FFP - Can we get a consensus as to what it really means ?

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Many of the current threads speculate as to whether the owners will / won't put money in but I would question as to whether they even have an option. Can we pool any knowledge we have on FFP to try to figure out the budget constraints Steve Clarke may have for next year ? It would be interesting to see what people would then do given those constraints. Some rough starting points based on a quick visit to the football league website

> Published accounts run on a calendar year. Reading just scraped through last year in terms of compliance.
> Allowable losses fall from £3m last year to £2m this year.
> Parachute payments are staggered £15m, £17m, £8m, £8m.
> So this year we have a £9m fall in income and we have to reduce losses to £2m so a net £10m cost reduction / income increase required.
> In terms of income we may have around £2m from the cup run and we may lose £1m in lower season ticket renewals. It will be very interesting to see if the stadium is renamed next year to Thai airlines along with shirt sponsorship. But we'll hold on that for now
> We can lose an additional £3m providing that the Thai's write it off and don't burden the club with debt. Let's assume they will for now

On that basis a very rough cut budget is that we'll need to see £6m cost reduction at least for next season. So how might that come about ?

> Players leaving being replaced by youngsters coming into the squad. The likes of Guthrie and Kelly alone for example will probably save north of £2m. Others such as Edwards will also leave of course.
> Players being offered reduced contracts. Pearce, Fedders, Jem. One key thing to remember here is that that all championship clubs are being squeezed so even a reduced offer has a good chance of being accepted since it is effectively at the new going rate.

Based on a very rough budget drawn from the above I would expect a summer of trying to sell some players with a few signings and some loans coming back in. So another tough year ahead. Longer term I think the club are well positioned in that academy investment has been made and that doesn't count towards FFP. Next summer the likes of Pog could be replaced by up to 10 youngsters at the same net cost for example. So next season I'd expect to see more of the youngsters start to emerge. The final clear out of big contracts then follows next summer and we'll have room to spend in the transfer market also. This is something that the club has clearly planned for.

All of the above is just to set a rough framework so please feel free to add thoughts and opinion. The debate about next season will then be somewhat more refined in terms of what budget is really available. Longer term I think we're in good shape !

[genome]

Good post. Despite what Clarke says I think next season is all about staying up and just doing what we can. I just don't see how we can afford to completely rebuild in one summer unless someone comes in with money for Pog which is very unlikely to happen.

The Russians really fcuked us up.

[Nameless]

Don't the FFP rules change totally next season ?
There's a website some where that has all the detail but IIRC there is more flexibility and losses are averaged over. 3 years rather than over a season.
I heard that last season was the really tricky one for us and having passed the club were pretty confident next season wouldn't be as tough. I guess the owners have actually had time to get things under control rather than having to do emergency work to deal with the TSI fallout.
I do think getting the revised FFP rules is fairly crucial to trying to understand the facts

[OLLIE KEARNS]

I think your correct but that the loss of £2m plus £3m written off is still about the average for the 3 years. Plus the parachute money reducing and then going away is still the case in terms of lost income. There are a couple of other major variables

1. We borrowed future parachute payments from Vibrac which caused some major issues. I am assuming we are now clear of that in terms of debt repayment. It could be that the £9m drop this year is not such a big issue because of timing of borrowing / repayment.
2. We sold players for approx £8m last summer. Not sure how that is accounted for with the FFP rules. I'm assuming the income is spread and that we don't have to sell for similar sums of money. Not that we could anyway !

If the Thai's do want to invest then I wonder how much could go into stadium naming rights for example. Man City tried to book a crazy amount against that but FFP would only allow the market rate to count. I also wonder if they could funnel investment by selling Anton Ferdinand to Thai Police for £10m. Maybe there was a master plan behind his signing all along !

[Snowball]

Wouldn't it be GOOD then to have 2-3-4 loanees in where the loaning club
says we only pay their wages if they don't play?

I understand the problem with blooding kids (give them 25 minutes per game when we can)
but if we had 3 x 35K a week players, that's really useful and allows us to spend a bit more
on other players.

Am I mis-reading this?

[Vision]

But from 2016-17, finances of clubs in the second tier will be monitored over three seasons during which time they may lose up to £15m without having to detail how that loss will be funded.

The new rules allow for a club's losses to go beyond the £15m cap over three seasons but not exceed an aggregate of £39m (averaging £13m a season).

Clubs which post losses of between £15m and £39m across three seasons will face additional regulation and other penalties will apply over £39m.

[OLLIE KEARNS]

Thanks Vision. So still under the given constraints for 15/16 then right ? Does the loss above the £15m from 16/17 still have to be written off by the owners ? Otherwise it would be a complete reversal of the FFP principles applied over the past couple of years. If yes then it would really come down to whether or not the owners are ready to invest significant sums from 16/17 onwards I guess.

[From Despair To Where?]

This might clear it up

http://www.acronymattic.com/ffp.html

, or maybe not.

[genome]

This might clear it up

http://www.acronymattic.com/ffp.html

, or maybe not.

Frequent Flopper Program

[Franchise FC]

My understanding of the punishment is that any small club contravening the rules will get severely punished.

QPR on the other hand ...

[CholseyRoyal]

My understanding of the punishment is that any small club contravening the rules will get severely punished.

QPR on the other hand ...

I do so hope QPR get relegated which is looking extremely likely ATM.

I wonder if the Football League will allow them back in because if not Conference here they come

[Nameless]

not sure they could join the Conference. Doubt there is a route in other than relegation from Div 2 or promotion from below.

[From Despair To Where?]

With the current goings on at Scours Lane, what chance a place could being available in the Hellenic League?

[Ian Royal]

not sure they could join the Conference. Doubt there is a route in other than relegation from Div 2 or promotion from below.

I've heard it said previously that the Conference rules on finances are stricter than the League, so if they don't get into the FL, they may struggle with the Conference too.

There are four possibilities in descending order of likelihood IMO
1) They get a reduced fine payable over a longer period after some wrangling
2) They pay up in full after a fair amount of wrangling
3) The FL caves completely and they get away with it
4) They go completely bust

I can't see them carrying on if they can't pay and would otherwise end up having to rejoin somewhere below Conference South.

[JC]

This helps a bit

http://www.football-league.co.uk/news/a ... 66799.aspx

At the bottom it says losses for 2015/16 can be £13 million compared to £6 million for this season

[Nameless]

not sure they could join the Conference. Doubt there is a route in other than relegation from Div 2 or promotion from below.

I've heard it said previously that the Conference rules on finances are stricter than the League, so if they don't get into the FL, they may struggle with the Conference too.

There are four possibilities in descending order of likelihood IMO
1) They get a reduced fine payable over a longer period after some wrangling
2) They pay up in full after a fair amount of wrangling
3) The FL caves completely and they get away with it
4) They go completely bust

I can't see them carrying on if they can't pay and would otherwise end up having to rejoin somewhere below Conference South.

Could they not also be placed under transfer embargo until they have fully met FFP, and paid the fines.

[linkenholtroyal]

That could work quite well we could get Mccarthy back for peanuts if they are that desperate for money wave 500k in there face and see if they bite, it would be nice to feel rich in comparison to another club, its been a while

[Coppelled_Streets]

That could work quite well we could get Mccarthy back for peanuts if they are that desperate for money wave 500k in there face and see if they bite, it would be nice to feel rich in comparison to another club, its been a while

Yeah, sure they'll take £500k for someone that cost about 12 times that a year ago..

[madstadblues]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32611521 No idea how this relates to FFP.

[tidus_mi2]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32611521 No idea how this relates to FFP.

£10m losses breeches Championship FFP rules doesn't it? Or was that the year you could go up to £13m losses with owner investment? Either way it's a moot point as they've been promoted so avoid any Football League FFP sanctions just like QPR. As for this season, I don't think they breeched FFP rules anyway.

But it puts in to perspective this whole "little Bournemouth" BS when they've lost £25m over the past 2 seasons.