2023 Summer transfers

Taylor, P. reckons the offer would need to in the region of £50m for Forest to talk. Which feels about right. But can we all just enjoy these two opening lines:

Quite. Assuming an average contract length of four years, that £160m outlay is £40m for FFP purposes. If our revenue was £160m, and we can lose £35m a year for FFP, we have £155m headroom for wages and other relevant costs, and to cover the amortisation of any new signings.

I don’t think selling BJ would be an FFP play. It would be a combo of the offer exceeding what the club thinks he is worth, balanced with what they player wants. BJ has looked after his career very well so far, and when his value has risen he’s been smart and cashed some of that out. He may be doing that now.. if, say, he’s saying I’m a £50m player and my contract should reflect it, like some of the other guys, that’s fair.. this gossip might be the process of teasing out what everyone else values him at with a view to him and the club deciding what to do next.

Although, we are 2 weeks off a second year in the PL and this year we have £40M amortisation from last year's spend plus a portion of whatever we spend this year, plus the growing wages as people like Johnson demand money to reflect their contribution and people like Shelvey sit back on that money without making a contribution. We could easily spend another £100M this year which might take our amortisation to £65M for the year, so our headroom drops each year and our costs go up. Nothing to panic about at this stage but it will always be balancing act for a club like ours.

And any Johnson fee, of course because there's no outgoing transfer fee being amortised, is 100% on the positive side of the FFP books. So £50m offsets more than the entireity of the effect of last season's spend on this season's numbers.

Which is what Chelsea are doing I think i.e. selling their home-grown talent. It's "worth" more for them in FFP terms.

Home grown, or players who are closer to the end of their contracts as they have a lower book value.

OK, but calculating contract lengths and amortization is way too difficult for my back of a napkin maths. We still have to account for three years' worth of amortization even if two thirds of that isn't due in year 1, so it still counts and we have to factor year 2 and year 3 amortization costs into our thinking or we find ourselves staring at a big problem in year 3.

You're right about Academy costs but I think stadium running costs are factored into the equation - capital upgrades may be exempt. You can't count the ticket revenues and not the costs associated with them.

Yes, but if you are doing that you also have to account for three years of income. So even if you ignore that some transfer fees will be amortised outside of the three year period, you have three years of income (£160m x 3) and the FFP allowance (£105m) giving you £585m to spend over your three years (on everything) to be compliant.

From that I learned we had two alternate goalkeeper shirts last season. Silver and Anthracite gray.

Sure, I like that approach. So to calculate how we're performing we have to take expenditures in year 1 (£160M on transfers plus let's say £50M on wages and £10M on other costs), and add projected costs in years 2 and 3 (let's go with £40M a year on committed wages i.e. players that are contracted to be here for the next two years plus staff and directors, and £10M a year for other running costs). That means that of our £585M we have already spent £320M, leaving us with £265M. Which sounds like a lot, except that Premier League ambition dictates that wages and fees will be ever increasing and we can very quickly chew up large amounts of money.

I don't think we're anywhere near needing to sell Brennan to ensure compliance, but I don't think we've got quite as much headroom as it might seem. If we could get some money in for the likes of Dennis, Freuler and Shelvey, none of whom have a place with us but have also not damaged their stock particularly here, that would be helpful.

That's nothing.
West Ham's three GK shirts were:
Deep Lake and Deep Teal with Fuschia
Gray Down and Flint Stone with Carrot
Buttercup and SV Yellow with Electric Green

I also like the fact that while Wolves have a head groundsman and Forest have a head groundsperson, Arsenal have a Head of Horticulture and Playing Surface Operations.

Anthracite Grey - RAL number 7016.

I might have used a lot of that stuff.

Well it is always the case that if a club loses money, the owner likely needs a plan to cover it (not that they always have one). Of course, asking for that plan after three years of spending is a little late because the money is gone and, quite likely, there are contractual commitments that will keep the losses going. If FFP was even useful by it’s own corrupt terms, it would be fundamentally forward-looking and you would try to prevent clubs from buying the horse, not asking how they plan on meeting the loan payments after it’s bolted.

One assume the NFFC ownership is aware of all the rules and if the losses fall into that region, the assurances will be forthcoming and compliant. But yes, the allowance only exists to the extent that Marinakis is able to cover it.

We don’t know what his plan is for the club. He has spent a lot already. He could probably, now, sell the club and get it all back. The price of pushing on is high, and significant even by Marinakis standards. He’s a shipping magnate, not a petro-state. Does he want to spend aggressively to try and increase his exit value? Does he want to own a sustainable PL club? Is he willing to risk a material portion of his net worth to chase dreams?