Financial Fair Play – CaughtOffside

Collymore’s column: Premier League should be ashamed, clubs need to stop pimping out players for FFP, time to remember the true meaning of the Community Shield and more

Stan Collymore — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 14:51:00 +0000

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why the Premier League should be ashamed of their silence since the race riots, why we’ve lost the essence of what the Charity Shield is all about, why transfer windows are anxiety inducing and much more.

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Transfer windows are anxiety inducing for every player

Liverpool manager, Roy Evans, flew back from his holiday in Barbados to meet me at Heathrow Airport in London for two hours, before flying straight back to his long-suffering wife, in order to sign me.

I met Joe Royle, who was the Everton manager at a hotel in Cheshire and, I’m not going to lie, I think that when you’ve got the choice of two clubs the size of Liverpool and Everton – today’s equivalent might be Liverpool and Manchester City or Manchester United – you’re immediately flattered but also worrying that “I’ve got to buy a house, I’ve got to relocate” etc., and much more besides.

At least now there are transfer windows and release clauses.. When I was two thirds through a season back in the 90s, I had a phone call when I was in my car going home from Forest training from Sir Alex Ferguson. That would now be considered tapping up and was yet another layer of worry for players of a certain age.

That’s because every transfer window is anxiety inducing for a player.

Lots of dead ends… this club are interested in you, then they’re not, then they’ve dropped out of the race altogether and somebody else has come in.

How it normally works is players basically have a meeting with the managers who are interested in them to talk about the football side, and then the agent sees what they’re prepared to do or not prepared to do, and there’s a hell of a lot of waiting involved.

There isn’t enough done for players to be able to guide them through the process beyond just being a player.

In all honesty, even with clubs nowadays, I speak to a lot of younger players and of course they’ve got agents around them and the clubs try their very best with liaison officers to help players settle in – perhaps a little bit more at a club than they used to – but it’s still not enough.

That’s because there are a lot more countries to move to, players are being bombarded with all sorts of figures and money talks.

Are they going to a club to be the best footballing version of themselves that they can be, because that should ultimately will guide everything, or are they going to the club that are going to offer them a few more zeros on their pay packet?

They must do their due diligence.

Clubs need to stop pimping their players out to get around Financial Fair Play

Conor Gallagher is set to join Atletico Madrid.

I think that all football players need a permanent home.

I’m going to give you an example of somebody… Louie Barry, a wonder kid at West Brom, goes to Barcelona and then comes back and plays for Villa. As a massive Villa fan, he still wants to play for the club.

He had a nasty period with injuries and was loaned out five times by Villa, and has now been loaned out again – but the lad desperately wanted to stay.

He’s a familiar face for the fans, but beyond that in my view he shouldn’t have signed a new contract in the hope of breaking into the Villa first team (which won’t happen) when there were better options available for his career progression.

We need to have the conversation about when a player is being signed by a club, he needs to understand where he can buy a house, school his kids and have a home base to settle into. He shouldn’t be pimped out here, there and everywhere, just to be a great example of Profit and Sustainability rules in action.

Conor Gallagher is another one. Four loans in three years before settling down at Chelsea, only to then be pushed out the door by Todd Boehly.

It kills younger players to keep going out on loan and it basically leaves them like a ship that never docks. They’re constantly out and about and never find a home.

Perhaps Gallagher will do that now at Atletico Madrid – find what it’s like to go and play for a club, anchor down and become a club legend – but he wanted to be ‘the man’ at Chelsea.

Time to talk up the true meaning of the Community Shield

A photo of the Community Shield

This weekend sees the return of the Community Shield, a traditional pre-season friendly that I’m a big fan of.

I do think that it absolutely shouldn’t be counted as a trophy, however.

I think we need to tell the likes of Pep Guardiola that this isn’t something that he can count as one of his trophy wins. It’s not about Pep vs Klopp or Pep vs ten Hag either, because we’ve already had that narrative on any number of previous occasions.

It was originally called the Charity Shield, and the money raised from the game was given to good causes. It still is.

So we should promote that angle way more than we do currently.

This year’s partner is MIND, and there’s a whole four or five days leading up to it where players, instead of talking about the inane rivalry of Man United against Manchester City, should be highlighting the charity and the issues they face etc.

Let’s be perfectly honest, it’s the last meaningless friendly before the big kick-off, so moving forward, let’s get back to what the Community Shield is all about.

Charity.

I’m a big fan of a salary cap… but it won’t work for individual players

The problem with a salary cap for me is it’s got to come from FIFA.

I think if you have got agreement across the big leagues of England, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, that would go some way to having a salary cap implemented, but of course, all it means is you’ll get more and more players going to the Saudi Pro League and picking up their £500k per week.

So it kind of becomes self sabotaging.

If FIFA said there is going to be a global salary cap, then I think it could work, but I think that FIFA would also have a fight on their hands from from UEFA.

We need to get there in some way though I worry that just like the creative accounting of certain Premier League clubs – selling or their swapping their best young kids or assets to get around FFP – the clubs will find a way to circumvent this cap.

What I would like to see is an organisational cap, which HMRC can then can get involved in.

The organisation, for example Man City, can only spend across all of its assets – whether it be players, staff or anything else – £100m total per year, and if you go over that then you get fined.

That way you can have some common sense because then clubs have to look around at where they’re spending every penny.

Silence from the Premier League over race riots is disgusting

I think that the Premier League have a massive responsibility as a big British brand, and as a big British brand that’s inclusive with all creeds, all flavours and all genders, to comment on the current riots from a football perspective.

After all, they can’t wait to tell you about No Room for Racism day.

I would really have liked to see Richard Masters come out after last weekend and say “any supporter involved in these in this disorder, will never set foot in an English football stadium again,” and that would have done as much as potentially the deterrent effect of a six month or a 12 month custodial sentence for some of them.

Frankly, I’m disgusted by the Premier League.

If you remember, when players were getting racist abuse a while back, the Premier League were quick to tell everyone to put a the black square on their social media profiles and not tweet or post for 24 hours.

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The fact they’ve said nothing whatsoever during the current riots, I would suggest, is 1000 times worse. The fact that I genuinely feel like the only voice in the professional football sports broadcasting space that was willing to call it out, hour by hour, and to show people that there were good people in Walthamstow, in Birmingham, in Newcastle and elsewhere that weren’t going to allow this race baiting to happen… I think it’s frankly disgusting and disturbing.

Football is multicultural, and not just the fan base.

We’ve got Muslims, we’ve got Jews, we’ve got blacks, we’ve got whites, we’ve got French, we’ve got Germans, we’ve got Italians, we’ve got Egyptians… all playing in the Premier League.

I get that a lot of players and clubs will be very reluctant to speak up because they don’t understand the politics, but for me, football needs to do much, much more.

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Scale of Leeds United’s financial woes revealed with top players set to be sold

Jason Pettigrove — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 10:01:52 +0000

If Leeds United thought they were close to being able to celebrate a promotion to the Premier League, their potential good news has already been soured it would seem.

The all whites will fight until the bitter end for a top two spot in the Championship, guaranteeing them automatic promotion rather than the lottery of the play-offs.

One of Leeds, Leicester City or Ipswich Town are going to be disappointed, because with the three so close together at present, it might even come down to goal difference.

Leeds will be forced to sell star players

Were the Elland Road outfit able to bounce straight back to the English top-flight, the one thing that they’d need immediately is stability, and the latest news suggests that stability is just about the last thing they’re going to be able to achieve.

According to Football Insider sources, the club will be forced to sell star players such as Archie Gray after posting their accounts for 2022/23, which showed an incredible £34m loss.

Leeds are likely to be forced to sell Archie Gray

That means they’re sailing far too close to the wind in terms of Financial Fair Play, and their only option is to part ways with first-team staff that can bridge the gap via sales.

What that does of course is severely weaken Daniel Farke’s squad which, in turn, will surely turn any Premier League campaign into another nightmare.

The German has fostered an incredible team spirit since taking over at the club, and to have the rug pulled from under him like this is a real kick in the teeth.

It’s almost as if all of his good work has gone to waste, however, Farke appears to be a manager that only deals in the positives, so he will want to accentuate those and just keep his team’s focus on what they can do on the pitch.

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Man City and Chelsea face expulsion from the league if found guilty of FFP charges

Ahad Shaukat — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 14:39:59 +0000

According to latest reports, Manchester City and Chelsea could face the maximum punishment if they are found guilty of breaking Financial Fair Play rules.

After punishments to Everton and Nottingham Forest, Financial Fair Play has become a hot topic again.

Both Forest and Everton have been punished by the Premier League for financial irregularities.

Some supporters are perplexed by the manner these point reductions have been applied.

Though it has been established that City and Chelsea may receive the worst punishment possible, there has been conjecture regarding how the Premier League would handle teams like them as a result of this seeming discrepancy.

Robert Glancy KC, sports legal expert Mark Hovell, and accounting specialist Steve Holt outlined the possible penalties Premier League teams may encounter in their 52-reason analysis of the Forest issue.

The punishments could: “range from a warning through to expulsion from the Premier League,” The Commission said.

The Commission added: “Where a PSR breach is ‘minor’, then it will be for other Commissions to determine if any points deduction is necessary, appropriate or proportionate.

“But if the breach is properly described as ‘major’ then it may be the case that even a very severe sanction such as expulsion is more appropriate.”

Man City have allegedly broken 115 rules but the Premier League champions have denied all allegations against them.

There is no confirmation when the trial to judge Pep Guardiola’s team will start but experts believe that the punishment will be severe.

As for Chelsea, they have been charged with making illegal payments to agents under the ownership of Roman Abramovich.

The Blues were fined £8.6m by UEFA but Premier League’s investigation is still ongoing and the London based club could receive a strict punishment.

With penalties for Forest and Everton, the precedence has been set and clubs will not be allowed to get away with breaking rules.

Chelsea could fall out of FFP if they do not sell £100million of homegrown talent by June

Ahad Shaukat — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 08:15:47 +0000

Chelsea may be in violation of Financial Fair Play regulations if they don’t raise a minimum of £100 million from the sale of homegrown players.

Since the summer of July 2022, the Blues have spent almost £1 billion under their new owners, and they have twice smashed the British transfer record.

They still risk punishment, though, even after selling Kai Havertz to Arsenal for £65 million, Mason Mount to Manchester United for an initial £55 million and Mateo Kovacic to Manchester City for as much as £30 million.

The Premier League is already looking into Mauricio Pochettino’s team for FFP violations while Roman Abramovich was the team’s owner.

Furthermore, if their recent transfer activity violates Profit and Sustainability rules, they risk receiving even harsher penalties, as the club is not permitted to lose more than £105 million in a three-year period.

FFP expert and financial adviser Stefan Borson, while speaking on Jim White and Alex Crook’s deadline day show, claimed that Reece James and Conor Gallagher might be sold by Chelsea.

He said: “We all know that the pure profits that you get from selling your youngsters off have no book value.

“So fine, but clearly to sell off your captain [James] and near ever-present player [Gallagher] to your local rivals [Tottenham] was an unusual situation.

“When we looked at that at the start of the window, we were thinking, ‘What’s going on there?’

“It’s not a big surprise that of all the people that didn’t bite at £50m-£80m, that [Spurs chairman] Daniel Levy sort of paused and said, ‘I’ll wait and see what happens thank you.’

“Because he knows that within the Premier League – particularly teams like Spurs – they understand Chelsea’s predicament when it comes to PSR Financial Fair Play for this season.

Reece James in action for Chelsea

“And they will take advantage of that, and that’s what you’ve seen with [Armando] Broja, they talked about £50m-£60m at the start of the window.

“And he ends up going [to Fulham] for potentially zero – the loan fee might be zero if he plays every game.”

He continued: “In my mind, there’s certainly trouble on the horizon, and they will certainly fail FFP for the current season.

“Unless – and it seems to be very unlikely – that by June 30 this year they sell well over £100m of players.

“But the window they can now do that is going to be very small, because the season is going to finish and we’ve got the Euros.

“So if you look at someone like Gallagher, he’s going to be in the Euros from June 14, so if they want to ship him before June 30, they’ve got to move very quickly.

“And again, the likely buyers are going to know that Chelsea need to sell players.”

“Shows how strong they are” – Romano lauds Newcastle over Trippier stance as FFP bites Magpies hard

Jason Pettigrove — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 06:20:53 +0000

With Financial Fair Play ensuring that the current transfer window has been one of the quietest ever, Newcastle have been lauded by transfer guru, Fabrizio Romano, for their stance over Kieran Trippier in the wake of interest from Bayern Munich.

In the future, we are likely to see lots of clubs having to effectively sell off their crown jewels in order to stay on the right side of FFP rules, which will level the playing field to a degree.

How much that will show on the pitch is a moot point, and there’s some degree of truth to the notion that no club is safe.

Not even Newcastle despite their evident riches.

The Bavarians tried their hardest to bring England international, Trippier, to the Bundesliga, however, that deal now seems dead and buried, which has brought praise from Romano.

“FFP is a problem for Newcastle but they already rejected €15m for Trippier, so it shows how strong they are when it’s time to make decisions,” he said in his exclusive Daily Briefing for CaughtOffside.

“They will only sell if important proposals arrive on the table.

“Otherwise there will be no important outgoings until the summer – this is the message coming from the club.”

With the current window almost over, it would be a surprise to see any big deals go through now, though one can never say never in football.

A major concern for clubs across Europe is likely to come in the summer when the Saudi Pro League comes calling again, and FFP concerns that still haven’t gone away will need to be addressed.

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Newcastle given the opportunity to sign key £60m target but FFP could derail deal

Jason Pettigrove — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 06:10:55 +0000

It’s been a quiet window for much of the Premier League this winter, and even cash-rich Newcastle are being hamstrung by Financial Fair Play when it comes to landing their targets.

The Magpies need to strengthen in key positions, but an inability to do so is hampering their efforts on the pitch.

Injuries have blighted the North East giant’s quest for success, with a Champions League campaign that promised so much ending on a whimper.

Even Premier League success, which many felt wouldn’t be too far away in coming once the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) took over, is nothing but a distant dream at present.

Tenth place in the table and 14 points off the Champions League places mean that Newcastle can probably look forward to a Europa League campaign next season at best.

A new, statement signing would really give the men from St. James’ Park a lift, and Everton have even offered the Magpies the opportunity to sign one of their key targets.

According to Football Transfers, the Toffees are open to selling Amadou Onana for £60m, a player that would be perfect for slotting into Newcastle’s midfield given Sandro Tonali’s ongoing ban and concerns over both Joelinton (injury) and Bruno Guimaraes (transfer).

Unfortunately for Eddie Howe, the club aren’t in a position to buy Onana outright and could only do a loan-to-buy deal, something that apparently doesn’t suit Sean Dyche or Everton.

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Everton facing “headache” amidst Financial Fair Play update

Jake Staniland — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 22:53:39 +0000

Everton have reportedly faced “unforeseen factors” causing potential challenges in their latest financial accounts, as reported by The Telegraph. Despite this, the club are reportedly confident of sidestepping additional sanctions and has submitted its latest figures in December.

Two months ago, Everton incurred a record 10-point deduction after being found guilty of violating the Premier League’s financial regulations. Clubs are set to learn on January 15 whether they will face repercussions related to their recent financial accounts. Any potential sanctions will be implemented before the conclusion of the current season.

Indeed, even minor errors in financial matters can have significant consequences for Everton given their current circumstances, with the most severe being relegation from the Premier League.

Compliance with financial regulations is crucial for clubs to maintain stability and avoid potential sanctions that could impact their competitive standing.

The Telegraph reoport states: “Sources close to Everton, already fighting to overturn a 10-point deduction, also maintain privately that they believe the Merseyside club are within this year’s limits.

“However, Amadou Onana, Dwight McNeil and Neal Maupay arrived for multi-million pound fees, and there were other unforeseen factors in the last campaign that will have been a headache.”

Everton faced a challenging task to distance themselves from the relegation zone after the 10-point deduction, and any additional points penalties could reset their progress. However, there are indications that the club has adhered to financial regulations and might not face further breaches.

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