My main question would be...why? Took a massive risk for something that can't even be seen under normal circumstances.
FFP limits our spending but there is absolutely no chance we are in danger of breaching it. If we were then every team would be breaching it and that would show that FFP means nothing as nobody gives a **** about it
Yeah. Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, one of the considerations in a Club's Own Revenue is profit on player sales. Not net transfer profit: a wonky calculation that is basically an accounting fiction, but happens to be what the FFP rules use. Our profit on player sales was £44m in '14/'15. No other team outside the top six was beyond half that.
It's becoming a recurring theme; you make the point, I support it. But yet still it needs to be made, amazingly. How anyone could thing that we're in danger of breaching the limit, given that we don't hand our players £100k+ contracts and we don't fill out our 25 man squad and we don't spend more on players than we recoup, I just don't know. Because if we were, then about 10 or 12 other clubs, at least, would be well over the limits.
The main problem is that Saints have fallen down on the commercial side. That is where the difference lies between us and so many other clubs.
I was trying to find the last time I did the math so I could link to it rather than do it again, heh. Edit: should have used Google the first time rather than the search function: http://www.not606.com/threads/ffp-benefits-bigger-clubs.335780/page-2#post-9695935
This was true, but may not be true anymore. With our new shirt and kit sponsorships, we're likely mid-tier in commercial revenue.
Not really a fiction. Players are assets and their true cost/value cannot be fairly apportioned until disposal
It's an accounting fiction even if the players are real assets, heh. The Cole's Notes is this: when we sign a player for 20m with a five-year contract, we don't sign a player for 20m...we sign them for 4m a year over the course of that contract, amortized annually. So if you sell them after three seasons for 30m, we didn't turn a profit of 10m: nope, 12m of that deal was amortized, so our profit on player sales was 18m. And if they were an Academy product, they were worthless until they were sold, so it's pure profit. It's illogical, but that's accounting for you.
This is a really good, sensible discussion on an important topic. Reading it this last couple of days has made me giggle though.... ...anyone know there's a Cup Final today?
Edit: Not sure how i ended up accidentally posting my reply to the match thread on the Chinese takeover thread.
I know someone who works in the back office management team at Villa Park, what you say above is spot on. He is also pretty hands on and is regularly working from Villa Park
Does indicate that we've been in the shop window for a while; if Xia was deep into negotiations to buy us, that means the process would have started in late 2015/early 2016.
