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Should Financial Fair Play be in existence in Scottish fitba?


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Just now, RandomGuy. said:

Yes, I'm forgetting you constantly live in a fantasy world when you think up these things. Your way, which isn't ever explained, is generally always perfect and better than the multitude of real world attempts at the same thing.

Fair dos.

I think you'd be well-suited to a job in Scottish football administration. Call the SFA.

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3 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

Couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but it was discussed when the accounts were released.

Our wages to turnover needs to come down a bit, imo, but I can't remember the exact figures.

We published accounts, so it's all available.

Had a quick look at the most recent accounts which shows turnover of £20.8m, with staff costs of £15.4m and other operating costs of £9m.

Money coming in from benefactors was £4.5m so it does appear if Anderson was to disappear then Hearts would be in the red by about £3.6m.

Given that staff and player wages don't tend to come down, that would need to result in quite a large scaling back of those other operating costs by over a third to try and break even.

Edited by AJF
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5 minutes ago, AJF said:

Had a quick look at the most recent accounts which shows turnover of £20.8m, with staff costs of £15.4m and other operating costs of £9m.

Money coming in from benefactors was £4.5m so it does appear if Anderson was to disappear then Hearts would be in the red by about £3.6m.

Given that staff and player wages don't tend to come down, that would need to result in quite a large scaling back of those other operating costs by over a third to try and break even.

Not spending all day going back over old ground, as this was extensively covered at the time.

Hearts have been spending hugely on infrastructure over the last few years, and the Anderson money has been factored into our spending.

Despite the Hibs.net view of this, it does not mean Hearts are reliant on Anderson to remain a going concern. He's helpful, of course. But he also exists and his input is planned for.

It's like you building a nice house with your own money and then your old man giving you twenty grand to build an extension and people pointing out that you couldn't afford it without him. That's true, but you've got the money from him, so you can. And you paid for the nice house yourself.

We've got full houses every week, we've got the FoH money, we've got rising commerical income. Anderson is nice, but we'd manage without him. And fortunately a lot of our recent spending (finishing the stand, building the hotel etc) is spend we won't have to make again.

Edited by VincentGuerin
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Just now, VincentGuerin said:

Not going back over old ground, as this was extensively covered at the time.

Hearts have been spending hugely on infrastructure over the last few years, and the Anderson money has been factored into our spending.

Despite the Hibs.net view of this, it does not mean Hearts are reliant on Anderson to remain a going concern. He's helpful, of course. But he also exists and his input is planned for.

It's like you building a nice house with your own money and then your old man giving you twenty grand to build an extension and people pointing out that you couldn't afford it without him. That's true, but you've got the money from him, so you can. And you paid for the nice house yourself.

We've got full houses every week, we've got the FoH money, we've got rising commerical income. Anderson is nice, but we'd manage without him. And fortunately a lot of our recent spending (finishing the stand, building the hotel etc) is spend we won't have to make again.

I wasn't suggesting you were reliant on him. More that there would inevitably need to be a large scaling back in the operating costs - a third seems a lot.

If that £3.6m shortfall can be made up after excluding any of the non-recurring infrastructure investments then there's no issue.

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22 minutes ago, AJF said:

Had a quick look at the most recent accounts which shows turnover of £20.8m, with staff costs of £15.4m and other operating costs of £9m.

Money coming in from benefactors was £4.5m so it does appear if Anderson was to disappear then Hearts would be in the red by about £3.6m.

Given that staff and player wages don't tend to come down, that would need to result in quite a large scaling back of those other operating costs by over a third to try and break even.

They've been handed over £20m by Anderson so far.

But it's Hearts so it's all perfectly fine and sustainable thank you very much. 

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Just now, RandomGuy. said:

They've been handed over £20m by Anderson so far.

But it's Hearts so it's all perfectly fine and sustainable thank you very much. 

What's not sustainable about it?

I'm really not sure you're grasping that the aim here is to stop clubs spending beyond their means. Anderson's money is gifted to Hearts. It is literally within our means.

If he'd been loaning it to us and wanted it paid back, I'd be extremely concerned. But he isn't. The money has helped us put infrastructure in place that will see the club in a good position for years to come.

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22 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

Not spending all day going back over old ground, as this was extensively covered at the time.

Hearts have been spending hugely on infrastructure over the last few years, and the Anderson money has been factored into our spending.

Despite the Hibs.net view of this, it does not mean Hearts are reliant on Anderson to remain a going concern. He's helpful, of course. But he also exists and his input is planned for.

It's like you building a nice house with your own money and then your old man giving you twenty grand to build an extension and people pointing out that you couldn't afford it without him. That's true, but you've got the money from him, so you can. And you paid for the nice house yourself.

We've got full houses every week, we've got the FoH money, we've got rising commerical income. Anderson is nice, but we'd manage without him. And fortunately a lot of our recent spending (finishing the stand, building the hotel etc) is spend we won't have to make again.

🤣

Sorry was just reading through this thread and couldn't help quoting this post for obvious reasons, glad i wasn't having a cup of tea there, i'd have spat it out reading that BIB. 🤣

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Were Hearts not relegated with all that FoH extra cash coming in too? They seem to have finally cracked how to actually run a football club  but the money they have pissed up along the way is quite ridiculous. Getting a revenue stream like that was impressive but Budge and co seemed pretty clueless as to know what to do with it.

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4 hours ago, thisGRAEME said:

Are there any situations where FFP has actually been effective? Feel like clubs pay it lip service and just lawyer up when they're inevitably caught.


A lot of biggish clubs have been banned from Europe as a result of it.

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7 minutes ago, Newbornbairn said:

All gate money, sponsorship, tv money etc pooled and split equally between the 42 clubs. Seems fair. Success then comes down to competence and ability - a meritocracy. 

 

Excluding the non-league clubs doesn't seem very meritocratic.

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Unfortunately FFP won’t solve the main problem in Scottish football which is the massive disparity between the top two teams and the rest. 
Only a radical restructuring involving things like how gate receipts are distributed and shared merchandise sales among all the clubs, to name a couple of ideas, may help to slightly level the playing field financially. 

However with the authorities we have running the game in this country I am not optimistic of any positive changes any time soon. 

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On 04/04/2024 at 12:49, craigkillie said:

 Making clubs jump through massive hoops to cheat is clearly better than just letting them do it brazenly.

Making them try and jump through really tiny hoops would be better still.

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22 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

What's not sustainable about it?

I'm really not sure you're grasping that the aim here is to stop clubs spending beyond their means. Anderson's money is gifted to Hearts. It is literally within our means.

If he'd been loaning it to us and wanted it paid back, I'd be extremely concerned. But he isn't. The money has helped us put infrastructure in place that will see the club in a good position for years to come.

So Hearts gifted £20m+ by someone whos not an owner of the club to help them spend money on things they couldn't buy otherwise = sustainable and fine

Livingston handed money by someone who is an owner of the club to help them spend money on things they couldn't buy otherwise = unsustainable and deplorable

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1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

So Hearts gifted £20m+ by someone whos not an owner of the club to help them spend money on things they couldn't buy otherwise = sustainable and fine

Livingston handed money by someone who is an owner of the club to help them spend money on things they couldn't buy otherwise = unsustainable and deplorable

We can play silly buggers all you like.

Hearts are financially viable as a top flight football club with or without Anderson. It's nice to have the money, of course, and we're basically lucky. If he didn't exist our season tickets would be more expensive, we wouldn't have a hotel, and we'd be further back in terms of our post-admin recovery and development. But we'd almost certainly be in the top flight anyway, and competitive in it.

Livingston, as we have seen repeatedly in their short history, are not viable as a top-flight club.

It's a mind-bogglingly stupid comparison to make. But, there we are.

Edited by VincentGuerin
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@RandomGuy.

You're boring me to tears here, so I can only imagine the impact on the causal bystander.

To clear things up, I think the issue is that you're putting two separate points together. Let me clarify for you.

If someone was giving Livingston no-strings money to develop the club, I'd have no objection to that. They could build a training ground, fund their women's team, develop long-term revenue streams, even just fund their team. Whatever. I don't see any damage to football in that and would have no objection to it. It would be putting Livingston at no unnecessary risk that I can see. If a Livi fan won the lottery tomorrow and gifted the club no-strings £50m quid. good luck to them.

My point about Livingston that you are trying (incoherently) to link to Anderson is that in the three decades they have existed, they have failed to engage their local population, are heading for their third administration, and show no signs of being in any way viable as a top-end Scottish club. In that sense, I think the whole set-up and theft of the previous club has been a bit of a waste of time. There's no meaningfully sustainable high-end football club in Livingston, which was the aim (at least in public) in the 90s. That's a completely separate issue.

It's quite clear these are two different topics, so I'm happy to clear that up for you and hopefully end your confusion.

Edited by VincentGuerin
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On 04/04/2024 at 14:27, VincentGuerin said:

You have if you implement it properly.

Your argument seems to be that because it's not perfect and because it's done poorly elsewhere, it's a terrible idea.

You're missing the big point.

You're also competely failing to take into account context. English football has a massive disparity between its top flight and the others, creating an over-spending trap. We don't have that to the same extent. The EFL clubs could do themselves a huge favour by tightening their FFP rules, but the owners, who WANT to spend money, will not agree to that. The consequences are the financial bloodbath that you see. The average Championship club loses £470,000 per week.

They're being stupid. It doesn't mean we have to be stupid too.

We don't have the same spending trap to the same degree.

I think if it were attractive for rich kunts to buy Scottish clubs and conquer the League with them then I would say FFP is wise based on the above example. It is neither attractive nor profitable though, so It's just not going to happen. Instead of preventing this awful worst case scenario that was never going to occur FFP in football would simply be another roadblock to another club becoming competitive.

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11 minutes ago, velo army said:

I think if it were attractive for rich kunts to buy Scottish clubs and conquer the League with them then I would say FFP is wise based on the above example. It is neither attractive nor profitable though, so It's just not going to happen. Instead of preventing this awful worst case scenario that was never going to occur FFP in football would simply be another roadblock to another club becoming competitive.

I don't think anybody is likely to turn up at, say, St Johnstone and whack them a no-strings £100m. But I would have no real objection to it.

Let's say St Johnstone get £100m tomorrow from a rich fan. It's not unsustainable, as they literally have that money. It's not really any different to them receiveing a huge transfer fee. There is no risk to St Johnstone and that would become part of their FFP calculation. Spend it any way they like. It doesn't stop people giving a club money, but it stops people loaning clubs money with strings that can lead a club to a bad place, it stops clubs racking up huge debt, and it stops clubs becoming reliant on the month-to-month funding of a rich backer, like Gretna were.

My concern is that we wait until things go bad before we do anything. Scottish clubs have had financial problems pretty much as long as fitba clubs have existed in Scotland. We're in a spell of relative calm just now. I don't think it's wise to let things carry on until some charlatan turns up somewhere and drives a club bust.

I see it as a club safeguarding issue. Other people see it as a moral issue in terms of "you have this many fans, so you can't ever improve". I don't think of it like that (while obviously I don't see a doped-up club from nowhere as an optimal situation), but I understand why some do value that over all other considerations. I think for FFP we need to make a choice between the two views..

Edited by VincentGuerin
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2 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

We can play silly buggers all you like.

Hearts are financially viable as a top flight football club with or without Anderson. It's nice to have the money, of course, and we're basically lucky. If he didn't exist our season tickets would be more expensive, we wouldn't have a hotel, and we'd be further back in terms of our post-admin recovery and development. But we'd almost certainly be in the top flight anyway, and competitive in it.

Livingston, as we have seen repeatedly in their short history, are not viable as a top-flight club.

It's a mind-bogglingly stupid comparison to make. But, there we are.

 

1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

@RandomGuy.

You're boring me to tears here, so I can only imagine the impact on the causal bystander.

To clear things up, I think the issue is that you're putting two separate points together. Let me clarify for you.

If someone was giving Livingston no-strings money to develop the club, I'd have no objection to that. They could build a training ground, fund their women's team, develop long-term revenue streams, even just fund their team. Whatever. I don't see any damage to football in that and would have no objection to it. It would be putting Livingston at no unnecessary risk that I can see. If a Livi fan won the lottery tomorrow and gifted the club no-strings £50m quid. good luck to them.

My point about Livingston that you are trying (incoherently) to link to Anderson is that in the three decades they have existed, they have failed to engage their local population, are heading for their third administration, and show no signs of being in any way viable as a top-end Scottish club. In that sense, I think the whole set-up and theft of the previous club has been a bit of a waste of time. There's no meaningfully sustainable high-end football club in Livingston, which was the aim (at least in public) in the 90s. That's a completely separate issue.

It's quite clear these are two different topics, so I'm happy to clear that up for you and hopefully end your confusion.

tl;dr

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