I don't think any of them are doing what they claimed they were intending to do, but I think it's PSR in this case. The clubs either ignore the rules and get away with it (City), come up with some bullshit loophole (Chelsea) or **** the fans (Utd). Was that the aim? Possibly.
All these rules do is encourage clubs to fleece fans as much as possible and to sell home grown players. I agree they’re not fit for purpose
Such regimes have to : 1. have teeth (offenders get punished) 2. be fair on clubs (giving the chance to become compliant without going bust in the attempt) On #1, we know UEFA FFP has been found wanting. The scientist in me half wanted Spurs to fall foul at the same time as the Sugga Daddy FCs (just to see whether "differential enforcement" would occur) .
We don't have to, we have Everton as an example. They got ****ed and now City clearly aren't going to get the same treatment, so their charges got dropped, too.
It does feel a bit like Levy has hung his hat on us having a bit more relative financial clout in the league due to FFP/PSR impacting in a way it hasn’t. He may have been hoping other clubs would make more sacrifices to comply (fat chance!) or that the enforcement would have more teeth. Instead other clubs are taking risks with their spending (Villa’s wage to turnover is mad) or finding loopholes (Chelsea, all the clubs selling youth players to each other). His steadier and less aggressive financial management hasn’t created the edge he probably hoped it would.
Is that in line with the drop in revenue? Is @PowerSpurs correct when he says the club is spending much as they can?
It's in line with most of our highest earners leaving in quick succession. It does seem we're maxed out or close to maxing out on transfer fees. We can't spend more than £150m net, although since the stadium move we haven't got closer than £140m to that total. But as I've demonstrated in another thread and PS agreed with me in principle, there is technically nothing stopping us from massively increasing our wage bill to match Liverpool's at appx £130m. The jump above that to Chelsea is probably too big (£170m), but there is no reasonable excuse for having the 5th highest income but only the 8th largest wage bill. The big question is if we can attract players who would justify such an increase (unlikely). The other big question is if Levy wants to relinquish his Best Wages:Revenue Ratio in the Whole Wide World title (even less likely).
The wage costs in the accounts for 22/23 are £251m. That coves 793 staff. That suggests the staff other than the players, say 725 people, are being paid £134m which is an average of £185k. That seems a bit odd....
Your workings balanced the increased wage bill by an equivalent drop in transfer expenditure. I agree that is theoretically possible but doesn't increase our total spending on players.
I had a look at Liverpool's accounts and they seem to have even higher costs for non-playing staff at around £200k on average. But their non-staff admin expenses are much less than ours. I'm pretty sure that's because a lot of commercial revenue is stadium related so comes with quite a chunk of costs. So not all our increased revenue is available to spend on football because it is already being used to pay the costs related to making the stadium available for hire. A quick comparison with Liverpool suggests that those costs might be in the region of £50m.
Agreed but it might help us access a higher calibre of player if we actioned that increase. Our rivals' top players are on £100-300k per week more than ours, and as pointed out - they aren't spending that much more in transfer fees to begin with. For example, Odegaard would walk into our team and would also become our highest earner. He cost £37m. City just signed Marmoush for £65m, he's reportedly on just under £300k per week. We could theoretically afford both. The only players we have whose transfer fees seem to match their wages (relative to what our rivals do) are Maddison and Romero. Others, such as Richarlison, Porro, Solanke, Bentancur, VDV and Johnson are miles off the 'normal' high fee = high salary balance seen across all of our rivals. Granted, this could mean that we're picking up a load of bargains on the wage side of that balance. Or, it could be an indicator that we're overpaying on the fee side of the balance and not receiving value for money in return. Studying the list above, I think it's safe to say that so far VDV is the only exception to that second theory.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that... The transfer fee you pay depends on how much the selling club values a player and whether there is competition to buy him. To a good approximation you would think that would generally be a bit above the remaining value on his contract. It may be much lower if he was a dud signing but it shouldn't be much higher because you could extend his contract and keep him. To sign the player you need to pay the selling club more than their valuation of him and also increase his salary so you are essentially investing more than twice the selling club's valuation. It's hardly surprising that most transfers don't work out. The proportions you pay in transfer fee and salary depend almost entirely on the length of contract remaining. Odegaard is an interesting example. According to capology he was on £4m a year at Real Madrid so he should have been available for £25m or so. I imagine the transfer fee paid was due to there being an option on his loan...options are valuable so the price is going to be above the expected value. Arsenal only paid him £6m a year originally but soon extended his contract and doubled his salary. I don't think we would have done any different if we had managed to buy him. To see whether we are overpaying for any player we have to know the length of contract we are buying out and his previous salary. Richarlison does look poor on that measure. To get to your outcome of low fees and high salaries we either have to be very successful with purchases or deliberately buy highly paid players in the final year of their contract.
Odegaard cost £37m because Los Ladrones were looking to get rid of him for at least two seasons Offering £300k a week to Marmoush right out of the gate definitely wouldn;t see a chunk of our squad immediately demand a significant wage raise Porro is on higher wages than Maddison, IIRC Google exists, really it does...
You'll need to read back through the whole exchange between PS and me to understand that you've missed my point.
I'm not aiming for that outcome. Low fees + high wages is extremely unlikely and as you've said is only generally the case for loans or free agents. Even last year of contract signings is becoming a rarity. Maddison is perhaps the closest example we currently have to this in that his fee:wages ratio doesn't match the rest of our squad. I think the problem can be summarised as follows: 1) There are very few transfer fees our wealthier rivals make that we couldn't theoretically afford (working on the basis that we could spend up to £150m on one player per summer). 2) We regularly see rivals signing players for similar money to our own transfer deals, yet we don't see the same RoI and as a result have found ourselves struggling somewhat. 3) There are a few obvious answers to point 2. Better players tend to want CL football and regular trophies, and we can offer neither, so our ability to afford them is academic. But... 4) Better players tend to command higher wages. This isn't necessarily because they 'deserve' those eye-watering sums, it is solely market forces at work. If they are impressive, they will attract the attention of clubs who are wealthier than us, who can offer much higher wages, which makes it less likely they'd join us even though we could comfortably afford the transfer fee. 5) Right now, we can't fix the problems in point 3, but we can work on the problem in point 4. For relative pittance, we could be paying our top earners £300k+, which takes us beyond Arsenal and on par with Liverpool. That is a potentially huge advantage and imo we need to seize it now instead of waiting endlessly for point 3's problems to resolve themselves. We need to aim for high fees + high wages, like our rivals. We can afford to do this.
Ange being sacked is clearly not being decided on results. 1. Levy knows his position is under threat if he admits he made yet another bad managerial choice. 2. There is no one willing to take the job that fans will find tolerable let alone acceptable. 3. They truly believe in Ange. Personally I think it's point 2. Sadly I can't defend Anges game management or selections but have no idea what should happen
