I was out last night with a few lads from work, one of whom is a Scotsman. He brought us down a few special Whiskies to sample before we went for a Ruby Murray. Anyway, after having a few drams and a few pints I could have sworn I read an article about West Ham trying to take Fernando Torres and Carlos Tevez on loan. I woke up this morning convinced that I must have dreamt it because something so obsurd couldnt possibly happen until I saw this on the BBC website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17115819
The fact that they're even trying to sign players on their wages is wrong IMO. What happened to the financial fair play rules that were supposed to be coming in?
That's next season, they've already got themselves in enough financial ****, and added to it this season, that promotion is vital for the club to survive. If they have a big wobble they could soon end up like Pompey, unlikely but not impossible.
why would WHU want Torres and Tevez anyway Now that they have Maynard and Vaz Te (who both scored last night) ?
I'd love to see West Ham fail, end up in administration and then get relegated to League One. Shame they'll win promotion this season though
Who says they were willing to pay the whole wages? The three attempts to land Tevez were probably 1% of wages, 2% of wages and 3% of wages.
I've no doubt that he'd still be amazing but like Aguero and others who've come here from Spain, he wouldn't be scoring hat tricks every single week any more.
apart from the top 4 clubs,,, La Liga is poor overall. Messi would find it much harder in the PL for sure.# dont worry though he wont be leaving Barcelona anytime soon IF ever during his playing days.
They put a bid in, it doesn't mean they ever seriously thought they could get them. Was it Sheff Wednesday that used to get fees agreed for really good players, and then offer them **** wages so they wouldn't have to pay out, but the board still got the credit from fans for being ambitious for going for them in the first place? The Financial Fair Play rules don't kick in for a few years, but this season is the first one where the figures will be counted. The issue though is it's a 3 year total and they're allowed fairly big losses to start with, gradually reducing over a few years. If West Ham blow the budget this year and get promoted they've still got 2 years in the PL to make the books fall in line with the rules, and in the second year that the rules apply this season will be irrelevent because it'll just be next season and the two after that. I doubt they're expecting to qualify for the CL in the next 5 years, and the Europa League is insignificant money so they won't be too bothered about missing out.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you don't meet the financial fair play rules in the championship and leagues one and two, you suffer point deductions. Bit more of a deterrent than missing out on Europa league and CL.
I noticed an interesting point on the Celtic (?) board earlier. Derry City were liquidated a few years ago, but reformed and won promotion to the top-flight in their first year and won the league. However, a three-year European ban that had been imposed on the original club was carried over to the new one.
As far as I know they haven't discussed the penalties yet, but IMO blocking promotion is more likely than a points penalty, when they announced they'd be introduced they said it was to be in line with the European rules which is about blocking clubs from competitions rather than penalising them in the ones they're already in. (It also means all clubs will be penalised evenly, which stops a club busting the bank after deciding they can win promotion by more than the points penalty they'd get) It doesn't kick in for about 3 years, and is done on a 3 year average. As West Ham expect to be promoted this year they won't care what punishment the Football League would give them if they were still in the Championship in 3 years time so I used the European rules. If the rules were in place now though, it would be based on last season's accounts and the two years before. We had losses of £22M, so on top of the PL losses we'd be getting blocked from promotion this season. We're losing money again this season (since the target is to break even next season) so we'd still be sat with 3 seasons where we lost money, and lost big in at least two of those seasons, so we'd be blocked from promotion next season as well.
The thing is with how the governments cracking down on football clubs running up such huge debts, West Ham can't keep running the way they have been, and it would be extremely naive and stupid of them to disregard the fact they could come down again. In a way these rules could be a great thing but staying in the premier league after promotion could become an almost impossible mammoth task without a miracle or breaking the fair play rules and potentially ruining the clubs future (possibly indirectly causing liquidation from dropping down leagues and becoming unsustainable). The same could be said about any 'established' clubs that happen to get relegated. These rules need to affect every league in order to keep English football competitive from top to bottom.
IMO< the only new rule thats needed is this....GO INTO ADMINISTRATION AND YOU ARE RELEGATED. simples, end of.
The reason they've had the delay in introduction is to remove all existing contracts from the equation because relegated clubs would automatically be over the limits for the following season. That would probably mean relegation saw you down a division for a minimum of 5 years, in which case clubs woulld spend minimal amounts for that time, and then in the season where they could get promoted again could break the bank knowing that the 3 year average would be fine still. Clubs will effectively have to set the wages for players for each division they could be in. Players won't like it but they won't have a choice because everyone will need to do it, and they could always insert a break clause in the contract. IE if a club gets relegated the player can either go onto the reduced wages or either side can terminate the contract for a predetermined fee (to be paid to the player) which would leave them free to join another club, and the clb without the burden. Imagine if we'd been able to say to McShane, Olofinjana, Ghilas, Bullard, Kilbane etc, that instead of them staying here for 2 or 3 years that we were going to give them £1M each to clear off. Parachute payment would be gone, but you'd have shed the wages they were supposed to pay anyway.* *I'm allowing for sensible running with regards getting the finance in the PL rather than our mortgaging of future earnings. EDIT: It will effectively be in all divisions once they come into force. The FL takes care of the Championship down to Conference (not accepting anyone who's broken the rules), and the UEFA ones cover the PL because it stops their "promotion" to European competition.
