Redslo

That sign Italian policy and NC's high expectations led me to restart the game and play Wolves this past year. Boy were the wolves easy to get back to the premier league--at least with the initial database.

No one said we had to sell five players. We are simply limited to increasing our salary above 56 million to the net increase in non-TV income plus the net positive transfer income. Selling the players we did gives far more than the minimum maneuvering room necessary.

The increased TV money is not available to increase wages except insofar as that is why they are allowed to go up 4 million each year. Of course, if you are below the basic salary cap you can increase wages all the way up to the cap (56 million this year) and get the money from anywhere you want--so long as you don't run afoul of the other FFP provisions--which I believe might effect QPR but no one else.

Perhaps this is a clearer way of putting it. ML and NC may have had lots of ambition and planned to spend what it took to keep progressing. However, once the salary cap was approved (and not the rest of FFP which is mostly irrelevant to Southampton right now) this ambition could no longer be fulfilled. Lets say on April 1, 2014 KL handed Southampton a Check for 150 million pounds and said spend this any way you want to get into Europe next year what could they have done within the rules? Answers: Give raises totalling somewhat more than 4 million pounds to the current players and any new transfers. (In other words, no raises and one or two new transfers who would be paid like Lovren and Wanyana.) Expand the stadium. Raid other teams for players under 17. Pay off any remaining costs on the new training center. Hire more coaches and scouts. Give pay raises to coaches and scouts. Hire more other non-player employees and give raises to such people. Donate money to qualifying charities. Hire attorneys to sue the BPL over FFP. There are probably other things but you get the idea. The one thing that could not be done was transfer in lots of new high priced players.

Sorry I misunderstood. But I still think you would do well to inherit an NHL team.

To be fair, Southampton FC may use a swiss bank account for some reason. And Altidore is better than he seemed at Sunderland. I can't help but wonder how his season would have been different if the referee hadn't called back his amazing goal last fall. Of course, he would not be right for us because he needs to go someplace where he will be the number one striker.

I am a little confused. Does this mean that MLG has something to do with the FM data for Southampton? If not, what does it mean? If so, how does one gather such data? Also, I recognize that FM data is not a completely reliable source. It was just easy to use and internally consistent. I also recognize that I did not make full and accurate use of the information it did have. I was going to address that in another blog entry once some new players were signed. (Or, as some of you would say, never.)

To be fair, if you inherited an NHL hockey team you would be able to be both profitable and competitive because you would be in a league without relegation and where no teams had unbeatable systemic advantages.

That's an easy question to answer--it is not. Financial Fair Play has never been about fairness. If you want to assume good faith on the part of its creators, their goal was football club bankruptcy avoidance. If you don't assume good faith, there are lots of other likely goals.

I am also the author. I seem to own my name on the internet. The Rudy Kraft (American) football player may be my grandfather. We are not sure.

That is me. I had nothing to do with the artwork however.

The smoke and mirrors--as you call it--is in part necessitated by the BPL salary cap rules. See my blog for more details: redsloscf.BlogSpot.com

Thanks for that link. If I am going to keep blogging about this stuff I may have to learn some UK tax law.

My real name is Rudy Kraft. Google me. Let me know what you find since I don't know how google would personalize the search in the UK.

Washsaint and Buctootim: The downtown area of SLO was what caused me to move here 18 years ago. I was passing through on my way to Santa Barbara and really liked it. I needed to move out of Eureka for business reasons--I am an appellate attorney who gets court appointed cases through the state so I needed to be more centrally located. I picked here because it was nice. CanadaSaint: That is my interpretation of what is going on. But I could be wrong because there could be special rules for loans that I can't find and because I have no way of knowing if it is all a master plan to loot the team and then sell. I don't think it is but I cannot know that. Halo Stickman: I have already achieved those statuses playing various games over the years. This will merely shift the focus of my addiction. Greenbridge: So long as the salary cap continues to work the way it works now, it will always be something of a barrier to progress for us. But if they do what I think they are doing this year, the problem should be lessened. To really lessen it there needs to be more regularly increasing regular income. More and better sponsorships is one way to go. Another way is lucrative foreign tours. Given our good performance last year and all the publicity this summer, we probably could have filled a few stadiums in the US. If we do well again this season, the possibilities will still be there next year. Somewhere on the Echo boards is a post of mine discussing how much more money the big teams make in the summer than we do. Greenbridge: If people keep reading (or at least page hitting) my blog I will eventually discuss how I became a Southampton Fan.

Yes, no, and maybe. Yes, if we increase our salary spending this year, that will serve as the base in future years, with the ability to bump it each year by 4 million pounds plus increased commercial income etc. No, it is not enough to have a net positive transfer income. We actually have to spend it on salary to increase the salary cap. Maybe, this is based on rules put out covering the three seasons of the new TV contracts. Rules for 2016-2017 and beyond are not yet in place. Possibly there will be no salary cap then. Or maybe it will be calculated in a different way.

I am unconnected with Southampton FC. I live in San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. I have been toying with the idea of doing a Southampton blog for nearly two years. Less than a week ago the ill-informed discussion on the Echo forum caused me to decide to start the blog. Having done so, I wanted interested people to read it. I then decided to see what other Saints forums there were and to post to them with cites to my blog as relevant. This seems to work as every time I mention my blog (redsloscf.BlogSpot.com) there is a small burst of page hits. The blog is not, by the way, a financial benefit to me. It earns no money and because I am self employed I sort of lose money by doing this stuff rather than working--as I should be doing right now. Of course, I can't prove any of this so people will believe what they want. Also, my pro board status may be deceptive. If a high quality CB is not signed something is very wrong. And I am not happy with Cork going into the last year of his contract. Potential future blog posts: Did Les Reed Lie to Us? More Salary Cap nonsense Did Ralph Krueger Lie to Us? How Did I Become a Southampton Fan Our Transfer Activity Viewed through the Lens of FM 2014. Still More Salary Cap Nonsense Thoughts on Calculating the Value of a Player Should Everyone Read the BPL Handbook? Is it Time to Start Playing World of Warcraft Again? I can't promise to write all of them of course.

Redslo WG does not mean anything to me. Redslo is based on the color red which is part of all my online gaming characters' names and slo is for San Luis Obispo where I live.

In my view, there is no benefit to withholding the information now that the sales have gone through. Earlier in the summer, we needed to seem to be completely reluctant to sell. And the big sales needed to go through after July 1.

It is not in my blog, but that would be another good subject to write about. In this answer, I am using information from David Conn's 1 May 2014 (you don't know how hard it is for me, as an American, to type a date in that order) Guardian article. I assume it is reliable, but it doesn't really matter for this quick answer. Obviously, this information is from last year. His article is at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/01/premier-league-accounts-club-by-club-david-conn Arsenal is up 11 mil, but I have no doubt their income increased by 7 mil. Aston Villa is up less than the 4 mil permitted under the rules. Clearly, they are having financial issues and are limited by the rules. Plus, they no longer have anyone to kick in lots of money so they probably don't want to raise salary any way. Chelsea is up 6 mil. I am confident they increased their commercial income by 2 mil. Everton's wage bill was flat. Bah going through each one is pointless. Let me summarize. Relegated teams don't have to worry about this. Nearly all of the other teams were either under the 52 mil cap or increased by less than 4 mil. The only teams that look like they might have potential problems are Stoke (7 mil increase), Manchester United (19 mil increase), Manchester City (31 mil increase), and Liverpool (13 mil increase). I have no doubt that Man United and Liverpool added enough additional sponsorship money to be ok. Stoke has a bunch of sponsors so I think it likely they have the necessary 3 mil in increased sponsorships. In fact, since their primary sponsor BET365 is owned by the same people who own Stoke they can, and probably do, increase the sponsorship as necessary. True this is a related party transaction, but I think bet365 is probably so lucrative, that it would appear to be fair value. That leaves only Man City. Their related party sponsorship deal is dubious but only 27 mil a year needs to be valid for their salary increase to pass muster. I suspect it does--especially in conjunction with other less dubious sponsorships. Southampton has this problem (in my view) because we are the only team at or above the salary cap with the desire to grow significantly. (Actually, West Ham probably has such a desire too, but their new stadium and London presence may make this easier for them). In other words, our player sales are, to a certain extent, a sign of the team's ambition. That being said, I think the team would have been happy to sell Shaw and Lallana and kept everyone else.

Well, I just paid my five pounds so I can respond freely now. And the best left back is clearly OJ Simpson.

I guess I need to quote the actual rules from the BPH handbook found at http://m.premierleague.com/content/dam/premierleague/site-content/News/publications/handbooks/premier-league-handbook-2013-14.pdf This is rule E.18: E.18. If in any of Contract Years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 a Club’s aggregated Player Services Costs and Image Contract Payments: E.18.1. exceed £52m, £56m, or £60m respectively; and E.18.2. have increased by more than £4m when compared with the previous Contract Year or by more than £4m, £8m or £12m respectively when compared with Season 2012/13; then the Club must satisfy the Board that such excess increase as is referred to in E.18.2 arises as a result of contractual commitments entered into on or before 31 January 2013, and/or that it has been funded only by Club Own Revenue Uplift and/or profit from player trading as disclosed in the Club’s Annual Accounts for that Contract Year. Player trading income is clearly available to increase the salary cap. I find it interesting that the rule uses "and/or" several times. I interpret this to mean that if your Revenue Uplift is negative, you can ignore that number and just use trading profits and vice versa. The rules also define Club Own Revenue Uplift, by the way: A.1.32. "Club Own Revenue Uplift" means any increase in a Club's revenue in a Contract Year when compared with its revenue in Contract Year 2012/13 (excluding Central Funds fee payments from its revenue in both the Contract Years). The Board may if necessary adjust the calculation of a Club Own Revenue Uplift: (a) to ensure that it is calculated on a like-for-like basis; and/or (b) to restate to Fair Market Value any consideration which arises from a Related Party Transaction. The Board shall not make any such adjustment without first having given the Club reasonable opportunity to make submissions as to whether such adjustment is necessary and/or (where Rule A.5.2 applies) what constitutes the Fair Market Value of the said consideration. Hopefully, this clarifies things. It certainly clarifies that I need to write another blog entry on the subject, but I will probably wait until I see what happens tomorrow with the expected incoming loans.

Specifically, if we had kept last year's team together, we would have been limited to total wage increases of approximately 4 million pounds. That would include the wages of new players, and pay increases for Cork and other players signing new contracts. Quite clearly, that would not have been enough money to improve the team. In other words, players had to be sold for a profit for the team to progress. I discuss this on my blog: redsloscf.BlogSpot.com

The critical restraint on Southampton's advancement right now is not FFP per se, but the BPL's salary cap rules (which are, of course, part of the BPL FFP rules). Because of the Salary cap Southampton had no choice but to make a big profit selling players this year so that profit could be used to expand the team's salary cap. I have discussed this in more detail on my blog: redsloscf.BlogSpot.com

All the transfer profits cannot be respent on players--at least not on transfer fees because of the way the BPL salary cap works. I have addressed this is more detail on my blog: redsloscf.BlogSpot.com