It could be tough

[Andy S]

FFP as well as the premier league clubs about to come in to mega money will affect the championship severely. Premier League  Clubs will hold on to more players while championship clubs will risk everything for a bite of the cake. Big Clubs like Villa and possibly Sunderland could probably pay big for players and wages. Do we have a hope in hell next season?

[Fulham76]

FFP as well as the premier league clubs about to come in to mega money will affect the championship severely. Premier League  Clubs will hold on to more players while championship clubs will risk everything for a bite of the cake. Big Clubs like Villa and possibly Sunderland could probably pay big for players and wages. Do we have a hope in hell next season?

Probably not but that's because we have a pretty poor squad, with just 3-4 stand out players.

Having said that, villa have a pretty poor squad too after years of little investment & selling their better players.

[Bedford White]

I can see what Andy S is saying, the amount of money, even for lowest ranked Prem teams, is enormous! Equally Satto has made a good point in that if an owner wants to, he can flout the FFP.

However I do feel the FFP will hamper smaller clubs like ourselves from reaching the Prem ever again.

[Oakeshott]

"I do feel the FFP will hamper smaller clubs like ourselves from reaching the Prem ever again"

And, if they make it, from staying there.

A classic example of meddling with the free market.

[love4ffc]

While I can see why FFP was established (to supposedly to make the playing field even for all teams) I have to agree it doesn't work.  Basicly it hampers teams that can from buying promotion from doing so make it extremely difficult to reach promotion.  Then as Statto says if you do get promoted to the PL then you had better hope your chairmen breaks out his checkbook and spends big just so you can stay up. 

Pretty much FFP has made it as unfair as it can be. 

[love4ffc]

While I can see why FFP was established (to supposedly to make the playing field even for all teams) I have to agree it doesn't work.  Basicly it hampers teams that can from buying promotion from doing so make it extremely difficult to reach promotion.  Then as Statto says if you do get promoted to the PL then you had better hope your chairmen breaks out his checkbook and spends big just so you can stay up. 

Pretty much FFP has made it as unfair as it can be. 

The irony is they never even said that was the purpose, creating a level playing field. It was just supposed to stop smaller clubs getting into debt and going the way of Pompey

The sad thing is I don't think you can prevent any clubs from going into debt.  Look at Portsmouth and Aston Villa.  I'm sure they didn't want to go into debt yet they did. 

FFP should be revamped.  A club's debt should be attached to their chairmen's net worth.  If the club cares the debt for more then say two years then the chairmen should have to step and help settle the debt or face not being accepted into the league.  As it currently sits its broken and unfair. 

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

While I can see why FFP was established (to supposedly to make the playing field even for all teams) I have to agree it doesn't work.  Basicly it hampers teams that can from buying promotion from doing so make it extremely difficult to reach promotion.  Then as Statto says if you do get promoted to the PL then you had better hope your chairmen breaks out his checkbook and spends big just so you can stay up. 

Pretty much FFP has made it as unfair as it can be. 

The irony is they never even said that was the purpose, creating a level playing field. It was just supposed to stop smaller clubs getting into debt and going the way of Pompey

The sad thing is I don't think you can prevent any clubs from going into debt.  Look at Portsmouth and Aston Villa.  I'm sure they didn't want to go into debt yet they did. 

FFP should be revamped.  A club's debt should be attached to their chairmen's net worth.  If the club cares the debt for more then say two years then the chairmen should have to step and help settle the debt or face not being accepted into the league.  As it currently sits its broken and unfair. 

Getting into debt as a football club is so easy. You pay a lot in fees and pay high wages for your current position and get relegated or don't get promoted and your owner has put the debt on the club and won't pay off the debt from his own pocket.

There are problems with slackening the FFP rules in many of the ways posters have suggested. FFP is there because some owners and boards do not run their clubs in a sensible business-like manner. What if the owner cannot cover the debt in the first place or his business has cash flow problems? Having the club 'not accepted into the league' is just sort of the issue that FFP is trying to avoid on behalf of the supporters. Would you be happy for Fulham to be demoted if Khan refused to pay up?

Championship owners can now subsidise debt to £13m per year (I think) which ought to be enough for a good manager at a club like Fulham with its turnover to put together a team to make the playoffs at least.

[Burt]

Getting in to debt is all too easy when:
1. Top tier clubs model their finances on massive third-party revenue streams (primarily TV rights and sponsorship, but for the top top clubs you can also add Champions League prize money to this mix) and have no run-rate revenue to prop things up in the event of relegation, etc.
2. Players wages as a proportion of total expenditure is so high.

The way the game has gone is that it is increasingly three-tier.
1. The top 6 (Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool).
2. The rest of the prem, who may occasionally gate-crash the top (e.g. Leicester).
3. The others.

And the money being poured in to the premier league through TV rights is making the gaps larger.

[MJG]

While I can see why FFP was established (to supposedly to make the playing field even for all teams) I have to agree it doesn't work.  Basicly it hampers teams that can from buying promotion from doing so make it extremely difficult to reach promotion.  Then as Statto says if you do get promoted to the PL then you had better hope your chairmen breaks out his checkbook and spends big just so you can stay up. 

Pretty much FFP has made it as unfair as it can be. 

The irony is they never even said that was the purpose, creating a level playing field. It was just supposed to stop smaller clubs getting into debt and going the way of Pompey

The sad thing is I don't think you can prevent any clubs from going into debt.  Look at Portsmouth and Aston Villa.  I'm sure they didn't want to go into debt yet they did. 

FFP should be revamped.  A club's debt should be attached to their chairmen's net worth.  If the club cares the debt for more then say two years then the chairmen should have to step and help settle the debt or face not being accepted into the league.  As it currently sits its broken and unfair. 

Getting into debt as a football club is so easy. You pay a lot in fees and pay high wages for your current position and get relegated or don't get promoted and your owner has put the debt on the club and won't pay off the debt from his own pocket.

There are problems with slackening the FFP rules in many of the ways posters have suggested. FFP is there because some owners and boards do not run their clubs in a sensible business-like manner. What if the owner cannot cover the debt in the first place or his business has cash flow problems? Having the club 'not accepted into the league' is just sort of the issue that FFP is trying to avoid on behalf of the supporters. Would you be happy for Fulham to be demoted if Khan refused to pay up?

Championship owners can now subsidise debt to £13m per year (I think) which ought to be enough for a good manager at a club like Fulham with its turnover to put together a team to make the playoffs at least.

Exactly

[Andy S]

 Should the TV companies one day pull out you will see some big clubs in trouble. It is a thin wire we tread where the fans may always suffer. FFP is designed to be fair but clubs in London and the south have much higher running costs than those up north. Football is not the same across the country and shouldn't be treated as such

[Apprentice to the Maestro]

What if the owner cannot cover the debt in the first place or his business has cash flow problems?

i've said it before and i'll say it again...

...restricting the debt clubs can incur is one thing...

...but if a chairman has the resources to make an immediate, unconditional cash payment to the club, how does restricting that stop clubs getting into financial difficulty?

rhetorical question - the answer is it doesn't. it just keeps the small clubs small.

That's great but most owners are/were unwilling to do that. They used to put the debt on the club although the rules may now restrict that.

And it doesn't keep small clubs small except possibly for the top six in the PL. Are Bournemouth, Watford and Swansea 'big' clubs?

No, the limits on investment means that clubs will have to invest more wisely in a good manager and a squad that play as a team as is the case with Leicester, Bournemouth, etc.

And, as I have said before, this is only an issue on here because our owner is seriously rich. If our owner was merely rich enough to buy the club but not subsidise it or the club was owned by the supporters as with A.F.C. WImbledon posters would be on here calling for a FFP system.