NFFC Financial Talk

[wassy04]

So, just to confirm, I'm not on ignore? or?

--
I'll take that as a yes then. Excellent. 

Can we now continue to develop the discussion around why FFP and parachute payments are counter-productive to the notion of sustainable, aspirational, championship football clubs, without being interrupted by shouts of "but (insert non-football company here) make profits" every 5 seconds? Yes? Marvelous.

Have we discussed budget caps here before? I quite like them as a device to create a more level playing field; a constraint around resource usage and prioritization, whilst preserving sporting integrity and financial stability (to a degree).

I think its just me on ignore twice  :D he's been on here a week and I've so far been called an idiot, a liar, moronic and bad at my job and that was just today. I have so far made no insults in return...

Salary caps is a really interesting concept as initially I thought it would be a great idea however I've been persuaded that it would just further increase the gap between lower leagues and Premier league. 

Given the idea was that relegated clubs would keep their currents wages they'd have a similar advantage to now. Some kind of cost control measure is essential though. Not really sure what would work best. Any suggestions?

Parachute payments are completely unnecessary too, just make it it so contracts legally have to have decreases based on relegation. 

Sadly, the only option I could see that would work to create sustainability would be to merge the EFL and premier league. At least the income would be shared more equitably then.

I think that salary caps would need to be set at two levels; the first being an absolute maximum per player for that league (say, £20k/week in the Championship) and at a squad level (say, 60% of turnover of the football operations generated revenue).

That might allow the financially stronger teams to continue with a measure of advantage (bigger crowds, more sponsors, etc), but without distorting the player market so far that the best players can only achieve their maximum wage at a few teams. Things like playing time and sporting success may then become more important when a player is deciding whether to move or not.

Agree that contracts ought to have relegation clauses in them to help protect the club financially. This just makes sense and is surely only not included when a desperate team is struggling to negotiate with a new signing. There's a case here that the club needs protecting from itself in that scenario.

I think that last point is the nail on the head, clubs need protecting from themselves. The incentives to run at a loss and to take risks to get ahead are so high with the reward of Premier league income. I think it will require a change in the way the league is run, needs to be as a unit rather each club looking out for itself. This would allow better regulation, its silly really as everyone wins.

I think both those ideas make sense, definitely limiting to 60% of turnover at a minimum. Again though, I don't think it'll work unless they ditch parachute payments. Rick Parry has been pretty vocal on this, he knows it's the main issue. So maybe something will come from it

I think there is a third option that hasn't been discussed on this thread, and that is Agents Fees. It is time the PL, EFL, UEFA, FIFA and all other interested parties in running the game banned clubs from paying Agents Fees! Why does the club have to shell out for someone who is trying to get more money out of them for an individual player? That's like asking my boss to pay my Union membership every month!!

In the 2018-19 season, Salford City and Chesterfield, both in the National League, paid an annual fee of £70,000 in agents fees. Forest paid out £1.1M in the same period but were one of the lowest spenders even though we brought in 12 new signings (lots of freebies and loans). Throughout the Championship in this period, a mind blowing £49.3M was paid out in agents fees. In the season before that, throughout England, the total cost of Agents Fees had risen by 38% from £160M to £220M.  That is a staggering amount of money being spent unnecessarily by clubs, when it should be the players paying the fees.

Agents earn between 1% and 10% of a players annual earnings or take a % fee from a transfer they have over seen. So, just for the sake of arguing, Carvalo was bought for £13M. Mendes would have been paid between £130,000 and £1.3M for getting that deal done. That is a disgrace!! Yet nothing is being done about it.

If players want an agent, fine, let them have them. But the players must pay for the services, not the clubs.

I hope my stats have backed up the point i am trying to make  :angel:

Yeah I agree I don't don't you need yo get rid completely, just needs to be capped. Fifa actually tried to do this and the agents all kicked off. Its definitely worth doing though