The Club staement: "Following the announcement made today by the Football League, Fulham Football Club can confirm that it faces a transfer embargo during the January 2016 window. The embargo arises as the Club made an adjusted loss greater than the £6m limit allowed by the Football League in the year following relegation. The Football League has since recognised this limit is low, especially for clubs recently relegated with Premier League overheads in place, and the limit has now increased to £13m per annum. Unfortunately Fulham's embargo falls in the final year of the previous limit, but the Club does not anticipate being in breach in future years. The action imposed by the League has been anticipated since the summer, which saw a sustained period of investment in the team with that understanding. The purchase of players such as Ross McCormack and Matt Smith (in summer 2014), to enable the Club to compete effectively in the League, were the result of that investment. The period of embargo will be imposed during January 2016 and the Club will be able to fully trade again in the summer 2016 transfer window. It will still be possible for the Club to trade within the set FFP limits, and therefore the potential of recruiting players is still something that the Club will look to do, if the right players are available." OMNISHAMBLES!
It's a sign of a business where the operations lead the finance team. I have seen that with places I have worked - you put budgets in place to meet your banking covenants and then the operations team break them and cause havoc. The blame for this falls squarely on AliMac as CEO (and also as a chartered accountant). This does, of course, provide an(other) explanation as to why we have struggled to find a manager over the past few months.
A question Surly - does the embargo preclude us from paying another Club (Maccabi obviously) compensation for their manager?
That's an interesting one and not what I was referring to. My opinion is that it would not - I suspect that the embargo takes the form of the FA refusing to register players where a fee was paid (i.e. a club can sign whomever they want, but they would not be able to play any games), whereas managers (or coaches, or accountants, or whatever Mike Rigg is) do not need to be registered with the FA. So I would think compensation would likely be a business expense and would still be allowable. But the FA doesn't exactly operate on normal business rules, so maybe the embargo does extend that far!
Just another sign of management incompetance! 8 games since a win, yet still looking for a manager and whoever comes in is then handcuffed.
This is the same Smith, quoted as one of the investments, who then spent that season at another club. Not just a waste of his services last season, but a contributing factor to this. So many cock ups with the full consequences nreytry revealed.
Basically they are saying we knew all along that this would happen but we were still trying to con you into getting season tickets even though we knew we were lying to you and talking BS about a Vision of promotion or top 6 this season. Lie after Lie, the consequences of which they will see next season in ST sales.
For what it's worth here is a summary of the FFC Accounts as at June 2014. I think they cover the year before the one of the indiscretion but (at the very least) they show the pickle we were in: Turnover (16th) £91m Wages as a Proportion 76% Loss before Tax £33m Ownership Owned by Shahid Khan, via Big Cat Holdings, a company registered in Bermuda (tax haven), and Cougar HoldCo London, registered in the UK. Turnover 16th highest, £91m (up from £73m in 2013) [Gate and matchday £12m Premier League including TV £67m Sponsorship and commercial £12m Compensation £0.2m] Wage bill Joint 9th highest, £69m (up from £67m in 2013) Wages as proportion of turnover 76% Loss before tax £33m (up from £2m in 2013) Net debt £24m Interest payable £0.3m Highest-paid director Unnamed, £604,000 (Alastair Mackintosh is the chief finance oficer)
