stevegrant

Absolutely positive. Much like the freedom of movement legislation that the EU (rightly) brought in for "ordinary" workers, it causes more problems than it solves in sport. Certainly once you get into the Premier League, a salary cap simply wouldn't work, and would almost certainly be illegal as well. The way I see it, there are two possible options for a salary cap: 1. each club has the same amount of money to spend on wages 2. each club's salary budget is restricted to a percentage of their turnover For option 1, it would never get past the consultancy stage. Some clubs clearly generate far more revenue than others, so what would the likes of Birmingham think about being restricted to spending, say, £8m a year on salaries when their turnover is £20m and their owners are willing to dip their hand in their pocket every now and then? What do these clubs then do with the money they've got left over? Chances are, all it does is make transfer fees go ridiculous again. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got the likes of Blackpool averaging less than 8,000 for home games - would they even be able to spend £8m on wages? Probably not, but if the cap is set to £8m, you can be pretty sure that they'll be trying their hardest to spend as much as they're entitled to do, so that they're in a position to compete, and then they'll get into the deep brown stuff because they're spending more than they can afford, which is one of the main reasons to implement a salary cap in the first place. For option 2, in my opinion, all that would do is make the gulf between the haves and the have nots even wider. Again, taking the same two clubs at opposite ends of the table, if Birmingham's turnover is £20m, and they're allowed to spend 60% of their turnover on wages, that gives them a maximum wage bill of £12m. Blackpool, on the other hand, with their annual revenue of £10m are only allowed to spend £6m. That either allows Birmingham to outbid Blackpool for any player they may both realistically be trying to sign, or it allows Birmingham to attract players who are simply out of reach for the rest. Once that gets extrapolated over a number of years, they really might as well abolish promotion and relegation between all of the divisions as the gulf in class between them will be huge. Leeds would have absolutely ****ed League One if a salary cap had been in place. This is a club who made £4.5m PROFIT last year - the likes of Cheltenham at the bottom of League One probably struggled to make £4.5m in total revenue! The way I see it, the two aims of the salary cap are: 1. to make clubs more responsible in the way they run the club financially, and 2. to make the leagues more competitive, to give the underdog - particularly at the top level - the opportunity to compete. It's no coincidence that only one newly-promoted team in the Premier League has qualified for Europe in their first season since 1994 (Ipswich, 2001), while the top European club competition is deemed tedious by the majority of supporters/viewers in this country because you can pretty much guarantee which 4 clubs are going to be qualifying for it each season and that they'll get through the group stage without any trouble.

I'm not sure of the exact details, but I'm pretty sure I read that they only paid (at the very most) half of the total construction cost, less the money received from the sale of Filbert Street - which was about the same as we received for the Dell site. No, here's an example of what I mean. Take Leicester in 02/03 when they went into administration. If they knew the punishment for going into administration was relegation regardless of how they performed that season, they'd have tried a bit harder not to overspend to the extent that they did. As it turned out, they overspent massively, went into administration and basically cheated their way to promotion to the Premier League. Even a 10-point penalty would not have stopped them getting promoted. Instead, under my idea, they would have still finished second but instead of getting promoted to the Premier League, they would have either just been prevented from being promoted (Sheffield United in third would have been the beneficiaries that season) or would actually have been relegated to League One (with the third-bottom team staying up), depending on how you interpret the rule for a team who finishes in a promotion place. If, as in the case of Leeds in 06/07, they went into administration but were relegated anyway, they'd have been chucked down two divisions. With something as fundamental as finance in the Football League these days, it's going to need something as draconian as that to act as a proper deterrent to clubs so they don't spend more than they can afford. Punishments like this work pretty well in Italy, they've got their finances mostly in order these days - the issue in Italy is that attendances outside the top flight are dreadful so unless it's the likes of Fiorentina, Genoa, Torino or Napoli, the clubs are going to struggle regardless. Fortunately, in this country, there are a hell of a lot of very well-supported clubs who aren't in the Premier League, which is why the whole of the Football League can still sustain three fully professional divisions, at least for now.

Haven't we been here before, only with a list that is now one name longer?

All of that sounded mildly plausible until you said the bit I've highlighted. There will be no chance of anyone getting hold of the land around SMS or Jackson's Farm for redevelopment unless the club is back on its feet, and in order to do that, people have got to be going through the turnstiles. As things stand, Lowe pretty much has control of the club thanks to his alliance with his old pals and Wilde. Why would he intentionally steer the club towards administration where his shareholding would be rendered worthless and he would be battling on an even playing field with everyone else to take control of the club? The very idea of that makes absolutely no sense.

Flying pig probably being more likely, to be honest.

Was it *actually* his, or just one that he rents on a regular basis? Don't forget McLaughlin's main business (and the reason he had a link to PA) was private jet rental...

From speaking to various people involved in the discussions at the time, no evidence was ever provided that Allen was the man behind the approach. McLaughlin was the man the club met (on more than one occasion), but requests for proof of funds went unanswered.

Since when have ethics been a requisite for the financial services industry?

They were in it for quite a while. Entered at some point in the second half of last season (hence getting the 10 point deduction that ultimately relegated them) and only exited at the last possible moment - I think they had to be out of admin a week before the season started in order to get their "Golden Share" passed on to the new company. I don't know the figures involved, apart from that it was 6 figures and Krasner had two other people working for him on the case. Needless to say, he didn't exactly slum it at the local Travelodge either

I loved the "bribe the opposition" option in USM

Bournemouth paid Gerald Krasner upwards of £100k while they were in administration. It kind of detracts from the point of administration, i.e. bringing the cost base down dramatically so the company can continue trading, to be paying out that sort of money, but hey ho...

Goalkeepers are usually a decent bet for those sort of records as they don't tend to get injured or suspended as frequently. Kelvin Davis has played every minute of every league game this season, although he didn't play in the Carling Cup. I suspect the last player to do it before Davis will have been Wayne Bridge, though, as Antti Niemi could always be relied upon to pick up the occasional niggle that would keep him out for a few games a season, we had Niemi, Smith and Miller in 05/06, Davis lost his place to Bialkowski towards the end of the 06/07 season and we had all sorts of problems last season with keepers.

The deadline is the 4th Thursday in March, so there's two days yet. I really wouldn't hold your breath on anything happening between now and then, to be honest.

3 playing places left - GK (90 mins) and 2 x centre-back (45 mins) Possibly one manager place left as well - the person who initially enquired about that hasn't got back to me since Friday night.

Yep, but then he's only saying what everyone else has been thinking. A very odd selection, as you say.

Well that came as a massive surprise...

I reckon that's highly unlikely simply because it would have leaked out a long time ago.

SISU aside, there's been no actual indication from anyone that they want to buy the club. Leon Crouch has said that he can't afford to put £6m into the club, so that presumably rules him out of the equation as whoever bought the club would have to pay all footballing debts in full (player wages, outstanding transfer payments, etc) and then agree a percentage of outstanding monies owed to the other creditors. I don't imagine many of them would be particularly happy settling for 10% or less of what they were owed.

Until someone else actually puts their money on the table, it could well be the only option. Clubs in administration are rarely afforded the luxury of choice as to who they sell to.

It's one of the rather large flaws in sporting operations working as businesses, particularly when acceptance into competitions run by the governing body (i.e. the FA and Football League) is dependent on certain rules such as "footballing" staff (i.e. players and coaching staff) being paid in full in the event of administration. It's clearly in place so clubs couldn't just go and raid other clubs with ridiculous offers and sign contracts with players to pay them a small fortune knowing that they'll be able to afford a year's worth of payments and then go into administration and write off the remainder. One thing I just had a thought about... when Leicester went into administration, Barr Construction were paid somewhere in the region of £8m in full settlement of the cost of building the Walkers Stadium. Given it cost them about the same as it cost to build St Mary's, we've been left with a £25m mortgage to service while Leicester managed to avoid paying the majority of their construction costs, so they have a £17m (+ interest) advantage over us as they were able to write that money off. In terms of the bigger picture as far as Football League finance is concerned, I would advocate the Football League bringing in much tougher punishments for clubs who go into administration initially, rather than punishing clubs in retrospect after they've got themselves sorted, as is currently the case. They wouldn't be able to bring such a punishment in for a few years - until the national and global financial situation has cooled down a bit - but I think any club who is unable/unwilling (often the latter with clubs gambling on the carrot of promotion) to run their finances on an even keel should be punished with relegation by one division at the end of the season, rather than a points deduction. If they finish in a relegation place anyway, they should then be relegated two divisions. While it's a bit of a shock tactic, I bet you every club will instantly slash their wage bill, players in League One wouldn't be able to take home £37k a week (DJ Campbell was on that at Leicester until the end of the August transfer window this season when he agreed to cut his wages in half) and we might stand a chance of seeing the Football League return to something approaching normality. In Italy, they took the plunge on that a number of years ago and even though the money at the top of the game in that country has dried up somewhat from their boom period in the 90s, there are hardly any financial issues in Serie A and most of Serie B. The money in the Premier League will suffer a similar dip at some point in the not-too-distant future, clubs who aren't prepared for it will go the same way as Fiorentina did - they were relegated 3 divisions when they went bust in the top flight. A Premier League club WILL go to the wall within the next five to ten years, I'm certain of it.

It would be exactly the same situation regardless of whether the club operated as a public or private limited company.

Many clubs who have had financial troubles, particularly in Leagues 1 and 2, receive short-term (i.e. the term measured in single-figure months rather than years) loans from the PFA to pay wages. The condition of taking such a loan, however, is that the club is placed under a transfer embargo, so they can't sign anyone without the permission of the Football League. Were the club to go into administration, the players (and other clubs) are due their money in full under Football League rules, regardless of what is agreed among the other creditors. This is why HMRC in particular are rejecting CVAs at football clubs - in their view, and it's a perfectly valid view to take, why should the Treasury give up 90-odd percent of what they're owed by a football club when the players are still getting paid in full?

The "Technically yes" was more a "technically yes, but in the real world, no"

Technically, yes, but there would be nothing to prevent the same people who currently individually possess minority shareholdings from emerging the other side of administration in 100% control. Administration is not, never has been and never will be, a sure-fire way to effect change at board level. At Leeds, Ken Bates ended up back in control after administration (and with a tighter grip on the club as offshore companies linked to him owned Elland Road and their training complex - hence how he was able to get the majority of the creditors to approve his bid, because he accounted for the majority of the creditors!), and at Bournemouth Jeff Mostyn remained there temporarily, and is now looking likely to be back in the hotseat again in the not-too-distant future.

Baj and I are both playing (and paying our way as well, before someone inevitably asks). Judging by the ages and playing levels of everyone who's playing, it really is a wide range. The ages range from 16 to 45 on the playing side (even older among the managers ), some play regularly at varying levels, others don't play regularly at all. Hopefully the teams are going to be reasonably well balanced. Everyone who has registered so far is in, although I've not been able to fit everyone into their #1 position or their preferred time period (I don't think anyone had to be fitted in with a different position AND time). I had to do a bit of juggling to ensure everyone was in one of their three preferred positions.