Financial Fair Play

Can someone explain the concept of this "FFP" to me.

I assume the idea is to "level the playing field" but clearly that has not happened.

clubs seem to be splashing more cash than ever, while the poorest clubs, us amongst them are having to spend even less than they've been able to in the past.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:Can someone explain the concept of this "FFP" to me.

I assume the idea is to "level the playing field" but clearly that has not happened.

clubs seem to be splashing more cash than ever, while the poorest clubs, us amongst them are having to spend even less than they've been able to in the past.

Isn't it supposed to be just a simple case of that you can't spend more than you earn?

Also other clubs don't have the debt like we have.

If thats the case then I don't really understand the reasoning behind it.

surely any regulations should be aimed at levelling the playing field and making football more competitive

It hasn't worked and in fact is only making the gap bigger. The big clubs and those with wealthy chairman (QPR, Forest, Watford, Wigan, Reading in the champ) can easily find ways around it, by funding new revenue streams for the club - Al-Hasawi family and Air Asia sponsor Forest and QPR respectively. 

Unfortunately our main benefactor seemingly can't compete in the same way, so we're in the same boat as a lot of other championship clubs, balance the books or face up to the sanctions.

bwfc1874 wrote:balance the books or face up to the sanctions.

Which are points reductions I presume?

karlypants wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:balance the books or face up to the sanctions.

Which are points reductions I presume?

Transfer ban I think.

In simple terms it is to keep spending linked to income.

So the more income you have - the more you can spend and visa-versa.

As people have said above if you have the money you can find ways around it, if you haven't like us - you're fucked!

There is a line of thinking by some clubs to simply ignore the FFP and deal with the matter through their very expensive lawyers if and when the time comes - some feel the football authorities do not want to face legal action - look at how Bosman, and the limit on foreign players scrapped because of the threat of the rules being tested in a court of European Law.

For us it means that all our money (gate, season tickets, sponsorship, merchandising, etc) is going on wages for Knight, Mills, Ngog, etc, so we can't spend to bring more in without breaking our FFP limit.

I think there are financial penalties for failing FFP - so we seem to be in a lose / lose situation whatever we do.

At least we still have all of Coyle’s galacticos though!

So i was right in thinking all it has done (apart from nothing) is to maintain the status quo.

the only clubs it's had an impact on are the poor clubs.

A £3 million loss for the 2013/14 season isn't very much, especially when you consider that we're paying players wages like Mills, Ream, Mears, Knight & N'Gog, who are no longer wanted a combined annual salary of between £5-6 million a year.

Let's just hope Eddie Davies injects some equity into the club.