Quote:
Originally Posted by miami_fan
Has anyone seen justification for why LFC's last two years in the PL are counted in the EFL's profit and sustainability three year calculations? The two leagues have different limits for profit and sustainability.
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It’s one of the aspects that is causing the whole thing to be reevaluated - generally teams who get relegated have an inkling it could happen, and can build in mitigation plans
However LCFC (presume you meant Leicester City rather than LFC (Liverpool
) had been challenging for CL and European football in recent years, and were not seen as a risk to be relgated.
Added to the fact that it was completely unexpected, even to the club until it was much much too late, turns out we were massively overpaying players across the board - our wages:turnover ratio was something like 116%.
So it was a horrible mix of paying players to stay who really wanted to leave and didn’t give 100% (Tielemans, Soyuncu, Ndidi), and Top (the chairman) being too loyal and nice and paying bang average squad players far too much (Chouhury, Albrighton, Amartey, Mendy) plus average at best recruitment (Ward, Daka, Soumare) all combing into a gradual seemingly unnoticed slide into mediocrity, all with a massive turnover.
Then Tielemans and Soyuncu go for free at the end of the contract, as will Ndidi this summer, who could have been sold for a combined £100m plus (others on a free this year such as Iheanacho, Westergaard, Praet are less flagrant examples of a number of the above)
Then add in the fact that not only are the loss levels different, but so are the timelines: the EFL try to take proactive measures with accounts from the previous years and forecasts for the current in November, which was when LCFC kicked back essentially with your point: saying we were nothing to do with you until four months ago, and therefore we are only bound by your rules after a full year, effectively giving the middle finger to submitting the November forecast.
So the rules don’t match, and it has been shown to be an issue (as have the rules themselves, and are to be completely reworked for the 25-26 season, but that’s another topic!)
However, underlying all of this is that the club has been mismanaged, and we would have failed the PL rules quite badly too, even with their higher limits, so it’s hard to be angry TBH.
The PL rules are likely changing to allow a max spend of (probably) 5x the lowest club’s revenue, which we (along with all bar Chelsea) would have been within: it’s not case that the club is in danger, the owners have plenty of cash (not as much as MCFC or NUFC, but plenty enough), but I’m one for if there are a set of agreed rules and you break them, you get what you deserve.
But FFP/Profit & Sustainability has been shown to be flawed this year, to the point where they are changing the rules so that effectively no-one fails them!