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agreed When i say "the primary purpose" i mean in a generic sense about football clubs, and that that should be the Boards primary objective - as it is for fans.
It’s absolutely not ours
We’ve had the lowest wages to revenue ratio in the EPL consistently. Pre-new stadium. Post-new stadium. It’s clear we are first and foremost a business.
Unless you’re a sovereign nation or a Bezos-type billionaire, football clubs , at the highest levels, are simply too expensive to run for the hobbyist (Elton John at Watford). Mike Piazza, a HoF baseball player of considerable means, found this out and bankrupted an Italian third(?) tier team.
On the field success is only important in that it helps drive revenue but Tottenham can turn a profit without it.
Does anyone really think that Brentford, Wolves or Crystal Palace owners are seeking glory? If on-field success (by which I mean trophies) were the real measure of a club’s reason to exist then 14 EPL teams should fold tomorrow as they have no reason to exist. And the EPL is more competitive than most leagues.
I would argue that the only owners that have got the balance right over the last decade or so are Liverpool with good recruitment and a little help from Barca at the right time.
You have no idea what their salaries are. Just guessing, what’s the point.
They sold a percentage to Red Bird did they not.
60k per week is what Sess is probably getting. I think Daniel is just a bit better value for money
About 10%.
They also got another injection of about 100m last year from another firm. I think FSG wants out.
Ange's comments from todays press comments. Whilst not specifically about Levy's bonus the bit about we're not Banks rings true and why a large bonus last year when we finished 8th and no bonus the previous year when we finished 4th.
Is there not a financial pressure to qualify for the Champions League given the revenue it generates?
Yeah but it doesn’t guarantee everything. I keep saying it, I don’t know why people don’t understand. So if I ask you, Newcastle made the Champions League last year, did it help them this year?
Financially it did, yes.
But we’re not banks, we’re football clubs. We’re not financial institutions. I don’t get measured by the balance sheet at the end of the year. You can see how difficult it is to juggle Champions League if you aren’t building a squad and to be fair to Eddie, he’s had horrendous injuries this year. Makes it hard. What I’m saying is, Champions League, great. Money, great. Does that mean we’re going to finish third next year? No. in fact it is probably going to be more challenging.
So my role in that is not to worry about the financial pressure of making Champions League, it is to create a squad that hopefully can compete in the Champions League and keep improving in the Premier League and have success in the cup competitions. That’s where I differentiate. Of course, everyone if you’re not going to win the league, get into the Champions League because of the financial rewards but that’s not the measure. How much money you make is not why you get into the Champions League, it is what you do with that money. Do you build on it? Do you build a squad or do you say because we’re in the Champions League next year, we’ll be great.
Is there not a financial pressure to qualify for the Champions League given the revenue it generates?
Yeah but it doesn’t guarantee everything. I keep saying it, I don’t know why people don’t understand. So if I ask you, Newcastle made the Champions League last year, did it help them this year?
Financially it did, yes.
But we’re not banks, we’re football clubs. We’re not financial institutions. I don’t get measured by the balance sheet at the end of the year. You can see how difficult it is to juggle Champions League if you aren’t building a squad and to be fair to Eddie, he’s had horrendous injuries this year. Makes it hard. What I’m saying is, Champions League, great. Money, great. Does that mean we’re going to finish third next year? No. in fact it is probably going to be more challenging.
So my role in that is not to worry about the financial pressure of making Champions League, it is to create a squad that hopefully can compete in the Champions League and keep improving in the Premier League and have success in the cup competitions. That’s where I differentiate. Of course, everyone if you’re not going to win the league, get into the Champions League because of the financial rewards but that’s not the measure. How much money you make is not why you get into the Champions League, it is what you do with that money. Do you build on it? Do you build a squad or do you say because we’re in the Champions League next year, we’ll be great.
Ange is not concerned with money as his job is a football manager.
Levy's role is to ensure enough money is available to put together a squad over a period of time (and Ange has said several times that might take 3 windows). So given just being in CL makes enough money to buy at least one player outright, its totally correct for Levy to prefer the manager to get into CL at any possibility to maximise money available to buy players.
So no surprise Ange is not to worry about financial pressures - that's not his role. But it is Levy's role
I would suggest the financial doping of Chelsea and Mancity (and arguably authorities failure to deal properly with Leicester - a £4m fine for huge ffp breaches enabling them to build a much better squad than they could have afforded) has probably put Spurs project back a decade from Levy's expectations when enic took control of Spurs - although we did come fairly close to a PL title in 2016/17 but finished 2nd.
Not helped by Haringey's lack of support/co-operation to build a new stadium until their position became untenable following Tottenham riots.
But we are where we are, nearing the end of a fairly extensive squad rebuild and we should have both improved our first team and added much needed depth before next season - not perfect but better equipped to ride out a few injuries.
I’m not demanding trophies or nation state spending. I just want us to seize opportunities when appropriate and go big. This is the summer to capitalise and create a foundation for the next five plus years. 300-500M on five or so players and maximise the buyers market, FFP headroom and recent good recruitment
Zomb, £300-500M in one season would put us right in the shit with P&S, that's hugely unrealistic. It's also nation state spending, or fuckwit Billionaire spending.
£150-250M should be achievable for us, IMO. If player valuations come down in the way I believe they will, that sort of money would net us at least 3 top quality players, with enough left over to bring in some more future/present talent with scope to improve.
I'm 100% with you that we need to seize this opportunity though. As I posted earlier, I think we have a perfect storm here that could propel us a lot closer to that elite level.
Your interpretation is quite the gymnastic stretch..... No way on earth is Ange condemning Levy's bonus; nor does the question from the journo touch upon it. They're just cranking the screw on Ange a bit about expectations.
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Although I don't see 150-200m as out of reach; what it the "perfect storm" you speak of?
...............The new FFP rules will kill the brief glimmer of hope of the playing field being leveled.
(I largely tuned out of this thread cos - the same as every year - the accounts thread quickly descends into a generic ENIC-moan fest from people that aren't prepared to grind the actual financial figures; and thus is better suited to the ENIC thread............... So forgive me if you already explained.......)
Just read up in the new FFP rules, I wasn't aware of them tbh. Does this mean that the threshold is no longer uniform, i.e. the clubs with the largest revenues get even more wriggle room? I note it's scaled down each year to 70%, but that's potentially a lot of offload for teams who are well exceeding that at the moment. Aren't PSG at something like 111%?
Having thought about it a bit, I still think it puts us in a strong position going forward. It puts a doubt on my belief that we'll see a drop in transfer valuations, but I still think there'll be a fair bit of belt tightening going on, dropping 20% of your outgoings over 2 years is still a big ask. If anything, it highlights just how stupid Chelsea were to put so many highly paid players on such long contracts.
The new rules seem like they're reining the overspending clubs in, rather than choking them from the off. It buys them a little time to get their house in order, but eventually they have to rein everything back to 70%.
Maybe it's just me, but it feels like they've been specifically designed to protect the big clubs from themselves and their challengers. As long as they manage themselves properly, they should still have the financial power to maintain themselves at the top, which is really where FIFA want them. The CL has to have the World's biggest clubs in it after all.
The bigger clubs will always have more money than the others. Was ever thus. Those new rules are not agreed as yet. UEFA are definitely going to a wage/transfers percentage of turnover. Down to 70% eventually. The top 8 will need to go with that whatever else happens.
ffp headroom is not a huge problem atm, but doubt it would accommodate £500m spent on players.
And there's not £500m cash tucked down the back of the sofa either,
We spent circa £150m on new players last summer and that's more likely this summer coming
Reality is chelsea in 2003 and city in 2009 have caused a domino affect to clubs. Wages, rising ticket prices etc etc. Wouldnt surprise me we sold richarlison to saudi club in summer for big dollar.
I'm not guessing, I have taken the salary data from here: EPL The data is well sourced but obviously, they do not have sight of player confidential contracts because NO ONE DOSE. But this is now where almost all journo's who speak of player salaries get their info from.