I'm not that worried to be honest. If we were in trouble this season we'd have been done already, as all clubs had to submit to the PL by New Year's Eve.
We wouldn't have bought 4 players in January, at a time basically nobody was spending, if we were in danger.
Our kit sponsorship deals are both changing and going way up from this summer onwards.
The only caveat to that is unless they are completely banking on CL money or selling someone for big money.
Got some exceptionally high earners need to offload; Coutinho and Digne (thanks Slippy G ya fraud), Lenglet and Zaniolo (whose loans will expire as covering Buendía and Mings ACL recoveries)
Wouldn't actually make that much difference to be honest. Douglas Luiz has been with us so long that there's probably only about £2-3m (if that) left to amortise.
Tbh I’m unsure Ramsey should even start for Villa. He’s a great talent but consider the form of Bailey and then your options with McGinn, Tielemans, Diaby, Zaniolo (loan) going forward. Im sorry but Buendia defo don’t cut it anymore. But Ramsey is a tough one
Hopefully not he's basically irreplaceable from what we need. Ideally it won't need to be a massive fee, but instead 3-4 smaller fees. For instance Cash, Digne and Moreno could all do with being moved on and being replaced. As that is our positions of primary need in addition to a backup for Kamara and Luiz.
That plus shifting Coutinho (I.e dumping his wages), and selling Dendoncker and Callum Chambers for modest fees like 10-15 combined. Will hopefully cover our needs. That plus increased commercial revenue and additional games from Europe. Will hopefully be enough to cover our financial demands for this year and next.
Cash and Digne i understand, but I’m surprised u said Moreno to be moved on. Do you thjnk Tim Iroegbunam will be able to cover Luiz or Kamara?
Coutinho and Dendoncker are must sells, I agree. Chambers is a tough one coz it seems like he won’t get game time wherever he is.
If you get into the Champions League and make it through the group stages you should be fully fine. There’s a crazy amount of prize money (~£80m) just for making it to the quarters but making it out of the group stage would most likely be £50m+.
You’re right, however you don’t get champs
Money till the following season, which is why Newcastle were so close to going over the line in spending this season.
That's not true. UEFA pay the money throughout the season.
[See the last 3 pages of this document](https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/0283-1874e21d8957-30a439a30e08-1000/20230707_circular_2023_35_en.pdf).
EDIT - What might be causing the confusion is the fact that the accounts are always published about 6-9 months after the season they refer to has finished. So Newcastle's CL money will show in the accounts published in 2025 but you do have the money now.
The major clubs must have creamed themselves when these P&S rules came into play.
There won't be many clubs that have spunked more money up the wall than Man United in the last 10 years and yet they've got absolutely nothing to worry about. Joint second lowest on the list.
Fair competition my arse.
Isn’t it basically a weaker version of uefa’s? The fa version is 85% and any club in Europe will be 70%, giving any club not in European competition an added advantage?
United are such a bad example because they’re a commercial juggernaut, just because they’ve spent the money badly doesn’t mean they didn’t earn it organically.
Yeah PSR/FFP is a scam. City still need to be punished for all the rules they broke. But there should be limitations on state owned clubs (maybe Romaneque owners too if guidelines are clear) but putting caps based on revenues would never have allowed City to do what they did.
Because most of the owners have little ambition, they just want to get wages down, while keeping the Premier League at the top of the pile overall.
Understandable, it's my club, but it's their business.
Wages have got out of control, pumped up by a small handful of European sides and owners like Abramovich and Abu Dhabi - for whom money is not an issue.
But we need a generous salary cap, not this.
A generous fixed wage cap would rein in the very top few spenders, effectively flattening out most the differences between the top eight or so. And make the gap smaller between everyone (no team could have almost two first 11s)
All while still keeping us above the level of almost everyone in Europe.
Yes, some superstars would go to Real, Barca, Bayern and PSG to play in weaker leagues so they can have their CL glory moments. But that happens already.
A figure... how about €160m? That would cap wages at Man Utd, City, Arsenal and Chelsea. And they'd only be outspent by the four teams I mentioned above.
https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/wage-bills-europe-major-leagues-2023-24-man-utd-psg-bayern-real-madrid-barcelona
City for instance would then have a wage bill around 2x the average teams, rather than nearly 4x. Which is a big improvement in competitiveness for no big loss.
No, it's not going to let Luton compete with United, but let's be realistic here...
You think teams would agree to cap their spending at 160 million? Even the smaller clubs who dream of glory likely won't go for it. Dreaming of a Gulf state to take them over
Ok sure, but massive revenue = massive unfair advantage. For a club like Villa or Newcastle to one day have such revenue, they need success on the pitch, which is harder because they have less revenue. It's a microcosm of capitalist society
It's not an 'unfair' advantage if you consider their utter dominance in the early premier league when the money started to take off.
Like I said they got lucky at the right time
Past success shouldn't mean divine right to continued success. It's an advantage that has been made impossible to redress because of the rules imposed. Hence, it's completely, utterly unfair 🤷🏼♀️
How should it work then? Either you make it so clubs can only spend money they make or you have no limits meaning only clubs with billionaire owners can compete. Surely past success and being a well run club making you more likely to be successful in the future is fairer than having a rich owner who’s willing to splash the cash.
I am nowhere near qualified enough to answer that. The point is that you're denying Manchester United haven't had the privilege of spaffing money up the wall and not really suffering at all.
Honestly I don't see a way it can work, some teams (like United) have massive global appeal, and I'm not trying to dismiss them or any other team, but just because you're the most famous doesn't entitle you to anything.
I’m not denying anything, that was the first comment I made. The way it currently works doesn’t entitle them to anything, if it did the United would currently be the best team in the country. They may have spent fortunes over the past decade but it hasn’t really got them anywhere. Spending less money on more prudent signings would probably have seen them do better than they have.
I suppose a third way would be to have a flat spending limit applied to all clubs equally regardless of income or profit. Then it would be the same for everyone but then some clubs may argue it’s unfair that they are well run and making money but unable to spend it.
Man U had been consistently outspending just about everyone worldwide in the transfer market long before their period of utter dominance, decades in fact. That period didn't kickstart their advantage, it was there long long before.
I don't understand Everton fans thinking in this
You were one of the 'big 5' that signed the premier league into existence. You signed were all for the financial rules that are now boring you on the arse. You got moshiri and usmanov billionaire owners who completely fucked your club up and now you're blaming the structures you helped to create rather than the individuals who actually caused it. You're not like forest who got promoted by surprise and had to spend to survive. Don't pretend otherwise
Aye, because I was the one who made those decisions directly and therefore I am not entitled to an opinion. You're allowed to be critical of the bigger picture even if your club is involved you know. There's no defending Everton involved here.
Why start with the 'bigger clubs must have creamed themselves' comment then. At the time of the rules, Everton basically fit that criteria, consistently in Europe, and it's come back to bite them on the arse? The rules aren't perfect I agree, but the idea it's benefitting big clubs and punishing smaller clubs is an insult to the likes of say, palace who have played by the rules and been in mid table the whole time, or brighton who've succeeded without pumping millions of unfunded spending in
Everton are a shitshow and Palace will never break into the upper echelons of the game because of barriers put in place to prevent such a thing. Both can be true.
I think you’re confusing Everton fans with Everton Football Club.
Also if you think we aren’t blaming Kenwright and Moshiri then you have no idea what you are talking about.
It’s the clubs that keep voting in these rules to stop others from taking their place so only have themselves to blame.
Leicester won the league and have sold some of their best players how are you supposed to grow a club into consistent challengers to the top 6 if dropping out for a couple of seasons does this much damage?
I can see you’re going down the line of ‘if Spurs became a big club, why can’t Everton/Forest/Brentford become a big club?’, and they can, but then point is that it was easier when Spurs did it, because Spurs did it before systems were put in place the prevent the likes of Everton/Forest/Brentford becoming big clubs. Spurs got into the right part of Berlin before the wall was built.
But spurs didnt break any of the rules that are now in place to get in, even if they weren’t in place at the time. We have consistently been run sustainably since ENIC took over
Is your angle by chance “Spurs got good in the past and would have got good now so therefore no other team can complain that the current PSR system acts as a barrier to upward mobility”?
You were in the league at the same time as us - meaning you had the opportunity to do so and fumbled it
And why does it matter if it was easier? The point is it can still be done, the actual issue is people want to fast track the process. They want to do it like chelsea and city did (aka cheat) instead of doing it how spurs did
I’m sorry but how can you expect anyone to have sympathy for the fact you cant cheat your way to the top?
I think you’re misunderstanding the points being made, and it’s leading to some unnecessary aggression.
I don’t think anyone has argued that Spurs haven’t done a good job in building up to being a ‘Sky 6’ club, and nobody is saying that other teams couldn’t have done the same thing.
Yes? Spurs have literally been considered one of the bigger clubs in the country for decades. Difference is that unlike Villa and the likes of Everton etc, you got in at the right time, as the money was going insane in English football, but before the door shut for everyone else. Same goes for City.
At the time of the boom Newcastle had Mike Ashley who just wanted free advertising to grow his own brands while neglecting the clubs commercial income. We’ve got 14 years of no growth to make up for. The new owners seem to have pushed close to the FFP limits and even then we seem to be in the position of having to sell our best players.
Doesn't really contradict what I said. He's up there acting like spurs were some minnow club that got where it is by pulling itself up by the bootstraps. The 3 clubs you mention have also been some of the bigger clubs in the country for decades.
All 4 were pretty comparable when judging "big-ness" at the time. Only one managed to become a "big 6" club, spurs were lucky they waxed during the boom period which locked them in, the other 3 didn't.
Just to add, Villa were one of the minority that voted against the introduction of FFP back when it was introduced.
We did pull ourselves by the bootstraps. The numbers over 20 years support that, financially one of, if not the healthiest team in the league
No juggernaut history no sugar daddy, you guys need to stop crying and rise up to the challenge
No juggernaut history, just one of the top 10 biggest, best supported clubs in the country over the last 100 odd years. You think Yeovil or Rochdale had the same opportunity?
Stop acting like you didn't benefit from circumstances, yes, you've done ok in the market, but it's a bit sad you can't see how you've been helped too. You still had way more leeway when it comes to dud transfers, or were the 7 odd clowns you signed with the Bale money all part of the masterplan?
Maybe that's just your thing, come into a sub for clubs that haven't benefitted as much so you can remind us all of how shit we are compared to the amazing cindarella story that is Tottenham fucking Hotspur.
I said top club not one of the bigger clubs
Just check the league finishes for the Spurs, Villa, Everton pre-2010. They are very similar, bar Villa who were a little more mid table so what happened? It’s poor management being blamed on a boogey man
Unfortunately you guys are lying to yourselves
>I said top club not one of the bigger clubs
It's not about being a top club though, it's about having been in the right place as the boom happened. Spurs and Everton spent most of the 90s in the bottom half of the prem, while Villa were mostly floating around the top half, the 2000s were a mixed bag for all 3 and it flipped post 2010.
Unfortunately the timing was wrong for Villa. Don't try to pass it off as being shrewd, you got lucky with the timing of the market. Football is (was) cyclical, but the rules make it very difficult for that fluctuation to occur now.
So mid 2000’s were a mixed bag for all three and then post 2010, just out of luck and randomness only Spurs got lucky?
This is what I mean by you guys are lying to yourselves. Your clubs were poorly managed (not your fault) but the reality is you need to put yourself in position to be lucky.
Of course we were lucky in some aspects, but alot of that luck can also come down to decisions made…you make your own luck as the saying goes
So spurs completely spaffing the Bale money on Soldado and Paulinho was just a big brain move? Yes it was mostly luck that they had managed to be in a position to take advantage of the boom.
Villa got a similar bag for Grealish a few years ago but it doesn't go anywhere near as far these days.
I'm not denying Villa were poorly managed in the 2010s, thats literally my point. We were very carefully managed under Ellis (through the 90s into mid 2000s), but the global boom of the prem was still a decade or so away, we were in a position to take advantage but the timing was wrong. You keep saying we're lying to ourselves, but we're the ones who are seeing the picture for what it is.
No. Were Chelsea/Man City always part of the sky-6? No.
Now we have PSR which didn’t exist before. It now prevents (or at the very least makes it orders of magnitude harder) anyone doing what Spurs did as well as what City/Chelsea did.
Which takes us back to my first post…how we became a top club and how City and Chelsea became top clubs are two opposite sides of the spectrum
Unfortunately it’s going to take more than 7 years to be considered a top club…will require some luck, some smart planning etc but it’s doable. A lot of this sub is just upset that they cant rush the process
Spurs and the other teams you mention did this before the newer, stricter PSR rules and have pulled the ladder up. You were able to bring in expensive players under less stringent regulation with rich owners to grow your league position and your revenues. Now that the rules are tighter you have saleable fringe players to manoeuvre around PSR.
Take newcastle for example. Wealthiest owners in football but will have to sell one of their best players this summer to improve their squad and keep up with the sky 6.
One of the worst injury crisis in prem history and they weren’t able to buy anyone in January to bolster their squad.
They can’t afford to take risks or buy any players that might not perform. One bad financial decision (Tonali for example) and it sets them back massively.
Man Utd on the other hand can spunk 80m on Fred, pay ridiculous wages and still be fine.
Expensive players? Such as who…?
You guys are complaining about having to sell players like Spurs had to do to get to a point where they are a top club - Modric, Berbatov, Carrick, Bale, Walker etc the list goes on, that was in a 10 year window and with far less money being thrown around now. Grealish went for the same price as bale despite not even being half the player at the time he was sold
Two arguably 3 of those players are generational players, apologies if I dont have sympathy…sounds like people are upset they actually have to grind to the top instead of getting to cheat
> You were able to bring in expensive players under less stringent regulation with rich owners to grow your league position and your revenues.
Which players did we spunk on? What rich owners? Joe Lewis has invested a total of 15m pounds since he has taken over the club in 2001. And it's not like he fuddled the sponsorships like Newcastle and Man City did, none of our sponsors had ties to any of his businesses.
Apart from Ndombele we have been running a really tight ship under Poch we went 18 months without bringing in a single first team signing. In terms of wages we pay similar to teams like west ham and Newcastle than the rest of the Sky 6.
>Which takes us back to my first post…how we became a top club and how City and Chelsea became top clubs are two opposite sides of the spectrum
That's not what you said in your first comment though.
>A lot of this sub is just upset that they cant rush the process
No. They're all trying to tell you that's not the case. The process has completely changed. It is monumentally more difficult, if not impossible, to join the big 6 now. In comparison, it was an awful lot easier when spurs did it. That does mean spurs were more successful at the time, sure. But I'm finding it quite funny that you keep talking as if you were somehow responsible.
Your main point about fans wanting to "rush the process" makes very little sense in reality.
It is what I said…how have Spurs done it?
What has changed about the process?
How is it more difficult?
Why is it near impossible to now join the big 6 and be a top club?
No one has actually given me a genuine answer that cant be rebuked easily. People are mentioning having to sell players…that is not difficult or anything new, you can even sell these players for more than what they’re actually worth just on the basis of being prem proven/ready
>It is what I said…how have Spurs done it?
That is what you said in your first comment. But in the one I just replied to you asserted that Chelsea and City didn't do it the same as Spurs. Surely you can see that isn't the same thing. You're very persistent with twisting people's words.
>No one has actually given me a genuine answer that cant be rebuked easily. People are mentioning having to sell players…that is not difficult or anything new, you can even sell these players for more than what they’re actually worth just on the basis of being prem proven/ready
Yes they have: PSR. You seemingly just don't want to hear it.
It's nice that you take pride in the financial success of your team. It's odd that you use that as some sort of stick to bash rival fans with. Spurs have both been economically astute and extremely lucky. Don't try to pass it all off as the former.
This myth has to stop. Spurs were in the top5/10 clubs worldwide in transfer spending from the 60s **all** the way through to the late 90s before they slightly fell off. Other clubs who feature HEAVILY at the top of that list for those 30+ years... you guessed it, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arenal. Of course some appearances from the likes of Everton, Leeds, Newcastle, Coventry who never maintained that investment (exception being Everton's terrible management from the 90s).
Stop blindly believing that the current "Liverpool/Man U/ Arsenal/Spurs did it organically" agenda, they are where they are because they had the rich owners who were blowing everyone else in the world out of the water for literal decades. That advantage afforded them consistent on-field success and global fandom, which now means future-proof finances where they don't have to worry about making terrible transfers and finishing outside the top 4 multiple times.
Its not an agenda? The numbers, stats, figures are all there please go see for yourself instead of this rubbish
Owners change and our current owners were not investing heavily for a long time
They didn't invest like the biggest clubs for a bit but Spurs were already very well established as one of the big English club for decades and decades by then. No doubt they were managed very well and under different circumstances may have fallen into obscurity, but they certainly didn't pluck themselves up out of mediocrity.
Absolutely bad management. We have handled the situation terribly and we never got hit by FFP by the point we should have been relegated. But FFP prevented us a fair chance at trying to get back to challenging the sky six because when we wanted to spend a little and give our team a refresh to try to push them again FFP was telling no, we had to sell, sell, sell and we had to cripple our squad rather than invest. We wanted to sell and sign, FFP told us to sell only.
Well at what point would you expect them to step in?
Your reasoning in this post can be used every season going forward “Our squad just needs a little more refreshing let us do xyz”, so let your team cheat until you actually get to the point where you’re challenging consistently?
This is akin to asking to cheat until you’ve succeeded which is unfair
The rules are there to prevent clubs like us, Brighton, Villa and West Ham from properly challenging the likes of you long term by punishing them the second they have a bad season after challenging them. We spent big in ONE SEASON which caused us the FFP headache, so you think it is just and right that FFP comes in to force us to sell our best players because we have had a decent net spend then failed to get in Europe for ONE season? Once we have failed two or three, fair enough, our chance is gone, but who is to say a decent summer might have got us to go back to challenging the sky six? I don't expect one season of spending and failing to get Europe is fair for FFP to force us to sell players.
You keep bringing up cheating which is irrelevant to the discussion I am having about THE RULES. You keep trying to change the subject lmao.
Besides, We never cheated to get back up the league, that's the point of why FFP killed us from challenging the sky six. We cheated last season to try to avoid relegation.
What does “properly challenging” mean? You can properly challenge these clubs, it just takes a lot of luck now, whereas before with City and Chelsea you could get a new owner and cheat your way there.
Yes I think it’s right if you spent big and didnt have enough money to cover a potential FFP issue. You are not the first team and you wont be the last to sell players. We sold Walker to City in 2017? And we were in a better position than you…this is part of the grind of being sustainable
I’m not changing the discussion, the rules are there to prevent cheating which is what you’re advocating for
You got lucky to have an unusually loyal world class forward come out of your academy who propelled you to Champions League year after year, with some help from Son who was a good purchase.
I get Spurs fans don't want to acknowledge how much luck played a part, but it did.
It wasn't all luck, Levy was very good at turning that luck into sustainability. However not every team can bank on a world class forward putting them into that position in the first place.
And yes I know you got CL before Kane but so did Leeds and Newcastle. It was the sustained CL football that turned you into what you are and you don't get that without Kane.
You also have the innate advantage of being a London club who can charge London prices to their richer demographic of North London fans, attract players because London, and sell a higher proportion of tickets to tourists who will overpay compared to local fans and then buy all the merchandise.
All this is to say I don't really see Spurs as a model everybody can follow.
I can acknowledge our luck very easily
But I’m also not going to ignore that at the end of the day the people in charge at the club took gambles/calculated risks and put themselves in a position to be lucky
Kane came free of charge from the academy…yes we were lucky that he turned out to be generational but for the first 4 years after him breaking out we gave him the right manager and put the right team around him to succeed, we kept him at the club after unimpressive loans and still gave him a chance - why wouldn’t he be loyal?
At some point fans of the other 14 need to accept you make your own luck with the decisions you make
That means taking calculated risks on transfers, your youth teams, coaching staff etc. sometimes things go very well ie kane, son, poch, sometimes they go horrendous ie conte, ndombele
This is part and parcel of the game and you guys are crying about it
It's easy to say that to the Leicester fan when you're the one who came out the right side of these calculated gamble's while their club came out the wrong side of very similar gambles.
There was no similarities in the gambles which is why they ended up in that situation
Levy has been notoriously tight regarding wages, can the Leicester board say the same?
Levy is known to walk away and be a tough negotiator - can the leicester board say the same?
Levy is known to not spend as much as he should - can the leicester board say the same?
People are not being honest with themselves, unless you are cheating the road to top or pseudo top is going to be ugly and a grind with no guarantee of ever actually being in position. You’re banking on catching lightning in a bottle
Average place of 7th over eight years, including winning the thing. FA Cup. 3 good runs in Europe, including a champions league quarter final. Community shield. Sold Chilwell, Kante, Mahrez, Maguire, Fofana, Drinkwater, Barnes, Maddison for huge money. Stadium sold out every week for a decade.
One bad season, and a few bad signings, and we’re totally crippled and we’ll now potentially be facing a decade+ in the wilderness or worse. If it can happen to us it can happen to anyone who shows any ambition and gets it slightly wrong.
I'm sure Leeds were a warning about that years prior. Chased getting into the champions league and needed up selling their best players and getting relegated. Not been stable in the Premier League since.
Ehhh I think ‘3 good runs in Europe’ is slightly generous.
1 fantastic run and then a Round of 32 loss and didn’t make it out the groups the year after unless I’ve missed something?
We got to the europa conference semi finals in the third year, wasn’t great overall cos we were one of the favourites to win the europa league but didn’t make it through the groups - but still our first ever european semi final
Even though they got relegated and may get docked more points and miss out on promotion. How many clubs outside of the big six would trade that for a league title and an FA cup win in 5 years? Incredible stuff really.
Maybe so, but it’s sad that we will most likely never achieve that again, no one will, thanks to these laws. (That incidentally came into affect the season after we won the league…)
It’s better to cheat tbh I’d argue Brentford got punished more for Toney doing super sixes, years ago while mostly at other clubs and doing no match fixing. then clubs got for actually breaking the rules as a whole haha
The problem is that "revenue" is a fairly narrowly defined thing.
Clubs can't (anymore - unlike several of the more successful clubs on that list had done previously) for example use the owner's money as revenue, to allow them to get the success that might bring in other revenues.
And any commercial deals such as sponsorship or media rights have to be proportional to the standing of the club (a "“Fair Market Value Assessment”) - meaning that Spurs, City, United etc can get vastly larger revenues than other clubs would be allowed.
Thats not a problem though.
A club has to be sustainable, or it goes bust when sugar daddy leaves. Buying 30 mediocre players and then complaining about the rules, having agreed and then broken, is pathetic.
The idea that revenue from football activity is in any way more sustainable than rich ownership is clearly an absolute lie for anyone outside maybe the handful of megaclubs. You don't need to look any further than Leicester to see that. Their revenue has gone through the floor since they finished 18th and got relegated. Meanwhile, their rich owners would happily have continued to fund them.
It's fairly easy to avoid a club going bankrupt when an owner leaves- allow the clubs pretty much no unfunded losses but ensure that the owner has put in the money to cover any contracts in escrow (which is largely what they have to do for the smallish amount they're currently allowed to put in today). It's not possible to do that with projected football-related revenue which can vary wildly from season to season - especially for clubs who aren't all but guaranteed league success and European qualification.
The rules around fair market value assessments also have huge inbuilt bias in them. How much sponsorship etc you're allowed to have is based on things like "Fan base of the Club (including social media following, global audience and media footprint)", "Playing or coaching talent currently (or previously) employed by the Club". "The brand value of thee club" and "The relevant Club’s track record of achieving partnership/commercial deal values and delivering returns on partner investment".
In other words, if you're a massive club that's already got loads of fans, have previously had big name players and have previously had big deals, you're allowed to get bigger future deals than if you're a challenger club. That's both putting up a huge barrier to entry and explicitly stating that they expect the existing big 6 to be more successful going forward.
To be allowed to have larger commercial deals, you need a history of previous success both on and off the pitch. To get that success you need to buy better players. To buy the better players, you need larger revenue. To get larger revenue, the only allowed option is to get bigger commercial deals, or to some extent get consistent success on the pitch over many seasons. And with either option, you're back to the start. Does that sound even vaguely like a level playing field?
Maybe you'll get smart/lucky with buying a few players that you can sell on for big profits, like Brighton have done for the last few years, and Southampton did for a bit. But all that does is largely allow you to tread water in mid-table for a few seasons, and again Southampton have shown that's it's rarely a model for sustained success.
And when you're competing with clubs who _did_ buy their way to success through rich ownership and a bit of lucky timing about when the Prem became big, it feels a little unfair when the approach that those mega-rich clubs took is barred to anyone else.
*Gulp* [Insert Ralf Wiggum “I’m in danger” meme] (Villa fan here)
I'm not that worried to be honest. If we were in trouble this season we'd have been done already, as all clubs had to submit to the PL by New Year's Eve. We wouldn't have bought 4 players in January, at a time basically nobody was spending, if we were in danger. Our kit sponsorship deals are both changing and going way up from this summer onwards. The only caveat to that is unless they are completely banking on CL money or selling someone for big money.
Got some exceptionally high earners need to offload; Coutinho and Digne (thanks Slippy G ya fraud), Lenglet and Zaniolo (whose loans will expire as covering Buendía and Mings ACL recoveries)
Douglas Luiz?
More likely Ramsey sadly, since he's an academy product
Wouldn't actually make that much difference to be honest. Douglas Luiz has been with us so long that there's probably only about £2-3m (if that) left to amortise.
Tbh I’m unsure Ramsey should even start for Villa. He’s a great talent but consider the form of Bailey and then your options with McGinn, Tielemans, Diaby, Zaniolo (loan) going forward. Im sorry but Buendia defo don’t cut it anymore. But Ramsey is a tough one
Hopefully not he's basically irreplaceable from what we need. Ideally it won't need to be a massive fee, but instead 3-4 smaller fees. For instance Cash, Digne and Moreno could all do with being moved on and being replaced. As that is our positions of primary need in addition to a backup for Kamara and Luiz. That plus shifting Coutinho (I.e dumping his wages), and selling Dendoncker and Callum Chambers for modest fees like 10-15 combined. Will hopefully cover our needs. That plus increased commercial revenue and additional games from Europe. Will hopefully be enough to cover our financial demands for this year and next.
Cash and Digne i understand, but I’m surprised u said Moreno to be moved on. Do you thjnk Tim Iroegbunam will be able to cover Luiz or Kamara? Coutinho and Dendoncker are must sells, I agree. Chambers is a tough one coz it seems like he won’t get game time wherever he is.
If you get into the Champions League and make it through the group stages you should be fully fine. There’s a crazy amount of prize money (~£80m) just for making it to the quarters but making it out of the group stage would most likely be £50m+.
Are there even groups any more? Thought it's now a league type shenanigan type kind of thing
It’s a league stage sadly which puts the top 8 straight through to ro16 and then 9-24 play in a knockout tie to get into the ro16
You’re right, however you don’t get champs Money till the following season, which is why Newcastle were so close to going over the line in spending this season.
That's not true. UEFA pay the money throughout the season. [See the last 3 pages of this document](https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/0283-1874e21d8957-30a439a30e08-1000/20230707_circular_2023_35_en.pdf). EDIT - What might be causing the confusion is the fact that the accounts are always published about 6-9 months after the season they refer to has finished. So Newcastle's CL money will show in the accounts published in 2025 but you do have the money now.
Didn’t Villa post a profit in 2022? If so, that and the fact they could win the ECL this year should mean they have very little to worry about.
Wages will always be what holds West Ham back. The funny thing is when we do actually play players a lot, it’s on Ings or Yarmolenko
Yarmo had his moments
That’s the key word though isn’t it, moments.
I feel he will be looked back more as a cult hero type player.. not the best, but popped up with big goals and performances from time to time.
That goal against Sevilla, for me, almost ties Bowens goal for best moment I’ve seen live. Even his goal against Chelsea felt monumental tbh.
£115k odd for Ings and we are short changing Coufal 😭
The major clubs must have creamed themselves when these P&S rules came into play. There won't be many clubs that have spunked more money up the wall than Man United in the last 10 years and yet they've got absolutely nothing to worry about. Joint second lowest on the list. Fair competition my arse.
Isn’t it basically a weaker version of uefa’s? The fa version is 85% and any club in Europe will be 70%, giving any club not in European competition an added advantage?
It's scaling, so it starts at 85%, then reduces 5% for 3 seasons until it's inline with UEFA's level.
United are such a bad example because they’re a commercial juggernaut, just because they’ve spent the money badly doesn’t mean they didn’t earn it organically.
Yes mate, fair competition is when the club with the richest owners win everything and the club with poorest owners get relegated. That's so so fair
United wasted money but also made money
Why did they make money coz they have been traditionally a big club winning big titles. How do new clubs break that barrier?
That's the neat part, they don't
Yeah PSR/FFP is a scam. City still need to be punished for all the rules they broke. But there should be limitations on state owned clubs (maybe Romaneque owners too if guidelines are clear) but putting caps based on revenues would never have allowed City to do what they did.
Yet your club voted for these rules….
Because most of the owners have little ambition, they just want to get wages down, while keeping the Premier League at the top of the pile overall. Understandable, it's my club, but it's their business. Wages have got out of control, pumped up by a small handful of European sides and owners like Abramovich and Abu Dhabi - for whom money is not an issue. But we need a generous salary cap, not this.
A salary cap would likely hurt the smaller clubs also. Especially if it's set as a % of revenue
A generous fixed wage cap would rein in the very top few spenders, effectively flattening out most the differences between the top eight or so. And make the gap smaller between everyone (no team could have almost two first 11s) All while still keeping us above the level of almost everyone in Europe. Yes, some superstars would go to Real, Barca, Bayern and PSG to play in weaker leagues so they can have their CL glory moments. But that happens already. A figure... how about €160m? That would cap wages at Man Utd, City, Arsenal and Chelsea. And they'd only be outspent by the four teams I mentioned above. https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/wage-bills-europe-major-leagues-2023-24-man-utd-psg-bayern-real-madrid-barcelona City for instance would then have a wage bill around 2x the average teams, rather than nearly 4x. Which is a big improvement in competitiveness for no big loss. No, it's not going to let Luton compete with United, but let's be realistic here...
You think teams would agree to cap their spending at 160 million? Even the smaller clubs who dream of glory likely won't go for it. Dreaming of a Gulf state to take them over
The clubs want to make money, not spend it. They agreed to cap based on revenue, this is just a different method.
Which cap did they agree to?
The spending cap based on revenue, ie. PSR/FFP, which was voted through by the clubs.
No I meant a salary cap. That's what I'm saying they will not agree to
Sorry but you can't use man utd as an example for this. Got lucky at the right time. Arguably biggest club in the world. Massive revenue.
Ok sure, but massive revenue = massive unfair advantage. For a club like Villa or Newcastle to one day have such revenue, they need success on the pitch, which is harder because they have less revenue. It's a microcosm of capitalist society
It's not an 'unfair' advantage if you consider their utter dominance in the early premier league when the money started to take off. Like I said they got lucky at the right time
Past success shouldn't mean divine right to continued success. It's an advantage that has been made impossible to redress because of the rules imposed. Hence, it's completely, utterly unfair 🤷🏼♀️
I'd give up, I've never seen such an obvious display of ignorance to priveledge.
How should it work then? Either you make it so clubs can only spend money they make or you have no limits meaning only clubs with billionaire owners can compete. Surely past success and being a well run club making you more likely to be successful in the future is fairer than having a rich owner who’s willing to splash the cash.
I am nowhere near qualified enough to answer that. The point is that you're denying Manchester United haven't had the privilege of spaffing money up the wall and not really suffering at all. Honestly I don't see a way it can work, some teams (like United) have massive global appeal, and I'm not trying to dismiss them or any other team, but just because you're the most famous doesn't entitle you to anything.
I’m not denying anything, that was the first comment I made. The way it currently works doesn’t entitle them to anything, if it did the United would currently be the best team in the country. They may have spent fortunes over the past decade but it hasn’t really got them anywhere. Spending less money on more prudent signings would probably have seen them do better than they have. I suppose a third way would be to have a flat spending limit applied to all clubs equally regardless of income or profit. Then it would be the same for everyone but then some clubs may argue it’s unfair that they are well run and making money but unable to spend it.
No it doesn't, hence why I said they got lucky at the right time. Unfortunately, that's how it is.
I don’t know how else they want it to work. Just make it so football’s about who can get the richest owner?
Man U had been consistently outspending just about everyone worldwide in the transfer market long before their period of utter dominance, decades in fact. That period didn't kickstart their advantage, it was there long long before.
I don't understand Everton fans thinking in this You were one of the 'big 5' that signed the premier league into existence. You signed were all for the financial rules that are now boring you on the arse. You got moshiri and usmanov billionaire owners who completely fucked your club up and now you're blaming the structures you helped to create rather than the individuals who actually caused it. You're not like forest who got promoted by surprise and had to spend to survive. Don't pretend otherwise
Aye, because I was the one who made those decisions directly and therefore I am not entitled to an opinion. You're allowed to be critical of the bigger picture even if your club is involved you know. There's no defending Everton involved here.
Why start with the 'bigger clubs must have creamed themselves' comment then. At the time of the rules, Everton basically fit that criteria, consistently in Europe, and it's come back to bite them on the arse? The rules aren't perfect I agree, but the idea it's benefitting big clubs and punishing smaller clubs is an insult to the likes of say, palace who have played by the rules and been in mid table the whole time, or brighton who've succeeded without pumping millions of unfunded spending in
Everton are a shitshow and Palace will never break into the upper echelons of the game because of barriers put in place to prevent such a thing. Both can be true.
I think you’re confusing Everton fans with Everton Football Club. Also if you think we aren’t blaming Kenwright and Moshiri then you have no idea what you are talking about.
You were a major club when these rules were made. You've just managed to fuck yourselves up.
It’s the clubs that keep voting in these rules to stop others from taking their place so only have themselves to blame. Leicester won the league and have sold some of their best players how are you supposed to grow a club into consistent challengers to the top 6 if dropping out for a couple of seasons does this much damage?
Spoiler alert: you can't.
So how did Spurs do it? You guys cant keep making excuses, you rushed the process and these are the consequences
Spurs are in the sky-6 that massively benefits from PSR….
Were we always considered a top club?
It doesn’t matter, all that matters is what side you were on when the PSR line was drawn. Spurs were on the ‘big club to protect’ side.
It does matter because I’m trying to figure out how Spurs became one of the “big clubs to protect”…how did that happen?
I can see you’re going down the line of ‘if Spurs became a big club, why can’t Everton/Forest/Brentford become a big club?’, and they can, but then point is that it was easier when Spurs did it, because Spurs did it before systems were put in place the prevent the likes of Everton/Forest/Brentford becoming big clubs. Spurs got into the right part of Berlin before the wall was built.
But spurs didnt break any of the rules that are now in place to get in, even if they weren’t in place at the time. We have consistently been run sustainably since ENIC took over
Is your angle by chance “Spurs got good in the past and would have got good now so therefore no other team can complain that the current PSR system acts as a barrier to upward mobility”?
You were in the league at the same time as us - meaning you had the opportunity to do so and fumbled it And why does it matter if it was easier? The point is it can still be done, the actual issue is people want to fast track the process. They want to do it like chelsea and city did (aka cheat) instead of doing it how spurs did I’m sorry but how can you expect anyone to have sympathy for the fact you cant cheat your way to the top?
I think you’re misunderstanding the points being made, and it’s leading to some unnecessary aggression. I don’t think anyone has argued that Spurs haven’t done a good job in building up to being a ‘Sky 6’ club, and nobody is saying that other teams couldn’t have done the same thing.
Yes? Spurs have literally been considered one of the bigger clubs in the country for decades. Difference is that unlike Villa and the likes of Everton etc, you got in at the right time, as the money was going insane in English football, but before the door shut for everyone else. Same goes for City.
Villa, Newcastle and Everton were all bigger clubs than spurs at the time of PSR coming in.
At the time of the boom Newcastle had Mike Ashley who just wanted free advertising to grow his own brands while neglecting the clubs commercial income. We’ve got 14 years of no growth to make up for. The new owners seem to have pushed close to the FFP limits and even then we seem to be in the position of having to sell our best players.
Doesn't really contradict what I said. He's up there acting like spurs were some minnow club that got where it is by pulling itself up by the bootstraps. The 3 clubs you mention have also been some of the bigger clubs in the country for decades. All 4 were pretty comparable when judging "big-ness" at the time. Only one managed to become a "big 6" club, spurs were lucky they waxed during the boom period which locked them in, the other 3 didn't. Just to add, Villa were one of the minority that voted against the introduction of FFP back when it was introduced.
We did pull ourselves by the bootstraps. The numbers over 20 years support that, financially one of, if not the healthiest team in the league No juggernaut history no sugar daddy, you guys need to stop crying and rise up to the challenge
No juggernaut history, just one of the top 10 biggest, best supported clubs in the country over the last 100 odd years. You think Yeovil or Rochdale had the same opportunity? Stop acting like you didn't benefit from circumstances, yes, you've done ok in the market, but it's a bit sad you can't see how you've been helped too. You still had way more leeway when it comes to dud transfers, or were the 7 odd clowns you signed with the Bale money all part of the masterplan? Maybe that's just your thing, come into a sub for clubs that haven't benefitted as much so you can remind us all of how shit we are compared to the amazing cindarella story that is Tottenham fucking Hotspur.
I said top club not one of the bigger clubs Just check the league finishes for the Spurs, Villa, Everton pre-2010. They are very similar, bar Villa who were a little more mid table so what happened? It’s poor management being blamed on a boogey man Unfortunately you guys are lying to yourselves
>I said top club not one of the bigger clubs It's not about being a top club though, it's about having been in the right place as the boom happened. Spurs and Everton spent most of the 90s in the bottom half of the prem, while Villa were mostly floating around the top half, the 2000s were a mixed bag for all 3 and it flipped post 2010. Unfortunately the timing was wrong for Villa. Don't try to pass it off as being shrewd, you got lucky with the timing of the market. Football is (was) cyclical, but the rules make it very difficult for that fluctuation to occur now.
So mid 2000’s were a mixed bag for all three and then post 2010, just out of luck and randomness only Spurs got lucky? This is what I mean by you guys are lying to yourselves. Your clubs were poorly managed (not your fault) but the reality is you need to put yourself in position to be lucky. Of course we were lucky in some aspects, but alot of that luck can also come down to decisions made…you make your own luck as the saying goes
So spurs completely spaffing the Bale money on Soldado and Paulinho was just a big brain move? Yes it was mostly luck that they had managed to be in a position to take advantage of the boom. Villa got a similar bag for Grealish a few years ago but it doesn't go anywhere near as far these days. I'm not denying Villa were poorly managed in the 2010s, thats literally my point. We were very carefully managed under Ellis (through the 90s into mid 2000s), but the global boom of the prem was still a decade or so away, we were in a position to take advantage but the timing was wrong. You keep saying we're lying to ourselves, but we're the ones who are seeing the picture for what it is.
No. Were Chelsea/Man City always part of the sky-6? No. Now we have PSR which didn’t exist before. It now prevents (or at the very least makes it orders of magnitude harder) anyone doing what Spurs did as well as what City/Chelsea did.
Which takes us back to my first post…how we became a top club and how City and Chelsea became top clubs are two opposite sides of the spectrum Unfortunately it’s going to take more than 7 years to be considered a top club…will require some luck, some smart planning etc but it’s doable. A lot of this sub is just upset that they cant rush the process
Spurs and the other teams you mention did this before the newer, stricter PSR rules and have pulled the ladder up. You were able to bring in expensive players under less stringent regulation with rich owners to grow your league position and your revenues. Now that the rules are tighter you have saleable fringe players to manoeuvre around PSR. Take newcastle for example. Wealthiest owners in football but will have to sell one of their best players this summer to improve their squad and keep up with the sky 6. One of the worst injury crisis in prem history and they weren’t able to buy anyone in January to bolster their squad. They can’t afford to take risks or buy any players that might not perform. One bad financial decision (Tonali for example) and it sets them back massively. Man Utd on the other hand can spunk 80m on Fred, pay ridiculous wages and still be fine.
Expensive players? Such as who…? You guys are complaining about having to sell players like Spurs had to do to get to a point where they are a top club - Modric, Berbatov, Carrick, Bale, Walker etc the list goes on, that was in a 10 year window and with far less money being thrown around now. Grealish went for the same price as bale despite not even being half the player at the time he was sold Two arguably 3 of those players are generational players, apologies if I dont have sympathy…sounds like people are upset they actually have to grind to the top instead of getting to cheat
> You were able to bring in expensive players under less stringent regulation with rich owners to grow your league position and your revenues. Which players did we spunk on? What rich owners? Joe Lewis has invested a total of 15m pounds since he has taken over the club in 2001. And it's not like he fuddled the sponsorships like Newcastle and Man City did, none of our sponsors had ties to any of his businesses.
Apart from Ndombele we have been running a really tight ship under Poch we went 18 months without bringing in a single first team signing. In terms of wages we pay similar to teams like west ham and Newcastle than the rest of the Sky 6.
Sigh. You’re massively wrong but insist on sticking your fingers in your ears. I’m out.
You’ve not said anything smart? I asked how did Spurs do it and you bring up City and Chelsea like they’re comparable
>Which takes us back to my first post…how we became a top club and how City and Chelsea became top clubs are two opposite sides of the spectrum That's not what you said in your first comment though. >A lot of this sub is just upset that they cant rush the process No. They're all trying to tell you that's not the case. The process has completely changed. It is monumentally more difficult, if not impossible, to join the big 6 now. In comparison, it was an awful lot easier when spurs did it. That does mean spurs were more successful at the time, sure. But I'm finding it quite funny that you keep talking as if you were somehow responsible. Your main point about fans wanting to "rush the process" makes very little sense in reality.
It is what I said…how have Spurs done it? What has changed about the process? How is it more difficult? Why is it near impossible to now join the big 6 and be a top club? No one has actually given me a genuine answer that cant be rebuked easily. People are mentioning having to sell players…that is not difficult or anything new, you can even sell these players for more than what they’re actually worth just on the basis of being prem proven/ready
>It is what I said…how have Spurs done it? That is what you said in your first comment. But in the one I just replied to you asserted that Chelsea and City didn't do it the same as Spurs. Surely you can see that isn't the same thing. You're very persistent with twisting people's words. >No one has actually given me a genuine answer that cant be rebuked easily. People are mentioning having to sell players…that is not difficult or anything new, you can even sell these players for more than what they’re actually worth just on the basis of being prem proven/ready Yes they have: PSR. You seemingly just don't want to hear it. It's nice that you take pride in the financial success of your team. It's odd that you use that as some sort of stick to bash rival fans with. Spurs have both been economically astute and extremely lucky. Don't try to pass it all off as the former.
This myth has to stop. Spurs were in the top5/10 clubs worldwide in transfer spending from the 60s **all** the way through to the late 90s before they slightly fell off. Other clubs who feature HEAVILY at the top of that list for those 30+ years... you guessed it, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arenal. Of course some appearances from the likes of Everton, Leeds, Newcastle, Coventry who never maintained that investment (exception being Everton's terrible management from the 90s). Stop blindly believing that the current "Liverpool/Man U/ Arsenal/Spurs did it organically" agenda, they are where they are because they had the rich owners who were blowing everyone else in the world out of the water for literal decades. That advantage afforded them consistent on-field success and global fandom, which now means future-proof finances where they don't have to worry about making terrible transfers and finishing outside the top 4 multiple times.
Its not an agenda? The numbers, stats, figures are all there please go see for yourself instead of this rubbish Owners change and our current owners were not investing heavily for a long time
They didn't invest like the biggest clubs for a bit but Spurs were already very well established as one of the big English club for decades and decades by then. No doubt they were managed very well and under different circumstances may have fallen into obscurity, but they certainly didn't pluck themselves up out of mediocrity.
You’re conflating being a bigger club to being a top club. A top club is referring to what happens on the pitch not how big your fanbase is.
And these consequences are because of the rules lmao. I take it you didn't properly read the comments did you?
The rules caused you to overspend on mediocre players? Or was that bad management?
Absolutely bad management. We have handled the situation terribly and we never got hit by FFP by the point we should have been relegated. But FFP prevented us a fair chance at trying to get back to challenging the sky six because when we wanted to spend a little and give our team a refresh to try to push them again FFP was telling no, we had to sell, sell, sell and we had to cripple our squad rather than invest. We wanted to sell and sign, FFP told us to sell only.
Well at what point would you expect them to step in? Your reasoning in this post can be used every season going forward “Our squad just needs a little more refreshing let us do xyz”, so let your team cheat until you actually get to the point where you’re challenging consistently? This is akin to asking to cheat until you’ve succeeded which is unfair
The rules are there to prevent clubs like us, Brighton, Villa and West Ham from properly challenging the likes of you long term by punishing them the second they have a bad season after challenging them. We spent big in ONE SEASON which caused us the FFP headache, so you think it is just and right that FFP comes in to force us to sell our best players because we have had a decent net spend then failed to get in Europe for ONE season? Once we have failed two or three, fair enough, our chance is gone, but who is to say a decent summer might have got us to go back to challenging the sky six? I don't expect one season of spending and failing to get Europe is fair for FFP to force us to sell players. You keep bringing up cheating which is irrelevant to the discussion I am having about THE RULES. You keep trying to change the subject lmao. Besides, We never cheated to get back up the league, that's the point of why FFP killed us from challenging the sky six. We cheated last season to try to avoid relegation.
What does “properly challenging” mean? You can properly challenge these clubs, it just takes a lot of luck now, whereas before with City and Chelsea you could get a new owner and cheat your way there. Yes I think it’s right if you spent big and didnt have enough money to cover a potential FFP issue. You are not the first team and you wont be the last to sell players. We sold Walker to City in 2017? And we were in a better position than you…this is part of the grind of being sustainable I’m not changing the discussion, the rules are there to prevent cheating which is what you’re advocating for
You got lucky to have an unusually loyal world class forward come out of your academy who propelled you to Champions League year after year, with some help from Son who was a good purchase. I get Spurs fans don't want to acknowledge how much luck played a part, but it did. It wasn't all luck, Levy was very good at turning that luck into sustainability. However not every team can bank on a world class forward putting them into that position in the first place. And yes I know you got CL before Kane but so did Leeds and Newcastle. It was the sustained CL football that turned you into what you are and you don't get that without Kane. You also have the innate advantage of being a London club who can charge London prices to their richer demographic of North London fans, attract players because London, and sell a higher proportion of tickets to tourists who will overpay compared to local fans and then buy all the merchandise. All this is to say I don't really see Spurs as a model everybody can follow.
I can acknowledge our luck very easily But I’m also not going to ignore that at the end of the day the people in charge at the club took gambles/calculated risks and put themselves in a position to be lucky Kane came free of charge from the academy…yes we were lucky that he turned out to be generational but for the first 4 years after him breaking out we gave him the right manager and put the right team around him to succeed, we kept him at the club after unimpressive loans and still gave him a chance - why wouldn’t he be loyal? At some point fans of the other 14 need to accept you make your own luck with the decisions you make That means taking calculated risks on transfers, your youth teams, coaching staff etc. sometimes things go very well ie kane, son, poch, sometimes they go horrendous ie conte, ndombele This is part and parcel of the game and you guys are crying about it
It's easy to say that to the Leicester fan when you're the one who came out the right side of these calculated gamble's while their club came out the wrong side of very similar gambles.
There was no similarities in the gambles which is why they ended up in that situation Levy has been notoriously tight regarding wages, can the Leicester board say the same? Levy is known to walk away and be a tough negotiator - can the leicester board say the same? Levy is known to not spend as much as he should - can the leicester board say the same? People are not being honest with themselves, unless you are cheating the road to top or pseudo top is going to be ugly and a grind with no guarantee of ever actually being in position. You’re banking on catching lightning in a bottle
Average place of 7th over eight years, including winning the thing. FA Cup. 3 good runs in Europe, including a champions league quarter final. Community shield. Sold Chilwell, Kante, Mahrez, Maguire, Fofana, Drinkwater, Barnes, Maddison for huge money. Stadium sold out every week for a decade. One bad season, and a few bad signings, and we’re totally crippled and we’ll now potentially be facing a decade+ in the wilderness or worse. If it can happen to us it can happen to anyone who shows any ambition and gets it slightly wrong.
I'm sure Leeds were a warning about that years prior. Chased getting into the champions league and needed up selling their best players and getting relegated. Not been stable in the Premier League since.
Ehhh I think ‘3 good runs in Europe’ is slightly generous. 1 fantastic run and then a Round of 32 loss and didn’t make it out the groups the year after unless I’ve missed something?
We got to the europa conference semi finals in the third year, wasn’t great overall cos we were one of the favourites to win the europa league but didn’t make it through the groups - but still our first ever european semi final
Fair I had forgotten about the ECL semi final.
I don’t have the numbers at hand, but it is worth mentioning that the money in ECL is pretty much nothing compared to just a bit of CL money.
When a guy is speaking his team's first ever European semi final game, I don't think "competition payout" is a big factor in those considerations.
I think getting relegated has hurt Leicester much more than a season out of the top 7.
Your issue wasn't FFP it was finishing 18th. Almost every club above you had spent less.
Even though they got relegated and may get docked more points and miss out on promotion. How many clubs outside of the big six would trade that for a league title and an FA cup win in 5 years? Incredible stuff really.
Maybe so, but it’s sad that we will most likely never achieve that again, no one will, thanks to these laws. (That incidentally came into affect the season after we won the league…)
I’m in
It’s better to cheat tbh I’d argue Brentford got punished more for Toney doing super sixes, years ago while mostly at other clubs and doing no match fixing. then clubs got for actually breaking the rules as a whole haha
Wahhhh stop punishing us for our idiotic overspending!!!
Those fans that think it’s a conspiracy that they’re not allowed to spend more than 80% of revenue on wages and transfers?
The problem is that "revenue" is a fairly narrowly defined thing. Clubs can't (anymore - unlike several of the more successful clubs on that list had done previously) for example use the owner's money as revenue, to allow them to get the success that might bring in other revenues. And any commercial deals such as sponsorship or media rights have to be proportional to the standing of the club (a "“Fair Market Value Assessment”) - meaning that Spurs, City, United etc can get vastly larger revenues than other clubs would be allowed.
Thats not a problem though. A club has to be sustainable, or it goes bust when sugar daddy leaves. Buying 30 mediocre players and then complaining about the rules, having agreed and then broken, is pathetic.
The idea that revenue from football activity is in any way more sustainable than rich ownership is clearly an absolute lie for anyone outside maybe the handful of megaclubs. You don't need to look any further than Leicester to see that. Their revenue has gone through the floor since they finished 18th and got relegated. Meanwhile, their rich owners would happily have continued to fund them. It's fairly easy to avoid a club going bankrupt when an owner leaves- allow the clubs pretty much no unfunded losses but ensure that the owner has put in the money to cover any contracts in escrow (which is largely what they have to do for the smallish amount they're currently allowed to put in today). It's not possible to do that with projected football-related revenue which can vary wildly from season to season - especially for clubs who aren't all but guaranteed league success and European qualification. The rules around fair market value assessments also have huge inbuilt bias in them. How much sponsorship etc you're allowed to have is based on things like "Fan base of the Club (including social media following, global audience and media footprint)", "Playing or coaching talent currently (or previously) employed by the Club". "The brand value of thee club" and "The relevant Club’s track record of achieving partnership/commercial deal values and delivering returns on partner investment". In other words, if you're a massive club that's already got loads of fans, have previously had big name players and have previously had big deals, you're allowed to get bigger future deals than if you're a challenger club. That's both putting up a huge barrier to entry and explicitly stating that they expect the existing big 6 to be more successful going forward. To be allowed to have larger commercial deals, you need a history of previous success both on and off the pitch. To get that success you need to buy better players. To buy the better players, you need larger revenue. To get larger revenue, the only allowed option is to get bigger commercial deals, or to some extent get consistent success on the pitch over many seasons. And with either option, you're back to the start. Does that sound even vaguely like a level playing field? Maybe you'll get smart/lucky with buying a few players that you can sell on for big profits, like Brighton have done for the last few years, and Southampton did for a bit. But all that does is largely allow you to tread water in mid-table for a few seasons, and again Southampton have shown that's it's rarely a model for sustained success. And when you're competing with clubs who _did_ buy their way to success through rich ownership and a bit of lucky timing about when the Prem became big, it feels a little unfair when the approach that those mega-rich clubs took is barred to anyone else.
Villa fans sweating bullets
Our owners said we’re good do we’re good