Interesting snippet from a David Sullivan interview...

[Collymore!]

Just having a read of this article and saw an interesting line that could relate to us...

ID: Two years on, do you think people really appreciate how bad the situation was, and what you both have done to rectify it?

DS: Some do, but unless you know the real figures you don’t. I think there’s a belief in football that whatever happens, the club survives. There will soon be a club that won’t survive. It might be Portsmouth. The only clubs that cease to survive are tiny ones. It has not happened to a big club yet. West Ham was probably the most insolvent club in the country due to the excesses of the Icelandic owners. If, for example, Roman Abramovich died tomorrow and his widow didn’t want to support Chelsea, the debts and the players’ wages would put Chelsea out of business. Same at Man City.

That from someone who owns a club and knows how these things work - probably nothing new as it's been mentioned before. The interviews a good read anyway actually!

And a little on the FFP

We will have lost £15-17 million pursuing the dream. In fact next year, or the year after, or whenever it comes in, even if you want to, you can’t, because of the Fair Play Rules.

ID: What effect will that have?

DS: In the Championship it will be ferocious. Wages will come down. You won’t be able to renew players, you’ll have to let good players walk away because you can’t afford to pay them the wages they are on let alone an increase if their contract is coming to an end.

 

[Captain Sinister]

This lends credibility to my serious concerns that Clubs are no longer special cases regarding business models.
It is a saddening thought that within the next 3 years we are likely to see the demise of some old and famous names.
Let's hope that NFFC is not one of them!

 

[Rigler]

DS: In the Championship it will be ferocious. Wages will come down. You won’t be able to renew players, you’ll have to let good players walk away because you can’t afford to pay them the wages they are on let alone an increase if their contract is coming to an end.

Maybe I'm being naive here, but surely no one else would able to pay them the wage they want either, and they'd have to settle for less?

 

[Strummer]

Maybe I'm being naive here, but surely no one else would able to pay them the wage they want either, and they'd have to settle for less?

Or go to a Premier League club for (probably) more, and sit in the stands each week.

All FFP is going to do for League clubs is make them far more self sufficient on academy products and mean that (as Sullivan says) wages will have to come down. Not that this is a bad thing of course.

All of this will make very little difference to Premier League clubs, who will continue to Hoover up the best talented players from everywhere, aided of course by the EPPP.

 

[Captain Sinister]

Maybe I'm being naive here, but surely no one else would able to pay them the wage they want either, and they'd have to settle for less?

Maybe we will see an exodus of "talent" currently on display in the Championship going East to Asia, west to USA or South America...
It was the big Premiership money that raised awareness of the rewards in England to the mercenaries of the football world.
The Championship was dragged into the wages spiral, so more and more players came across.
Now, the tide will possibly turn and those players that can't make the Prem and to whom the prospect of playing in the wet, windy, muddy sub-premier leagues and whose wages are suddenly capped, will prefer to play elsewhere where the money may be better, and, even if not, where the climate may well be...

 

[Collymore!]

Maybe I'm being naive here, but surely no one else would able to pay them the wage they want either, and they'd have to settle for less?

Maybe other teams would have a well planned squad and could fit in that extra talent that gets released from a club that has to reduce their squad.

If I managed a team I would be very tempted to have 12-14 "first team players" and then rely on youth team to fill substitutes and cover injuries. I could then have a higher calibre starting 11 (in theory) and promote the youth at a much faster rate.

For example with our current squad...

Starting XI: Camp, Gunter, Lynch, Chambers, CB, McCleary, CM , Cohen, Reid, Dex, ST
Subs: Moussi, CB, ST, Lascelles, Darlow
+ Youth team.

This strategy would also have allowed Bamford to be much more involved with the starting XI and we might not have lost him.

Would also allow us to sell/release:
Radosław Majewski (sorry, tough decisions will be needed), Brendan Moloney, Robbie Findley, Paul Smith, Marcus Tudgay, David McGoldrick, Jonathan Greening, Lewis McGugan (again, sorry), Ishmael Miller, Matt Derbyshire, Paul Anderson, George Boateng, Marlon Harewood.

In my opinion and based purely on what I read that could, conservatively, bring us in between £2.5m - £3.5m in transfer fees (which would go into the squad above that needed certain positions filling).

With the added benefit of saving us (again going on rumoured earnings) nearly £6.25m p/a in wages!

Smaller squads need to be the future and with investment in training/fitness specialists squads of senior professionals could be as low as 14 imo.

 

[Trentsider]

I think FPP is a good thing for fans. It means your club can only pay wages it can afford and I hope means that ticket prices won't be hiked up to pay overrated footballers and their grasping agents. As long as it is monitored properly and is a level playing field I agree with it. It works in both codes of professional rugby in this country. Eventually when things settle down clubs will have reasonably sized squads with players earning much less than now.

 

[Lew.]

Sullivan is an attention seeking dick. Just ignore the useless bollocks.

 

[RRRREDUN]

Maybe I'm being naive here, but surely no one else would able to pay them the wage they want either, and they'd have to settle for less?

This is exactly what I think Rigler. These over-paid 2nd class Championship players will not be wanted in the Prem and the issue will be a question of how well a team is supported and what revenue they can generate off the pitch. Because of this, we should be able to compete financially with all but a couple of Championship clubs (if, of course, we stay up!).

 

[Anatoli]

Didn't Sullivan make his cash by printing gash?