https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44980113 I know some fans of both sets of supporters (posted this on Cardiff and Swansea forums) are not happy with the spending at the clubs this season. This should be a warning. Im glad our spending is limited. If we go down worst thing is we are back in The Championship with a decent squad to challenge again. Swansea get shot of your high earners and build again. This is going to set QPR back years with these repayments round their neck. Better to have a stable club - Who are next Forest , Derby , Bournemouth , Fulham , Wolves , Sjoke. I'll have no sympathy if they end up in the sh!t.
The QPR payment schedule is over 10 years so £2m per year with £22m of loans turned into share capital as VT has done with us - although voluntarily. Therefore £2m per year shouldn't be too onerous provided they stay in the Championship or get promoted. The latter is unlikely in the short term. If they drop a division then it becomes a real problem. Bournemouth, Fulham and Wolves will be okay as long as they stay in the Prem and get their tv money. The other 3 are certainly gambling on promotion. Stoke have a loyal support and parachute payments to help but Derby and Forest in particular are playing football's version of Russian Roulette. I would be very worried if a Forest fan and the season starts poorly.
With more and more TV £££, clubs are willing to gamble all on the hope of Prem. money. In a year or two if you go up and come last and go back down you will still earn around £120m TV money plus parachute payments. Think of the revenue stream, we sold more home shirts in one day and ever before and at £50 a throw. The away shirt is doing brilliant too. I've seen more City shirts in the last month in the Rhondda than I can ever remember.
"If we go down the worst thing is we are back in the Championship with a decent squad to challenge again" I know that the Premier League is the holy grail of football in the UK but is it really that for the majority that are in it? Financial Fair Play is a joke as far as that's concerned because everyone knows there just isn't any despite the millions sloshing about. Unless there is a complete fluke of a season the chances of anyone other than perhaps 5 clubs at best winning it is as with Leicester somewhere around 500/1. I say 5 clubs but the reality is becoming even less than that. Relegation after even only one season in that league isn't a disaster really is it. You can go on for a longish time in the premier league without even challenging for a European place. In essence making up the numbers for the elite. I have to say that having achieved the ambition just once, I wouldn't be that happy to see my club go through the mill year on year with nothing much to play for except avoiding relegation. The Championship is at least a competative league with virtually any of the clubs able to win it. Don't you think that's much more exciting than clinging on by a thread? Tell me if you don't think this last season going for a promotion wouldn't be much better than hoping not to go down the next and watching your team lose more than it wins? It's the problem with far too much money in football now. Teams risk all for very little in the end. Maybe when one goes down the pan and out of existence they will wake up.
It's catch 22. You get up with a reasonable wage bill. You strengthen the squad, spend a bit on signings and increase the wage bill but hopefully making a profit. If you go straight back down the wage bill isn't out of hand, you've not spent to your limit, have relegation clauses in contracts and can cope on the parachute payments. On the other hand, you spend the whole £100M, come straight back down (as we did last time, though it wasn't 100 at the time) and spend years sorting the mess out. The other scenario is that you stay up, spend a bit more with bigger salaries, then again and again. When eventually you do get relegated, it's a much bigger issue to resolve. If you then come down the financial burden is far greater with the club at greater risk. Some of the best times we've had in the last 10 years were the repeated playoffs. Challenging at the top. Something we won't do in the big league. Don't get me wrong, great to have been promoted and really hope we get to stay up for at least one season (also be nice for Colin to have that on his CV before he retires). After that, if we come down and try again, no issue. What I do hope for is financial prudence so the club has a future hopefully never outside the top two divisions. I hope the mistakes of the last promotion have helped shape a better strategy this time round.
The Championship is an exciting league to play in. Last year, after many seasons of relative success we found ourselves around the bottom of the table, then promotion! This Premier League season is all about winning ten games, then hanging on for survival. Not something I’m looking forward to much!
What they fine clubs for breaking FFP rules is punitive - what's the point of fining them £5m when the prize for getting to the Premier League is £100m+ They need to start docking points
I've been of the belief that the Premier League is actually the worst thing to happen to football in the England and Wales for a long time (probably been thinking that for the last decade or so). The whole thing is just designed to help the top 5 or 6 clubs get wealthier, do better in Europe and in turn help out the FA. When clubs prioritise survival over the chance of trophies (ie FA cup and League cup) then you know something has gone wrong. We all know it's just about the money these days.... I'll enjoy our season in the top flight whatever the outcome . Sure, it'll hurt if we go down because no one likes seeing their team struggle but ultimately I don't care if we are playing Lincoln or Liverpool, Macclesfield or Man City... its just about supporting my own team. It's funny, you speak to a lot of City fans and they say how much they miss the old days... Ninian Park, awful players and average football. Somehow football outside of the Premier League circus just seems more "real" and hence more enjoyable.
Until more tv revenue filters down the leagues, the imbalance will remain. Too much cash is leaving the FA pyramid to foreign countries bolstering the bank balances of other nations clubs, filling agents pockets and overpaying prima donnas. While that happens it will always be difficult to compete at the top table. Brizzle and Norwich have probably been the biggest beneficiaries of premier league spending this season, and we've contributed to both. When you think of the bad times being the good times, there's much truth in that in many instances. One of the most recognisable symbols of the bluebirds is the ayatollah, which originated when we were in the lower reaches of the leagues. It wouldn't have started if we'd continually been higher up the leagues. Getting into the playoffs in the lower leagues or getting promotion were deemed major successes and created a feel good factor. Will we get the same buzz losing most of our games and finishing 17th? Psychology is an odd thing.
It started in the Rick Wright and Eddie May era, many still think it was Sam the sham but Wright done more for Cardiff than Sam ever did. When he came to Cardiff our crowds were not much more than 3,000. He was the first to start a sliding scale of gate money the higher we were the more expensive the tickets were, he started the Junior Bluebirds with tickets at £1 and some times free. Under his leadership our crowds went up to an average of 10,000 and we had a few 20,000 gates. The Junior Bluebirds was a master stroke it brought a generation of young fans and our gates never returned to the old days of 3,000.
