Mr Popodopolous

Presumably as that was when football was seen as being at an extremely low ebb. Within a couple of months there was Heysel, Bradford fire and Birmingham v Leeds wall collapsed. Thereafter things improved, they could only get better tbh- attendances nationally would also have been at record lows or in that ballpark. https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/nov/27/scott-murray-85-86-football-season

Otoh if we are punished or challenged then it is incumbent on the League to challenge or push back against Stoke. Plus on their return potentially, Nottingham Forest and Fulham. Aston Villa would have been compliant to 2021 irrespective of the transfer add-backs by my calculations and selling Grealish for £100m would solve it to 2022-23 and probably beyond. PL jurisdiction anyway. Given that the rules are on paper harmonised but in reality enforced differently, could Everton being let off with £170m in 2 years when it comes to Covid add-backs and lost revenue set a precedent for everyone else including clubs caught by Championship Profit and Sustainability regs. Or could a host of clubs sue for the PL not enforcing their regs correctly.

Hoping for 3 sound defeats for Qatar, starting today.

One more thought/observation. Will this being approaching mid-season help or hinder the quality, intensity etc? Because often England and not only England but a number of European sides will have gone there with a lot of their players having gone deep in the League in a title race, domestic cups, European competition etc. Will going mid-season improve this a bit?

Both are rather topical given Ronaldo and his Man Utd saga and the ridiculous decision to host in Qatar- a daft if comical stand-up of Ronaldo. Not sure Infantino is any better though! Less comic potential too with the current incumbent.

I'd be stunned if a football club going into admin took them on...they were hilariously incompetent for most of their tenure despite having at least one with experience of the football Insolvency industry (Andronikou- although his record at Portsmouth when they were in admin wasn't exactly competent. Unsure of his time at Swindon). Some of their tactics might have merit in regular Insolvencies but they were badly out of their depth as far as football related Insolvency regs etc went. Otoh in a regular insolvency I doubt they get tax bill reduced by 2/3 or however much it was.

More praise for Towler.

There is also a philosophical difference between us and the DCFCfans site well maybe philosophical is overstating it but. When they were going through their travails FFP wise, there were lots of claims that: *The authorities were biased against them. *The restrictions were unfair, perhaps onerous too. *The accounting methods were in fact valid. * 'Isn't Mel clever' kinda thing. *EFL on strings- okay that may have been young fans on social media. *A total failure to recognise or acknowledge in all but a few cases that even were the charges to 2017-18 cleared, that compliance to 2018-19 let alone beyond would be a serious problem. I understand celebration of being exonerated but it's not a case of cleared and away you go. I see very little of that on this forum . That's credit to us, granted forums are snapshots of fanbases but I think we are fully cognisant of the fact that Covid or not, financials have been screwed up badly and we could yet face FFP issues moving forward albeit not this specific season. Perhaps 2019 would be a good snapshot. Stadium 'sold', Morris in his pomp on Talksport regularly. Boasted on there about how he'd sooner take on EFL than HMRC, Rooney in, 32 Red paying some of his wages? Bielik in. Lampard out? No issue- Cocu in! All the while a big ticking timebomb of Player Registrations still to be amortised as of early season 2019-20.

Ssuppose they could in theory but on what grounds?

No surprises here. Another great roll of the dice by Quantuma, was clearly going to fly.

It's a shame the WC is where it is and when it is. Think football wise the last two were quite decent tbh and this one could or should be. Bellingham, Rice, Foden CM 3? Kane and perm 2 further forward? Could be one way to go. Don't think we will win it but strong contenders. England aside, again some interesting bits. Argentina and Portugal- the swansong of Messi and Ronaldo. The former on a long unbeaten run and temperatures, the latter aren't just Ronaldo plus 10- rather a strong and talented side. Indeed temperatures probably will be against a lot of European sides in this case- could that yield some shock results? Did in 2002...though some of the officiating was suspect at best. European Dark horses? Could be a few. Denmark have been strong for a while now. Eriksen is back after his heart issues in the last Euros. Quite free scoring at times too, a decent side. Croatia have been in transition for a couple of years but look like they are on the rise again. Modric's final major tournament? He'll certainly be looking to go out on a high. Serbia? Topped a qualifying group with Portugal qualifying with a win out there, always think they underperform at major tournaments considering that when they qualify it's often quite strongly and have fairly talented or technically sound players. Topped the Nations League group too ahead of Haaland, Odegaard etc with Norway. Switzerland? Topped group with Italy, quite good at last Euros. Could surprise some. Senegal I believe underachieve. To name 3, Mendy, Koulibaly, Mane. Conditions could suit. Mexico the pressing game under Martino although in the heat that could count against them. Underachieve arguably. Uruguay have a reputation for being quite pragmatic but Nunez and the aging but still dangerous Suarez, Cavani up front, players like Valverde, Bentancur, Torreira in CM- you'd think could go at it a bit. Canada's first WC in years. Some quite good players too ie Davies at Bayern, David at Lille to name 2. The obvious contenders like France, Brazil, us, maybe Belgium maybe not. Holland under Van Gaal again should be better than recent years. Is it Lewandowski's last tournament? Hes certainly 30+...Think Poland have an okay side on paper so them plus him as the star in theory, wonder if he can take them past the Group stage for the first time in a generation. Yes it could be a good WC, the great shame is the time of year and location.

Had a quick read of the Derby forum. This thread gets an airing on their admin thread. For clarity for a couple on there. It isn't to 2021-22 where the issues would arise- the profit and rolling up of the two would see to that. No, the concern is to this season ie when that profit drops off. 'Add-backs' are available to all clubs and for e.g. Gate receipts, Matchday Revenue, Season ticket revenue or refunds and yes commercial and corporate that's okay. The crux of an issue is, are add-backs relating to the transfer market permissible? My view fwiw is no, absolutely not. As far as I can tell, all of the costs, revenue and transfer profits that you see in the accounts are legitimate- the add-backs disappointingly are not disclosed. I believe that revenue loss wise forgetting any optimistic claims about the transfer market that across 2019-20 and 2020-21, we could legitimately argue it cost us £15-16m. That would be an average of £7.5-8m across the combined two Covid seasons. To give Aston Villa then Everton and Nottingham Forest to an extent and Stoke a little bit of credit they at least disclosed their claims and laid out their arguments. I think the last 3 have quite serious questions to answer about said claims relating to FFP- Aston Villa the period to 2019...under EFL analysis and governance had they not gone up, things may have gone quite differently. As do we, if we have sought to add-back lost transfer revenue.

Thanks. That makes some sense yes- read it on some set of accounts once I think, greenbelt vs brownfield that kinda thing as to fluctuations?

That said until such time as SL sells up, these gains as I probably said last year are paper only. Theoretical but wholly unrealised. SL still loses money year on year for as long as more cash goes in than comes out.

I will take on the point of @BigAl&Toby a little. No wrongdoing we all agree on that! Interesting point you raise about valuation or otherwise- because the Tangible Fixed Assets (Stadium, Training Ground) and probably more. Fully legitimate of course. The accounting policy is being applird consistently. However I fancy that the Fair Value of these in 2022 markedly outweighs the cost- especially as land itself cannot lose value. For perspective, the Bet365 Stadium and Stoke's relatively dated at that time training ground went for a combined gross £80--85m in May 2021. Wonder what ours would be worth?

Putting FFP to one side I'm actually a little concerned about the loan arrangements. They sound a bit onerous while we remain a Championship side. Of course IF SL keeps converting debt to equity or is happy and willing to keep us going then the Lion sleeps tonight to some extent. @BigAl&Toby @NickJ @The Constant Rabbit All posters who are sceptical to varying degrees in respect of Lansdown, interested in your take as 3 sceptics. Should we be concerned? Print screens are a bit of a mess, will try and align a bit better.

@Peter1450 Not this season, almost certainly not unless we somehow fell foul of the in-season rule ie projected fail to 2022-23, points deduction next Spring kinda thing. The risk is in that we get one in 2023-24 pertaining to the period ending in this season.

Of course there is one other solution. Promotion! Or at least winning the playoffs, because even though the League or an IDC have the right to deduct points in season for the existing cycle, it's never happened yet. Never.

Fair but just saying in addition to those constraints, we could yet have an FFP issue to this season. A scenario in which we are told to get our books in order by end of May once the March projections go in or face further measures. In March 2019, it was reported that Aston Villa, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday were told just that.

STILL wouldn't say we are out of the woods on the FFP side yet. Subject to review etc, not just by the League but by the Financial body. Could have all of that plus some kind of charges or case to defend. Soft embargo? Business Plan?

I do understand that there are arguments for- plus the Kalas example that you gave earlier- but it seems so difficult to quantify- how much is down to Covid and how much is down to the policy careering off the tracks, aka running out of good players who can turn a healthy profit. Would imagine that a lot of clubs could argue in favour of this adversely affecting them- maybe they have. In a pre Covid market should Blackburn be losing Nyambe, Lenihan, Rothwell for precisely £0. Big sales still happened in the aftermath of Covid too- posted about the years on the FFP thread. £10m + and those just close to, so from summer 2020 to January 2021- maybe you can include summer 2021 too as football and the rest of us were re-emerging, blinking into the light. If you compare it to the prior 2-windows the number of moves in that bracket isn't all that different... I think it's arguable- overall balance of probability am still coming down against.

The slight other bit that concerns me, as I've said elsewhere about the transfer add-back particularly. Costs and Revenue. Profit is arguably neither and especially a non-recurring one. Profit on player sales requires two parties- a willing buyer and a willing seller. Then it comes to fee minus remaining book value...reportedly turning down £8m for Massengo from Watford won't have helped our case? Edit, a quick search says Sky claimed £8.3m. Transfer profit or loss isn't revenue as such. At a push maybe you can argue a Loan fee but the definition is quite clear of Covid losses? It's a circle I am struggling to square. Costs are fairly self explanatory. Testing, travel arrangements, cleaning etc. Revenue is fairly self explanatory. Tickets, Season tickets, Matchday income, Corporate cevenue, Commercial revenue etc. The fact that we and maybe some others used transfer profit to try and bridge the gap is on us and others who did likewise. It's not a revenue and it's not a cost- it's a profit to help offset (in FFP terms) the gap between the first 2. It's by no means a cut and dry argument either way.

True, always important to distinguish between cash losses and profit and loss. The model at this level is mad though.

In truth you could say the same about many Championship clubs. Total money pit. The scary thing for me is that our income recovered to nearly record levels ie not far off 2018-19 and we still made a cash loss let alone the huge pre tax loss. Scarier still was needing equity or cash during the profit year which contained £38m of profit on player sales and a record turnover of around £30m. Is the model flawed? Championship model I mean!

Thanks. Had a quick skim read last night, that is positive tbh. If I had a slight criticism it would be why didn't we state our 'add-backs' itemised in the accounts- of course I also understand that commercial confidentiality and potentially even competitive positioning play a a part in disclosures and decisions about this.