (2017) - but it's not make or break for a club their size. Word on the street is we had a standard 20% of profit sell-on in our agreements. The case highlights though that even EUR 187,000 is enough to go to court over. It will be interesting to see if there ever is a fight over any of our potential sell-ons.

I see a lot of discussion around City's potential to receive sell-on fees. In particular we know that our last CEO was a huge fan of placing sell-on fees into our transfer agreements, and that we've at least three higher profile ex-players (Webster, Kelly and Brownhill) who have the potential to generate large windfalls for us. The legal activation of a sell-on fee has been recently considered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport ("CAS"), and their decision looks as though it makes it more likely that City would be able to claim for money under the sell-on clauses that we have out there in the world. The case concerned the transfer of Jack Harper from Brighton to Malaga in 2017, and his subsequent move to Getafe in 2019. The case is interesting as we get to see the precise wording of the sell-on clause that Brighton inserted into the transfer agreement with Malaga in 2017. That sell-on clause read as follows: 2.2 Should the Player’s registration be transferred on a permanent basis by Malaga at any time in the future then Malaga will pay to Brighton 12.5% (twelve and a half per cent) of any transfer fee received by Malaga (deducting the amount corresponding to solidarity contribution) up to a maximum sum of €750,000 (seven hundred and fifty thousand euros). Harper's contract with Malaga extended to 30 June 2019. On 20 March 2019, as his contract was running down, Malaga agreed a deal with Getafe whereby Harper would sign for Getafe on 1 July 2019, the day after he became a free agent. In that agreement Getafe agreed to pay Malaga 1.5m Euro in return for Malaga not renewing Harper's contract. Upon being notified of Harper's transfer to Getafe, Brighton requested details from Malaga of the transfer fee it received in order to calculate whether any sums were payable under the sell-on clause. In response, Malaga informed Brighton of the fee Getafe agreed to pay, but denied that any sums were payable to Brighton under the sell-on clause because it claimed that Harper's registration had not been permanently transferred on the basis that Harper's contract expired on 30 June 2019, so from that day on, the player was a free agent. Brighton sued for their 12.5% payment of €187,500, plus interest and costs. On 18 May 2021, FIFA’s Player’s Status Committee passed a decision partially accepting Brighton’s claim and ordering Malaga to pay Brighton €125,000 plus interest. Malaga appealed the decision to CAS as they continued to argue that this was not a "transfer" because Harper would be a free agent when he signed his new contract with Getafe. The CAS panel concluded that the following issues needed to be determined in order to resolve the dispute: What does the concept of a “transfer” encompass in football? How should the sell-on clause be interpreted? Did the movement of Harper from Malaga to Getafe trigger the application of the sell-on clause? What are the legal consequences resulting from the answer to the previous issue? CAS concluded that a "transfer" is any "movement" of a player’s registration/employment, whether to a different association or to a different club under the same association occurring under a contractual scheme or outside of such a framework. They referred to an older case from 2019 between Sevilla and Nancy in which they had determined that: "...in the world of professional football a “transfer” of a Player means in general terms a change of “registration ” of a player or - to put it in another way -for a professional player it means a “change of employer...therefore, a “transfer” can be equated to a “movement” in the registration/employment relation.” "No-shit sherlock" some may say (if indeed you're still reading this far in), but it needs to be defined, and this makes it pretty clear that if you write your sell-on clause to cover simply a "transfer" then you are going to be understood to mean pretty much any manner of a change in a plyer's registration or employment (permanent of course, we're not talking about loans here). This was the problem for Malaga as the clause simply referred to a "transfer", and there was no list of circumstances detailing what was, or was not, meant by that. CAS saw that the agreement between Malaga and Getafe was signed by both those clubs and by Harper, was negotiated and signed prior to the expiry of Harper's Malaga contract, included a fee compensating Malaga, and crucially included Harper waiving the 15% of the transfer fee that he was entitled to under Spanish law. All of these things indicated that this move was a "transfer" rather than, as Malaga claimed, the movement of a free agent. CAS held that Brighton was entitled to receive the full 12.5% of the total sum received by Malaga by virtue of the agreement with Getafe, namely EUR 187,500 plus the amount of CHF 4,000 (four thousand Swiss Francs) as contribution for legal fees and other expense incurred in connection with the arbitration proceedings. Overall this may not apply to us, Ashton and our legal team might have drafted extensive and watertight sell-on clauses that are crystal clear about when we get our 20% and when we don't. But, if they didn't, then this case certainly makes it more likely that any clause would be construed in our favour.

Some of our short corners have been wasted tonight but with Naismith off it's been interesting to see a bit of variety in the corners. Dasilva has put one or two nice ones right into the 6 yard box.

He tried to. Well this has sparked into life a little. He tried to. Well this has sparked into life a little.

Not the most scintillating 45 minutes. But we dominated possession, had the best chance of the game, and Bentley must be very bored. Keep chipping away and something should fall for us.

And King now central CB.

Lovely dink into Semenyo there though. Surely a goal is coming here.

Massengo so close to a goal. Which ultimately came from Coventry's own sloppiness at the back. We'll get chances in this game and against this defence.

Naismith. Mate. Wells as well. Sloppy, not concentrating.

Agree with all 4 of these thoughts. Kadji will likely get minutes even. Williams won't play the full 90.

Let's hope he's still unemployed as and when Pearson leaves City.

All true. Haaland's not going to win the golden boot at the World Cup though is he.

Kane's on for a 30 goal season himself though. 7 from 8 so far, 1 goal every 102 minutes. Maintain that form and play every remaining minute and he finishes on 34 for the season. He's 10 goals away from breaking 200 in the Premier League as well. He's quietly having an excellent start to his season.

+22 goal difference as it stands after just 8 games. +2.75 per game. Keep that going and they land on on a GD of +105 in May.

I guess Massengo starts in place of Scott. Then you jus have decided what to do with Williams. Now Sykes can play CM. So you could use him to cover some or all of Williams' minutes and then use Wilson at RWB.

It's been coming. So much better going forward with Semenyo on. Given QPR so much more to think about.

I'm just not sure the defence is actually playing any worse than usual. But the lack of pressure up front means that standard performance at the back is exposed even more than normal. I'd also say QPR have played well, and have competently taken advantage of our weaknesses.

Is the problem today that the forward line isn't firing, isn't playing as sharply as they have done? Weimann's been flat, Conway and Wells have been kept separate by QPR and those two aren't clicking today. Ultimately there's not enough pressure on QPR, allowing them to put more pressure on us. We all know our defence is fragile. And then we blow out one big chance.

Bentley has to get up and play to the whistle there.