st albans fox

Fair enough - did we vote against them in the efl ??? as I posted yesterday, sitting with £200m+ t/o in the Pl with a stadium capacity of 31k and a meh commercial structure likely made us feel quite protected by psr for a few seasons. clubs like villa with extremely wealthy owners were unable to just push a money button to compete with us.

Yes it ensures that the owners of the rich six aren’t effectively required to underwrite their debts as they would be under a bond system. those clubs have their financial advantage via commercial revenue. We had a chance to push ourselves into a space between those six and the others (as Newcastle are currently doing). Sadly we failed to back up 2016 in the seasons that followed. The glory hunters around the world may have been tempted in if we’d competed for top four/six in the following couple of seasons.

I assume it’s a generalised point rather than pointing the finger at us. We are subject the the rules under the 14/6 application like all clubs. If our PL and EFL voting records are consistent in this respect (psr) then that gives us more credence in taking them on. His point about ffp stopping the wealthiest clubs spending without any controls whatsoever is correct. Ric pointed out yesterday that no rules would mean that the country sponsored clubs could just spend what they like and the mess we have now becomes a free for all the argument that owners should be able to post a security bond to allow them to load debt to that amount would also mean the country sponsored clubs simply exist in a world where no one else would be able to compete at all.

Their alternative was likely him sitting around for the remainder of the season ? I reckon we were caught between wanting to get enzo the player and not wanting to spend a penny (for various reasons) when inter tried to change things late on that likely flipped the decision from the club’s angle. We don’t know the discussions ongoing with the efl either. There was a non disclosure agreement ref the results of the hearing we had won with them until after the window was closed. Perhaps we had agreed that any deals we made in jan would be fully advised to them (out of courtesy) and the late changes inter made to the deal meant we felt compelled to pull the plug. that does sound unlikely given what’s now going on but if I were in charge I wouldn’t be looking for enemies in high places, especially if I’d already won round one. taking the moral high ground usually plays out well when looking for mitigating circumstances in hearings.

I assume you could see on the June 23 accounts how much we owed them at that point in time. We have loan agreements with them to draw down monies ahead of time secured on future incomes from tv deals. How much of that money we have actually drawn down is unclear until you see the accounts and what loans are o/s. The 21/22 accounts referenced loan availabilities (for cash flow) with king power and Macquarie was referenced re draw downs on the fofana deal post end of year. once the new accounts are filed this week then I think we have a few accountants on here who will break the bad news. I think they will look dreadful.

On the flip side, it will help him get his match fitness and sharpness up

Sadly we played with a single pivot and we lost hence expect the double pivot to return when the competitive games return it’s likely that Southgate can’t work out how to make the most of the extra attacking options that a single pivot provides Jordan! Get here now …….

If i’d been charged with shoplifting at a shop down the road then perhaps that might be seen as protecting me from myself ? The efl have a duty of care ref their clubs not getting deeper into the crap - now we know they must be under some pressure from clubs near the top who don’t look like breaking psr this season and we’ve obviously placed our flag in the sand re their right to interfere. Given that they can do this, I’m not shocked that they have

Owynn PA says we can’t extend contracts either without the approval of the efl

They are - it’s a preventative policy to avoid intervention too late whether they are acting as much out of spite in this instance is possibly likely I believe we would be able to register a player with their approval

Gaps in the rules will mean that lawyers get rich and our fate will lie in the attitude of the commission to those gaps. I suspect that they would acknowledge the issue in the rules but punish us because of the reality. We could possibly get away with loopholes in a court but I don’t think we are able to take the PL or EFL to court (or CAS)

They are going over the top because of our attitude and the fact we’ve fought them over this but the usual procedure with projected losses in the efl is for clubs to be brought under special measures (inc transfer controls ). Usually before the Jan window but we scuppered them on that

On the precedent of Chelsea buying kovacic I think we will be allowed to register him if we are promoted

We haven’t seen our numbers They have Should saying ‘don’t worry, we’ll be fine cos we’ll sell a couple big players in June’ be an acceptable position? what if we don’t sell those players ? What if it all went TU financially for us cos we didn’t get promoted? the efl would be slaughtered for allowing it.

Because we didn’t give them our accounts end dec as all PL clubs are required to because we argued we aren’t a PL club so not under their jurisdiction. We are having our cake and eating it. Arguing against each league with the same point. efl - you can’t have our numbers from last year in November cos we weren’t an efl club then so none of your business ep, - you can’t have our numbers from last year end dec cos we aren’t a PL club now so none of your business the assumption is that we gave the efl our numbers on 1 march as required and they passed them onto the PL

The EFL have charged us ?

Why didn’t we begin this fight against these wholly unfair rules until we failed them ? We spent almost a decade in the PL. we suffered in the championship before that was there a period where we felt somewhat protected by psr ourselves - whilst we turned over 200m+ and clubs historically larger were unable to do that. Villa couldn’t spend what we were spending because they couldn’t generate the on field income that we were. They had wealthier owners than us. Did we spent a few years thinking that psr was protecting our place between the rich six and the others. there must be a reason why we didn’t challenge the rules with big shot lawyers whilst we were actually sitting at the top table and infact not far from the top of it

clearly the authorities don’t agree with that because they found forest guilty End of year accounts are end of year accounts. financial deadlines have to be met . If you don’t want to undersell a particular asset then sell others or don’t spend until the following financial year begins.

nothing he’s asked is a secret from what I’ve read in his letter is there an election soon ?

sadly sums up SM And they actually believe it I suppose we’ve moved on - before Israel was created it was usually the Jews who were responsible for all the ills of the world ……

Did you find this out yourself or was it something you’d heard from a reputable source. ? if true it’s a big problem in addition to us being unable to renew contracts of existing players we may have wanted to (according to owynn PA ) without efl approval you’d assume that the club would understand all the issues before ‘going to war’

Why couldn’t we strengthen ?

I’m afraid your rowing against a considerable tide with that Of course the authorities who hated us and were out to get us then allowed us to win the fa cup - surely they could have found some dodgy ref calls in the 1/4 final or final ? how difficult would it have been for var to disallow youri’s winning goal for ayo’s use of the arm ?? No one is arguing that ffp protects the rich clubs. It may well not have been thought up to do so but it was clear that it would do this once people looked at the mechanics of it. why on earth wouldn’t those clubs want to maintain it and their position. None of them want a Newcastle spending a billion quid in two seasons to ensconce themselves in that top 4 at one of their expense. I’m pretty sure that we voted with the rich six to give them a larger share of global tv revenues a few season ago. You can hardly point at the unfairness of the financial constraints of ffp when you’re voting with the rich six to make the other fourteen poorer!

There was a comment on TS yesterday evening that probably 80% of the PL have broken psr i expect it was just a throw away line but it seems to have become fact in here !

not the same scenario as us but embargo placed before efl knew the details of the accounts https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/12/efl-place-burnley-under-transfer-embargo-after-late-accounts-submission