As The Season Nears The End & FFP Is Back In The Headlines, Should Fans Be Getting Twitchy Again
With Aston Villa’s return to the Premier League for the 2019/20 campaign, there are certainly plenty of hot topics to discuss – whether that be the remarkable winning run to secure Play-Off promotion in the first place (and whether we can repeat it in the second half of the year to ensure survival), or our summer dealings (and now January captures) and the ongoing topic of Financial Fair Play (Profit & Sustainability) is never too far behind.
Chief Executive Officer Christian Purslow recently had his say on the year so far and the progress made on and off the pitch since our summer rebuild, and it’s fair to say he’ll have as many in disagreement as agreement on the steps he feels we’ve made, as naturally, fans want to see us punching far higher up the table.
Looking more closely at our January dealings, our transfer forum thread was littered with FFP references when it came to what we could spend, and then thinking worst case, what could we spend without it biting next year if we were relegated.
Now we clearly had wriggle room and we could’ve spent more in my humble – but I can accept we were at least nearing our limit for the year where on relegation, one sale (Jack) may not get us out of trouble and we might have been looking at McGinn or Mings as well – to provide the wriggle room to freshen the group up further for a proper charge on promotion again.
FFP - Have We Done The Right Thing This Year?
When it comes to FFP, numbers are always guesswork and we again saw plenty of ‘doom and gloom’ media reporting, but we’ve become used to that in recent years and like usual – it’s all speculation based to suit an emotive headline and has been largely based around the media’s push for Jack to go to Manchester United as soon as the rags can sell him from under us.
I find that fair comment on the reports that have done the rounds, as few of them ever try and establish the difference between the requirements in the Premier League compared to the EFL and the limit differences applicable to both (the daft ones simply rehashing content with utterly no knowledge of the regs have at points even stated the PL is tighter than the EFL and that’s a more ridiculous claim than Andy Carroll was ever worth £50million!), and they certainly don’t even delve down into the wage growth stipulations at play – and it’s absolutely inconceivable that our summer/New Year arrivals are as big a drain on our wage structure (even allowing for PL football) as those we let leave as free agents last summer.
Notwithstanding that, they don’t even factor in that we didn’t breach FFP for the last 3yr period owing to the sale of Villa Park to our owners (despite their earlier impending claims), so even though we have big numbers still available for two of the previous three year assessment – it’s logical to think that the Stadium sale leaves us in profit already – so as long as 2019/20 doesn’t register a massive debt compared to incoming revenue….we are absolutely fine, especially if we stay up.
But I think we’d all agree our spending over the summer was to build a core of players to improve, irrespective of survival or not and I’d say that was proven by the fact it averages out at £10-12million per player, which is nothing when you look at other clubs’ spending (but of course, they are starting with a core already intact). Much like last summer, we had two lists of targets when promotion was back on the cards – our dealings this year have been with an eye to both surviving and relegation being a possibility.
Fans would’ve liked greater spending, but again, had we spent larger and gone down, next summer we’d be under more pressure to sell more key players to balance books and create a surplus, when surely if we do go down, we want to keep that core intact so instead of another mass rebuild, we can genuinely look to bounce back at the first attempt this time.
The aim though is obviously to stay up, and whatever fans think about the lack of experience brought in over the summer, it was addressed in January even if injuries more forced our hand, and those with no experience of this division now have half a year under their belts (which isn’t great, but it’s a better position than they were in last summer).
Going back to the numbers we know, simply put, having passed the last FFP period, the summer saw us spend roughly what we will get in broadcast money this year. Any balance and January is taken care of by ticket sales, merchandising, commercial, sponsorship etc and let’s also not forget, depending on how player deals have been structured, our combined £140million in transfer fees isn’t actually due as debt this year anyway – and we haven’t even addressed the topic of allowable debt yet, nor the unexpected return to Wembley and the cash that has generated for our coffers, or players out and savings there.
Much like last summer, the headlines might be tasty and get your attention, but the reality is often different. Are we free and clear, absolutely not, are we back at the dark days of the club potentially going out of business (needing a takeover and a Hail Mary of the Stadium deal to keep us going), absolutely not.
Do we need to be sensible – yes – and whilst it might not get bums off seats and whilst we might not be signing ‘names’, it’s the first proper step in a process to get us back to better days and no amount of media ‘doom mongery’ changes that.
Jack will ultimately be in control of his own future, as will Meatball and Mings and in many ways that doesn’t change that much regardless of whether we go down or stay up – it depends on what they want and how quickly. That won’t change the headlines though as we near the summer, especially if we do go down, but unless you like punishing yourself, I still wouldn’t take the reports of ‘impending doom’ and ‘firesales’ seriously.
I won’t be.
FFP - Have We Done The Right Thing This Year?
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