Man United say Financial Fair Play will restrict transfers

[Rojofiam]

I like Mount. I don't see what role he plays. He can only play Bruno's role IMO, and it makes no sense keeping him as a Bruno backup when Bruno plays pretty much every game.

He's been mostly injured so far and he's done well whenever he's played. In Chelsea he did play in several positions across the pitch. I don't want to write him off too early.

 

[bosnian_red]

He's been mostly injured so far and he's done well whenever he's played. In Chelsea he did play in several positions across the pitch. I don't want to write him off too early.

Sure. But where would he play (not as a squad player, as a regular)? A system where he's a winger is a shit system, I will gladly write that off. He's not a DM. He's not a CF. So there are 2 positions left in midfield. One, his normal position, is Bruno, the captain and much superior player.

Then you get onto team balance, players we have, and potential of these players. Mainoo is the exact type of player we need in midfield. Next to him you'd want a ball winning/energetic type so that Mainoo can develop into being a Scholes type, Frenkie de Jong type, Pirlo type, Enzo Fernandez type, etc. You can't shove Mount next to him, you need a Casemiro type next to what Mainoo will grow as. So that lends itself to a 4-2-3-1, where Mount only fits as a 10.

I just think he's an entirely pointless player in our team beyond being a squad player, and we as a club should not be paying a squad player 200k a week, they shouldn't cost 50m+, and less importantly but more just mental thing, they shouldn't have the #7.... There needs to be a plan for every player. If we have a squad without plans for those players, then the people constructing the squad are doing a shit job. Any player without a clear plan for them should be let go. Take the money and try again.

 

[Zen86]

to be fair....they've made plenty of cash available

it's the cnuts like Ed, Murtaugh.....the football people.... that allowed us to buy so many shit players over the 10 years

They’ve spent a bit of money here and there to placate the fans with a few big PR signings, but that has come at the expense of pretty much every other aspect of the club. United were once at the pinnacle of football and all of that has deteriorated in the years since they aggressively took ownership. Woodward and the rest of the management team are a symptom of that, not the cause.

 

[devilish]

In which case Ratcliffe walks away and the parasites are fecked financially due to the historical debt, the interest, the credit card facility, the outstanding transfer fee balance, the dross on the books we can’t shift due to ridiculous wages and the club revenue due to not ever making the CL being shorter and shorter each year.

Not for a second do I think Ratcliffe comes in just for 25% and no guaranteed pathway to full control as he’s an astute self made billionaire in the latter part of his life and regardless of the news today the super league won’t happen, Uefa and Fifa won’t allow it and will adapt the competitions in place like they already have for the CL for next year.

It seems to be forgotten constantly just how dire the club finances are if Ratcliffe doesn’t come in for the parasites as they’d have to pump their own money in or watch the club collapse, the historical debt has gone up since the old man passed even though we’ve made all loan and interest repayments and can’t be refinanced again.

The super league will change everything. There will be guaranteed super money going in on a year in year out basis

I am aware that United had just came out saying that they aren't interested. However these many delays following their refusal to sell the club in full is deeply unsettling

 

[Sunny Jim]

They’ve spent a bit of money here and there to placate the fans with a few big PR signings, but that has come at the expense of pretty much every other aspect of the club. United were once at the pinnacle of football and all of that has deteriorated in the years since they aggressively took ownership. Woodward and the rest of the management team are a symptom of that, not the cause.

true. Carrington was once a state-of-the-art training center. Now its lagging 20years behind.

 

[Zen86]

true. Carrington was once a state-of-the-art training center. Now its lagging 20years behind.

Carrington, Old Trafford, the academy, and sports science in general. And then there’s things like the women’s team which we lagged behind on for so long. That’s what happens when you’ve got owners who don’t care and a load of bankers running the day-to-day.

 

[Rojofiam]

Sure. But where would he play (not as a squad player, as a regular)? A system where he's a winger is a shit system, I will gladly write that off. He's not a DM. He's not a CF. So there are 2 positions left in midfield. One, his normal position, is Bruno, the captain and much superior player.

Then you get onto team balance, players we have, and potential of these players. Mainoo is the exact type of player we need in midfield. Next to him you'd want a ball winning/energetic type so that Mainoo can develop into being a Scholes type, Frenkie de Jong type, Pirlo type, Enzo Fernandez type, etc. You can't shove Mount next to him, you need a Casemiro type next to what Mainoo will grow as. So that lends itself to a 4-2-3-1, where Mount only fits as a 10.

I just think he's an entirely pointless player in our team beyond being a squad player, and we as a club should not be paying a squad player 200k a week, they shouldn't cost 50m+, and less importantly but more just mental thing, they shouldn't have the #7.... There needs to be a plan for every player. If we have a squad without plans for those players, then the people constructing the squad are doing a shit job. Any player without a clear plan for them should be let go. Take the money and try again.

There have been important players for elite teams who never were the first name on the team sheet and didn't even have a guaranteed starting spot in the team. The best teams hoard talent. So many posters on the Caf are jealous of City's depth. I'm confident we can make place for Mount and other players especially these days as fixture congestion is reaching dangerous levels.

His shirt number doesn't concern me, he can write his own story and be a successful player for us whether he's #7 or not.

 

[Member 117152]

You’ve gotta love how our club bragged it can do things in the transfer window other people can only dream of yet it’s scraping for money these days.

We are paying over Madrid wages and transfer fees for Wolves level players.

It’s quite incredible really.

 

[Member 117152]

There have been important players for elite teams who never were the first name on the team sheet and didn't even have a guaranteed starting spot in the team. The best teams hoard talent. So many posters on the Caf are jealous of City's depth. I'm confident we can make place for Mount and other players especially these days as fixture congestion is reaching dangerous levels.

His shirt number doesn't concern me, he can write his own story and be a successful player for us whether he's #7 or not.

I’ve got no issue “hoarding top players” if they are on decent wages. Don’t cost 70m per roll of the dice and are actually top players.

 

[DJ_21]

Being very cautious now with Everton and city being done/under investigation. Chelsea should be done next.

 

[Rojofiam]

You’ve gotta love how our club bragged it can do things in the transfer window other people can only dream of yet it’s scraping for money these days.

We are paying over Madrid wages and transfer fees for Wolves level players.

It’s quite incredible really.

Covid happened. Every team is skint compared to pre-Covid, probably.

I’ve got no issue “hoarding top players” if they are on decent wages. Don’t cost 70m per roll of the dice and are actually top players.

Mount is supposedly on 250k/week.

I'd agree that's too much if we are looking to restructure the wage bill in the near future, but he's a good player.

 

[bosskeano]

They’ve spent a bit of money here and there to placate the fans with a few big PR signings, but that has come at the expense of pretty much every other aspect of the club. United were once at the pinnacle of football and all of that has deteriorated in the years since they aggressively took ownership. Woodward and the rest of the management team are a symptom of that, not the cause.

true. Carrington was once a state-of-the-art training center. Now its lagging 20years behind.

yes.....the infrastructure of the club is the main failure which does hurt in the recruitment of players as well

 

[Shark]

We've been so spoiled with marquee signings such as Mount, Antony and Hojilund that we won't have to spend for another few windows anyway. Feck me.

 

[sdb4884]

Without moving out some dead wood and spending smartly in January there is no chance we will accomplish anything of note this season. It will have a knock on effect for transfers in the summer as well.

 

[thisisnottaken1]

This club is a case study in how not to run a football club. We could have avoided this had our awful owners spent some of their own money, like every other club owner.

 

[matt10000]

Good. I agree with financial fair play.

 

[RedorDead21]

Good. I agree with financial fair play.

Agreed. Like humans in sheds can’t achieve what humans in shiny buildings can’t do. It’s a nonsense and just an excuse. We built ourselves up to be an incredibly rich club through harder times and we got softer for it. Have the right people in the right roles and the surroundings are irrelevant.

 

[Rooney in Paris]

to be fair....they've made plenty of cash available

it's the cnuts like Ed, Murtaugh.....the football people.... that allowed us to buy so many shit players over the 10 years

The only money that has been spent is the money generated by the club itself, none of their own. They have also limited the club's capacity in general by saddling it with debt which needs to be serviced, and by being the only owners for ages to take dividends out of the club. Tons of money that could have been spent on infrastructure and the club set-up.

Furthermore, the people you mention were all put there and empowered by the Glazers, because they're doing exactly what they want them to.

 

[L1nk]

United have said this every transfer window since FFP came in. Just another of the clubs lines to prepare for the failure they know they're likely to have.

If Joel and Avram knocked heads, suffered brain injuries and both decided that they want to make United the best team in the world again, they could sign anyone willing to come. Ambitious clubs find a way to get those deals done.

Actually I would be willing to lend creedence to this these days, the club has been so criminally mismanaged financially that it's no surprise FFP is an obstacle for us, we owe hundreds of millions still in transfer fees, we are virtually a billion in debt, if we sign players we dip into the company credit card we are so short on funds. Why do you think they even initiated this 'selling' in the first place?

 

[Giggsy13]

Sales help ffp and that's the idea. Loans won't do much of course. January should be focused on clearing out the squad as we have no fixture congestion left this season, to fix our FFP position for the summer.

• Sancho
• Casemiro
• Varane
• Martial
• Lindelof or Maguire
• Reguilons loan
• Amrabats loan
• Van de Beek
• Mount
• Pellistri

Those are all players who have extremely questionable current or future roles and all either have a good chunk of wages or could get us money. With Casemiro and Varane, you have the injury/age concerns plus what our rebuild target is, and finding that balance.

People remaining would be:

Onana, Altay, Heaton
Dalot, AWB
Shaw, Malacia
Lindelof or Maguire, Martinez, Evans
Mainoo, McTominay, Eriksen, Bruno, Hannibal
Amad, Garnacho, Antony, Rashford
Hojlund

Obviously we have gaps there to fill like CB and DM if we sell some of those guys, but we'd be fine to see out the year and it puts us in a spot to build better in the summer.

While I agree with most of the outgoings, we need to field a competitive squad. Other than those highlighted, I don't see why you would give up on Casemiro now when Mainoo could be the perfect understudy to him. Including Mount is also strange given he's only played a handful of games for the team. Thankfully this type of extreme turnover is unlikley to happen.

 

[bosnian_red]

While I agree with most of the outgoings, we need to field a competitive squad. Other than those highlighted, I don't see why you would give up on Casemiro now when Mainoo could be the perfect understudy to him. Including Mount is also strange given he's only played a handful of games for the team. Thankfully this type of extreme turnover is unlikley to happen.

Casemiro next to Mainoo could be a very nice partnership, though unfortunately they're on either ends of their careers. Casemiro is on the list because we need to sort out our FFP situation, we need to get younger, we need to properly build. Casemiro might pull another half season out to squeeze us in the CL, but it's not properly building. We need to address the DM position properly with a long term option. We can get good money for Casemiro, and we should take that chance given that the way we are playing, it is highly unlikely we will do anything this season. Better to rip the bandaid off and start the proper build.

Mount is in because his position is being a backup to our best player and captain who happens to never get injured or never really need rotation. Putting Mount alongside him means our midfield is unbalanced IMO. Might as well cut our losses, take the money, try again. Not to mention he is extremely injury prone.

That list is entirely in mind to fix our finances, fix our FFP situation, and give us the chance to build around a younger core, a more trimmed squad (given we have 1 game a week for the rest of the season) but grouped with players who are better suited to the demands going forwards. Stop getting a squad of 30 where half of them are always injured. Get a group of 20 or so where they stay fit and you aren't scrambling about an impending decline month to month.

 

[cyberman]

I was just thinking about this, how is this possible? FFP isn’t calculated until the end of the year and you’re allowed to go over ffp if you make it back before the deadline which we will do when the 300m investment is on the books? I know last year we signed loans because we wanted a full budget for the summer but this isn’t what these new reports are saying.
Is the same made up nonsense like last summer with the hilarious 60m to 100 budget we supposedly had?

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

I was just thinking about this, how is this possible? FFP isn’t calculated until the end of the year and you’re allowed to go over ffp if you make it back before the deadline which we will do when the 300m investment is on the books? I know last year we singed loans because we wanted a full budget for the summer but this isn’t what these new reports are saying.
Is the same made up nonsense like last summer with the hilarious 60m to 100 budget we supposedly had?

It's really not that simple, we are allowed to post P&L losses of £105m over a 3 year period which is currently where we expect to sit cumulatively. There are 2 main ways to get round that, the first is investment of which up to £90m can be released against the P&L in a 3 year period, the £300m you spoke of is likely in the main for the infrastructure which won't hit the P&L but instead will be held on the balance sheet and depreciated below EBITDA (Profit before interest, tax, depreciation and ammortization).

The other way is to sell a player that has a value, so for example as you probably know if we buy a player for £50m and give him a 5 year contract, typically we put £50m on the balance sheet and recognise £10m loss each year on his value, if after 2 years (His carrying value is £30m but we sell for £40m) we can recognise that £10m profit in our accounts. Now this doesn't mean we can spend £10m it means we can lose another £10m (Which as I just stated means we can buy a £50m player on a 5 year deal).

The exception to this is the fact we still have a lot players depreciating their value and recognising losses in our accounts, new contracts etc, I haven't looked closely enough at our accounts to state actual figures.

 

[DavelinaJolie]

I was just thinking about this, how is this possible? FFP isn’t calculated until the end of the year and you’re allowed to go over ffp if you make it back before the deadline which we will do when the 300m investment is on the books? I know last year we signed loans because we wanted a full budget for the summer but this isn’t what these new reports are saying.
Is the same made up nonsense like last summer with the hilarious 60m to 100 budget we supposedly had?

I would have thought that this is because spending now will materially affect the ability to spend in the summer as well. The £300m isn't on the books yet (if it even affects FFP?) and the deal needs to be ratified, so even though it looks like a slam dunk, hard to go out and act on it when it's not actually in the bank.

Ultimately though, I'm not sure spending right now makes a lot of sense anyway. Clearing some extra funds through loan fees and savings on wages for players going out on loan and exiting loans no longer required to allow space to bring in a new player on loan makes more sense. The club needs to prepare for the summer, setting the groundwork now and being frugal will help with that won't it?

Plus not much point bringing in new players permanently when we're about to have a major overhaul which will directly affect the future recruitment strategy and probably the coaching staff too. I get we need better players, but going out and buying without an overarching strategy is part of why we're in this mess.

 

[golden_blunder]

I think a lot of people will make that assumption that 300m is going to be invested so that should free us up right? But as explained above it won’t go on the books in the same way.

best way for us to get wiggle room on ffp is to lose high salaries and to start selling those from the academy - looking at you Scotty. If we got 40m for him it would be pure profit.

 

[Leftback99]

I think a lot of people will make that assumption that 300m is going to be invested so that should free us up right? But as explained above it won’t go on the books in the same way.

best way for us to get wiggle room on ffp is to lose high salaries and to start selling those from the academy - looking at you Scotty. If we got 40m for him it would be pure profit.

From what I have read about it, we're allowed to lose £15m over 3 years (seasons not calendar years). And currently we're expected to lose more than that for the 21-24 period.

However a club is allowed to lose £105m (an additional £90m) over 3 years if they have funds injected by the owners. That's where the additional funding from Ratcliffe will bail us out to a certain extent.

You don't pick and choose where it goes, it's a case of if there is funds injected the 'allowed loss' increases by up to £90m.

I wouldn't expect any signings in January.

 

[Member 109952]

From what I have read about it, we're allowed to lose £15m over 3 years (seasons not calendar years). And currently we're expected to lose more than that for the 21-24 period.

However a club is allowed to lose £105m (an additional £90m) over 3 years if they have funds injected by the owners. That's where the additional funding from Ratcliffe will bail us out to a certain extent.

You don't pick and choose where it goes, it's a case of if there is funds injected the 'allowed loss' increases by up to £90m.

I wouldn't expect any signings in January.

Even if say we're down a £40m loss over a 3 year period currently, that gives us room with investment for £60m. Since transfers are mostly amortised over 5 years, that's technically around £300m worth of transfers that extra room gets us.

Of course this is under the assumption that we sell some players to get their salaries off the books to make room for new salaries, otherwise the new salaries will eat into that figure also.

 

[Roboc7]

It can be resolved fairly easily, sell Mctominay and Greenwood. Sell Hannibal and Pellistri who both have a very low value in the books, if can offload Casemiro and Varane for FFP profits to Saudi Arabia then that’s a no brainer. Getting wages of those two, Martial and Sancho off the books would make huge difference.

This squad isn’t good enough and hardly any players offer value for money in terms of their wages, there are also a number of players who are past their peak or soon will be. Need to lose the fear of letting players go, start being ruthless and stop clinging on to players who aren’t good enough.

 

[golden_blunder]

It can be resolved fairly easily, sell Mctominay and Greenwood. Sell Hannibal and Pellistri who both have a very low value in the books, if can offload Casemiro and Varane for FFP profits to Saudi Arabia then that’s a no brainer. Getting wages of those two, Martial and Sancho off the books would make huge difference.

This squad isn’t good enough and hardly any players offer value for money in terms of their wages, there are also a number of players who are past their peak or soon will be. Need to lose the fear of letting players go, start being ruthless and stop clinging on to players who aren’t good enough.

Agreed

 

[Leftback99]

Even if say we're down a £40m loss over a 3 year period currently, that gives us room with investment for £60m. Since transfers are mostly amortised over 5 years, that's technically around £300m worth of transfers that extra room gets us.

Of course this is under the assumption that we sell some players to get their salaries off the books to make room for new salaries, otherwise the new salaries will eat into that figure also.

I think in the summer we'll be in a decent position especially if we can get rid of the likes of Greenwood, McTominay and the high earners like the last poster says. No need to rush any January transfers even if the position changes before then.

 

[SparkedIntoLife]

Think this is a blessing in disguise in some ways. It'd be good to have a bit of leeway in case a cheap wonderkid type becomes available, such as Zambrano as has been rumoured. But I can't help thinking 1) there's generally very little value in January, 2) INEOS need more time to get the right people in the right places with recruitment and 3) the first batch of signings in this new regime need to be at least fairly successful. If we buy another bad batch, it doesn't do much to convince future signings that the 'new' United is a place their career can blossom. Also we can't keep wasting money.

I'd be ok with a striker loan for half a season because Martial is barely available (and disappointing most of the time he is) and Hojlund needs support. Choupo-Moting is the best of the realistic options I reckon. Little point buying Guirassy, albeit cheap, if he's not good enough and I'm not sure he is. We don't need to keep signing duds on a permanent deal. £15m or thereabouts is very little and not a huge risk but I just think it's so key to spend every penny wisely when it comes to permanent transfers. A £15m flop in his late 20s is £15m less we can spend on someone potentially quality when we have the right talent identifiers. Not saying I'm definite that Guirassy isn't good enough but I slightly worry about some of our fanbase's obsession with signing someone for signing someone's sake.

 

[R'hllor]

Good, hope we even have more restrictions, we clearly dont know how to spend it on transfers, not to mention giving away money for wages and contract extensions.

 

[Partridge]

We should be aiming, as we should have a while ago, to get rid of mctominay for a 35 million ish, if we can. Martial for whatever we can get, and Anthony.