If the Championship playing level isn't level at all ....... It's going to get worse. Bournemouth, on top of the 100 or so million parachute payments they'll receive they're selling Nathan Acke for 40 million today. I'd argue us staying up is a far greater achievement than a WBA going up. The disparity is unbelievable.
I thought I saw somewhere that they still owe 80 million in transfer fees. Absolutely insane if true.
I don't mind them receiving a fee for a player and then spending that. What I do mind is the parachute payments. They need restructuring so that you can only spend them on existing contracts - none to be spent on new signings. That would make a big difference
As an afterthought, did parachute payments exist when we got relegated from the Prem? I've no recollection of them been mentioned if so......
I think it was 2 years of payments. That's why we had to sell players after losing the play off final
They did exist. 2 seasons worth. The first season was wasted on the wrong manager. Which is why it was important V Ipswich at Wembley to keep that money coming in. The season after, that money had gone. They now get 4 years worth I believe, albeit tapered.
I don’t blame the players so much, mainly the manager. I can see the logic, but it was too much too soon for Hendrie. And he hasn’t managed since. If Bassett had come in that first season, I reckon we’d have gone back up.
Parachute payments should be abolished. Simple as that. They won't be of course. I think it was Keith Hill who said it was rewarding teams for failure.
Don't believe everything you read in the papers, about football finances, they tend to pluck figures out of thin air. £100 million is the figure over three, or four years. Granted, these are a couple of years old, but the most up to date filed figures you can find - Swansea's income, during the 2017-18 season, from 'media', which the vast majority of will be from the Premier League/EFL, was £104 million. They were relegated from the Premier League that season, and the following season, in the Championship, that figure fell by over 50% to £51 million. Stoke, who were also relegated during that season, saw media income fall from £100 million to £51 million, and West Brom's figures were almost identical. Their income, transfers aside, will half next season. Little, old Bournemouth, were paying around £110 million in staff costs during the 2018/19 season, and spent over £90 million on new players. No doubt they will spend money, and probably decent money, to replace outgoing players, but it's not money they've got. There's plenty of rumours that a few of their players don't have clauses to reduce their wages, following relegation, too. If they don't bounce back in the next season or two, they'll probably go the way of Bolton, in the not so distant future.
Yup. The trouble is, a number of players they signed probably wouldn’t have signed if a relegation clause was added. And the number that did accept the clause, would also add in their safety net by also insisting on a release fee clause upon relegation. The latter has caught us out at times. The squad has relegation clauses, but some have a trigger fee too.