On The Assumption That This Is Correct

[Wurzel]

Good blog on a complicated subject written so that even I can understand it. I'd like to think it's true, certainly puts the loan deals into perspective if it is and the chain of events from NC onwards fits the scenario.

 

... Secondly, Lovren sought to force his move apparently against the club's wishes. The new manager wanted him to stay if he could be persuaded and if he had, £20m would have been lost to the theory calculations. Thirdly, why resist the Schneiderlin move which would have freed up more salary whilst agreeing to break Chambers' contract which was much lower. On this theory, surely it would have been Schneiderlin who would have gone and Chambers would have stayed, especially as Chambers value would have been likely to increase over time.

......

 

Maybe the intention was to let Morgan go (which he hints had been promised) and keep Lovren but DL put a spanner in the works by forcing his unplanned move whilst MS was still away. Once he went there was no need to let Morgan go. Having said that an "all the best" type tweet from MS to DL would indicate no ill feeling between them (although Guly seemed ****ed off with him on twitter) but maybe MS was/is not aware that's why his sale was stopped.

 

Chambers , agree that's the one that doesn't seem to make any sense unless RK has put all his faith on Clyne and saw him as surplus to requirements. If that's the case can only assume he has - or had - a big name central defender lined up.

 

Will be adding this blog to my GReader don't miss list for hopefully further insights.

[shurlock]

Having read Moneyball as a holiday read many years ago, this blog really does seem to cover a lot of the issues raised this summer. For those who haven't read it, it is the analysis of how the Oakland A's baseball team outthought and out played all their much richer rivals by use of statistical analysis of what actually won games of baseball. They used a number of highly educated people to work out what a player was worth to the team and recruited players who would make the team better. If a really rich underachieving team wanted to sign one of their players for more than he was worth, then they let him go, and made the team stronger by recruiting lower paid players who actually would make a difference. The success of the operation, was and still is astonishing for a team with one of the lowest budgets in the league.

 

Why this is important for us is that we have a strong team of analysts and coaches doing exactly this, but like the Oakland A's, we effectively have a salary cap, FFP.

 

If you want to know why other teams aren't doing the same, it is because they often don't have the players to sell, or have buyers falling over themselves to buy them. I mean I'm not sure there are many CL scouts at West Ham v Stoke. A lot of the transfer talk around all clubs is about players moving from mid table teams to CL teams, there is little appetite for players to move from say Sunderland to Swansea, and this is because FFP means that the salary you get at one club is going to be pretty similar to that you get at another.

 

The other issue is that Saints don't want to be the first team to fall foul of FFP in the PL. For anyone outside the top six, falling foul of this could be a real problem if we are faced with a punishment that serves as a warning to everyone else. Of course, if you are in the top six and breach it, there is likely to be no punishment whatsoever.

 

What are you on about?

 

Moneyball has nothing to do with this. It's about using data -rather than raw intuition- to eke out small, overlooked advantages on the pitch. Big Sam was doing it years ago, well before FFP. In the case of Bolton, the Oakland As etc, it's more about how Davids can defeat Goliaths.

 

If anything, salary cap rules are the most relaxed in baseball, compared to the NFL and NBA. MoneyBall was inspired by the relative lack of rules to level the playing field, not because of them.

Edited 5 August, 2014 by shurlock

[OldNick]

I meant no direct offence OldNick, you just posted an example of a certain way of thinking that comes with age. We are all guilty of it: Gradually we become less able, and less willing, to grasp new ideas and more vehemently stick to the ones we know. It is human nature.

 

For example, here I have entered the conversation about football in general, the FFP and how it all currently relates to Saints. But then you start banging on about how I am 'desperate for RK not to be misleading' and that I am 'grasping at straws'!? Completely missing my point and my stance. I have been talking about this, posting about this and writing about this for a lot longer than either of the RKs tenure at our club. My interest in this goes beyond Saints, yet you still only think narrowly about your club - which is fine, but exactly what I said the problem was - it is forcing you to see things skewed, when a little perspective would really help you see things clearer.

 

Believe what you like, but I am not holding Redslo's blog up as some sort of 'justification' at what is happening at Saints, I just feel if more people were educated to the facts of football then they would say less naive things like 'selling the family silver' in regard to player transfers and be more open to different (new) ways of running a football club.

No offence taken Polaroid, i know my faults. I look at things through my SFC specs. I do not get the FFP stance on this as, I do not believe the people in place have the same ambition that ML and NC had. Therefore I cant hold to the argument that we want to go through the glass ceiling. What they want to do is to put in place the concept of never getting relegated and developing youth players to be sold year on year. Chambers could not have been part of getting the wage structure right and the paln to evolve would have needed us to have players wanted by Man U Liverpool etc to pay the vast sums.

I will accept i am missing some of the more unique parts of this plan, but the easy idiot guide to all this which Iam a fully paid up member, is that KL wants to get some of her inheritance out and so balance her risk has been reduced. The Liebherr way was always every business has to stand on its own feet, therefore balancing the books may be all this is.

[The9]

I think if you also have a look at players like Sharp, who is available on a free and is a very good championship player yet no one seems willing to take him because of his wages, adds more weight to the argument.As you say, success to quickly. Players likely (in the lower leagues) had big achievement related bonuses, big pay rises for promotions.

 

Not really, the FFP we're covered by only applies to Prem clubs, and no Prem club is going to sign Sharp at the moment, he has no pedigree at this level and hasn't really featured that highly for even a Championship side for 3 years. If there were Prem clubs interested and then baulking at his wages, there's your evidence. But there aren't.

 

A few Championship sides have had Sharp on loan - we can only speculate about how much of his wages they were paying. But as they're likely to have a lower threshold for wages overall anyway due to the lower incomes at that level (as well as a lower wage cap limit), all it really says is that his wages are too high for Championship clubs, it doesn't say anything about his wages in relation to other clubs' Prem wages.

[Sour Mash]

It isn't, that's why the top clubs want it.

 

All the noise about the top sides pulling up the drawbridge so that no-one is even allowed to spend massively even if they want to was gone over hundreds of times when the rules were passed (and Cortese voted against it).

 

As for the "Saints trying to meet FFP by selling loads of players and getting loans in", it just doesn't add up. As already noted Ralph said this was nothing to do with FFP when asked (on Sky Sports).

 

What I CAN believe is that Cortese promised the players huge bonuses for coming 8th and it wouldn't have been financially prudent to keep them IF all we wanted to do was establish ourselves in midtable, but even that makes no sense when you consider Gaston is still here.

 

I'm afraid this is nothing more than the club not realising the full implications of Cortese leaving on the playing staff he'd been mollycoddling, and the degree to which the top players leaving will affect results. This was not a the plan - Krueger himself also stated they weren't looking to sell.

 

All of those things considered, the failure to get the replacements in place before the players left was still a mistake - I can only assume on THAT front that FFP might have been an issue and the club wouldn't go over the wage cap for a month or two whilst sales were agreed, but it didn't really take long for the leavers to go, so that's a pretty weak excuse too.

 

Why doesn't it add up? The only question I have on it is where the increase in tv prize money sits.

[adrian lord]

FFP has ironically raped little old Saints for the benefit of the Big Boys. Great...

[Sour Mash]

Not really, the FFP we're covered by only applies to Prem clubs, and no Prem club is going to sign Sharp at the moment, he has no pedigree at this level and hasn't really featured that highly for even a Championship side for 3 years. If there were Prem clubs interested and then baulking at his wages, there's your evidence. But there aren't.

 

A few Championship sides have had Sharp on loan - we can only speculate about how much of his wages they were paying. But as they're likely to have a lower threshold for wages overall anyway due to the lower incomes at that level (as well as a lower wage cap limit), all it really says is that his wages are too high for Championship clubs, it doesn't say anything about his wages in relation to other clubs' Prem wages.

 

It tells you that his wages are likely to be pretty high in relation to his standing within the club though.

[shurlock]

Interesting theory but cannot take it seriously.

 

Leaving aside the validity and understanding of the numbers, it fails to explain the extent of player sales we have seen. Even it concedes our case is borderline -as such, it might explain one sale but not five sales. That is what has happened.

 

Nor does it explain why many of the other midsized clubs aren't in the same boat, especially when you consider their wages/turnover ratio etc is significantly worse.

 

The idea that we're using the loan system so we can kick on even stronger the season after next. If Carslberg did denial...

Edited 5 August, 2014 by shurlock

[The9]

Good blog on a complicated subject written so that even I can understand it. I'd like to think it's true, certainly puts the loan deals into perspective if it is and the chain of events from NC onwards fits the scenario.

 

 

 

Maybe the intention was to let Morgan go (which he hints had been promised) and keep Lovren but DL put a spanner in the works by forcing his unplanned move whilst MS was still away. Once he went there was no need to let Morgan go. Having said that an "all the best" type tweet from MS to DL would indicate no ill feeling between them (although Guly seemed ****ed off with him on twitter) but maybe MS was/is not aware that's why his sale was stopped.

 

Chambers , agree that's the one that doesn't seem to make any sense unless RK has put all his faith on Clyne and saw him as surplus to requirements. If that's the case can only assume he has - or had - a big name central defender lined up.

 

Will be adding this blog to my GReader don't miss list for hopefully further insights.

 

Lovren's hairdresser bidding him goodbye on Twitter the week after the end of the season suggests we knew Lovren was going to go a long time before anyone went away. I wouldn't be surprised that part of the "been promised to leave" stuff was Cortese spin designed to keep any unsettled players last summer, with the hope that his goal of Champions League football would keep them this time around.

[Sour Mash]

Lovren's hairdresser bidding him goodbye on Twitter the week after the end of the season suggests we knew Lovren was going to go a long time before anyone went away. I wouldn't be surprised that part of the "been promised to leave" stuff was Cortese spin designed to keep any unsettled players last summer, with the hope that his goal of Champions League football would keep them this time around.

 

Yeah, base our knowledge around a message from Lovren's hairdresser ha ha.

[OldNick]

Yeah, base our knowledge around a message from Lovren's hairdresser ha ha.

probably a better source than Krueger or Reed;)

[The9]

It tells you that his wages are likely to be pretty high in relation to his standing within the club though.

 

Only because his standing in relation to Prem game time is so low. We know that. It doesn't mean his wages are "high", just that he's not value for money. We pay plenty of players not to start for the first XI every week though.

 

It's actually difficult to find a comparison - who are his peers from the same signing period to compare him with?

 

Tadanari Lee came in the same transfer window and has left for a lower standard.

 

Cork, De Ridder, Fox and Hooiveld were all signed the summer before for the Championship campaign (possibly lower relative wages but bigger [Championship] success bonuses)? Rodriguez joined in the June soon after Prem promotion and would be on a "Prem deal" not a "Championship deal", if such distinctions can be made.

 

I guess based on that, as De Ridder and Fox have left and Cork is clearly a tier above, only Hooiveld is really comparable. I'd expect a striker to be on more than a CB anyway (especially when we were just out of L1 when we signed Hooiveld and looking good for the Prem when Sharp joined).

 

So what we're really saying here is that "Sharp doesn't play much and should be loaned out if money is a concern", which is what we've been doing anyway.

[Redslo]

No offence taken Polaroid, i know my faults. I look at things through my SFC specs. I do not get the FFP stance on this as, I do not believe the people in place have the same ambition that ML and NC had. Therefore I cant hold to the argument that we want to go through the glass ceiling. What they want to do is to put in place the concept of never getting relegated and developing youth players to be sold year on year. Chambers could not have been part of getting the wage structure right and the paln to evolve would have needed us to have players wanted by Man U Liverpool etc to pay the vast sums.

I will accept i am missing some of the more unique parts of this plan, but the easy idiot guide to all this which Iam a fully paid up member, is that KL wants to get some of her inheritance out and so balance her risk has been reduced. The Liebherr way was always every business has to stand on its own feet, therefore balancing the books may be all this is.

 

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.

Edited 5 August, 2014 by Redslo

[The9]

Yeah, base our knowledge around a message from Lovren's hairdresser ha ha.

 

It jarred at the time, but it clearly gave away that he did not intend to come back and had already said goodbyes to people in the area, even if there was a rapid climbdown from her (presumably after Lovren got in touch). That shows that the theory above, that we wanted to keep Lovren and get rid of Schneiderlin, wasn't viable in the timescales as they happened.

 

I'm sure Morgan now sees his World Cup call up as a double-edged sword, you can bet he'd have gone before the likes of Chambers if he hadn't been hastily whisked away by France.

[Redslo]

Why doesn't it add up? The only question I have on it is where the increase in tv prize money sits.

 

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.

[Lallana's Left Peg]

It's an interesting blog - I am not sure our transfer activities this summer have been planned nor do I think that we would be seeking ways to increase our wage budget via loans however as a theory I can see some sense in it.

[The9]

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.

 

...

 

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.

 

This is surely only relevant if we were actually showing any signs of doing that.

[Block34]

This is surely only relevant if we were actually showing any signs of doing that.

 

Isn't that an oxymoron type of thing though - we can't bring them in, so there's no signs of bringing them in?

[Charlie Wayman]

http://redsloscf.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Then it would explain an awful lot and also suggest that the board know exactly what they are doing.

 

An Interesting read regardless

 

Amazing that he has so much free time to spend on speculation about in reality very little in life. It's the sort of stuff that optimists love to read although there is nothing tangible to support any of it.

[sadoldgit]

A very interesting read. I know that this wont fit in with the way the bedwetters want to see things but I have long thought that the Board are not a bunch of idiots and do know what they are doing. It may or may not be true but it carries just as much weight (if not more) than the many baseless claims that KL is asset stripping and the club is going to be sold.

[Saint86]

My name is Rudy Kraft... hmm, RK?

[The9]

Isn't that an oxymoron type of thing though - we can't bring them in, so there's no signs of bringing them in?

 

The argument is that we've HAD TO SELL 5 players to enable us to meet FFP, and somehow can't buy replacements because FFP stops us doing so. This is clearly absolute cobblers. We were nowhere near the wage cap, and the Chairman has said the sales had nothing to do with it. Bearing in mind that he could have lied and said "errrr, absolutely it's to meet FFP", completely got out of jail free, and no-one would have been any the wiser for a year or so.

 

That's not an oxymoron either. It's a self-contradicting term, like "the hairy bald man", "the intelligent idiot", etc.

 

*Awaits thread tangent*.

[The9]

A very interesting read. I know that this wont fit in with the way the bedwetters want to see things but I have long thought that the Board are not a bunch of idiots and do know what they are doing. It may or may not be true but it carries just as much weight (if not more) than the many baseless claims that KL is asset stripping and the club is going to be sold.

 

This, I agree with. Can't decide what it is we ARE doing, but pretty sure it's neither struggling to stay within FFP or asset stripping.

 

Even the comments about "inherited a difficult financial situation" outright refuted the need for player sales - though Ralphio has also said "the silence was necessary to get the best price" so who knows, really?

[ericb]

Isn't the moneyball model exactly the model that Lyon have used to aid their progression to becoming a champions league side?

 

There's a good blog post on it here http://www.msg.com/teams/red-bulls/bulls-run/olympique-lyonnais-succeeds-with-its-own-version-of-moneyball.html and actually a model that Cortese alluded to early in his career at saints (before he went mental and decided to spend £30m each transfer window).

 

Anyway i think the bigger question is, what the hell was an american doing choosing to support a side who at the time were in league one!?

[The9]

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.)

 

Yes, he's the stat guy for FM. I'm sure he'd love to tell you how one gathers that data. He's also to blame for the Echo not being a paper in the game, and Saints having a "sign Italians" policy in FM14, apparently.

[The9]

Why doesn't it add up? The only question I have on it is where the increase in tv prize money sits.

 

The phrase "Luke Shaw along provided over 600,000 pounds a week in salary cap space" is one of the places where the source is puzzling me.

[Saint86]

The argument is that we've HAD TO SELL 5 players to enable us to meet FFP, and somehow can't buy replacements because FFP stops us doing so. This is clearly absolute cobblers. We were nowhere near the wage cap, and the Chairman has said the sales had nothing to do with it. Bearing in mind that he could have lied and said "errrr, absolutely it's to meet FFP", completely got out of jail free, and no-one would have been any the wiser for a year or so.

 

That's not an oxymoron either. It's a self-contradicting term, like "the hairy bald man", "the intelligent idiot", etc.

 

*Awaits thread tangent*.

 

I think you've failed to understand that blog or the fules of FFP....

[Saint86]

The phrase "Luke Shaw along provided over 600,000 pounds a week in salary cap space" is one of the places where the source is puzzling me.

 

Look you are being silly....... £30m/52 weeks = £577,000 per week.... Plus his actual salary of £25k/week.... Equals more or less £600k per week.... Ta ******* da!!!

 

You don't understand ffp, you are making a fool of yourself, and its frigging tedious.

[The9]

Just tracked down the 2013 figures... "•Total group wages, including player wages, increased to £47.1m in 2013 from £28.7m in 2012.". I guess we could be at or near the £52m limit.

 

Oh and Sour Mash: "Crucially, all payments from the ‘Central Fund’ (mainly derived from Sky/BT TV payments) are excluded from the calculation of ‘Own Revenue Uplift’"

[The9]

Look you are being silly....... £30m/52 weeks = £577,000 per week.... Plus his actual salary of £25k/week.... Equals more or less £600k per week.... Ta ******* da!!!

 

You don't understand ffp, you are making a fool of yourself, and its frigging tedious.

 

Ah, ok, I understand where it comes from now - I thought it was just referring to his wages, not also including the value of the transfer divided by number of weeks.

[The9]

I think you've failed to understand that blog or the fules of FFP....

 

I wasn't referring to either of those in the article - but having just seen our wages figure for 2013 I'm happy to perform a massive u-turn.

 

EDIT: Or at least would be if it was just player wages.

Edited 5 August, 2014 by The9

[Polaroid Saint]

Aye. From a global perspective FFP is just another in a long line of poorly thought-out regulations with which football can maintain the status quo.

 

It is not just (these) regulations that govern Saints (and 98% of other clubs) ability/inability to 'compete' and such regs are not new phenomena.

 

The 'best' clubs (my own objective agenda) ate always looking for a competitive edge in an increasingly closed market, for example in Saints case, the academy was always seen as a way to 'level the playing field' against opposition with more spending power.

 

I think it is good that this geeky/murky football finance stuff has gone 'over ground'; as the more fans of more clubs that are aware, the more we can claim our clubs back as supporters and not be led blind by promises in either direction.

[shurlock]

Just tracked down the 2013 figures... "•Total group wages, including player wages, increased to £47.1m in 2013 from £28.7m in 2012.". I guess we could be at or near the £52m limit.

 

Oh and Sour Mash: "Crucially, all payments from the ‘Central Fund’ (mainly derived from Sky/BT TV payments) are excluded from the calculation of ‘Own Revenue Uplift’"

 

As far as I understand things, FFP only applies to player wages (definitely the case for the championship)

 

All the published data on which the blogger draws, however, include director remuneration and general club staff wages. As such, the relevant figures are likely to be lower and a simplification by the blogger.

 

Think Rodgers gave the precise breakdown in his interview with Blackmore who had also erred on this point.

Edited 5 August, 2014 by shurlock

[Wurzel]

This, I agree with. Can't decide what it is we ARE doing, but pretty sure it's neither struggling to stay within FFP or asset stripping.

 

Even the comments about "inherited a difficult financial situation" outright refuted the need for player sales - though Ralphio has also said "the silence was necessary to get the best price" so who knows, really?

 

Maybe (note my maybes mean I'm speculating not stating a theory ) there wasn't a "need" for player sales at the time whilst other options were being explored. Those options could have included explaining the situation to players that promised wage rises and/or bonuses couldn't be paid under new rules (would contracts have been drawn up before FFP rules were drawn up? If so a legal minefield in itself I would have thought) and asking if they'd be willing for them to be deferred. Certain or all players may have refused to continue on that basis, especially after hearing of wages available elsewhere during international duty, hence the "mass exodous" as the media like to refer to it. Keeping the squad together but within the rules would obviously have been the first option. That wasn't possible so onto plan B

[Whitey Grandad]

In some respects we are suffering from our own success in rising up the leagues so quickly. We have a clutch of players not good enough for this level eating up wages and we haven't had the time to establish ourselves at a sustainable position.

[Saint_Ash]

So just to simplify things...

 

Red is stating that we had to sell some players to gain the extra revenues that we can push more than 4m that is our allowable increase over £56M? Then next year we're allowed an additional £4M over what we end up this year coming year? All well and good and I can see how it works with getting loans in but not spending much outlay on the transfer fee to keep the wages up BUT we have let go a lot of players including their wages so we will have to bring more players in than we let go of to increase our wages and we are not doing that as yet. If we bring in a couple of players on £60K+ like Rojo then it may work but I foresee our wage bill being lower for 2014/15 than 2013/14.

 

So for Red's idea to work and we are indeed increasing our wage bill then we need to see a fair few players in, could explain why we're going for 3 to 4 loans and about 4 signings.

 

All interesting stuff though and welcome Red.

[OldNick]

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.

In theory this could be the reason, but you have to buy into the fact that KL is prepared to risk a lot of her fortune. Personally i dont think she will.

I do wonder how many of the believers also state we had reached the 'glass ceiling'

You know where Iam in the debate but I respect your much greater knowledge of the FFP rules than I.

 

Financially to make the club strong enough by replacing sales with players to keep you in the top 10, and all the TV money etc that would bring, is a better financial aim than rolling the dice in some warped game/fantasy of competing with the major clubs, and at the same time risking the PL status.

[adrian lord]

My name is Rudy Kraft... hmm, RK?

 

precisely.

[Sour Mash]

The phrase "Luke Shaw along provided over 600,000 pounds a week in salary cap space" is one of the places where the source is puzzling me.

 

I don't get your point. Do you understand the points made in the blog?

[ant]

My name is Rudy Kraft... hmm, RK?

 

We never actually employed Ronald Koeman, it's Ralph Krueger in a mask - thus his recent disappearance. Man gets about.

[SaintRobbie]

Plausible and an interesting insight.

 

I agree. Helpful in opinion forming, but assuming that it is better to invest in a years time is risky - when transfer prices will go up again. This has not been factored in enough for me.

 

I agree that having the right to buy on loanees helps, it becomes more of a year long trial then, but you can lose just as much as you gain from tinkering with loan players. You have nothing left at the end of the year if the player wants out. And, none are ever likely to stay if you've dropped a Division. Loan players have less loyalty than Lallanas.

[SaintRobbie]

In some respects we are suffering from our own success in rising up the leagues so quickly. We have a clutch of players not good enough for this level eating up wages and we haven't had the time to establish ourselves at a sustainable position.

 

Thats a very good point. We needed a cull of the weak not a desertion of the strong.

[Whitey Grandad]

I agree. Helpful in opinion forming, but assuming that it is better to invest in a years time is risky - when transfer prices will go up again. This has not been factored in enough for me.

 

I agree that having the right to buy on loanees helps, it becomes more of a year long trial then, but you can lose just as much as you gain from tinkering with loan players. You have nothing left at the end of the year if the player wants out. And, none are ever likely to stay if you've dropped a Division. Loan players have less loyalty than Lallanas.

 

If you've dropped a division you're better off without them. (Cue conspiracy theories about preparing for the drop already)

[farawaysaint]

precisely.

 

Would you drama queens please relax?

 

http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/93406-ca-rudolph-kraft-295890.html

 

He's also registered with the bar where he says he is, hell, here is a case he worked so unless Ralph is stealing identities I think we can take Rudy at face value?

 

http://law.justia.com/cases/california/cal4th/8/746.html

[SaintRobbie]

If you've dropped a division you're better off without them. (Cue conspiracy theories about preparing for the drop already)

 

Unless they are the only quality players you have left as you've kept all your weak players and been unable to clear them out and off your wage bill due to a mass exodus of talent the summer before(?)

[NewYorkSaint]

Welcome, Redslo, and thanks for a fine piece. Even if it's not the full explanation, it's at least part of it.

 

One further problem with the whole crazy wage cap rules is that even with flexibility to raise wages for one player, a club will find it hard to do so because of the knock on effects on others. So, with Morgan, we would now appear to have the flexibility now to at least part-way match the wages offered by Spurs. Yet it will be hard to do so without annoying other players. "So if I threaten to leave do I also get a pay rise?" The system is incredibly broken.

[The9]

Maybe (note my maybes mean I'm speculating not stating a theory ) there wasn't a "need" for player sales at the time whilst other options were being explored. Those options could have included explaining the situation to players that promised wage rises and/or bonuses couldn't be paid under new rules (would contracts have been drawn up before FFP rules were drawn up? If so a legal minefield in itself I would have thought) and asking if they'd be willing for them to be deferred. Certain or all players may have refused to continue on that basis, especially after hearing of wages available elsewhere during international duty, hence the "mass exodous" as the media like to refer to it. Keeping the squad together but within the rules would obviously have been the first option. That wasn't possible so onto plan B

 

FFP has been known about (if not actually agreed to) for a good 3 years or so, and the rules take the transition period into consideration to some extent.

[The9]

I don't get your point. Do you understand the points made in the blog?

 

I'd misunderstood what the £600k figure was referring to.

[shurlock]

The more I think about this issue, the more I believe the blog post is way off the mark.

 

Attempting to confirm with a sports lawyer friend but am pretty sure FFP wage restrictions apply only to player wages and not overall club wages (that include director remuneration and general club staff wages). It is definitely the case with the championship.

 

Why does this matter? Because if true, it significantly increases our room for manoeuvre and suggest were nowhere near the relevant limit.

 

Publicly available data on which the blog post (mistakenly) draws refers to overall club wages. In 2013, total wages, including player wages were £47.1m, up from £28.7m in 2012. The claim is that they are around £52m this year - hence the alleged pressure to sell.

 

We know that the club wage to turnover ratio is around 65% (turnover was £72m in 2013).

 

Critically, however, Gareth Rogers, pointed out that the player wage to turnover ratio was only around 40-50% in 2013 -namely around £29m and £36m. A much lower figure and arguably the relevant one from a FFP perspective (see above)

 

If we assume that turnover ratios stay broadly in line this year, our current player wage bill (not total wage bill) is only around £32m and £40m, nowhere the supposed dangerzone suggested by the poster.

 

The above caveat aside, this point should be seen alongside the other evidence -from the unnecessary scale of the sales to official statements- that casts doubt on this theory.

Edited 5 August, 2014 by shurlock

[Whitey Grandad]

The more I think about this issue, the more I believe the blog post is way off the mark.

 

Attempting to confirm with a sports lawyer friend but am pretty sure FFP wage restrictions apply only to player wages and not overall club wages (that include director remuneration and general club staff wages). It is definitely the case with the championship.

 

Why does this matter? Because if true, it significantly increases our room for manoeuvre and suggest were nowhere near the relevant limit.

 

Publicly available data on which the blog post (mistakenly) draws refers to overall club wages. In 2013, total wages, including player wages were £47.1m, up from £28.7m in 2012. The claim is that they are around £52m this year - hence the alleged pressure to sell.

 

We know that the club wage to turnover ratio is around 65% (turnover was £72m in 2013).

 

Critically, however, Gareth Rogers, pointed out that the player wage to turnover ratio was only around 40-50% in 2013 -namely around £29m and £36m. A much lower figure and arguably the relevant one from a FFP perspective (see above)

 

If we assume that turnover ratios stay broadly in line this year, our current player wage bill (not total wage bill) is only around £32m and £40m, nowhere the supposed dangerzone suggested by the poster.

 

The above caveat aside, this point should be seen alongside the other evidence -from the unnecessary scale of the sales to official statements- that casts doubt on this theory.

 

We need an up to date figure for players' wages for the last season. I seem to remember seeing £53m?