Summer Silly Season Transfer Thread 2025

[Drewry66]

Everton bid 40m for Tyler Dibling rejected, Southampton want 45m+5m add on and 25% sell on and people wonder why we have a problem.

If they pay that for Tyler Dibling they are frigging nuts. Looks talented but did next to nothing last year.

[Deeping_white]

All this talk of PSR has me questioning why clubs like Bournemouth can spend net €280m over the last three seasons and only this season have they sold anyone for substantial amounts. They also have a tiny stadium.

How come they can and we can't? Surely their wages can't be THAT much smaller than ours.

PSR is a rolling 3 year window; they spent big on lower wage players and sold them on for a profit to cover off the initial expendature so overall they fall within the regulations. They sold Solanke for £60m last year, and will get over £100m in sales this year so never really at risk

But we know that under PSR / current rules, we've plenty of headroom. I thought the issue was SCR, potentially next season. In that regard, Bournemouth will have approx £300m of fees amortising (they've already spent another £40m this summer and have a couple of roles still to fill) which is way more than us, lower revenue, and presumably a comparable wage bill (albeit ours is inflated by the older domestic players we tend to sign).

If it were PSR I agree I'd have thought we were absolutely fine, given we got a fair bit in sales last summer which would've made us fairly well off, especially in the case of Stansfield being pure profit and not really having anyone other than Andersen and ESR with significant fees to amortise anymore

[demeant0r]

All this talk of PSR has me questioning why clubs like Bournemouth can spend net €280m over the last three seasons and only this season have they sold anyone for substantial amounts. They also have a tiny stadium.

How come they can and we can't? Surely their wages can't be THAT much smaller than ours.

PSR is a rolling 3 year window; they spent big on lower wage players and sold them on for a profit to cover off the initial expendature so overall they fall within the regulations. They sold Solanke for £60m last year, and will get over £100m in sales this year so never really at risk

Okay but my point about their tiny stadium and their wages, which can't possibly be much smaller than ours, still stands. They must be pretty close to bracing the new rules too?

[Deeping_white]

All this talk of PSR has me questioning why clubs like Bournemouth can spend net €280m over the last three seasons and only this season have they sold anyone for substantial amounts. They also have a tiny stadium.

How come they can and we can't? Surely their wages can't be THAT much smaller than ours.

PSR is a rolling 3 year window; they spent big on lower wage players and sold them on for a profit to cover off the initial expendature so overall they fall within the regulations. They sold Solanke for £60m last year, and will get over £100m in sales this year so never really at risk

Okay but my point about their tiny stadium and their wages, which can't possibly be much smaller than ours, still stands. They must be pretty close to bracing the new rules too?

Wage bill is £19m smaller than ours and therefore their wage to revenue ratio sits at 80%; https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/status/1905890675918336494

[Angus Telford]

Would be interesting to see a club by club analysis.

From a random search I can see Villa as an example have a wage bill alone that's 91% of their revenue. That's before adding in transfer fees / amortisation (which aren't included under the UEFA rules).

*edit just seen we now have this above for wages, albeit not including amortisation as well

[Moussa Dembele the 3rd]

I don't quite understand the panic and disappointment about this transfer window. We haven't lost a single player, signed all of our young talent to longer term deals (and Kenny), and bought a capable back-up keeper. Marco has said he only wants to buy quality 1st team players for the club. Who do people think we should buy and who are the new signings replacing in the lineup? I'm sure we will bring in a few decent back-ups in areas of need before the window closes. The team as currently constituted can easily compete for a top half finish. What's wrong with that?

[Surlyc]

Revenue for CSR (as per the PL press release) includes profit on player sales. To build on Kieran's calcs above, we would need profit on players disposals of £38 per £100 of revenue to cover the presented cost base (or £69m in absolute terms).

Bournemouth's sale of Kerkez and Huijsen will likely clear any CSR problems for them this season, especially if they don't inflate their salary base.

[KentFulham]

Downside for us is we have very few talents that we purchased young that we can sell on at a profit, AKA a Forrest, Bournmouth, Brighton, Brentford etc. If anything we are guilty of letting youth players leave very young for little profit, Roberts, Carvalho, Elliot etc or failing to deal with contracts like Tosin. If CSR is an issue for us, we may find our make do transfer policy of buy to stay safe with older players comes back to huant us

[Angus Telford]

Revenue for CSR (as per the PL press release) includes profit on player sales. To build on Kieran's calcs above, we would need profit on players disposals of £38 per £100 of revenue to cover the presented cost base (or £69m in absolute terms).

Bournemouth's sale of Kerkez and Huijsen will likely clear any CSR problems for them this season, especially if they don't inflate their salary base.

But it doesn't apply this year.

At the earliest, and if at all, it Will apply from next year, 26/27.

So the sales this summer are a bit of a red herring.

[Surlyc]

Revenue for CSR (as per the PL press release) includes profit on player sales. To build on Kieran's calcs above, we would need profit on players disposals of £38 per £100 of revenue to cover the presented cost base (or £69m in absolute terms).

Bournemouth's sale of Kerkez and Huijsen will likely clear any CSR problems for them this season, especially if they don't inflate their salary base.

But it doesn't apply this year.

At the earliest, and if at all, it Will apply from next year, 26/27.

So the sales this summer are a bit of a red herring.

This is true, CSR is something of a red herring at the moment.

I'm really not sure it's a good excuse for our lack of activity (or at least, lack of success) this summer. That is more likely to be the result of a settled squad and our belief in value later in the window.

[FFC1987]

Downside for us is we have very few talents that we purchased young that we can sell on at a profit, AKA a Forrest, Bournmouth, Brighton, Brentford etc. If anything we are guilty of letting youth players leave via tribunals. If CSR is an issue for us, we may find our make do transfer policy of buy to stay safe with older players comes back to huant us

Then again, we also have a decent record of selling young talents for decent sums as well. Now we're managing to sign up  those younger talents before they go to tribunals (in theory anyway), we're just using the academy, rather than wider scouting networks to create said income.

[Chutney]

The SCR issue doesn't add up, our accounts are public knowledge, and our spending and income since they were last published is also widely reported.

We have plenty to spend on paper, even with the upcoming SCR rules.

I suspect it's an Ali Mac play to counter the criticism, and its worked brilliantly.

It is very clear in black and white on the 23/24 accounts mate that for that year we would have been massively over if the new rules were in place. The new stand has come in since then so extra income but we have also added big saleries and amortised fees with Andersen, ESR and Berge. I did a full breakdown with figures on the KDH thread. Could be I have something wrong on it or the new stand is earning ridiculous amounts of money to cover it but I don't think so and a lot of folk are saying the same.

We have 3 big salary earners contracts ending this season, it is also possible to bring quality in cheaply and sell it for profit, Brighton etc have shown this, but it requires a proper recruitment set up and director of football, we have neither.

[Drewry66]

Bournemouth 23/24 accounts from what I can make out:

Turnover: £161m
Wages: £136m
Amortisation: £62m
Wages+Amortisation: £198m

SCR = 122%

Ours:

Turnover: £182m
Wages: £155m
Amortised fees: £57m
Amortised + wages = £212m

SCR = 116%

That would suggest we are slightly better off but that is few years ago of course and both clubs still massively over.

I honestly wonder if I'm somehow missing something with this as every club I look at seems to be as bad but everything online seems to suggest it's amortised fees+wages as a percentage of turnover and that seems fairly clear on the accounts. Any accountants who have looked at this please chip in!! One article on it below which seems to verify my understanding of it:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6144456/2025/02/19/athletic-fc-podcast-squad-cost-anchoring/

Bournemouth have however made massive sales this year.

The above is of course a few years old and things will have changed but in 23/24 they  needed to be at £137m (£161 x 85%) so would have been £61m over (£198m-£137m).

Let's say that £61m was next year if they were running at similar rates they have made a tonne of high profit sales this summer so would it cover it? Looks like circa £100m in sales so far. That won't all be profit as remaining amortised fees to be removed and any sell ons. Let's say they cleared £70m of that as an incredibly rough guess. By all accounts they are selling Zabarnyi as well. No idea but say they clear another £35m there up to circa £100m profit. Also removed those players wages and amortised fees so can replace those with new signings (we have only removed Willian and Vinicius...high salaries but barely any amortised fees).

If no sales next year the £100m profit would be an average of the two years so £50m as far as I am aware. They were £61m over so tight but still doesn't quite cover it! Certainly a lot closer than we are because of the huge profit sales they have made this year.

Honestly think I'm missing something somewhere in this as looks almost impossible to remain compliant for any club if the above is correct as even with £100m profit from sales this year they would still be struggling and that is crazy.

[RAY Rock]

Man united a billion in debt
Bournemouth 10,000 seater stadium
Sunderland spending for fun
Everton spending for fun
Burnley spending for fun
Leeds spending for fun
Fulham scratching their balls
We are in for a world of pain we hardly ever score more than 1 goal and concede every game . We have a defence and a central midfield that contributed 1 goal last season the last 11 games were relegation form and we have the same team . No Fulham fan can put a positive spin on this summers shambolic negligence. It is obvious Silva is off at the end of the season if not before .

[Coastwalker]

Man united a billion in debt
Bournemouth 10,000 seater stadium
Sunderland spending for fun
Everton spending for fun
Burnley spending for fun
Leeds spending for fun
Fulham scratching their balls
We are in for a world of pain we hardly ever score more than 1 goal and concede every game . We have a defence and a central midfield that contributed 1 goal last season the last 11 games were relegation form and we have the same team . No Fulham fan can put a positive spin on this summers shambolic negligence. It is obvious Silva is off at the end of the season if not before .

So what you saying,that I can go and have £200 on us at 12/1 for relegation.🤔

I've already had £50 on Nottingham Forest at 10/1.
I'm not made of money you know.

[FFC1987]

Just been posted on the discord that FourFourTwo Joe Donnohue is reporting we're in talks to sign Sterling......

[Neutral Zone Ultra]

Just been posted on the discord that FourFourTwo Joe Donnohue is reporting we're in talks to sign Sterling......

Is he considered a reliable source? Fulham transfer news thinks he isn't.

[Angus Telford]

Honestly think I'm missing something somewhere in this as looks almost impossible to remain compliant for any club if the above is correct as even with £100m profit from sales this year they would still be struggling and that is crazy.

So Bournemouth are closer than we are, provided they also sell Zabarnyi this summer, don't buy anyone else, and we discount the £120m they spent in 24/25 because we're going on old accounts at this point, and also assuming they can carry half the profit of these sales over to subsequent years. Sorry, think they'd be more screwed than us.

Starting to feel like the inclusion of transfer fees might be a collective misinterpretation but a lot of people. The UEFA ratio is purely wages:revenue. Where it says "fees" are included in that it means signing on fees etc, not transfer fees. Clubs have been working towards these 70/80% wages:revenue limits for a while. If you include amortisation of transfer fees then for a typical club that spends £50-100m each summer, wages have to come down to about 40-50% of revenue which no one is doing.

[Drewry66]

Man united a billion in debt
Bournemouth 10,000 seater stadium
Sunderland spending for fun
Everton spending for fun
Burnley spending for fun
Leeds spending for fun
Fulham scratching their balls
We are in for a world of pain we hardly ever score more than 1 goal and concede every game . We have a defence and a central midfield that contributed 1 goal last season the last 11 games were relegation form and we have the same team . No Fulham fan can put a positive spin on this summers shambolic negligence. It is obvious Silva is off at the end of the season if not before .

Every situation is different. Everton got rid of 13 high cost players and have half a squad to fill! If we had got rid of 13 high cost players you can bet we would have been doing plenty so just a crazy comparison. Promoted teams will not be loaded with the same high cost squads that we have. Sunderland also just made a huge profit sale this summer. Man U debt nothing to do with the rules. Their turnover was £613m vs our £182m on the last set of accounts. You're not comparing  comparing apples with apples.

[KentFulham]

Doesnt all this wages as a % of turnover just go to show that Footballers are greedy B******s, and that Football teams are simply not a viable company, they are for the most, someones funded hobby, the avergae Ltd company would struggle to find an accountant to sign them off as a genuine going concern