just seen a report on BBC sports news that new rules are to come into force NEXT SEASON regarding financies for Championship. The below is taken from Sky Sports News website...
Championship clubs could face huge fines if they ignore new financial fair play regulations announced by the Football League on Wednesday.
The initial regulations will be brought in next season with multi-million pound fines for non-compliance and transfer embargoes also set to follow in 2014/15.
The aim is to curb spiralling debt across the lower leagues and avoid the problems that have plunged Portsmouth to the brink of liquidation.
"The problem is getting worse and we were going to be facing an extinction event of actually losing potentially three or four clubs - not to administration, but to liquidation. "
Football League chairman Greg Clarke Quotes of the week
Football League chairman Greg Clarke revealed on Wednesday that combined debts could reach the £2 billion mark in five years' time if no action is taken.
"The Championship is spending more and more and more money on players, chasing the dream," said Clarke.
"We do not want to kill the dream. What we want to do is make sure it is affordable and make sure that the price of the dream is not the destruction of football clubs.
"The problem is getting worse and we were going to be facing an extinction event of actually losing potentially three or four clubs - not to administration, but to liquidation."
Limits
The new rules will limit the investment of club owners in a season.
Next season, total investment can be no higher than £6 million. The following year there is a £5 million maximum and by the 2014/2015 season owners will only be allowed to invest £3 million per year.
The Football League is also tackling the extravagant spending that has led to huge losses as clubs gambled on promotion to the Premier League.
Last season that gamble paid off for QPR after recording a loss of over £25 million.
But the aim is to ensure these risks become a thing of the past with the new regulations stipulating that annual losses can total no more than £4 million next season, £3 million per season in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 campaigns, and £2 million from the following year onwards.
Any team not complying will be hit with a 'Fair Play Tax' of up to £10 million if promoted.
And if promotion is not achieved, a club breaching the regulations would be placed under a transfer embargo until they complied with the rules.
There could be trouble ahead
posted on 26/4/12
dungeon ,mate, we used to have a cinema ,people used to say" must keep it open we need one"...then no bleeder went...who should prop it up the council? same with local shops ...everbody wants to keep them, then nobody shops in them.. if the competition has to be rigged to prop up the weak it won't work..if some of these clubs are so loved the local people should support them...being in debt is not always bad, its the ability to service the debt that counts ..that decision is best taken by the people running the business not a committee vote... or people with alterior motives..
posted on 26/4/12
Local shops, cinemas etc. is a different argument though. These aren't places that are failing due to overextending themselves, these are places that are closing due to lack of footfall and competition that is too strong. True football fans aren't going to start going and supporting Nottingham Forest if they could get a better deal there. It'll still be up to the club to attract people in, to fill their stadiums, to sell merchandise, etc. This is so that we won't see clubs disappearing into financial black holes the way Portsmouth have. Their fans are having to live with what's happened there and there's nothing they could do about it - by the time the money's been spent and the intentions are clear, it's already too late.
The only place I would agree with you is in regard to you talking about the Premiership in rugby and how talent would go elsewhere if they could be paid more than they could in our the football Premiership. This is why we need worldwide action to be taken to stop any one country or league gaining an advantage. However, with more and more financial woes inflicting clubs across the football league, this is better than leaving things as they are.
posted on 26/4/12
In theory I think this is a good idea, and ultimately the finances of football clubs do need to be brought into check. The days of racking up huge amounts of debt with no way to pay it back has to end as the long term troubles have to outweigh the short term benefits (Portsmouth a prime example - FA Cup winners one minute, League One the next)
However, I do share some of the concerns raised, in particular with regards the potential difference between clubs that are relegated from the PL and everyone else in the league. The way that the PP payments have altered from 2 to 4 years is ludicrous - Now any club could go up, not win a single match, and be guaranteed 4 years of £10m payments. That cannot be right! 2 years of parachute money is fine, no qualms over that, and it gives responsible clubs ample time to weed out the players that are costing them a fortune. 4 years will just widen the gap between recently relegated PL teams and the rest of the league. Personally I'd have it back to 2 years, with a condition that you can only receive PP if you reach a certain points tally in the PL (25 for example).
If this rule isn't implemented properly, we risk having a three tier pyramid in the Championship; first tier with recently relegated ex PL teams on huge PP (Wolves, West Ham, Birmingham), second tier with bigger clubs who haven't had recent PL experience but have big match revenues (Leicester, Leeds, Forest) and a third tier of those who have no PL experience and no big revenue (Barnsley, Peterborough, Coventry). The Championship is well regarded as being the most equal league in football, I'd hate for that to change.
As mentioned above, we will not be massively penalised by the changes as we have a good match day revenue, so in theory we should be more than able to stand on our own feet. But the downside is the owners will be limited to what they can invest. I hope that this means clubs like ours will attempt more radical, exciting ways to draw in revenue but fear it may result in yet more increases in ticket prices, which will be bad for everyone.
But in short, regardless of these new rules, our situation is simple; we are nearly £60m in debt with assets of perhaps £50m at most, and with no way to service that debt other than achieveing promotion And at the moment we don't have the right dynamics within the club to achieve this, from manager to players to style.
posted on 26/4/12
I think its a good thing (although will be bad for Leicester City as a club) to encourage clubs to reduce astronomical wages and transfer fees. I read the other day that Pompey are currently paying Ben Haim £50k per week - under their circumstances, this should never have been allowed.
If only there was a way that a 'maximum wage' could be implemented without losing all premiership / championship players to foreign leagues...
posted on 26/4/12
All I will add is this , every action has a reaction..most are unforseen and most will be unintentional..but no good will come of this in the long run, IMO....cos we love the game WE think its special and the outside worlds way of running things does not apply ..you cannot fight progress and the future by legistlating against it...time will tell who is right and who has backed a folly...
posted on 26/4/12
Maybe if we did lose all the foreign players our home nation players can get a game/experience and our national team can improve
posted on 26/4/12
This is brilliant news for the clubs in championship with very good turnoverswe are maybe you are too so will not damage you too much tbf.just to add my mate started a new job for walkers as heavy goods driver and he says any one who works for walkers gets free tickets for every Leicester game,does that hit your turnover if they are giving away 100's of free tickets every week?
posted on 26/4/12
Walkers don't sponsor us though, so would be strange, particularly as this wasn't the case when they did sponsor us.
Walkers is owned by Pepsico and the Walkers section of this company alone has thousands of employees.
I think maybe, we would have heard about this in Leicester somehow and I certainly think our attendances would have risen randomly from whenever this was supposedly implemented (sure he doesn't work for a certain mobile phone company in Derby and support County!?)
posted on 26/4/12
Keep,that is what he told me and he has been to some games this season but is not a Leicester fan but said tickets was free
posted on 27/4/12
Greg Clarke put us into administration too early when we could have avoided it. FACT. He still hates us, FACT. We will get in trouble and it will be because of Clarke FACT. btw, everyone at the FA and the league hate him and thinks hes poison. Won't be long till hes out!....hopefully
If anybody wants more info on Clarke putting us into administration without the agreement of the board, i am happy to spill. He needed clearance from all board members, which he didnt have. They had just rearranged a debt until the end of the season which would have made us safe. He ignored that, went for glory and put us in too early. More info available.........