Financial Fair Play

[Stuart Munday]

FFP will never happen, everyone knows it, they might as well scrap it now.

I was all for it but thinking about it if someone wants to plough money into a club then whynot, having said that penalties for going bust should be tougher, rather than a 10 point deduction if a club goes into administration they should be thrown out of the league in my opinion.

 

[rippleman]

"FFP will never happen, everyone knows it, they might as well scrap it now. "

Couldn't agree more!

I've been concerned since the outset that with that nice Mr Barber's apparent obsession with complying with FFP that we would just get left behind other clubs for whom the penny dropped a long, long time ago and who continued to spend, spend, spend. I truly hope we don't lose out in a big way because Mr Barber misread the runes and just carried on regardless. Only time will tell.

 

[B.W.]

Indeed, however, if Mrs O W owned Crappy Burgers and see decided to get sponsorship, that would be OK?

If the Crappy Burgers sponsorship deal is deemed to be unreasonable (not at market value) then the FL would exclude the revenue from said deal, and the club in receipt would then no doubt fail to comply with FFP and be sanctioned accordingly. Cue legal pay-day.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

The issue with the exact scenario you describe is that SD Chairman could decide he's bored playing with his new toy after a year and f*ck off back to Richiestan or wherever, breaking the shirt deal at the same time.
The club are now f*cked and end up in administration screwing over dozens if not hundreds of local companies (and other teams) left with bad debt. Mr SD Chairman II comes in and buys the assets for £1 but doesn't take on responsibility for the debt and the sport, the FA and the rest of the club look like d*cks.

This is the sort of thing FFP is trying to stop. Too many clubs are spending beyond their means, reliant on a fickle relationship with a single wealthy individual and it needs to be stopped for the good of the game and the economies that depend on the game.

I don't think it's breaking on contracts the FFP is trying to avoid it's clubs living beyond their means. So if Crappy Burgers had a £50m sponsorship AND PAID in full, UP FRONT then the league would be happy? I think it's more about sustainable investment and this is where it falls down. Albion are currently budgeting and planning on 27,000+ in terms of supporters. Now IF we were relegated next season I'm guessing the club wouldn't be able to adjust to the loss in revenue quickly enough, so FFP is flawed anyway?

 

[Hotchilidog]

"FFP will never happen, everyone knows it, they might as well scrap it now. "

Couldn't agree more!

I've been concerned since the outset that with that nice Mr Barber's apparent obsession with complying with FFP that we would just get left behind other clubs for whom the penny dropped a long, long time ago and who continued to spend, spend, spend. I truly hope we don't lose out in a big way because Mr Barber misread the runes and just carried on regardless. Only time will tell.

Even if others do as we suspect get away with breaking the rules I am glad that we at least are trying to make the club sustainable and not just spending for the sake of it. Given that we are in with a shout of the playoffs we are showing that it is possible to do things the right way and still have success.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Surely the most simplistic way is to create a labour % based on commercial income and gate receipts?

 

[B.W.]

I don't think it's breaking on contracts the FFP is trying to avoid it's clubs living beyond their means. So if Crappy Burgers had a £50m sponsorship AND PAID in full, UP FRONT then the league would be happy? I think it's more about sustainable investment and this is where it falls down. Albion are currently budgeting and planning on 27,000+ in terms of supporters. Now IF we were relegated next season I'm guessing the club wouldn't be able to adjust to the loss in revenue quickly enough, so FFP is flawed anyway?

Err no. As I have already said, your made up Crappy Burgers sponsorship deal is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense FFP is trying to stop.

 

[PFJ]

I beleive the FFP is a very good thing for us .We are budgeting sensibly and financially will be going in the right direction .Whether we would have done this without FFP or not, is open for debate. We are blessed with a wealthy owner who is also a fan. He is probably not as wealthy as some the Far Eastern or Middle eastern owners out there , but who cares. He is investing for a
sustainable future which hopefully will lead to a long stay in the Premiere League. The other owners out there seem to think short term and will leave as soon as the drain on there wealth becomes apparent. Both the owners of Cardiff and Hull have already hinted their commitment is flimsy .The more money they pour in , the more those clubs will owe. Don't be suprised if both those clubs in ,addition to Forest are not treading water in League 1 in the next 5 years . Have people forgotten about Pompey already?

 

[casbom]

I beleive the FFP is a very good thing for us .We are budgeting sensibly and financially will be going in the right direction .Whether we would have done this without FFP or not, is open for debate. We are blessed with a wealthy owner who is also a fan. He is probably not as wealthy as some the Far Eastern or Middle eastern owners out there , but who cares. He is investing for a
sustainable future which hopefully will lead to a long stay in the Premiere League. The other owners out there seem to think short term and will leave as soon as the drain on there wealth becomes apparent. Both the owners of Cardiff and Hull have already hinted their commitment is flimsy .The more money they pour in , the more those clubs will owe. Don't be suprised if both those clubs in ,addition to Forest are not treading water in League 1 in the next 5 years . Have people forgotten about Pompey already?

Isn't that the crux of the problem? Instead of FFP, couldn't some new rules come in to say that a high percentage of money being put into the Club, is not then owed by the club to the individual/Board? One of the issues that I can see/read is that Boards/Chairman are borrowing huge amount of monies against the Club assets, so when it goes tits up, the Chairman can walk away for free without risk and the Club then goes into Admin.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Err no. As I have already said, your made up Crappy Burgers sponsorship deal is EXACTLY the kind of nonsense FFP is trying to stop.

OK, but there is considerable margin for movement to support a club financially. If Skint were rumoured to be paying £100k, what's the value now? What if Crappy Burgers want an office at the ground, they pay for an amount of parking spaces seven days a week, they want the ability for vast hospitality but never use it leaving it free for the club to sell, there's any number of ways around this, it just doesn't work.

So QPR's debt is £177m, they don't appear to be cutting back on spending and are about to build a brand new 40,000 seater stadium ... how does that stack up under FFP?

How much is there recent shirt sponsorship deal?

 

[Ex-Staffs Gull]

Feck FFP, I want Albion to run properly. I dont want to do a palace or pompey and have the club screw creditors or even go out of business. I would rather bounce around the championship than risk all to get to the premier.

 

[B.W.]

OK, but there is considerable margin for movement to support a club financially. If Skint were rumoured to be paying £100k, what's the value now? What if Crappy Burgers want an office at the ground, they pay for an amount of parking spaces seven days a week, they want the ability for vast hospitality but never use it leaving it free for the club to sell, there's any number of ways around this, it just doesn't work.

So QPR's debt is £177m, they don't appear to be cutting back on spending and are about to build a brand new 40,000 seater stadium ... how does that stack up under FFP?

How much is there recent shirt sponsorship deal?

I think we need to wait and see whether the FL stand by FFP. As I said before, I have my doubts, but if they do, then football in general will be in much better shape, even if the 'spend, spend, spend'[ clubs suffer. Here's hoping the FL do have the balls. It can only be good for us if they do.

 

[nwgull]

"FFP will never happen, everyone knows it, they might as well scrap it now. "

Couldn't agree more!

I've been concerned since the outset that with that nice Mr Barber's apparent obsession with complying with FFP that we would just get left behind other clubs for whom the penny dropped a long, long time ago and who continued to spend, spend, spend. I truly hope we don't lose out in a big way because Mr Barber misread the runes and just carried on regardless. Only time will tell.

What a pile of shit. Mr Barber's 'obsession' with FFP is because Mr Bloom - his boss - has tasked him with reducing the club's losses and ultimately making it self-sustaining. This is because he can't, or doesn't want to, underwrite operating losses of £14m per year indefinitely.

FFP has come at a very good time for BHA, as this is what the current owner would be wanting to do anyway.

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

What a pile of shit. Mr Barber's 'obsession' with FFP is because Mr Bloom - his boss - has tasked him with reducing the club's losses and ultimately making it self-sustaining. This is because he can't, or doesn't want to, underwrite operating losses of £14m per year indefinitely.

FFP has come at a very good time for BHA, as this is what the current owner would be wanting to do anyway.

When he became the majority shareholder and chairman in 2009, Tony Bloom said that he would fund the ongoing losses at Withdean, pay for the stadium but that wanted the club to be self-financing when it moved to Falmer. These was widely reported at the time but the last point seems to have been largely forgotten now. With TB being so accessible on away trips I'm surprised someone hasn't asked him what his view is on this in 2014; you never know but his response just might see an end to these tedious FFP threads.

 

[Mackenzie]

Any recent success has been built off the back of our rich sugar daddy investing something like £200m into the team and infrastructure. I'm glad that we're working towards sustainability but I have a feeling that if FFP falls apart it will give the green light for TB to buy us a ticket at the big table. He won't want to be knocking about in the second division for too long.

 

[clapham_gull]

A clever gentleman I spoke to recently started thinking (just for fun) about possible loopholes. Specifically how an owner could "invest money" "under the radar" of FFP but perfectly legally but also within the rules laid down by the league.

One he came up is for the owner of a club to "invest" money by buying up all the spare seats in a private capacity on a game per game basis.

Is there anything to stop someone doing that ?

Obviously this doesn't apply to Amex (where spare seats wouldn't buy a player) or any club in particular. It was a theoretical argument.

I agree with FFP but worry that it's counter intuitive to business practices at the time when the league is trying to get companies run like businesses.

When people who hate football say to me, they should run like businesses I agree but counter with, well on the whole business people do run football clubs and often businesses go bankrupt. Actually more often than football clubs.

There has to be an acceptance that football clubs ARE different.

FFP doesn't do that.

 

[Silverhatch]

Feck FFP, I want Albion to run properly. I dont want to do a palace or pompey and have the club screw creditors or even go out of business. I would rather bounce around the championship than risk all to get to the premier.

Absolutely this. And I think this is at the heart at what Tony Bloom wants; a community club that can compete in the upper reaches of the footy pyramid but isn't underpinned by someone that might **** off at any minute. Of course, TB might skidaddle, but after three generations of Bloom involvement - it seems unlikely.

 

[pottert]

It looks like somebody has stolen my thunder.

I don't give a shit about FFP

All I want is for the ALBION to be self suffient.We have been given a massive helping hand from GOD or tony bloom whatever you want to call him.

It is now time for us to make it happen.

As much as I want us to be successful I equally want us to stand on our own 2 feet.

When our training ground opens this summer we will be able to attract any youngster in the world to join us.

 

[browneggsandham]

A clever gentleman I spoke to recently started thinking (just for fun) about possible loopholes. Specifically how an owner could "invest money" "under the radar" of FFP but perfectly legally but also within the rules laid down by the league.

One he came up is for the owner of a club to "invest" money by buying up all the spare seats in a private capacity on a game per game basis.

Is there anything to stop someone doing that ?

Obviously this doesn't apply to Amex (where spare seats wouldn't buy a player) or any club in particular. It was a theoretical argument.

I agree with FFP but worry that it's counter intuitive to business practices at the time when the league is trying to get companies run like businesses.

When people who hate football say to me, they should run like businesses I agree but counter with, well on the whole business people do run football clubs and often businesses go bankrupt. Actually more often than football clubs.

There has to be an acceptance that football clubs ARE different.

FFP doesn't do that.

Pretty sure I heard about something like this at Man City...I think the owners have 2 or 3 seats which they either purchase themselves or offer to their associates for something like 500k each.

 

[Triggaaar]

Pretty sure I heard about something like this at Man City...I think the owners have 2 or 3 seats which they either purchase themselves or offer to their associates for something like 500k each.

And they rent their facilities to their women's team. Their women's team don't have any money, and would never pay the rents they're charged, but the owners just give them the money, so they operate at a loss, to offset their men's team's losses.

The solution to all these issues is simple. The FA (or whoever oversees it) should have the final say in what is and isn't allowed. Eg, sponsorship has to be at the going rate, as does ticket sales etc. Anything that's not an arm's length transaction may well be changed by the FA when calculating FFP.

I truly hope we don't lose out in a big way because Mr Barber misread the runes