FFP encourages clubs to sell their best academy players, “player swapping” to generate accounting profit and line agents’ pockets, selling hotels to your close mates, inflating sponsorship deals with related companies and the list goes on. Is this the intended behaviour? There must be a better way. Here are some thought starters.
- Change how central broadcast revenue is distributed (worth around 2.8 billion). Don’t tie it to league position or number of times on TV. Make it at least equal, but preferably less to the big clubs more to the smaller clubs. Bonus to the promoted clubs. TV exposure and league success benefits the clubs commercially, they don’t need rewarding twice.
- Absolute salary cap. Four clubs spend > 300 million. I would set it lower, but higher than Tottenham and Arsenal. You can still have a great team and compete in Europe at that level.
- Absolute transfer limit. Restrict total transfer amount you can spend per season. Could be net of player sales. Stop buying frenzies like Chelsea. Stop owners pumping money into the transfer market. Stop clubs building up a big cost base that screws them in later seasons. Less for Agents – got to be a good thing.
- Tie financial governance to cash flow and debt, not turnover and profit. If the aim in part is to ensure financial security and sustainability, then cash is where it should be. If owners called in their debts (I know unlikely) several clubs would be bankrupt.
- Easy one, make transfer fees payable within 12 months. Total transfer debt (club to club) at the end of season 22/23 was 2 billion. Yes, 2 billion. Becomes another source of funding as clubs negotiate long settlements. If you want a player, pay for it and pay for it now.
- Please, please, please take profit on player sales out of any financial fair play rules. Let’s stop this transfer circus we have now.
Sources https://swissramble.substack.com, https://www.matchdayfinance.com, https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk
by syd-soccer
8 comments
I can imagine it being a simplified thing in the future after listening to a couple of podcasts.
A common salary cap for all clubs split between all senior players and limited player sales under a certain age so that young players aren’t exploited and abused as commodities
Salary cap and transfer limit will kill the league in 3 seasons or less.
We’ll have a very competitive league for sure but it’ll be dramatically lower in quality and any chance of competing in Europe would be evaporated.
Clubs have struggled to fend off the Saudi league at times, imagine what happens when it’s not just the Saudi league but Spain/Italy/France/Germany who can all outspend premier league teams.
Hard salary caps work in American sports like the NFL or NBA because they’re the pinnacle leagues, you aren’t gonna turn down playing in the NFL to go to play in Canada.
First point no chance that gets agreed. I don’t like how the game has gone with the same clubs dominating, but even I would agree with them saying get lost to that.
Some type of cap would be good I agree. Owners should be able to put in the difference if they are able to.
Maximum squad size would be better I think, including loans out.
If this came in I don’t think there is a need for the other three points you make.
I would also like a credit check on transfers. Prove the money is there or the transfer isn’t approved. Owners can be guarantees.
Proper loan restrictions – the only way to stop Chelsea’s nonsense is to restrict them buying hundreds of player and loaning them all out for 7 years straight.
But it is getting increasingly difficult to control clubs when a lot of them are now in under the same as owners as several other clubs. These football club groups should all have to abide by one FFP quota as a whole, not one per club.
I dislike all of these ideas. None are really goers without Barcelona, Madrid, PSG, Juventus and Bayern all doing the same.
An absolute transfer limit is the pits. You sell your best player for £100m but can’t spend?
To be honest, I’m less annoyed at the content system now the other 14 have found a way around it. Sorry if the top 6 are pissed off with that suddenly- maybe they should sort themselves out, eg Chelsea and Man Utd.
They do need to sort out the unfairness for promoted clubs; not only having a lower limit for two seasons, but promotion bonuses counting against PSR where they didn’t previously, which is what caught us out. Promotion bonuses are a vital part of championship contracts to keep the wages reasonable. Promoted clubs should not be punished for having these.
And with inflation it’s way past time to up the loss limits
Your first point makes literally 0 sense why would a league reward smaller clubs who bring in less in terms of viewers more than larger clubs who essentially are the main reason for the deal?
Whereas FFP is about limiting spending by tying it to revenues. Your suggestions are largely just about limiting spending by stopping clubs with high revenues from spending them.
So in the case of clubs with high revenues who aren’t allowed to spend them, where does all this excess money go?
Just limit the size of squads you are only allowed 25 players over 21, Allow any youth player who hasn’t played 10 first team starts by 21 be allowed to leave for compensation.
Stop clubs from owning multiple teams.