Lets put this FFP excuse to bed

[WorkingtonBlade]

If someone starts going on about the freehold, the "sky high" yield from the hotel / offices and (shudder) describes Bramall Lane as a prime development site I literally will go batshit crazy.

Literally? That would be a sight.....

Has anybody considered the sky high yield from the hotel and offices which we own on this prime development site?

 

[Barney]

Because I can't be arsed Barny. Indeed I'm feeling quite sanguine in the knowledge that the opportunity will arise again in essentially the same post, endorsed methinks by the 2007 Fannie Mae School of Finance, will be repeated in about 4 days time and then ad nauseum into the indeterminable future.

OK but if you can't be arsed to argue your own opinion, are you really in a position to put others' down?

 

[ghandi]

One of those threads. What most seem to forget is that this is still a business. No matter how much money the board throws at the team there's no guarantee of success. There is no way that we can attract Premiership players, whatever we pay them, so we are down to Championship players and the young talented players will not drop down so you are left with the reserves or the Journeymen. The other option is buying the best of this division or below. Some of these work and others don't, maybe they can't cope with the pressure.
Whatever I do believe that it's very difficult to buy your way out of this league due to the huge amount of money floating around in the divisions above us.
The board has invested in a sensible fashion and backed the manager(s). Not every player who we want, wants to play for us and how many players can we pay 'silly wages' to?
Everyone wants success now but I also want Sheffield United to be in existence in 20 years time.

and meanwhile the likes of massive clubs such as Bournemouth, Brentford and Bristol City managed to get promoted with "wealthy" owners so why can't we make the signings we need to make promotion more a probability than an outside chance?

 

[ghandi]

Literally? That would be a sight.....

Has anybody considered the sky high yield from the hotel and offices which we own on this prime development site?

We don't Scarborough Properties do since McCabe bought the for a £1 from the Football club about 3 years ago.

 

[GRUMPY BLADE]

Unless I'm missing something I find posts like this almost literally incredible.

The Prince is spending around £5m (that's Five Million Pounds) of *his own money* every season.

Instead of support or gratitude or any number of other perhaps more appropriate responses he gets a complaint: "It's not enough you tight-arsed bastard."

It's like someone buys you a fleet of cars for Christmas and you complain bc they're not all Ferraris.

Am I missing something?

We didn't need a fleet of cars, just a couple of CH's.

 

[CopenhagenBlade]

and meanwhile the likes of massive clubs such as Bournemouth, Brentford and Bristol City managed to get promoted with "wealthy" owners so why can't we make the signings we need to make promotion more a probability than an outside chance?

But they didn't buy their way out of the league. They bought, or developed, the right players to get out of this division. We need to develop a team not just a group of players.

 

[ghandi]

But they didn't buy their way out of the league. They bought, or developed, the right players to get out of this division. We need to develop a team not just a group of players.

This is the 3rd tier of football you can easily buy your way out of it, Fulham (with the managerial brilliance of Keegan - sic) did it with Al Fayed and Wigan with Whelan and I would dispute that Bournemouth did not buy their way out of the the 3rd tier with their Russian owners.

 

[zablade]

But they didn't buy their way out of the league. They bought, or developed, the right players to get out of this division. We need to develop a team not just a group of players.

How long are you willing to wait for that to happen though another two or three seasons? Four or Five... .Ten?

 

[Cyprus Blade]

Just a small point - I understood its the wage bill that is measured (not transfer fees) - Edgar and Sammon won't be playing for free. Higdon was probably on at least £8k p/w (based on his reported wage demands at Chesterfield) and I doubt if Oldham are stumping up all of that.

Yes the owner can inject new funds ( I argued last year that the correct division for large sum injections is League 1 because the turnover calculations for the Championship don't allow cash injections to be treated as turnover). The rate of investment would have to be in excess of the money spent on wages though to stay within the FFP 60% of Turnover guidelines for this season and avoid penalties (fines, transfer embargo etc). In my view the incoming players have to be able to do a job in both divisions or we risk being saddled with players not good enough for the championship but who will be drawing significant wages for at least a season after this. At the moment attracting players of that level isn't easy as the players will look to play at as high a level as they can and few will make the drop to Div 1.

Promotion to the Championship will net an immediate £5m revenue from the Premiership TV money next season (plus extras - gate receipts, own TV revenues etc) which should offset the need for continuing cash injections to fund this season's "extra" expenditure, but the reality is that most Championship clubs struggle to manage the spiralling wages required to mount a serious challenge.

Championship clubs combined revenue was £491m last season, however, these clubs paid more in wages (£518m) than they earned in revenue.The wages-revenue ratio in the second tier was 105% in 2013-14, compared with 106% in 2012-13. This resulted in operating losses of £222m and a combined pre-tax loss of £247m. The Championship ain't cheap and premiership parachute payments (going up to £80m over 3 years) will conspire to keep it that way.

 

[Snowman]

and meanwhile the likes of massive clubs such as Bournemouth, Brentford and Bristol City managed to get promoted with "wealthy" owners so why can't we make the signings we need to make promotion more a probability than an outside chance?

Because they had good managers who played attractive football and bought the best of the division not crocks and development players whilst we relied upon Mr Wet Knickers.

 

[stringjunior]

Just a small point - I understood its the wage bill that is measured (not transfer fees) - Edgar and Sammon won't be playing for free. Higdon was probably on at least £8k p/w (based on his reported wage demands at Chesterfield) and I doubt if Oldham are stumping up all of that.

Yes the owner can inject new funds ( I argued last year that the correct division for large sum injections is League 1 because the turnover calculations for the Championship don't allow cash injections to be treated as turnover). The rate of investment would have to be in excess of the money spent on wages though to stay within the FFP 60% of Turnover guidelines for this season and avoid penalties (fines, transfer embargo etc). In my view the incoming players have to be able to do a job in both divisions or we risk being saddled with players not good enough for the championship but who will be drawing significant wages for at least a season after this. At the moment attracting players of that level isn't easy as the players will look to play at as high a level as they can and few will make the drop to Div 1.

Promotion to the Championship will net an immediate £5m revenue from the Premiership TV money next season (plus extras - gate receipts, own TV revenues etc) which should offset the need for continuing cash injections to fund this season's "extra" expenditure, but the reality is that most Championship clubs struggle to manage the spiralling wages required to mount a serious challenge.

Championship clubs combined revenue was £491m last season, however, these clubs paid more in wages (£518m) than they earned in revenue.The wages-revenue ratio in the second tier was 105% in 2013-14, compared with 106% in 2012-13. This resulted in operating losses of £222m and a combined pre-tax loss of £247m. The Championship ain't cheap and premiership parachute payments (going up to £80m over 3 years) will conspire to keep it that way.

This is no place here for logical, factual arguments Cyprus Blade.

Nothing to see here folks, just sense being spoken. Please move along

 

[BushBlade]

Just a small point - I understood its the wage bill that is measured (not transfer fees) - Edgar and Sammon won't be playing for free. Higdon was probably on at least £8k p/w (based on his reported wage demands at Chesterfield) and I doubt if Oldham are stumping up all of that.

Yes the owner can inject new funds ( I argued last year that the correct division for large sum injections is League 1 because the turnover calculations for the Championship don't allow cash injections to be treated as turnover). The rate of investment would have to be in excess of the money spent on wages though to stay within the FFP 60% of Turnover guidelines for this season and avoid penalties (fines, transfer embargo etc). In my view the incoming players have to be able to do a job in both divisions or we risk being saddled with players not good enough for the championship but who will be drawing significant wages for at least a season after this. At the moment attracting players of that level isn't easy as the players will look to play at as high a level as they can and few will make the drop to Div 1.

Promotion to the Championship will net an immediate £5m revenue from the Premiership TV money next season (plus extras - gate receipts, own TV revenues etc) which should offset the need for continuing cash injections to fund this season's "extra" expenditure, but the reality is that most Championship clubs struggle to manage the spiralling wages required to mount a serious challenge.

Championship clubs combined revenue was £491m last season, however, these clubs paid more in wages (£518m) than they earned in revenue.The wages-revenue ratio in the second tier was 105% in 2013-14, compared with 106% in 2012-13. This resulted in operating losses of £222m and a combined pre-tax loss of £247m. The Championship ain't cheap and premiership parachute payments (going up to £80m over 3 years) will conspire to keep it that way.

If we do get promoted we need to start being smart and running at break even. There's little point investing small amounts of money just to keep us afloat, it's not sustainable. As you say, now's the time to invest, where it will make a difference.
We'll be a selling club but if we use the proceeds sensibly and buy promising young players the investment becomes self perpetuating. Spurs, for example have a very low net spend because their initial investment was on good young players that they developed and sold on, to fund the next lot and so on. As did Everton under Moyes.

 

[William Henry Foulkes]

Because I can't be arsed Barny. Indeed I'm feeling quite sanguine in the knowledge that the opportunity will arise again in essentially the same post, endorsed methinks by the 2007 Fannie Mae School of Finance, which will be repeated in about 4 days time and then ad nauseum into the indeterminable future.

*nauseam (as in nausea)

I know standards have lowered/dropped/fallen off a cliff here recently but it really is a sad day when errors in basic Latin begin to creep into this board.

This sort of thing heralds the end of civilization.

 

[judge]

The op is right though ,if the owner wants to pump money in he can

Can argue as much as we like about where this money and that money has gone but the fact remains if the owners wanted to spend money on players rather than haggle for loan players for months on end there is no reason not to

On the other hand if they are not prepared to do that then they must be prepared to keep covering our losses

 

[wizadry]

The op is right though ,if the owner wants to pump money in he can

Can argue as much as we like about where this money and that money has gone but the fact remains if the owners wanted to spend money on players rather than haggle for loan players for months on end there is no reason not to

On the other hand if they are not prepared to do that then they must be prepared to keep covering our losses

There's no disputing we have spent good money for a league one club* but the fact of the matter is that your post mate has hit the nail bang on the head. Pay the sufficient amount of money to get out of this league and they can then start to reap the rewards, i thought that's how buisness works in general, put in to get out.

*Whether that money has been well spent is very debatable.

 

[Barney]

There's no disputing we have spent good money for a league one club* but the fact of the matter is that your post mate has hit the nail bang on the head. Pay the sufficient amount of money to get out of this league and they can then start to reap the rewards, i thought that's how buisness works in general, put in to get out.

*Whether that money has been well spent is very debatable.

We've spent good money but we've also received good money (see my other post above). To me that's spending, yes, but investing, is questionable, game changing, definitely not.

 

[blade67]

Unless I'm missing something I find posts like this almost literally incredible.

The Prince is spending around £5m (that's Five Million Pounds) of *his own money* every season.

Instead of support or gratitude or any number of other perhaps more appropriate responses he gets a complaint: "It's not enough you tight-arsed bastard."

It's like someone buys you a fleet of cars for Christmas and you complain bc they're not all Ferraris.

Am I missing something?

WHF, I think that fans just ignore the news that doesn't fit their agenda. FFP can be worked around if the owner is happy to sink cash in without loading a club with debt, just losing it themselves, so FFP is really an excuse for not spending more money. The club should say exactly what you have. "I've put £5 million of my own cash in, that's enough for me, if you want to put £10m in give me a call and I'll sell up when you've shown me the cash, otherwise STFU".

I'd love it if the prince went on FH and said that

 

[BushBlade]

WHF, I think that fans just ignore the news that doesn't fit their agenda. FFP can be worked around if the owner is happy to sink cash in without loading a club with debt, just losing it themselves, so FFP is really an excuse for not spending more money. The club should say exactly what you have. "I've put £5 million of my own cash in, that's enough for me, if you want to put £10m in give me a call and I'll sell up when you've shown me the cash, otherwise STFU".

I'd love it if the prince went on FH and said that

So you think 50% of the Blades is worth £5m?

 

[judge]

WHF, I think that fans just ignore the news that doesn't fit their agenda. FFP can be worked around if the owner is happy to sink cash in without loading a club with debt, just losing it themselves, so FFP is really an excuse for not spending more money. The club should say exactly what you have. "I've put £5 million of my own cash in, that's enough for me, if you want to put £10m in give me a call and I'll sell up when you've shown me the cash, otherwise STFU".

I'd love it if the prince went on FH and said that

Why doesnt he then ?
Why doesnt phippsy ?
Its the truth isnt it ,they promised investment on the playing side but are only prepared to cover losses

Maybe it is because they would totally lose the fanbase by going promising one thing and doing another

 

[blade67]

Bush blade - They seem to be hinting that it's £5m a season so he's at £10m already and counting - if we believe them.

Judge - I think they are saying it, just very subtly, It'd be much more fun if the went on the attack, but as Boothy at Rotherham found out that can get messy.

On your other point, they only need to cover losses if they let the manager spend £5m more than the income. Hence they are investing in the team (if you believe that the losses are £5m).

Now it's a private company again it's quite a bit harder to know how much the losses are real cash losses

 

[RealMcCoy]

Significant outgoings

- Brayford - Over £1.5m apparently, so what, £1.75m?
- New pitch - £1m
- Done - £600k
- Sharp - £500k
- Change of management - Costworthy and to what extent nobody knows but this should have been properly measured and thought through to ensure enough funds were to still be available for the new management.
- Clough's fee paying transfers - I seem to remember the majority joined on free's but we did buy a few, players not worth that much though I wouldn't have thought.

= £3.85m + change of management costs and Clough's spending. Probably taking us over the £4.25m mark.


Significant incomings

- Harry Maguire - £2.5m (BBC)
- Jamie Murphy - Majority have said £1.5m --> £2m, so we'll say £1.75m

= £4.25m

Overall, that leaves us with our only actual expenditure being run of the mill wage paying and small fees here and there under Clough.

'Game changing'.

I rather suspect that the Clough "change of management costs" (excluding his spending) would exceed £400k..........by a serious factor!

 

[super_pig]

"Clubs that are still within the Football League that break FFP rules can be punished with various sanctions, including the deduction of points and transfer embargoes restricting further activity."

unless you're west ham

 

[robbiez666]

Missed a few but then you have an agenda

or the fact the pitch was paid for by the cup runs. Your agenda.

 

[Barney]

or the fact the pitch was paid for by the cup runs. Your agenda.

I must say I forgot about the cup run money. Further validates my point.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Significant outgoings

- Brayford - Over £1.5m apparently, so what, £1.75m?
- New pitch - £1m
- Done - £600k
- Sharp - £500k
- Change of management - Costworthy and to what extent nobody knows but this should have been properly measured and thought through to ensure enough funds were to still be available for the new management.
- Clough's fee paying transfers - I seem to remember the majority joined on free's but we did buy a few, players not worth that much though I wouldn't have thought.

= £3.85m + change of management costs and Clough's spending. Probably taking us over the £4.25m mark.


Significant incomings

- Harry Maguire - £2.5m (BBC)
- Jamie Murphy - Majority have said £1.5m --> £2m, so we'll say £1.75m

= £4.25m

Overall, that leaves us with our only actual expenditure being run of the mill wage paying and small fees here and there under Clough.

'Game changing'.

If you believe that Cloughs other transfer dealings and the pay off for him and his staff only amounted to £400k you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

You are also mixing up income and expenditure over two financial years and totally ignore the fact that there was a loss of around £4million in the accounts ending June 2014 and further losses expected in the June 2015 accounts which require funding so you aren't so much making the facts fit but are bludgeoning them in with a lump hammer.

Overall, fag packet calculations with the answer already decided before your analysis. All that's missing is " the directors are coining it" claim.

 

[grafikhaus]

The Prince is spending around £5m (that's Five Million Pounds) of *his own money* every season.

Instead of support or gratitude or any number of other perhaps more appropriate responses he gets a complaint: "It's not enough you tight-arsed bastard."

It's like someone buys you a fleet of cars for Christmas and you complain bc they're not all Ferraris.

Am I missing something?

Good post, WHF. This type of argument is repeated on Football Heaven almost daily (not only from Unitedites, piggies also). 'Why haven't we bought X, Y and Z?'

'And the next caller is complaining about ticket prices...'

 

[judge]

Good post, WHF. This type of argument is repeated on Football Heaven almost daily (not only from Unitedites, piggies also). 'Why haven't we bought X, Y and Z?'

'And the next caller is complaining about ticket prices...'

Bit of a non issue really ,i think more people are bothered about us not spending money we have generated from player sales after being told we dont need to sell

Also how the fuck are we losing 5m a year anyway ?
If we are so dedicated to fppp or whatever its called
Arent we risking s 50m pound fine by spending outside our means ?

Doesnt add up

 

[Sirius]

One of those threads. What most seem to forget is that this is still a business. No matter how much money the board throws at the team there's no guarantee of success. There is no way that we can attract Premiership players, whatever we pay them, so we are down to Championship players and the young talented players will not drop down so you are left with the reserves or the Journeymen. The other option is buying the best of this division or below. Some of these work and others don't, maybe they can't cope with the pressure.
Whatever I do believe that it's very difficult to buy your way out of this league due to the huge amount of money floating around in the divisions above us.
The board has invested in a sensible fashion and backed the manager(s). Not every player who we want, wants to play for us and how many players can we pay 'silly wages' to?
Everyone wants success now but I also want Sheffield United to be in existence in 20 years time.

Regarding the promotions from this league. I would suggest that no team "bought' their promotion. Instead,with fewer financial advantages, it was horses for courses. Big as out house defenders who put themselves about, players who cost less than ours but wanted it more.
Sad as it is, this division is a different kettle of fish. I do not care how we get out of it. The niceties and free flowing football which I like to see can come later when we, by whatever means escape this Sunday league.

 

[Sean Thornton]

Bit of a non issue really ,i think more people are bothered about us not spending money we have generated from player sales after being told we dont need to sell

Also how the fuck are we losing 5m a year anyway ?
If we are so dedicated to fppp or whatever its called
Arent we risking s 50m pound fine by spending outside our means ?

Doesnt add up

The accounts show how we lose money every year. It's because we spend more than we have coming in. It's not difficult to grasp really. In any event we are under SCMP rules, wages and related costs including transfer fees in and out - when actually cash received/paid - should be a maximum 60% of relevant income/equity investment. Nothing to do with financial losses.

 

[Rodley]

Bit of a non issue really ,i think more people are bothered about us not spending money we have generated from player sales after being told we dont need to sell

Also how the fuck are we losing 5m a year anyway ?
If we are so dedicated to fppp or whatever its called
Arent we risking s 50m pound fine by spending outside our means ?

Doesnt add up

If you believe that Cloughs other transfer dealings and the pay off for him and his staff only amounted to £400k you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

You are also mixing up income and expenditure over two financial years and totally ignore the fact that there was a loss of around £4million in the accounts ending June 2014 and further losses expected in the June 2015 accounts which require funding so you aren't so much making the facts fit but are bludgeoning them in with a lump hammer.

Overall, fag packet calculations with the answer already decided before your analysis. All that's missing is " the directors are coining it" claim.

Blade-a-nomics Rule #263

Overheads in a business don't exist.

Hope none of these boys are ICAEW, otherwise we're all in for another crash