The AVFC FFP thread

[Tomaszk]

4 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

can you or @blandy give a basic interpretation when you have in words you might describe it to a five year old  

Here's what Chatgpt makes of that request...

There are special rules for when soccer teams that are friends with each other trade players. The rules are there to make sure the trades are fair and not done secretly. Sometimes, a team might try to be sneaky by sending a player to another team they’re not friends with first, and then to the team they really want. This is like if you wanted to give your friend a cookie but gave it to another kid first to make it look like it wasn’t really for your friend.

The people in charge of the soccer league don’t want sneaky trades. They want all trades to be fair. They even have a big list of all the trades ever made to check if the price paid for a player is fair. No one has ever been in trouble for this before, and it’s very hard to prove sneaky trades, especially when the teams are not friends and actually compete against each other.

The letter mentioned is probably just a warning to some teams that complained. The soccer league wants to show they’re listening, but the trades we made with other teams like Everton and Chelsea are fair because both teams agreed on the deal.

Sometimes the rules are a bit behind what’s actually happening. The rules say teams have to follow certain financial rules (PSR), and that sometimes means selling players. If a team sells a player like Tim to follow these rules, they can’t get in trouble as long as the other team agrees to the trade and everything is fair.

[Awol]

With PSR now sorted for 23/24, we can open the July sales next week. Assuming Duran, Cash, Carlos, Archer, and a LB leave before the window shuts, we should have no problems in 24/25 and still have lots of fun in the market this summer. 

It’s gonna be great. 

[Aston_Villan4]

5 hours ago, blandy said:

No they’re not.  A journalist has written a story that the PL legal team sent an email. “Ooh , scary, an e mail”.

The article goes on to explain a load of “rules” stuff which does not apply to the deals involving Villa

But I can see why a badly worded and badly written article has given people the scaries, if they don’t read it fully.

 

Fair enough but it doesn’t help that it mentions “Villa are one team that could fall under scrutiny…”

[Made In Aston]

6 hours ago, The_Steve said:

That wasn’t my reading of it. They would take the FMV rules usually reserved for concerns about deals between parties that might have same ownership and apply them to all clubs if they believe transfers haven’t been done at “arms length” and in good faith. 

“The Premier League’s director of governance Jamie Herbert has warned clubs that his department is looking for “issues of concern” around whether deals represent good faith “arm’s length” transactions over £1 million. It has the power to request from clubs details on how the negotiations took place, including correspondence externally and internally and any other documentation.

 

If the league decides that the transfer was not conducted at arm’s length it can then impose fair market value (FMV) rules.”

 

https://archive.is/9VnQy

 

The operative word is “imposed”. Meaning they will take rules designed for other things they have grounds to impose it unilaterally. 

 

I don't think they can just apply 'arms length' to whatever they like. There has to be a definition of it in their rules that makes it clear what they mean. If there isn't it it's likely to default to the everyday definition, which is transaction between two unconnected parties.If it does then all our deals would fit that description, as we do not have any ownership association with any other PL club.

The PL would also have to prove our transfers were not done at 'arms length', which they wouldn't be able to do without correspondence or recordings explicitly agreeing to artificial terms between clubs.

[duke313]

Just now, Made In Aston said:

I don't think they can just apply 'arms length' to whatever they like. There has to be a definition of it in their rules that makes it clear what they mean. If there isn't it it's likely to default to the everyday definition, which is transaction between two unconnected parties.If it does then all our deals would fit that description, as we do not have any ownership association with any other PL club.

The PL would also have to prove our transfers were not done at 'arms length', which they wouldn't be able to do without correspondence or recordings explicitly agreeing to artificial terms between clubs.

The "letter" is just the PL being seen to be doing something about an issue that doesn't exist except in the mind of Jim Ratcliffe.  There is then loads of click baity articles that cartel customers can enjoy.

[cheltenham_villa]

On 26/06/2024 at 16:21, blandy said:

They are taking a view in accordance with the rules as endorsed by the 20 premier league clubs. These rules do not include what you seem to think they do, in terms of fair value on transfers like the one being discussed here, between two unrelated clubs with no shared ownership. I recall they (the PL Clubs) voted on transactions between related clubs, but IIRC even that was rejected.

Based on the letter that was reportably sent, is it fair to assume they do have more power than was believed? 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, cheltenham_villa said:

Based on the letter that was reportably sent, is it fair to assume they do have more power than was believed? 

I don’t think so. The rules are written for related party deals and deals that are deemed not “at arms length”. So deals between rival clubs, with no shared ownership appear to me to be outside of the scope of their powers as documented within the PL handbook. My perception is that the reports covering the letter and speculating as to whether Villa’s deals might be subjected to some kind of investigation or charges or requirements to return some of the fees, or have those fees knocked down are “out of scope”. I do not see that the sale of a player from Villa to Everton (Tim) can possibly be acted upon by the PL as being not at arms length or between “associated parties”, when the clubs are direct rivals with no shared ownership. Nor are there any grounds to demonstrate that there is anything “collusional” (is that a word?), about a club selling a player to another club, even if the club is needing to sell because the PSR says they need to raise money. That’s no different to needing to sell to repay a bank loan, or to raise money for some other purpose, like pay the wages or upgrade the stadium. “We sold him because we needed the money and the price was in line with similar deals by other clubs for other players and a rival club felt the price was acceptable” is not something I believe the PL legal bods have any power to act upon. Yes some people or some clubs might think “that’s you wriggling out of a PSR hole”, but the precedent with Forest and Johnson, where Forest were punished in part because they delayed to get a better deal also suggests it’s totally fine to sell to meet PSR. Like I said, I can’t see a way our deals fall foul of the regs as written, and so no, I don’t think there’s any (more) power there for the PL to do anything.

[cheltenham_villa]

14 hours ago, blandy said:

I don’t think so. The rules are written for related party deals and deals that are deemed not “at arms length”. So deals between rival clubs, with no shared ownership appear to me to be outside of the scope of their powers as documented within the PL handbook. My perception is that the reports covering the letter and speculating as to whether Villa’s deals might be subjected to some kind of investigation or charges or requirements to return some of the fees, or have those fees knocked down are “out of scope”. I do not see that the sale of a player from Villa to Everton (Tim) can possibly be acted upon by the PL as being not at arms length or between “associated parties”, when the clubs are direct rivals with no shared ownership. Nor are there any grounds to demonstrate that there is anything “collusional” (is that a word?), about a club selling a player to another club, even if the club is needing to sell because the PSR says they need to raise money. That’s no different to needing to sell to repay a bank loan, or to raise money for some other purpose, like pay the wages or upgrade the stadium. “We sold him because we needed the money and the price was in line with similar deals by other clubs for other players and a rival club felt the price was acceptable” is not something I believe the PL legal bods have any power to act upon. Yes some people or some clubs might think “that’s you wriggling out of a PSR hole”, but the precedent with Forest and Johnson, where Forest were punished in part because they delayed to get a better deal also suggests it’s totally fine to sell to meet PSR. Like I said, I can’t see a way our deals fall foul of the regs as written, and so no, I don’t think there’s any (more) power there for the PL to do anything.

I've never been worried about the villa deals, they probably show a level of collusion and clever accounting with Everton but they aren't really taking the piss. It's very easy to find similar valuations in the open market. 

My position has always been that the PL could take a stance if they felt the deals were ridiculous which is how I interpret the letter.

If villa and Everton had decided that both players were worth 100m, do you think the PL would still be helpless to stop this? 

Edited Saturday at 08:22 by cheltenham_villa

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

If villa and Everton had decided that both players were worth 100m, do you think the PL would still be helpless to stop this? 

I think that question goes beyond the bounds of being credible. I mean no offence, but that scenario is ludicrously unrealistic and infeasible. Because why would either club give themselves a burden of (say) 25 or 33 million a year in amortisation, and even more unrealistically why would both clubs do so?

But to answer anyway, yes they would still be “helpless to stop it”. There is nothing within their rules, as written, which give them that power, in that situation.

[CVByrne]

23 hours ago, The_Steve said:

The BBC coverage is clearer. And they stress that no clubs have breached rules.

 

In the letter - which has been seen by BBC Sport - clubs are warned by the league’s director of governance that if it identifies "a scenario where a selling club has received an inflated transfer fee for a player in a transaction not considered to be conducted at arm's length, the selling club would be required to return the amount in excess of fair market value back to the buying club.”

Clubs are also reminded that they could also be “requested to provide information and evidence to assist determination of whether the transaction should be considered as being conducted at arm's length”
 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4nge0l7e1po

It would be ridiculous to scrutinise Tim’s sale for example and for the league to arbitrarily tell Everton they overpaid by £5m - and they must return that portion to us. It’s a slippery slope.

The Premier League is not worried about the deals that thave just happened. They're probably more worried about what this could become in the future. The worry would be academy players both teams judge are not good enough and would normally be released to join lower leagues. They can be used to game the rules of PSR by say Chelsea buy 2 players from us for £15-20m and we do the same to them. There is zero net financial cost to the two teams and then the player salaries are say 150k a year. They just stay in reserves or loaned to lower leagues until their contracts expire. 

Accounting trick done. That's the worry for PL not Everton singing a player deemed good enough to play in PL instead of an international like Dendonker. Similarly Dobbin for Everton. I think we get £9m + £3m add-ons and we only paid £9m for Dobbin. So the two players had different valuations too just structured to the way the clubs want it. 

Loans with obligation to buy is a PSR trick also and a way of spreading a cost of a player of 6 years when the amortisation limit is 5. Spurs have used that quote a bit. Lo Celso, Kulusevski etc..

There are ways to work within the rules but in creative ways. The rules are not very good and the only ones that would make sense would be a league wide salary cap unrelated to individual clubs revenue or one where only salary above X can be paid if the club has revenue exceeding it. 

[CVByrne]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

I think that question goes beyond the bounds of being credible. I mean no offence, but that scenario is ludicrously unrealistic and infeasible. Because why would either club give themselves a burden of (say) 25 or 33 million a year in amortisation, and even more unrealistically why would both clubs do so?

But to answer anyway, yes they would still be “helpless to stop it”. There is nothing within their rules, as written, which give them that power, in that situation.

They could claim the deal wasn't done at arms length due to the circumstances of the price. They could take case against the clubs and on situation of £100m the clubs would lose as they couldn't show a precedent for a club spending that amount on a non regular first team player. (are there even 10 players who sold for more than 100m?).

However if we decided to do the deal for £25m each. It would raise eyebrows but both clubs could cite numerous examples of players with little first team experience being sold for similar prices. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, CVByrne said:

They could claim the deal wasn't done at arms length due to the circumstances of the price.

“Claiming”, or alleging is one thing, proving is another. They have the right to demand copies of correspondence relating to this deal, but unless they have evidence, the “claim” is void. That’s why the hypothetical scenario is (IMO) unrealistic- because with unrelated clubs who are rivals, at least one of them has a very very strong incentive not to pay over the odds and burden themselves with a PSR liability. I don’t think you (anyone) can take the documented rules and pick out one in isolation, without understanding that the other rules also shape behaviour- so in this instance the PSR rules around acceptable losses work with “arms length” rules to push clubs not to spend more money (£100 million, in this example) than permitted.

[Demitri_C]

They cant be talking about villa inflating fees. Leeds selling gray for 40m to brentford and Newcastle selling some 19 year old ive never heard of for 33m

Eveeryone is at it

[cheltenham_villa]

12 hours ago, blandy said:

I think that question goes beyond the bounds of being credible. I mean no offence, but that scenario is ludicrously unrealistic and infeasible. Because why would either club give themselves a burden of (say) 25 or 33 million a year in amortisation, and even more unrealistically why would both clubs do so?

But to answer anyway, yes they would still be “helpless to stop it”. There is nothing within their rules, as written, which give them that power, in that situation.

No offence taken, of course ridiculous, deliberately so to understand your point. "Helpless to stop it" seams at odd with the reported letter. Is it the fact that its a swap deal that makes you think they cannot interfere?  

[blandy]

1 hour ago, cheltenham_villa said:

No offence taken, of course ridiculous, deliberately so to understand your point. "Helpless to stop it" seams at odd with the reported letter. Is it the fact that its a swap deal that makes you think they cannot interfere?  

Ta. It’s just the thing that people have been grabbing on to, in commenting on these deals, is the feeling that “something is a bit fishy”, perhaps. And I understand that. But the perception I have is that “fishy”, if you’re gonna outlaw it, is really hard to document within legal boundaries. I feel like the current regulations are a step behind what clubs are doing. Clubs, like Villa, Everton, Chelsea, Newcastle employ smart people to stay ahead of the legislators.

I’m a numpty . And I know nothing, but if I can see a way that the rules don’t cover stuff, then I’d expect all the holes I can see to be seen and adapted to by much smarter people than me.

[Czarnikjak]

Quick projection of our 24/25 PSR situation (not meant to be 100% accurate, just an illustration that 24/25 could be as challenging as 23/24 has been)

Assumptions:

22/23 - based on actual published accounts

23/24 - based on Swiss Rumble estimations, so please don`t argue with me on these.

24/25 - revenue based on us finishing 6th in the league, banking £60m from CL and generous increases in both Commercial and Match Day. Factoring in Coutinho write-off. Wages and amortisation not changed, as they are impossible to calculate before the transfer window is shut. 

 

Assuming these numbers are in the right ballpark (I believe they wont be hugely off), as you can see, we would be required to generate about £93m profit on player sales in 24/25 period (this includes June next year).

I don't believe this would be possible by simply offloading deadwood and Duran. Most likely another 1st team player would need to follow Dougie next June.

Edited yesterday at 12:56 by Czarnikjak

[PaulMcGrath_5]

Calling BS on the above, soz.

[ender4]

5 minutes ago, Czarnikjak said:

Quick projection of our 24/25 PSR situation (not meant to be 100% accurate, just an illustration that 24/25 could be as challenging as 23/24 has been)

Assumptions:

22/23 - based on actual published accounts

23/24 - based on Swiss Rumble estimations, so please don`t argue with me on these.

24/25 - revenue based on us finishing 6th in the league, banking £60m from CL and generous increases in both Commercial and Match Day. Factoring in Coutinho write-off. Wages and amortisation not changed, as they are impossible to calculate before the transfer window is shut. 

 

Assuming these numbers are in the right ballpark (I believe they wont be hugely off), as you can see, we would be required to generate about £93m profit on player sales in 24/25 period (this includes June next year).

I don't believe this would be possible by simply offloading deadwood and Duran. Most likely another 1st team player would need to follow Dougie next June.

So basically all we need to do is win the Champions League and finish in 1st place in the Premier League

[CarryOnVilla]

13 minutes ago, Czarnikjak said:

Quick projection of our 24/25 PSR situation (not meant to be 100% accurate, just an illustration that 24/25 could be as challenging as 23/24 has been)

Assumptions:

22/23 - based on actual published accounts

23/24 - based on Swiss Rumble estimations, so please don`t argue with me on these.

24/25 - revenue based on us finishing 6th in the league, banking £60m from CL and generous increases in both Commercial and Match Day. Factoring in Coutinho write-off. Wages and amortisation not changed, as they are impossible to calculate before the transfer window is shut. 

 

Assuming these numbers are in the right ballpark (I believe they wont be hugely off), as you can see, we would be required to generate about £93m profit on player sales in 24/25 period (this includes June next year).

I don't believe this would be possible by simply offloading deadwood and Duran. Most likely another 1st team player would need to follow Dougie next June.

I have no idea of accountancy, but I think it’s in the ballpark.. just purely based upon Jack’s sale numbers are no longer a factor, that £100m has gone to the PSR void

Edited yesterday at 13:09 by CarryOnVilla

[MrBlack]

24 minutes ago, Czarnikjak said:

Quick projection of our 24/25 PSR situation (not meant to be 100% accurate, just an illustration that 24/25 could be as challenging as 23/24 has been)

Assumptions:

22/23 - based on actual published accounts

23/24 - based on Swiss Rumble estimations, so please don`t argue with me on these.

24/25 - revenue based on us finishing 6th in the league, banking £60m from CL and generous increases in both Commercial and Match Day. Factoring in Coutinho write-off. Wages and amortisation not changed, as they are impossible to calculate before the transfer window is shut. 

 

Assuming these numbers are in the right ballpark (I believe they wont be hugely off), as you can see, we would be required to generate about £93m profit on player sales in 24/25 period (this includes June next year).

I don't believe this would be possible by simply offloading deadwood and Duran. Most likely another 1st team player would need to follow Dougie next June.

I know you used Swiss rambles numbers so not digging at you,  but...

If we assume their expenses where way overestimated. By at least 15m...we can take that off theirs and your projections,  and we're left needing £63m. 

Obviously still a large chunk, but that seems much more achievable without having to cripple us.