Good spot Tony, I read it too.

And if UEFA, Platini etc do bring through rules suggesting that clubs should (ridiculously, ha, ha, ha) live within their means and not operate as huge debt vehicles for selfish owners, then life could get more interesting.

Many people think & post on the basis that life & football will always operate the same ridiculously unfair & self-defeating cash model that currently exists. That may not be the case.

We should all get behind Platini’s attempts to return football to being a real sport and give it back to the fans.

Goodison gets us 20 million a year? More then Manchester city with their modern stadium? Why are we moving?

I read this in the paper this morning and thought it was a very interesting piece indeed.
First up it seemed to me that the Everton debt figure was a LOT lower than I understood - granted this is last year, pre-Moyes contract, pre-Felliani but presumably it?s also pre-latest TV income, pre-other player sales (AJ) and pre-winnings from league position/cup runs. So is our debt really capped in the £40M bracket or is it much bigger/smaller?

The second point is that it highlighted just how artificial and propped up the current money-grabbing Scudamore-led Premier League bubble is and showed just how exposed most clubs are when the bubble inevitably bursts and/or the billionaires start to lose interest (which amounts to the same thing).

If we look at what?s happened to other industries (and football has become an industry) in recent years (manufacturing, banking, automotive, insurance, housing, etc), you?d hope that this would be a massive warning light leading the league and clubs to reign back on their spending on transfers and player wages in particular. If not, we?re headed for a very very big fall.

So where do we need to cut? Well, I can remember thinking that player wages were getting to dangerous levels back in the early 90s when comparatively average players were starting to earn £5-10k a week, today it?s become simply ludicrous with a large proportion of players apparently on £25-50k per week and the best paid out £100-120k per week (and remember this doesn?t include win bonuses, commercial income or numerous other perks and kick-backs!).

When you think that the national average wage stands at c.£24k (a figure which is actually decreasing in the current climate), that means that a good proportion of Premier League footballers are earning the working man?s annual salary in somewhere between 2-7 days.
Does anyone really believe that is either merited or at all sustainable?

Against that backdrop I think Everton?s effective wage cap is to be applauded, however I?d argue we need to go much, much further.

For starters I?d call for basic wage caps across the league with any additional bonuses being related purely to success or length of service (hopefully helping to clamp down on the parasitical agents at the same time). I?d also be tempted to insist that clubs lived within their means, only allowing a certain level of debt and being much tighter on the loans allowed and what level of cash could be spent on transfers/wages.


This could also slot in nicely with limits on squad sizes and numbers of foreign players (which look to be coming in place) and the overall effect would ideally be to level the playing field, safeguard the clubs financial status and hopefully push out a good percentage of the agents and other mercenary scum who?re leaching money out of the game.


[Deep breath...and relax]
Yeah, I know this might seem a little bit undemocratic and OTT, but it?s only because I think the game?s facing catastrophe if it continues down the current path and I can?t be the only one who hates the massive inequalities on and off the pitch that have become entrenched in the last decade.

We can be sure that the business acumen of the very best chairman in the game will ensure that we always stay within our means.
Davey appreciates it-supporters should too!

Just had a look at the info how did portsmouth get more TV money than us last year Portsmouth £51M Everton £46M. I know people are going to say the FA Cup but we had a good run in the Carling Cup and UEFA Cup.

Doddy, mushrooms and glue bad, reality good, say it over and over

Doddy have you just got in from the Meadows.

Please dont get us started on "The Weakest Link".

Interesting piece, but a spreadsheet might have made for easier reading.

Bloody Hell Doddy, I am the eternal optimist but I will have to tell you to lay off the Stella lad, you have now officially become a characature in my eyes.

I got frustrated with scrolling up and down to compare things, so drew up a spreadsheet myself - sad, I know, but whatever.

Our finances look remarkably healthy if this is correct. Our wage bill is only the tenth highest in the Premier League, for starters, being less than a third of Chelsea’s.

Although our profits are negligible, we’re one of only seven clubs that turn a profit at all, and the loss making clubs include United and Chelsea, with losses of more than 30 and 80 million!

Our debt is the fourth lowest in the League, and we have the League’s fifth lowest ration of debt to turnover, whereas there are six teams that owe a hell of a lot more than they turnover, including the Sky4! It seems that even their massive takings aren’t enough to sustain their huge bills.

We can’t even talk about football being a business in this situation - it’s just an outrageously expensive hobby for outrageously wealthy men.

It all leaves me wondering what happens if anyone - and I’d hope it’d be us, but Villa might do it and City might well manage it within a couple of years - breaks into the top four. One of the Sky4 would have to fall out, and in doing so would instantly lose twenty million or so of Champions’ League money.

Fifth place money, we know, is closer to the bottom than the top, so that’d be a serious blow to the finances of whichever team fell. I’d be very curious to watch the subsequent implosion...

Greg, with regard to big-spending teams finishing out of the Champions League positions, you need only look at Leeds. They spent like the big4 but played like a mid-table side.

The difference is they didn?t have a mega rich owner to back them up for a few years. So maybe it would happen differently. Even if the yanks decide to sell Man Utd, surely there will be another generic rich man willing to take on the debt. In the form of refinanced loans obviously.