ExiledAjax

Just wait until the autumn when the new regs come properly into force and the agents all have to pass an exam. 48% failed the recent mock round.

One of those posts that I knew I'd got wrong but posted anyway. Thanks for correcting me. That little relegation hadn't been put up on Wikipedia yet. And I like to pretend that Cardiff were never really in the PL ? Are those excuses good enough for my innacuracy? We all agree that Birmingham have been in the division longest though?

IIRC once next season starts then this is our longest spell in the second tier for many decades. About 50 years I think. We will also be I think the 4th longest serving Championship* team (behind Cardiff, Birmingham and Reading). Those two things seem opposed to me. Compare to the historic level of our club it's a success to have almost a decade in the second tier (and really we've only very occasionally been seriously in danger of relegation). But I can simultaneously understand and to an extent share the frustration of having eight chances to finish high and to have never gone above 8th! I of course hope our fortune changes positively soon, and then it will be about making it stick either as a premier league club a la Brighton, or at least to become part of the yo-yo club. *Joint fourth with PNE who of course came up with us.

It's interesting because I guess you look at those that have gone up this season and wonder whether this is so key? I think the answer is that it's helpful for some clubs but not always necessary. Perhaps where we have been a little naive in the past it's something useful to us that might help us to get over the line next season or the one after.

Technically we have an "opportuntiy" every season, but you're right that some seasons are more opportune than others - the classic for me is when Leicester won the Premier League. Most of the big teams were, for one reason or another, off their game that season and Leicester struck while the iron was hot. Essentially when we were under LJ/Ashton we had resources and opportunity but the decision making wasn't there. Then in the years since we have had better decision making, opportunity has been there, but we've been unable to bring our resources to bear because we have been hamstrung by the aforementioned decision making. Hopefully in 23/24 and 24/25 we might finally see the three things align. People seem to think opportunity will be less next season, but for me it's the least important of the three. Deploy strong resources through good decision making and you can turn a slim opportunity into success. Of course there is a fourth, unpredictable, elusive, and tempting mistress to tame - lady luck. Get her on your side and away you go.

Also says that even whilst in the Championship you have to have "fully costed proposals" setting out how you achieve these. So the cost should be no surprise to Luton and they should really be fine of they go up. Busy summer sure, but fine generally.

That there is something to be said for stable if unspectacular ownership.

Continuing to be a generally excellent bloke as well. Mens mental health thing he's doing with Sky. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsYq666A6mw/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== I suspect not everyone has Instagram so there's a screenshot for those without.

Will we announce before we release our retained list? Might be slightly odd to do that right?

February 2017 - January 2021. Brentford were promoted in May 2021. So he wasn't on Prem wages, but was still offending whilst on Championship money (admittedly not top end Championship money). Regardless, even the very wealthiest can become desperate for money if they live beyond their means.

That's a category 2 offence. It's a Cat 1 offence for any player to place a bet on any football match anywhere in the world. That's the fundamental prohibition. As I said earlier in the thread, there are six categories and they increase in severity from the two mentioned above to the most serious - a bet placed on a particular occurrence involving the player who placed the bet. The vast majority of betting cases investigated by the FA involve category 2, 3, and 4 offences. Cat 3 is a bet placed on your own team to win, Cat 4 is betting that your own team will lose. Cat 4 is subdivided into 4(a) bet to lose and you play (or are an unused sub) in the match, and 4(b) bet to lose but you don't take part. Obviously 4(a) is very serious and tends to attract a ban of over a year, 4(b) is less serious. Looking at historical sanctions and Toney's 8 month ban, I suspect that his case involved a few Cat 4(b) offences, the average sanction for which is between 20-40 weeks (5-9 months(ish)). The record sanction for a Cat 4(b) offence is 57 weeks and that record is held by the honourable Mr. J. Barton who bet on his own team to lose no less than 15 times. A number of aggravating and mitigating factors will also have been considered in arriving at the 8 month ban. They include the obvious such as size and number of bets (of each category), did Toney win or lose his bets, his previous record in this regard, his personal circumstances, etc. The number and size of the bets tends to be the most influential of these. His admission of guilt will have been considered as a mitigating factor. It will be interesting to read the regulatory commission's reasoning when published.

Keiran Maguire (the football finance guy) sums the recipe for success in football up as: resources, opportunity, execution. You need to have the resources - financial wriggle room, income and control of outgoings, the opportunity - a division that opens up, the right squad at the right time, and then you have to have the right people making good decisions and executing your plan. We've had/have a few of these things in place, but not all at once. Opportunity has always been there. Resources are now in place after a few years of a rebuild. Execution is now key.

I travelled to watch us play Coventry on that sunny August evening in Burton 9 months ago. 4-1 and we dismantled them. Had you told me then that Coventry would be in the playoff final I'd have laughed you out of town.

And where were Burton, Derby, Sheff Wed, Bolton, and Barnsley in 2018? In our division. Stars rise and stars fall. Don't be jealous and envious of Coventry and Luton. Don't let bitterness dominate. Be inspired and encouraged that yes, if they can do it, then so can we.

There are 6 levels of severity of breach. The number of breaches he has in each category will influence the length of the ban. It's very determinate on that. And yes it applies from now because that's the rules.

If he plays every minute. If they are all at LM. Then he could be reasonably predicted to get 7. Look, maybe I misunderstood @Major Isewater's post in that I read it as setting an unreasonable expectation that signing Joe Bryan would create many goals from midfield. Based on Bryan's history that is unlikely. I'll say again though, I want him to sign. He'd be a great addition. Just about having reasonable and fair expectations of new signings is all.

The most league minutes he's ever played in a season is 3,500 - 84% of the maximum possible. So based on past performance he's not an every minute player, and so is unlikely to achieve that maximum. Maybe he plays 85% and gets 6 goals. That's obviously great, but is unlikely to solve all our issues (remember that in doing that he is replacing someone else - maybe Mehmeti or Bell, so it's not a pure net gain of +6 goals).

This is basically what they are doing now. CAS and the Swiss court have told them to pay. They're sueing Nantes for damages resulting from (and apologies for crass language) essentially not delivering what was bought.

But he won't will he.

The sponsorless kit looked lovely though right? I'd like Pirelli back for nostalgia but at least their shot of that bloody crypto nonsense. Inter were a favourite of mine growing up and I'm all Inter for this trophy.

Bryan has scored 29 goals in his 371 professional appearances a career average of 1 in 12 across League 1, Championship, Prem League and now Ligue 1 (he's at 1 in every 958 minutes). Roughly 4 per season. However in only two seasons (our 14/15 promotion season and in 17/18) has his tally exceeded 3 goals. 16 of those 29 have come when played at LM, which transfermarkt reckon he's done in 117 games. Better, but still only 1 every 590 minutes. So assuming he played every minute of a Championship season at LM that predicts 7 goals. 7 would be nice I grant you, but is that playing condition going to be fulfilled? Mehmeti and Bell would be angry. He's a good player, he's a great Bristolian, and I would/will welcome him home with open arms, but he's not a goalscorer and although he could chip in with 2 or 3, he's not the 5-10 goal midfielder we might be looking for.

I'm not really expert on the jurisdiction of different courts but yes Blatter was always keen on keeping disputes "in house" then allowing appeals to CAS. My understanding here is that Cardiff have exhausted that route FIFA > CAS > Swiss Federal and are now trying something under the French 'criminal' court. So this case is of a different 'flavour' and so can be tried outside the FIFA track. Very happy to be corrected by anyone who knows better though as this might not be quite right.

Legal fees don't count towards FFP do they!? ?

As I understand it (and I think the article is translated into English from French so some nuance may be lost) the argument is: 1. McKay (plus his son) was operating as Nantes' agent. McKay was unlicensed at the time. 2. McKay therefore organised everything. Cardiff had no direct involvement. 3. To the extent McKay failed to organise something, Nantes should have covered it. 4. So Cardiff say that it's McKay, and by extension his employer Nantes' fault that Sala died. 5. Nantes can't blame McKay as he was unlicensed and so they should not have used him (presumably ignoring the fact that had Nantes not used McKay, Cardiff could not have bought Sala and so presumably Cardiff were fine with McKay's involvement at the time). In March this was summarised by the ever accurate, generous, and knowledgeable Mr. Tan who told Swiss media: “We were never able to use the very promising player we had bought. Emiliano Sala could have scored the few goals that would have saved us from demotion to the Championship (Cardiff finished 18th in the Premier League at the end of the 2018-2019 season). This resulted in a loss of £100 million, at least, for the club. With Sala, we could have avoided relegation. He didn’t play a single game for us. Why should we pay for his entire transfer? FC Nantes must be punished. He negotiated with an unlicensed agent.” The word "could" is doing an awful lot of work in that monologue. Note as well the admission "we had bought". To buy something implies paying for it. So ******* pay Mr. Tan! Note also that this is Cardiff's fourth attempt, in the fourth court/tribunal, to weasel out of this whole mess. Cardiff have lost their argument three times – firstly before FIFA’s player status commitee, which ordered them to pay the first €6 million instalment to Nantes, then before CAS and then in the highest Swiss court.

Don't mind it.