wonder if the club are putting the 20m a year from the Invest in Africa deal towards wages, the club know for it to improve we need to be able to offer better wages to players and could this be the case? The likes of Berbatov and Adam Johnston will be double what our current wages are and if we seriously want them the club will know they will have to pay them more than what we currently pay our players. As for Ellis Short I don't think it has ever been in doubt about him putting the money forward if the manager wants a player as long as the deadwood was gone so the wage bill looks healthy and bar 1 or 2 players still to go that job has been done. Now to the fair play rules and I was thinking about this last night, what would stop Ellis Short setting up a new business (maybe he has) and say sponsoring something at the club, maybe it be something little or something major and using that business to invest his cash into SAFC? Obviously it won't be as simple as that but in effect thats what it would be to dodge the Fifa fair play rules
These new rules are ridiculously easy to negotiate for rich businessmen used to circumnavigating red tape in their business lives. There will be lots of 'sponsorship' deals done to increase revenue and thus navigate round the FIFA financial iceberg of fair play. Bigger fish than SAFC will be working on this right now for sure.
from what i understood the £20m was a maximum amount based on performances (i.e. get into Europe and get us more exposure and we give you more money ... ) that said, it is good to realise that there is more to it that just the fees for players - with the Carroll money for example it was worth noting the amount that was spent on the youth facilities at NUFC, not all was directly spent on player fees
