WSC Article 'Southampton's player sales vindicate academy trust '

http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1184-july-2014/11780-southampton-s-player-sales-vindicate-academy-trust

Nothing ground breaking but a quick, interesting perspective.

Interesting suggestion that introduction of 'fair'play rules was reason for Cortese departure. It could have been part of it...

as for the FFP £52 million salary ceiling,.....

as long as we can continue to bring in new talent, and not have to pay them " astronomical salaries ", we can afford to sell the " creme de la creme " every season, replace them and still make a profit.

Interesting suggestion that introduction of 'fair'play rules was reason for Cortese departure. It could have been part of it...

It certainly might be more of a factor than people here think, given Cortese's vicious level of ambition and control-freakery.

Heard an interesting assessment the other night on Talksport on Chelsea's Academy. It was mentioned that their Academy, unlike Saints, rarely has produced players for the first team. The reason given is that their Academy deliberately signs up dozens of good young potentials, trains them, loans them out, and, then, with the Chelsea name attached, sells them off for the best prices. In other word Chelsea Academy is solely a money making entity.

My take on FFP is that it has crystallised the status quo to such an extent that football is quite literally a whole new ball game now.

Most football Teams exist to make money by whatever means possible to them given there constraints on wage spending. Winning cups and titles was the traditional good way of doing that - but not the exclusively only way to do that now and indeed its now virtually impossible to do so apart from one-off cup wins.

The FFP rules now suggest that all the small fry should find new income - the only realistically viable one is through youth player sales to the big clubs. Trying to get Saints to rival man utd in Asia is pointless because a lot of the attraction is in the history of winning cups and titles. Now that the future cups and titles are all sewn up by the FFP rules for the big boys that cannot happen.

Ive read elsewhere about marketing Saints as the academy model around the world for developing young players. But there's a big flaw in that. The players all join big winning clubs - and thats when the kids on the streets of Asia start wearing the shirt with the name in the back - not a saints shirt.

For me FFP means ebentually European or even world Super league is more likely. Allowing the national domestic leagues to revert to what they once were on a relatively level playing field probably with salary caps. I think that will eventually happen.

My take on FFP is that it has crystallised the status quo to such an extent that football is quite literally a whole new ball game now.

Most football Teams exist to make money by whatever means possible to them given there constraints on wage spending.

I agree with the sentiment, but really most football clubs do NOT exist to make money, they exist to survive and, if they can, win football matches. If most clubs were really about making money then they would not overspend on players, coaches and other efforts to be more successful on the pitch.

This is why you might find profit at the least successful clubs (in the few millions) but not at the top clubs, which all overspend in the tens of millions each year to chase success. A profit of 1m on a 100m turnover business is not all that amazing and comes at a price on the pitch (lesser wages, lesser players, less points).

Arsenal and Man Utd (under Fergie) are exceptions. But Wenger has done it (make profit year on year) at the expense of winning anything (but possibly long term - stadium etc). Fergie did it with a great youth policy, but of course ManUre is several hundred thousand pounds in debt too.

So, yes, football is a different ball game, but football clubs do/can NOT exist to make money. They exist to win games or survive. Winning games costs money, alas it doesn't earn enough to offset the costs.

Heard an interesting assessment the other night on Talksport on Chelsea's Academy. It was mentioned that their Academy, unlike Saints, rarely has produced players for the first team. The reason given is that their Academy deliberately signs up dozens of good young potentials, trains them, loans them out, and, then, with the Chelsea name attached, sells them off for the best prices. In other word Chelsea Academy is solely a money making entity.

Of course it is. It's blatant what they're doing, that's why they had 26 players out on loan last season. Buy them young and cheap (poached more often than not), send them on a few loans to allow them to perform well and see their value rise, sell them at a profit.

They have zero interest in developing young players themselves

as for the FFP £52 million salary ceiling,.....

 

as long as we can continue to bring in new talent, and not have to pay them " astronomical salaries ", we can afford to sell the " creme de la creme " every season, replace them and still make a profit.

Unfortunately, for me at least, making a profit isn't the point. The point is to win games of football, and the FFP rules will inpact our ability to do that.

There are two ways to run an EPL team.

Overspend in an attempt to win matches in order to survive, make a small loss, maybe a small profit some years if you get lucky with a player sale. Lower wages. Risk relegation.

Overspend in attempt to win titles or cups, make a large loss, offset against large debt or charge to club owners/'investors', maybe some profit from player sales but usually not. Higher wages. Top Six place.

Exceptions and Not:

No real advantage to being a yo-yo club, spend the parachute payments getting back up and not always guaranteed. Further boost this year to payments might make it easier to come straight back up though.

Arsenal: maintain competitiveness at the top table without actually winning titles, made small operating profit but still not too much considering turnover and global profile. Wenger has scrapped both of his personal wage cap and transfer cap policies in last couple of seasons though.

ManUre: operating profit, but still large background debt, Fwrgie managed to win so much for so little outlay thanks to the Giggs/Scholes/Neville/Beckham generation.

And now, Saints are one of a number of clubs that see a proper academy system might provide a different approach. Market forces show cheap talented youngsters will outperform expensive experienced players 'pound for pound'. It is a way to survive with some success AND make a small profit.

This is the system that Southampton FC has been building for some time and other clubs globally have proved it can work (Ajax etc), right back to Rupert Lowe RIP.

This was still being built and improved on whilst Cortese was also building his European Dream. A dream that was only possible in the 'Overspend Wildly' model. This was great while it lasted and maybe if Marcus had seen our rise to the top table of English football he would have thrown his billions behind it. Who knows? That was the thing with Cortese ; for all his supposed business brilliance and bullishness he was just a goon. Our goon, when he was here, yes, in fact a really top notch and effective one, but a goon nonetheless.

This isn't really new news...

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/financial-fair-play-policy-unfair-on-smaller-clubs-claim-chairmen-of-chelsea-and-southampton-8872161.html

Unfortunately, for me at least, making a profit isn't the point. The point is to win games of football, and the FFP rules will inpact our ability to do that.

EXACTLY, and we were well and truly " stitched-up" on that one....along with 16 other Prem. sides.

However, if we can show sets of annual figs. in the black, not only will we be an unusual exception, but we might even get around that discriminatory ruling.

The critical restraint on Southampton's advancement right now is not FFP per se, but the BPL's salary cap rules (which are, of course, part of the BPL FFP rules). Because of the Salary cap Southampton had no choice but to make a big profit selling players this year so that profit could be used to expand the team's salary cap. I have discussed this in more detail on my blog:

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