I don’t think your far off the ideal scenario there Syd, if only Acun could see past his ego. It seems his plane isn’t flying everywhere trying to sign random players like in year 1. Hopefully that’s how it stays!
And if we have then boy will people meltdown. Giving Fenerbahce 15m pounds to take their deadweight. Nothing sus.
If he does read the forum can they ban the phrase "I say this with all due respect" whenever they want to say something even mildly disparaging about any club or player? Like ffs lads we get it, you're talking about things in relative terms. Saying that Ipswich aren't as big a club as Everton is ok to say. Saying that Philogene would be a surprise signing for Barcelona is ok to say. No one is going to get offended or worked up by you saying things like that. Seems every second comment is "With the greatest respect .... "
Acun Ilicali's FFP warning as Hull City prepare for £40m Greaves and Philogene Ipswich departures EXCLUSIVE: The Tigers owner has opened up on the imminent exit of his two most-prized assets Acun Ilicali says Hull City will reinvest the transfer fees they receive for Jaden Philogene and Jacob Greaves, but will not be able to splash all of the cash in the transfer market this summer. City stand to recoup around £40m for the pair plus significant add-ons, with the duo on the cusp of joining Ipswich Town in a stunning double deal which will see the highly-rated pair clinch their respective dreams of playing in the Premier League. Ilicali says he could not stand in their way after making it clear they wanted to pursue a move to the top flight, though he admits given the club's Financial Fair Play concerns, the transfer income will not able to be handed straight to Tim Walter to bring in a flurry of much-needed new recruits, as they look to navigate a tricky path. The Tigers owner has also confirmed to Hull Live the club are working on two fresh deals ahead of the players' trip to Istanbul on Wednesday, as they look to bolster Walter's ranks. "As I always said, I think we have a very good team and I mentioned something very clearly that unless they don't want to go, so both they want to go to the Premier League, which I understand," Ilicali told Hull Live. "I'm sure that the fans also understand so very probably they're going to be in the Premier League next year and the deal can be finished in a few days if nothing unexpected happens. "Of course, I'm not happy, I'm sad. First of all, both of them are very good boys and I like them a lot, especially Greaves. He has been here since I came, and I have a special relationship with him, but he mentioned to me that he wants to go to the Premier League. "That's what, of course, all of the players (not just Hull City) want, so when he says something like that, my only concern will be his happiness, so I'm sad, but of course, for the club, we will see if it is going to be positive or negative, because now, of course, new players will come. "Yes, Ipswich are the favourites now," he then added when asked about the likely destination for both players with Greaves undergoing a medical at Portman Road. Any hopes fans had of City being armed with a mega transfer kitty have been quashed by Ilicali, who says spending will have to be monitored carefully this summer to ensure there are no breaches of FFP, particularly given the huge investment last term which saw the Tigers pay out significant sums on both permanent and loan deals to sign the likes of Liam Delap and Fabio Carvalho, as well as bringing in Ruben Vinagre and Scott Twine earlier in the campaign. "First of all, our aim is to make the best team for this club, but of course, I'm sure that the fans will understand how big a squad we had last year," Ilicali continued. "We were pushing every limit. After January, I think we had one of the best-ever squads in Hull City's history with the good loans, plus good players we had. "Sometimes in Financial Fair Play, you can go very high but when it comes to a certain time, you have to go a little down because of this. You know, the three-year total, £40m (losses) rule is applied in the Championship, so last year we pushed our finances to the limits. We will use all our limits again, though I don't want our fans to worry about it. "We will use both of their income. It will be used for the club. This time the Financial Fair Play will not let me use money from myself. We will bring new players but don't think their money plus my money can be used, because I'm afraid it cannot because then we would pass the limit. "Yes, we have to be careful. We are calculating everything one by one, so this is like a big mathematics task that we are discussing every day from every angle. If you spend more in the Championship (in one season), this time you have to spend less in the other year to make an average of £14m per year. (to balance it out). "For example, you can spend £20m like we did last year, but in the next year, you cannot spend £20m again because then this time you're going to pass the £40m limit for the three-year period." Concerns have been raised about City's lack of squad depth, and how only Ryan Giles has arrived so far, and he's expected to make a permanent move to Middlesbrough in the near future. Ilicali, though says he's confident players will start to arrive, with it understood a striker and defender are closing in on moves to the MKM Stadium, and are hoping to be concluded this week, certainly before their first pre-season friendly in Turkey on Saturday afternoon. "We don't have any worry about that (bringing in new players) because I would say that if you look at our recruitment, I'm sure that except for three, four or five players, our fans are happy with our recruitment. Starting from Ozan Tufan, Oscar Estupinan. "In our first year, we brought Ozan, Estupinan and Seri and they were very good for the team. After that, from Philogene to Abdus. We brought in new players and I think with our players, we did good recruitment. Of course, there are some players that couldn't adapt to the Championship, which is normal. "Don't forget, as you see from the first minutes we arrived at the club, we are trying to improve everything, step by step, so I'm sure that our fans are believing in us and we will again improve our team. "Before Istanbul, I can say one or two signings," Ilicali continued. "We will make the best recruitment we can. We need a little time. Of course, we already have some names and I want all of our fans to know something very clearly. We know our targets, but you cannot buy when you want. We have started again a new marathon for the transfers."
"Any hopes fans had of City being armed with a mega transfer kitty have been quashed by Ilicali, who says spending will have to be monitored carefully this summer to ensure there are no breaches of FFP, particularly given the huge investment last term which saw the Tigers pay out significant sums on both permanent and loan deals to sign the likes of Liam Delap and Fabio Carvalho, as well as bringing in Ruben Vinagre and Scott Twine earlier in the campaign." Last season we were told each deal had been carefully assessed to ensure we didn't run into FFP trouble, now we're tight on FFP because of the deals. Which is it? I also don't understand his comment about 'their money plus my money can't both be used'. Well yes it can, their money is pure income for the club meaning it could be used in totality with Acun's money then used to cover any losses (along with commercial, matchday income etc.). And if for whatever reason it can't be used on the playing squad then use it on other aspects of the club.
Acun would be **** at paying poker. He is using an announcement to fans as a message to other clubs to take note and not try to inflate their players prices when we approach them.
We clearly threw a lot of coin at the job in January. I suggested the other day that people were wrong to assume we'd be spending any fees raised along with another £13m, as we could have already made a big dent in our three year rolling losses last season, it seems I wasn't far off the mark.
Is Acun aware that if we spent all the money on new signings, with the new signings on 4-5 year deals, only 1/4 or 1/5th of the expense counts in this financial year? So if we can only afford to lose, say 10m this year and we've made 35m profit on Philogene and Greaves we could spend all 35m of that on players on 5 year deals and we'd actually still be 20m in the green on the deals (give or take a bit on wages) before we even consider being in the red to the tune of 10m. I say that a bit flippantly as I'm sure he - and you - are aware of this, but surely that doesn't really line up with his public narrative about our funds?
What he's saying is we are not going to be splashing more than £5M on a single player. We will be looking at more deals like Jaden, and those players are unlikely to come from other championship clubs who will be wanting big money for their star larkers. More likely to come from Premier League teams where these players are surplus to immediate requirements, or championship clubs where a player is in the last year of their contract.
Yes I suspect this is far more likely the strategy in play here, he's trying to say we won't spend very much so people shouldn't try to take advantage of us, but the line about FFP is a bit rubbish.
At the end of the day our running costs are incredibly lean now. Tufan's gone, Woods is gone (although we've had to pay him off in this year so who knows what sort of hit that is), Oscar is (hopefully) being predominantly subsidised. We have Sinik and Philogene still on the books, as well as Seri, but can't think of too many others who'd be on a massive wage? Abdus maybe? If we're booking 35m of income this year, and in our last set of accounts we made a 6m loss, then even if we did lose 20m last year (which is how I'm reading Acun's comments), we would have to spend something like 49m in this financial year even to just hit the ceiling of FFP, let alone breach it. And when I say spend, I mean player amortisations in this year. As far as I can tell the only players on our books who currently have fees amortising in this year are, what, Pandur and Omur? Who else do we still have that we paid a fee for? So then it's only any newcomers + their wages + other running costs which, as I said, would be reasonably lean now. Now I fully accept and am happy for Acun to say "We are dialling back the spending to be a bit more sustainable over the coming years" and essentially banking some of Greaves and Philogene's profits for the next year or two, but that's a bit different to saying we physically can't spend more. Acun seems to be saying he'll push us to the limit again as much as he can.
For all we know, we could have made a £30m loss last season, we made a trading loss in excess of £20m the previous year and spent much more last year.
Yeah, we’re ****ed. Feel sorry for Walter. And I would feel sorry for Rosenior if he was still coach and in this situation.
Absolutely we could have lost more last year (although we sold Allsop and Tufan before June 30), but like I said, if we spent 30m on transfer fees for players on 4-5 year deals (call it 5 year deals for the sake of the discussion), that's only a 6m expense in this current year. Wages of course might be another million per player so call it another 10m, that's only a 16m expense for the year on 10 new signings of 3m each (for simplicity). That means we're still making 19m profit in 2024-25 (of course before the current squad wage bill, running costs, etc. which maybe turn that 19m profit into breaking even or a small loss). Of course the implications then are that in 25-26 we need to sell players again, which was my point that if what Acun is really saying is we're planning to bank and use the Philogene and Greaves money over the coming three years (before they drop off the calculation) then that makes much more sense. If the intention is to use these sales to actually future proof us so that we aren't having to sell a big player each summer then great.
Acun does say in there he'll still push us to the limit so I think there's a bit lost in translation here the more I process it. I think he's saying that we will be more restrained with how we use this money so that we don't burn it up all in one go. Or at least I hope that's what he means.
I suspect it’s a “spend a bit, see where we are in January” situation, let’s hope we are a bit more sensible in January though this time if so
