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FFP, Parker's comments, and my thoughts in no particular order

Started by Forever Fulham, September 14, 2020, 02:16:09 PM

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Forever Fulham

As a newly promoted club team, we are, in a sense, prisoners of the effect of Financial Fair Play rules.  We have a billionaire owner (four billion by some accounts) who right now can't go out and get us three or four  big ticket players with proven current pedigree.  We can't spend beyond our means under FFP, as determined by what is and isn't classified as football operations revenue.  Though to be fair, we have seen FFP perverted by underhanded actions like huge sponsorship deals at some giant clubs the values of which could never be fairly supported on the merits.  Just a way to launder an influx of cash to support player payrolls.
We don't have a large stadium (yet).  Our ticket prices are, ahem, reasonable compared to  many of the PL stalwarts.  We don't have the huge following of those same mainstays which brings big merchandise revenues.  Or sponsorships.   We're the little club by the river.  Always punching above our weight once we get into the PL. 
Before the FFP were enacted, we had an owner who spent huge sums (back then) to get quality PL level players.  And that got the club to the promised land, and fast.  Can't do that today under the rules.  Now, you aren't supposed to spend beyond your means, as 'means' is interpreted under the rules.  MAF could do what Shad  can't today. 
A strange situation.  So staying in the PL, and staying in the top half of the table, is largely a by-product of your allowable budget for player personnel.   We can't defeat Arsenal, but rarely, because we can't compete financially for the players that club can bring onto its roster.  Fans spend inordinate amounts of time suggesting diamonds in the rough, supposed 'finds' languishing at other clubs that they think we can get cheap or on loan.   How often does that play out?  In the era of FFP, how often does the club find that special and affordable overlooked player that comes into his own or really takes off at Fulham?  Mitrovic comes to mind.  Who else? 
It seems so unfair, outrageous, actually, that a set of rules declared to foster stability and prevent bankruptcies over the arms race of player payrolls, has the effect of keeping the big money clubs entrenched in the league, and the little clubs like Fulham always scrapping and clawing for a seat at the table.  There has to be a better way, especially when you have a multibillionaire owner who has the wherewithal to splay 100 million more right now to all  but assure our continued spot, avoid relegation next season, maybe even make us a mid table team.  An outlay which wouldn't threaten his financial security.  I've long thought there should be a billionaire's exception to FFP.  Or at least an accommodation, an acknowledgment if you will.  Why  be rigid in application when it isn't warranted? 
As I watched the Arsenal game, I couldn't help but guesstimate their  average player wages; and I found it rather infuriating.  Has anyone done a study of how many PL-promoted teams stay up (and if so for how long) in the era of FFP vs. pre-FFP. 
We just lost our opener to the FA Cup winner.  To an in form team with quality players whose combined salaries must dwarf Fulham's by comparison.  A team whose players have been in the most recent habit of playing other top PL teams.  We had a mountain to climb.  We did all right in my book.  Scotty P's post mortem to the press made a lot of sense to me—level set expectations.  We aren't likely to win more games than we'll lose THIS SEASON.  We just got here (again).  Be patient.  The goal is to stay up.  Just stay up.  Stay up and  PL shared rev will flow our way.  More money, better players.  Better everything.  Be realists.  We have to beat the weak sister teams in the league and expect to lose to the better ones.  For now.  And have just enough  total points at the end to stay up.  And that's a great victory.  What he said, I thought, was rather profound in its honesty.  A lodestar. 

Statto

In the last couple of years I can think of at least three newly-promoted teams spending £100m-£150m - us in 2018, Wolves in 2018 and Villa in 2019. I expect we'll soon be able to add Leeds in 2020 to that list. How can anyone think FFP is a limiting factor? Is it that we think we need to spend even more, £200m or £300m??

shepperton white



Denzil Dexter

Quote from: Forever Fulham on September 14, 2020, 02:16:09 PM
As a newly promoted club team, we are, in a sense, prisoners of the effect of Financial Fair Play rules.  We have a billionaire owner (four billion by some accounts) who right now can't go out and get us three or four  big ticket players with proven current pedigree.  We can't spend beyond our means under FFP, as determined by what is and isn't classified as football operations revenue.  Though to be fair, we have seen FFP perverted by underhanded actions like huge sponsorship deals at some giant clubs the values of which could never be fairly supported on the merits.  Just a way to launder an influx of cash to support player payrolls.
We don't have a large stadium (yet).  Our ticket prices are, ahem, reasonable compared to  many of the PL stalwarts.  We don't have the huge following of those same mainstays which brings big merchandise revenues.  Or sponsorships.   We're the little club by the river.  Always punching above our weight once we get into the PL. 
Before the FFP were enacted, we had an owner who spent huge sums (back then) to get quality PL level players.  And that got the club to the promised land, and fast.  Can't do that today under the rules.  Now, you aren't supposed to spend beyond your means, as 'means' is interpreted under the rules.  MAF could do what Shad  can't today. 
A strange situation.  So staying in the PL, and staying in the top half of the table, is largely a by-product of your allowable budget for player personnel.   We can't defeat Arsenal, but rarely, because we can't compete financially for the players that club can bring onto its roster.  Fans spend inordinate amounts of time suggesting diamonds in the rough, supposed 'finds' languishing at other clubs that they think we can get cheap or on loan.   How often does that play out?  In the era of FFP, how often does the club find that special and affordable overlooked player that comes into his own or really takes off at Fulham?  Mitrovic comes to mind.  Who else? 
It seems so unfair, outrageous, actually, that a set of rules declared to foster stability and prevent bankruptcies over the arms race of player payrolls, has the effect of keeping the big money clubs entrenched in the league, and the little clubs like Fulham always scrapping and clawing for a seat at the table.  There has to be a better way, especially when you have a multibillionaire owner who has the wherewithal to splay 100 million more right now to all  but assure our continued spot, avoid relegation next season, maybe even make us a mid table team.  An outlay which wouldn't threaten his financial security.  I've long thought there should be a billionaire's exception to FFP.  Or at least an accommodation, an acknowledgment if you will.  Why  be rigid in application when it isn't warranted? 
As I watched the Arsenal game, I couldn't help but guesstimate their  average player wages; and I found it rather infuriating.  Has anyone done a study of how many PL-promoted teams stay up (and if so for how long) in the era of FFP vs. pre-FFP. 
We just lost our opener to the FA Cup winner.  To an in form team with quality players whose combined salaries must dwarf Fulham's by comparison.  A team whose players have been in the most recent habit of playing other top PL teams.  We had a mountain to climb.  We did all right in my book.  Scotty P's post mortem to the press made a lot of sense to me—level set expectations.  We aren't likely to win more games than we'll lose THIS SEASON.  We just got here (again).  Be patient.  The goal is to stay up.  Just stay up.  Stay up and  PL shared rev will flow our way.  More money, better players.  Better everything.  Be realists.  We have to beat the weak sister teams in the league and expect to lose to the better ones.  For now.  And have just enough  total points at the end to stay up.  And that's a great victory.  What he said, I thought, was rather profound in its honesty.  A lodestar.
FFP is just a way of making sure the big clubs stay the biggest. Load of shite. Chelsea were lucky it came in after Abramovic had spent a billion quid, or they'd be fighting for Josh King with us!

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Pluto

FFP is and always has been a way to entrench the status qui by keeping the big clubs big, and other clubs down.

Saying that, TV revenue from the PL is now so enormous that there's no reason we can't be spending significantly more money than we are.

toshes mate

Had me spellbound there, Forever Fulham.  Thank you for an excellent post.

The whole English football conundrum has become over complicated by rules that clearly do not work to establish fair play their intended function.  However, I believe the answer is through greater regulation of players which doesn't restrict their freedom to move, but does restrict their wage and when they can move and how release clauses become a player's responsibility to fund and not the buying or selling club.  Players must be made to get real about football's financial shortcomings.


rebel

Quote from: Forever Fulham on September 14, 2020, 02:16:09 PM
As a newly promoted club team, we are, in a sense, prisoners of the effect of Financial Fair Play rules.  We have a billionaire owner (four billion by some accounts) who right now can't go out and get us three or four  big ticket players with proven current pedigree.  We can't spend beyond our means under FFP, as determined by what is and isn't classified as football operations revenue.  Though to be fair, we have seen FFP perverted by underhanded actions like huge sponsorship deals at some giant clubs the values of which could never be fairly supported on the merits.  Just a way to launder an influx of cash to support player payrolls.
We don't have a large stadium (yet).  Our ticket prices are, ahem, reasonable compared to  many of the PL stalwarts.  We don't have the huge following of those same mainstays which brings big merchandise revenues.  Or sponsorships.   We're the little club by the river.  Always punching above our weight once we get into the PL. 
Before the FFP were enacted, we had an owner who spent huge sums (back then) to get quality PL level players.  And that got the club to the promised land, and fast.  Can't do that today under the rules.  Now, you aren't supposed to spend beyond your means, as 'means' is interpreted under the rules.  MAF could do what Shad  can't today. 
A strange situation.  So staying in the PL, and staying in the top half of the table, is largely a by-product of your allowable budget for player personnel.   We can't defeat Arsenal, but rarely, because we can't compete financially for the players that club can bring onto its roster.  Fans spend inordinate amounts of time suggesting diamonds in the rough, supposed 'finds' languishing at other clubs that they think we can get cheap or on loan.   How often does that play out?  In the era of FFP, how often does the club find that special and affordable overlooked player that comes into his own or really takes off at Fulham?  Mitrovic comes to mind.  Who else? 
It seems so unfair, outrageous, actually, that a set of rules declared to foster stability and prevent bankruptcies over the arms race of player payrolls, has the effect of keeping the big money clubs entrenched in the league, and the little clubs like Fulham always scrapping and clawing for a seat at the table.  There has to be a better way, especially when you have a multibillionaire owner who has the wherewithal to splay 100 million more right now to all  but assure our continued spot, avoid relegation next season, maybe even make us a mid table team.  An outlay which wouldn't threaten his financial security.  I've long thought there should be a billionaire's exception to FFP.  Or at least an accommodation, an acknowledgment if you will.  Why  be rigid in application when it isn't warranted? 
As I watched the Arsenal game, I couldn't help but guesstimate their  average player wages; and I found it rather infuriating.  Has anyone done a study of how many PL-promoted teams stay up (and if so for how long) in the era of FFP vs. pre-FFP. 
We just lost our opener to the FA Cup winner.  To an in form team with quality players whose combined salaries must dwarf Fulham's by comparison.  A team whose players have been in the most recent habit of playing other top PL teams.  We had a mountain to climb.  We did all right in my book.  Scotty P's post mortem to the press made a lot of sense to me—level set expectations.  We aren't likely to win more games than we'll lose THIS SEASON.  We just got here (again).  Be patient.  The goal is to stay up.  Just stay up.  Stay up and  PL shared rev will flow our way.  More money, better players.  Better everything.  Be realists.  We have to beat the weak sister teams in the league and expect to lose to the better ones.  For now.  And have just enough  total points at the end to stay up.  And that's a great victory.  What he said, I thought, was rather profound in its honesty.  A lodestar. 


So how did Sheff Utd do regards the FFP Rules? Did they break the Rules to enable them to finish 9th. Sheff Utd faltered slightly at the end of the season, they could easily of finished higher. With the Sheff Utd example, teams can flourish within the FFP Rules. Yes they are unfair, but Sheff Utd has done well within the Rules.
 

Jim©

Quote from: rebel on September 14, 2020, 04:09:11 PM

So how did Sheff Utd do regards the FFP Rules? Did they break the Rules to enable them to finish 9th. Sheff Utd faltered slightly at the end of the season, they could easily of finished higher. With the Sheff Utd example, teams can flourish within the FFP Rules. Yes they are unfair, but Sheff Utd has done well within the Rules.
 

People have this idea that sheffield United spent nothing. They spent over £70m.



rebel

Quote from: Jim© on September 14, 2020, 06:46:11 PM
Quote from: rebel on September 14, 2020, 04:09:11 PM

So how did Sheff Utd do regards the FFP Rules? Did they break the Rules to enable them to finish 9th. Sheff Utd faltered slightly at the end of the season, they could easily of finished higher. With the Sheff Utd example, teams can flourish within the FFP Rules. Yes they are unfair, but Sheff Utd has done well within the Rules.
 

People have this idea that sheffield United spent nothing. They spent over £70m.

They spent £64m, 'who has this idea they spent nothing?' Was their spending within the FFP Rules?

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/sheffield-united/transfers/verein/350/plus/0?saison_id=2019&pos=&detailpos=&w_s=

The Rational Fan

#10
Quote from: Statto on September 14, 2020, 02:39:06 PM
In the last couple of years I can think of at least three newly-promoted teams spending £100m-£150m - us in 2018, Wolves in 2018 and Villa in 2019. I expect we'll soon be able to add Leeds in 2020 to that list. How can anyone think FFP is a limiting factor? Is it that we think we need to spend even more, £200m or £300m??

FFP is limiting because we can only spend another £60m this season on transfers, but if we spend £60m well on a RCB, LCB, RW and CF, then we have the squad to get promoted again if required. FFP and TK together makes us a yo-yo team, but if TK gradually improves his skills we will one day be 17th in the PL. FFP means TK needs to build a team that can win the championship next season if required, which is not that hard.

In other words, FFP slows The Khans down, but cannot stop Fulham provided we do ok in championship whenever we fall down.

Sting of the North

Quote from: The Rational Fan on September 16, 2020, 10:56:12 AM
Quote from: Statto on September 14, 2020, 02:39:06 PM
In the last couple of years I can think of at least three newly-promoted teams spending £100m-£150m - us in 2018, Wolves in 2018 and Villa in 2019. I expect we'll soon be able to add Leeds in 2020 to that list. How can anyone think FFP is a limiting factor? Is it that we think we need to spend even more, £200m or £300m??

FFP is limiting because we can only spend another £60m this season on transfers, but if we spend £60m well on a RCB, LCB, RW and CF, then we have the squad to get promoted again if required. FFP and TK together makes us a yo-yo team, but if TK gradually improves his skills we will one day be 17th in the PL. FFP means TK needs to build a team that can win the championship next season if required, which is not that hard.

In other words, FFP slows The Khans down, but cannot stop Fulham provided we do ok in championship whenever we fall down.

But you don't actually know that we can just spend another £60m, do you?


toshes mate

Quote from: The Rational Fan on September 16, 2020, 10:56:12 AM
FFP is limiting because we can only spend another £60m this season on transfers, but if we spend £60m well on a RCB, LCB, RW and CF, then we have the squad to get promoted again if required. FFP and TK together makes us a yo-yo team, but if TK gradually improves his skills we will one day be 17th in the PL. FFP means TK needs to build a team that can win the championship next season if required, which is not that hard.
If it isn't that hard then why did it take so long for the Khans to even have a sniff of doing well in the Championship?  Staying up is just the same conundrum which must have a whole host of solutions which mainly say 'Get the players in to cover our known weaknesses and make sure we keep positive contact with good future prospects elsewhere so that we are not left wanting when a need becomes urgent'.  In life it is called strategic planning and it needs both experience and intelligence in those who are engaged to fulfill it.  Who at FFC has been doing the strategic planning since the Khans' arrived?   

ByTheRiver

The other thing that irks a bit when the Sheff Utd 'non-spending' example is rolled out is that they are the exception. Leicester won the league and they spent less than Man City. It's not a blueprint for success. Lessons can be learned from the example certainly (and they have, to some extent, I believe) but the danger is going too far the other way.

Riversider

Dont really agree with much of this, if its acurate then how come Villa have disregarded it two seasons running ?


jarv

Excellent post FF. I have never bothered to really understand FFF but from the beginning, I had a sense something is not right/fair with it.

Originally, I thought it was implemented to stop clubs going bankrupt with crazy spending. Seems it has turned out to allow the big 6 to dominate the league.

Craven_Chris

Really interesting topic,

For what its worth, I have looked into Fulham's FFP quite a lot recently for a blog post I wrote on the subject. A few of the observations I had were:

- Fulham should have quite a lot of FFP loss capacity for the coming season, I estimate they can make a loss of £40mn-£60mn without breaching the rules.
- Important to remember that transfer fees are recognised over the life of a players contract so £100mn of signings of players on 5 year contracts works out at a £20mn annual charge for FFP (we also have to pay their wages), but, for this reason, you could buy a lot of players without breching the limit mentioned above. I think we could easily spend another £100mn on signings given the contract spreading effect and the amortisation rules, and not be in too much FFP trouble
- Given our revenue has gone up so much now we are in the premier league and due to other fairly complex factors (such as the rolling of the financially painful 17/18 season out of our 3 year FFP assessment period), we would actually have to spend very heavily from here to breach our FFP requirements this season: I  speculated that we could probably afford 1 year of Messi wages if we didnt spend anything else!

Also worth remembering that all of the transfer signings we made last time in the premier league are still Fulham players (or has Fabri gone now, he may be the only one?) and that means that the amortising of that £120m we spent on them is still going on, charging against FFP each year. Last season, we offset that by selling Sess, and now we can take it because of the premier league revenues, but those players need to pull their weight from a financial point of view!

I suspect the main reason we are not making so many signings is not the lack of FFP headroom right now, instead I think the issue is no one wants to come to a club they think will be relegated, and we need to sign players in a way that allows us to continue to be viable if we do go down (so we need to get new signings to agree to a relegation clause for example).

Southcoastffc

And, unless things have changed recently, this shows how (non) application of FFP has swayed things even further in favour of the 'top' clubs. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/18/uefa-agree-to-suspend-financial-fair-play-rules-due-to-pandemic
The world is made up of electrons, protons, neurons, possibly muons and, definitely, morons.


rebel

Quote from: ByTheRiver on September 16, 2020, 11:19:35 AM
The other thing that irks a bit when the Sheff Utd 'non-spending' example is rolled out is that they are the exception. Leicester won the league and they spent less than Man City. It's not a blueprint for success. Lessons can be learned from the example certainly (and they have, to some extent, I believe) but the danger is going too far the other way.

The season Leicester won the Prem, they spent £37m net. The season before they spent £31m net. So even with the restrictions of FFP, teams can do well in the 'right environment'.

 

ByTheRiver

Quote from: rebel on September 16, 2020, 11:48:13 AM
Quote from: ByTheRiver on September 16, 2020, 11:19:35 AM
The other thing that irks a bit when the Sheff Utd 'non-spending' example is rolled out is that they are the exception. Leicester won the league and they spent less than Man City. It's not a blueprint for success. Lessons can be learned from the example certainly (and they have, to some extent, I believe) but the danger is going too far the other way.

The season Leicester won the Prem, they spent £37m net. The season before they spent £31m net. So even with the restrictions of FFP, teams can do well in the 'right environment'.

 

Yes that is essentially my point. But what it doesn't mean is, for example, City want to take the title this year, they must spend 37m and no more. Used against our situation for anyone having difficulty understanding, not spending as Sheff Utd seemingly didn't spend (or did, as above, just going along the commonly held view) is not necessarily the way. It's a balance. Every team is different. Villa, for example, spent more than us last year and stayed up (albeit thanks to an incorrect Hawkeye decision, but alas).

The danger at present seems to be that the claim are so keen not to repeat the mistakes of 18/19, that they have gone too far the other way and will leave us with a squad that is not good enough for any manager to achieve survival with.