NFFC Financial Talk

[Paplane]

I'm chilled about the whole situation in that I do not believe we will have a points deduction, maybe a slapped wrist, suspended fine or a jolly good telling off. I think this whole situation is the Premier League trying to prove to the government that they do not need an independent legislative body to oversee them and that they can rule themselves.

Lots of papers comment on how unfair the situation is in light of Man City's charges that keep being kicked into the long grass. If anyone deserves punishment, it's them. They have won 12 trophies during the time that they allegedly broke the rules.

Yep, I get the impression our situation is a means to an end for the media. The big story for them is Man City getting done.

[BomberBowyer]

In reply to BomberBowyer’s question on page 69 about how we ‘cheated’, Nobody outside NG2 ‘knows’ the details yet but from the various soundbites, they seem to indicate that the whole, or at least majority, of the cause of the breach was the delay in selling Brennan by two months to get an extra £18m…. 100% of which is immediately available for FFP accounting.

Two months.
During which time we were in constant communication with the PL and surely must have had some tacit agreement from them this was acceptable …. or at least an indication that whilst a charge had to be levied in the interests of ‘fairness’, any punishment would be minor.

In defence of the club don’t forget how valuable that extra £18m is. In the current accounting period, it basically facilitates the purchase of 3 Sangare level players if they were all purchased for £30m each and amortised over 5 year contracts.

With extra FFP budget next year as the second championship season falls away from the rolling 3 year allowance, plus a host of expensive player contracts ending, it’s not difficult to see what the overall financial strategy was.

Thanks DR and that is why I asked the question. Fans and others are saying we ‘cheated’ but to me we haven’t. It was perfectly within the rules to spend what we did as long as we were within the allowable losses by 30/6. The only thing we are guilty of in my view from a P&S perspective is we didn’t sell BJ by 30/6 to come within the limit. That has no bearing on last seasons results or where we finished however so we didn’t cheat to stay up. And personally I can see why we didn’t because holding out for that little bit longer meant an increased price and therefore better outcome financially for the club.

[DR Forest]

In reply to BomberBowyer’s question on page 69 about how we ‘cheated’, Nobody outside NG2 ‘knows’ the details yet but from the various soundbites, they seem to indicate that the whole, or at least majority, of the cause of the breach was the delay in selling Brennan by two months to get an extra £18m…. 100% of which is immediately available for FFP accounting.

Two months.
During which time we were in constant communication with the PL and surely must have had some tacit agreement from them this was acceptable …. or at least an indication that whilst a charge had to be levied in the interests of ‘fairness’, any punishment would be minor.

In defence of the club don’t forget how valuable that extra £18m is. In the current accounting period, it basically facilitates the purchase of 3 Sangare level players if they were all purchased for £30m each and amortised over 5 year contracts.

With extra FFP budget next year as the second championship season falls away from the rolling 3 year allowance, plus a host of expensive player contracts ending, it’s not difficult to see what the overall financial strategy was.

But the two months argument can be turned around. I can be suggested that we should have ensured we were within and not relying on rhe dale of a single player.

There are always two perspectives.
What we don’t know yet is how much over the FFP threshold we were on 30/6 though.
Your flip side argument has more weight if we were £29m over and could have rectified it by taking the £30m. 
However, we might have only been slightly over and are now actually closer to the full £47m under the limit for this season- we just don’t know. 
But don’t forget, the FFP rules are there to ensure sustainability and protect the national game, not to seek to punish teams at every opportunity. This will all be discussed in mitigation by our lawyer of course.

[Paplane]

In reply to BomberBowyer’s question on page 69 about how we ‘cheated’, Nobody outside NG2 ‘knows’ the details yet but from the various soundbites, they seem to indicate that the whole, or at least majority, of the cause of the breach was the delay in selling Brennan by two months to get an extra £18m…. 100% of which is immediately available for FFP accounting.

Two months.
During which time we were in constant communication with the PL and surely must have had some tacit agreement from them this was acceptable …. or at least an indication that whilst a charge had to be levied in the interests of ‘fairness’, any punishment would be minor.

In defence of the club don’t forget how valuable that extra £18m is. In the current accounting period, it basically facilitates the purchase of 3 Sangare level players if they were all purchased for £30m each and amortised over 5 year contracts.

With extra FFP budget next year as the second championship season falls away from the rolling 3 year allowance, plus a host of expensive player contracts ending, it’s not difficult to see what the overall financial strategy was.

But the two months argument can be turned around. I can be suggested that we should have ensured we were within and not relying on rhe dale of a single player.

There are always two perspectives.
What we don’t know yet is how much over the FFP threshold we were on 30/6 though.
Your flip side argument has more weight if we were £29m over and could have rectified it by taking the £30m. 
However, we might have only been slightly over and are now actually closer to the full £47m under the limit for this season- we just don’t know. 
But don’t forget, the FFP rules are there to ensure sustainability and protect the national game, not to seek to punish teams at every opportunity. This will all be discussed in mitigation by our lawyer of course.

Yep, not enough info in the public realm for us to judge. But I cant get beyond thinking that rules are rules whether they're considered to be fair or not. 

From the limited info we've got, I reckon the best form of defence will be to take a conciliatory approach. Explain to the panel how open we've been to the process, how we take FFP very seriously and how committed we are to being good FFP people in the future. Contrast that to Everton who are fighting all the way.

IIRC the Sheep were negotiating a provisional punishment with the EFL before the hearing by the independent panel. Maybe we're doing the same with the EPL now, to get them to recommend a small punishment to the panel if we're found guilty. Wishful thinking perhaps. I'm just refusing to let this ruin my enjoyment of the football, which really looks like it's improving massively under Nuno.

[stefanduma]

In reply to BomberBowyer’s question on page 69 about how we ‘cheated’, Nobody outside NG2 ‘knows’ the details yet but from the various soundbites, they seem to indicate that the whole, or at least majority, of the cause of the breach was the delay in selling Brennan by two months to get an extra £18m…. 100% of which is immediately available for FFP accounting.

Two months.
During which time we were in constant communication with the PL and surely must have had some tacit agreement from them this was acceptable …. or at least an indication that whilst a charge had to be levied in the interests of ‘fairness’, any punishment would be minor.

In defence of the club don’t forget how valuable that extra £18m is. In the current accounting period, it basically facilitates the purchase of 3 Sangare level players if they were all purchased for £30m each and amortised over 5 year contracts.

With extra FFP budget next year as the second championship season falls away from the rolling 3 year allowance, plus a host of expensive player contracts ending, it’s not difficult to see what the overall financial strategy was.

But the two months argument can be turned around. I can be suggested that we should have ensured we were within and not relying on rhe dale of a single player.

There are always two perspectives.
What we don’t know yet is how much over the FFP threshold we were on 30/6 though.
Your flip side argument has more weight if we were £29m over and could have rectified it by taking the £30m. 
However, we might have only been slightly over and are now actually closer to the full £47m under the limit for this season- we just don’t know. 
But don’t forget, the FFP rules are there to ensure sustainability and protect the national game, not to seek to punish teams at every opportunity. This will all be discussed in mitigation by our lawyer of course.

Yep, not enough info in the public realm for us to judge. But I cant get beyond thinking that rules are rules whether they're considered to be fair or not. 

From the limited info we've got, I reckon the best form of defence will be to take a conciliatory approach. Explain to the panel how open we've been to the process, how we take FFP very seriously and how committed we are to being good FFP people in the future. Contrast that to Everton who are fighting all the way.

IIRC the Sheep were negotiating a provisional punishment with the EFL before the hearing by the independent panel. Maybe we're doing the same with the EPL now, to get them to recommend a small punishment to the panel if we're found guilty. Wishful thinking perhaps. I'm just refusing to let this ruin my enjoyment of the football, which really looks like it's improving massively under Nuno.

I'm with you 100% on this, really looking forward to seeing some good football and progression of the team and club.

[DeesideRed]

In reply to BomberBowyer’s question on page 69 about how we ‘cheated’, Nobody outside NG2 ‘knows’ the details yet but from the various soundbites, they seem to indicate that the whole, or at least majority, of the cause of the breach was the delay in selling Brennan by two months to get an extra £18m…. 100% of which is immediately available for FFP accounting.

Two months.
During which time we were in constant communication with the PL and surely must have had some tacit agreement from them this was acceptable …. or at least an indication that whilst a charge had to be levied in the interests of ‘fairness’, any punishment would be minor.

In defence of the club don’t forget how valuable that extra £18m is. In the current accounting period, it basically facilitates the purchase of 3 Sangare level players if they were all purchased for £30m each and amortised over 5 year contracts.

With extra FFP budget next year as the second championship season falls away from the rolling 3 year allowance, plus a host of expensive player contracts ending, it’s not difficult to see what the overall financial strategy was.

But the two months argument can be turned around. I can be suggested that we should have ensured we were within and not relying on rhe dale of a single player.

There are always two perspectives.
What we don’t know yet is how much over the FFP threshold we were on 30/6 though.
Your flip side argument has more weight if we were £29m over and could have rectified it by taking the £30m. 
However, we might have only been slightly over and are now actually closer to the full £47m under the limit for this season- we just don’t know. 
But don’t forget, the FFP rules are there to ensure sustainability and protect the national game, not to seek to punish teams at every opportunity. This will all be discussed in mitigation by our lawyer of course.

Thats where id be going if i were the clubs lawyer.

[Fumanchew]

This from Maguire is very telling compared to where we were come day 1 of last season. The wages also includes promotion bonuses. If anyone wants me to post the pics let me know.

[wassy04]

For me the biggest question is simply, why didn't we just take the money in June and avoid this charge?

Did we think we could beat the system with this mitigation plan? Did we not realise until too late? Did the PL decide after the Everton sage to be less lenient (would be my guess)

It seems pretty brazen to just take on the FFP rules and hope we can essentially get them changed after the fact.

Well there is the very important fact that Johnson did not want to go to Brentford for a start.

We couldn't force him to go there, you can't ruin careers like that.

You may be correct about Johnson. About ruining careers, sadly I don’t believe the Marinakis regime gives a monkeys about that considering some of the players at the two clubs that have been bought, swapped around, not played but moved on for a small profit or simply discarded.

Marinaki's never entered my thoughts.

Fact is that both BJ and DJ didn't want the move so obviously they thought it was not good for his career. In answer to Wassy's question we simply couldn't force the move if the player wasn't willing.

Shhh don't tell the Independent commission this, if our main defence was that we could've sold him but didn't!

[willdared]

Just been looking at an Everton forum and the world is against them plus they all hate Richard masters.. what I can't get my head around is a lot of them genuinely think we'll get a harsher punishment than them.. can someone make this make sense to me.

As we have breached I'm not against a punishment as it is deserved however I truly believe "punishment that fits the crime". Our breach seems minor and was rectified almost immediately.

[The reds]

Just been looking at an Everton forum and the world is against them plus they all hate Richard masters.. what I can't get my head around is a lot of them genuinely think we'll get a harsher punishment than them.. can someone make this make sense to me.

As we have breached I'm not against a punishment as it is deserved however I truly believe "punishment that fits the crime". Our breach seems minor and was rectified almost immediately.

No chance we get punished more than them, They have been breaching for years, Forest 2 months, As much as I have sympathy for the Everton fans they don't half spout some rubbish

[Reds73]

This from Maguire is very telling compared to where we were come day 1 of last season. The wages also includes promotion bonuses. If anyone wants me to post the pics let me know.

The wage bill for last season was reportedly 71m.
It’s certainly not excessive in line with other similar sized clubs

[Salvatore Matrecano]

This from Maguire is very telling compared to where we were come day 1 of last season. The wages also includes promotion bonuses. If anyone wants me to post the pics let me know.

The wage bill for last season was reportedly 71m.
It’s certainly not excessive in line with other similar sized clubs

I dont claim to be an expert on this R73 but my understanding is that for the average Premier League club, wages make up 70-80% of turnover. Therefore if Forest are capped to a £61m loss last season, having a similar size wage bill with lower permitted losses equals we have a problem.