The Great Big FFP Debate

[BaZ87]

The funny thing is, Forest did make PL sized losses while in the Championship. In the 21/22 season, on revenues of less than £30m, they lost nearly £50m (reduced to £40m for FFP purposes). Like a lot of clubs, had it not been for covid then Forest almost certainly would have had a points deduction 12 months earlier.

In hindsight FFP rules were probably relaxed a little too much during covid and it should have just been limited to just lost matchday revenue being added back into the calculation. Allowing clubs to write down player valuations outside FFP just allowed them to kick the can down the road and try their luck. In the written reasons of the Forest case, Forest were still trying to claim £12m covid costs in the 21/22 season!

 

[C Kent]

2 more points deducted for everton by independent commission for psr rule break

 

[omnomnom]

If clubs are getting 2 point deductions we might aswell scrap it.

 

[antijoke]

This is getting farcical now

 

[Robbo]

I have to say I don't really like this system, points deductions (subject to appeal) just add a level of complexity and uncertainty to things.

Future financial restrictions or restrictions on registering new players (or something along those lines) would be better.

 

[Converge]

Particularly when it’s done multiple times in a season. Surely it should be once a season at the beginning, so the team knows where it stands.
Not a ‘Surprise! Here’s another few points off at the backend of the season for you!’

 

[BaZ87]

edit: scrap what I initially said.

So Like Everton's appeal for their first charge and Forest's charge, there was a base penalty of 3 points. They then got an extra 2 points added due to the size of their breach (the same as their first charge (Forest got 3 extra as their breach was bigger)) so their starting point was a 5 point penalty. Surprisingly they only got 2 points knocked off for the fact that they had already been charged for 2 of the 3 seasons (I expected that they'd get 2/3's of the penalty deducted for that) and a further 1 point knocked off for a combination of cooperating with the PL and lost revenue resulting from Usmanov being sanctioned.

I'm not sure whether to be surprised as they went easy on Forest too but the PL didn't put forward any aggravating factors. I thought they may have pushed for an additional point (or points) due to the fact that Everton had breached 2 cycles running but they didn't make that argument.

Finally and this will no doubt lead to lots of comments, part of the charge is still outstanding and will roll into next season. There's still a dispute, which will require another hearing, over a further potential £6.5m loss so Everton could be looking at a further points deduction next season (no more than a point I'd imagine) for this and looking at their figures published in their written reasons, it's hard to see how Everton won't breach PSR again this season without some sales before the end of June.

 

[Shamikebab]

Think we're going to see more clubs breaching if the penalty is so small. 1pt next season? Oh no however will they cope.

 

[BaZ87]

Think we're going to see more clubs breaching if the penalty is so small. 1pt next season? Oh no however will they cope.

The additional point, if the extra £6.5m loss is proven, relates to this charge. Essentially meaning Everton would have been given 3 points total. If, and it's very possible, Everton breach PSR again this season they will then have a further potential points penalty for that too.

I mentioned it before when Everton's first 10 point penalty was announced but I'm not sure what some people are expecting in terms of points deductions. Everton breached by £16m odd over 3 years. That equates to just £100k per week or a single players wage. It's not some ridiculously large advantage that will earn a club massive amounts of points per season. A 5-6 point* penalty for that size of breach seems perfectly reasonable to me.

*Everton's 'small' penalty is unique to them, due to them already receiving a 6 point penalty for years in which this charge relates to. PSR works in 3 year cycles - Everton's 6 point penalty related to the 3 years up to the end of the 21/22 season, this charge relates to the 3 years up to the end of the 22/23 season so there's a 2 year overlap. Any other club breaching PSR for the first time won't have the double jeopardy mitigation that Everton have. If another club wants to breach by £15m odd over 3 seasons and take the 5 point penalty then go for it.

 

[Sythe79]

I expect cheats to be punished to the point that cheating isn't worthwhile for anyone else to attempt, otherwise what's the point ?

Everton knew they were cheating, Everton fans knew they were cheating to the point they openly talked about how best to cheat to sign more rubbish players, and fans of every other club knew they were cheating.

They hoped their cheating would mean that they could manipulate the system and boost up the league, and earn enough extra money to cover the cheating.... and failed.

 

[BaZ87]

I suppose you're in favour of cutting thieves hands off too? I'd say 5-6 points (10-15% of a seasons points total for Everton) is an amount that doesn't make spending an extra £100k per week worth it.

 

[Sythe79]

I suppose you're in favour of cutting thieves hands off too? I'd say 5-6 points (10-15% of a seasons points total for Everton) is an amount that doesn't make spending an extra £100k per week worth it.

nope stoning them to death is fine, seriously you think that is a justifiable analogy ?

If we are going there, I suppose you think it was fine for Nancy Kerrigan to take a night stick to the knee after all Tonya Harding was only trying to catch up with someone better, see we can all be silly.

 

[BaZ87]

nope stoning them to death is fine, seriously you think that is a justifiable analogy ?

If you believe a 6 point pro-rata penalty (potentially 9) for a £100k per week overspend isn't sufficient, yes.

Everybody seems to be getting carried away and no doubt just looking at headline figures that get reported in the press however when you look at the detail, Everton's breach isn't that big. On revenues of circa £180m, they've overspent by a fraction over £5m per year (approx 3% of revenue). What is a proportionate punishment for that? Now I agree with you when you say the punishment needs to be big enough to act as a deterrent but unlike you, I believe a 5 to 6 point penalty for that size of breach is a deterrent. Once you factor in amortisation and wages, Everton's breach amounts to adding 50% of an average player to their squad. Any club that believes half a **** player is going to earn them an extra 6 points is taking a massive gamble because in all likelihood, they won't.

 

[Tombstone]

Lets just all agree that Man City need kicking out of the league for their breaches

 

[dannyjo22]

They said on the radio that Evertons ground for appeal is the £20m per season in sponsorship they lost from the Russian wasn't allowed to be accounted for as they were told "they should have seen the war in ukraine coming". I have no idea if that's true because I don't care enough to read the paperwork. Either way I don't think this has anything much to do with cheating and just being incredibly badly run. Either way I'm happy for a 50 point deduction and championship football.

 

[Sythe79]

If you believe a 6 point pro-rata penalty (potentially 9) for a £100k per week overspend isn't sufficient, yes.

It's not "just" 100k a week, it's literally 100s of millions of pounds overspend over a decade, EVEN with pretty lax rules on yearly overspend, EVEN with years of warnings, EVEN with generous wiggle room, they still failed, it was wilful cheating.

If the rules were even moderately strict, they would already be in the championship.

If cheating doesn't matter and there are no consequences, then what's the point ? everyone might as well cheat in any way they can, buy off refs, stuff brown envelopes, send your ultras to smash up other teams training grounds, and if you're caught a 6 point deduction seems fair.

 

[Sythe79]

They said on the radio that Evertons ground for appeal is the £20m per season in sponsorship they lost from the Russian wasn't allowed to be accounted for as they were told "they should have seen the war in ukraine coming". I have no idea if that's true because I don't care enough to read the paperwork. Either way I don't think this has anything much to do with cheating and just being incredibly badly run. Either way I'm happy for a 50 point deduction and championship football.

No, that was them badly cheating, they were going to fiddle the books by paying themselves sponsorship money on a stadium that isn't even finished yet, because that's normal and not dodgy in any way.

 

[BaZ87]

It's not "just" 100k a week, it's literally 100s of millions of pounds overspend over a decade, EVEN with pretty lax rules on yearly overspend, EVEN with years of warnings, EVEN with generous wiggle room, they still failed, it was wilful cheating.

If the rules were even moderately strict, they would already be in the championship.

If cheating doesn't matter and there are no consequences, then what's the point ? everyone might as well cheat in any way they can, buy off refs, stuff brown envelopes, send your ultras to smash up other teams training grounds, and if you're caught a 6 point deduction seems fair.

As I said, people are getting carried away reading headline figures in newspapers. Everton's breach was circa £16m spread over 3 years - that equates to little more than £100k per week. Not hundreds of millions.

They said on the radio that Evertons ground for appeal is the £20m per season in sponsorship they lost from the Russian wasn't allowed to be accounted for as they were told "they should have seen the war in ukraine coming". I have no idea if that's true ....

It's not true. Long story short, Everton accepted the breach but put forward the lost £20m of revenue as a mitigating factor. The PL however argued that commercial agreements go sour for any number of reasons and that's just part of business, adding that deals with Usmanov were of higher risk due to his previous ban from entering the UK, Russia's invasion of Crimea and the Salisbury poisonings. Basically saying Everton knowingly entered into a high risk deal so can't complain that it collapsed. The PL also argued that Everton knew this deal was terminated before the start of the 22/23 season and as such should have adjusted their budget to reflect that loss of income. Despite all that, the IC accepted this mitigation and reduced Everton's penalty by 1 point for this and an early plea.

 

[Sythe79]

As I said, people are getting carried away reading headline figures in newspapers. Everton's breach was circa £16m spread over 3 years - that equates to little more than £100k per week. Not hundreds of millions.

You can repeat it as many times as you like, it's still spin, they've spent 100s of millions more than the clubs received in income over the last decade, that's financial doping, or cheating.

Just because you get a "free" 30m a year, just because you can amortise player purchases to kick the spending down the road, doesn't change that.

They tried to game the system, and a system full of holes at that, and still failed, so deserve zero sympathy.

 

[BaZ87]

You can repeat it as many times as you like, it's still spin, they've spent 100s of millions more than the clubs received in income over the last decade, that's financial doping, or cheating.

Just because you get a "free" 30m a year, just because you can amortise player purchases to kick the spending down the road, doesn't change that.

They tried to game the system, and a system full of holes at that, and still failed, so deserve zero sympathy.

So Everton should be punished for what they spent within the rules too? Interesting idea.

The rules allow for clubs to spend £105m more than you bring in and they allow for a number of expenses to be deducted from those calculations. Everton only breached the rules by £16.6m across 3 seasons. You can only punish them for that, not anything else they spent because that is not against the rules and it's what every other club is also doing.