Just been thinking of a few initiatives.. Could any of these work? 1. First and foremost, consistent strong punishment for breaking FFP rules. Set the stall out from the word go.. Either 15 point minimum deduction plus fine or in very serious cases, relegation. 2. Clubs are financially rewarded massively with promotion to the premier league. They should be made to put in place measures to cover wages without a parachute payment should they be relegated say after 1 or 2 seasons. This can be either achieved by managed spending or the introduction of compulsory wage cuts for players of relegated sides (ideally a combination of the two). Following this remove the parachute payment which itself is an invitation to overspend the previous season. 3. Introduce the carrot as well as the stick. Replace the parachute payment by consolidating this into a financial fair play fund. Base this on a tier system, ie if you are break even or better you receive x% of the fund as a reward. Small losses can occur however you would receive a lower % of the reward fund. Anything over a certain loss would receive nothing. Fines for offending clubs could be attributed into this fund as well. Work out a system where this can be replicated through the league pyramid. 4. Close the loopholes such as this ground ownership. A club should never be allowed to sell off their ground to support transfer ambition. Clubs should be forced to hold a majority holding in their grounds. Special dispensation should be sought for ground shares etc. 5. Tighten up the maximum loss of 30m over 3 years. This sort of loss would kill most clubs. How about a more sensible 10m over 3 years?
Some good ideas, but in my opinion it needs to be really clear and simple, with a significant deterrent to breaches. Make a loss of more than, say 10% of your turnover, and you're automatically relegated from the league. No ifs, buts or second chances. Of course nothing like that will ever happen, but until they force clubs to plan for not losing money, the game will continue on its current downward spiral.
There is already a far more robust system. It is called Salary Cap Management Protocol (SCMP) and it applies to League 1 and League 2. It limits total player pay (as defined by detailed rules) to 60% of turnover (League 1) or 55% of turnover (League 2). There is no reason why it could not be applied to the Championship as well, albeit with a different percentage. The problem is that the clubs have to vote for it. They have to agree to it, and if you are a rich owner who wants to buy their way to the Premier League, why would you vote for something that restricted your ability to do so. The Championship is rotten because the clubs want it that way. It is not fair play, but fair play gets you nowhere.
Some good ideas, the problem with your proposal about Parachute payments though can’t work for the simple fact they are paid for by the PL, which is a completely separate entity to the EFL, so Championship clubs can’t influence any of that and no PL team is going to agree to it. The real problem is simple in that you need to find a way to make the gamble not worth it. Currently the gamble of say £50 million over 3 years against getting into the PL is worth taking as a club owner as you only need one successful year to drown out any of the previous losses(in theory) and is why clubs do it. That makes a points deduction of any description not significant enough, even relegation as a result won’t make much impact on such a club. So how do we negate it with such a dilemma? Perhaps actually the answer is really simple in that both the PL & EFL agree that’s any team promoted has to prove they have not broken the FFP rules. Somebody suggested other day that teams should produce figures by January and maybe the EFL take those figures as the basis. That then raises the question of promotion, if the team who wins the league has broken FFP, perhaps it keeps going down the league until the highest team within FFP. That way parachute payments, relegation etc continues in normal fashion. I accept on face value introduced now might make a farce of it in that arguably someone in 10th could get promoted, but if they said right from Season 21/22 it starts all of a sudden the gamble is removed and there is no benefit for any club to risk it.
