Following the article by Vital Lion:
Villa Can’t Make The Numbers Add Up Any Other Way
TonyJ posted in the article comments. I thought it worthy of publishing. I have to admit I hadn’t realised all this.
One reason why Grealish sale offers the greatest opportunity to ease the FFP pressure, apart from his higher re-sale value, lies with the fact he has come through the academy.
As I understand it, his whole fee would go against our deficit, whilst a ‘bought in’ player would have a reduction made based on his original purchase price divided by the number of years of his contract. So, if someone was signed for, say, £8M over a 4-year deal, £2M would be taken off his sale price for FFP purposes.
If we need to claw back something between £30-40M, selling Jack for £20M would make a big dent into that. If Kodjia was sold for, say £7M, we would only benefit as follows:
Original purchase price: £11M over 4 years.
£7M – £11M/4 = £4.25M
With this in mind, I think Jack’s departure looks highly likely, unfortunately.
The only other option is to shift on Adomah, Chester, Kodjia & Hogan. Although many want McCormack and Richards gone, I doubt their resale values will help much for FFP purposes, apart from salary savings. We would probably benefit more selling Green or Davis, but they hopefully represent our future.