Conspiracy theory for you all:

Why did EFC not agree to a wage cap this week?

Is there something going on again behind the scenes?

Have the Chinese buyers come back or have we got investment from the USA?

Or is it just we don’t generate enough revenue to sustain the current status quo?

Only teams not agreeing have big benefactors and only 4 teams in total against it, one being EFC!!

He's just been on Sky Sports News and denied he is against it.

Just said they need to explain more about it. Make certain things clearer.

If the Premier League rules are similar or tougher than the UEFA ones, then yes Everton should be against them. The fair play rules are only any use to those clubs who already have financial backing and all their ducks in a row.

If they do penalise new owners from extravagent investment then BK won't be able to give the club away, never mind sell it for a profit.

This is one of the reasons so many people have been banging on about him finding a buyer/investor for so long.

Boxing Day sees BK's anniversary as the owner of the club, unlucky for some but especially for those of us who thought that we would be in a greatly improved financial position than we were all those years ago.

As I understand it, there are several ways a FFP for the Premiership could work, and one proposal is that annual increases in wages would be limited to a particular percentage. If that were to happen, then I guess EFC would be disadvantaged as, say, a 5% increase in wages for Chelski players would be more than for our lads. And year on year that gap would increase (think of a millionaire getting an extra 5% each year and your own salary increasing by 5% each year - the gap in pounds would widen over the years).

Maybe that's what Bill wants clarifying - how FFP would operate.

Everton can never generate the level of income from match revenue, commercial activities and TV rights income needed to develop a quality 18-20 man squad required for consistent Champions League entry. The only hope they have is for some investor to come in , buy us out and pump in £50m for the squad alone (as well as the £200m for new ground and £40-70m debt whatever it is).

So any rules designed to limit expenditure to a % of income will seriously harm Everton.

What Chinese buyers?

Ray, I think the only Chinese Buyers associated with the club are Duncan and Stubbsy ....Where's the extra prawn crackers

Can't see Kenwright supporting anything that threatens his big pay-off and this does.

Bill Kenwright may have a lot to answer for concerning some of the appalling business decisions he has been involved with during his reign of chairman. However, I have yet to see one scrap of concrete evidence that he is holding out for a big pay-off. If there is any tangible evidence out there then please direct me to where I can read it.

I don't follow the financial goings on there, salary-wise. Does anyone think the EPL is aiming at some US-style salary-cap method over there?

Thank god I didn't comment on this earlier.

We're never gonna get a buyer, no point dreaming...

Brent @ 846

"Maybe that`s what Bill wants clarifying,how FFP would work."

It`s been on the agenda for 2 years now and "Bill wants it clarifying?

I know he`s slow but..............

A couple of points to clarify. The much-vaunted UEFA FFP will only affect UEFA competition. If you're a perennial mid-table team it won't affect you. What it will affect is newly-monied clubs - if Everton where to get taken over tomorrow (bear with me), and the new owner were to pump money into the team, we would have a 3 year wait in theory to "rinse" the expenditure before being allowed to compete in Europe.

The idea of FFP for the whole Prem is to introduce a bit of financial discipline, try to prevent the Portsmouths, but also it would prevent another City-revolution. In other words, the clubs that are in this vaunted clique want to maintain their position. This is exact.y what the G14 was all about originally.

They've already introduced something similar in the Championship - and this makes some sense as those clubs are having to spend more to compete but without the attendant increases in broadcast revenue (and following that, sponsorship revenue) that the Premier League teams enjoy.

There are accounting ways around FFP using "allowable expenditure" and "allowable income". Man City are doing this brilliantly with their "amazing" sponsorship deals with no less than EIGHT Abu Dhabi entities, and their development on the new training facility.

They probably needn't worry. UEFA already has a clause in the regulations that allows teams that breach FFP into European competition if they are deemed "commercially important". So Real Madrid et al needn't worry, as UEFA's sponsors would be upset if they were out. I imagine the Abu Dhabi government would kick up a similar stink.

Or just buy Switzerland.

Totally agree Matt. I'm sure that the salary caps being mentioned were as a proportion of turnover. Hence, the richer clubs get to stay at the top because of there higher turnover. If this is correct, it would be madness to agree to these terms.

The only way to introduce FFP in order to protect clubs is to have a European wide, net wage cap. One that applies to all clubs and one that is not linked to turnover.

For instance why not have a cap for your 25 man squad at say 100,000 per week per man. This way if you want to pay Billy big balls 300,000 a week then that's fine but it would come out of your budget.

I also suspect that a wage cap would create more potential buyers for Premier league clubs.

There always has been, and always will be ways to circumvent wage caps and FFP regulations.

PL chairmen will agree on all sorts of bullshit while it suits them, but all that will change when one of them can't fit their snouts in the trough of CL or TV money, or they are staring at relegation.

Since this post is based on a clearly incorrect article why has it not been taken down?

In the past the editorial team have been very scathing of ongoing threads where people hypothesise about replacements for David Moyes giving reasons as (I paraphrase) that David Moyes is the current manager of Everton, i.e. the jobs is not a vacant one so it is speculation.

Since this is demonstrably based on an untruth – even listed as such within an Editorial footnote – why is this allowed to continue? It's not even a rumour for speculation, it's proven wrong and admitted as such.

I'm just curious.

Joe,

We try to reflect and document what goes down in relation to Everton. The false accusation was made; some reacted but it was corrected pretty quick. The thread is about a potentially significant topic, and remains as an explanation for anyone coming to this late.

As you say, the editorial note has been added, making the status of the issue clear to any reader. I think it would be remiss of us to not have this thread up and running.

Agree, Michael.

OK Michael, thanks for the clarification.

I suspect my view would have been to change it to a news article as such rather than a mailbag post for discussion in this way but that's a diffierence of opinion.

Thanks

I can think of loads of ways round FFP anyway, I don't see the point.

If we get a rich owner who wants to pour money in we can rent our boxes out for a £1million pounds a game and he can pay for them. We can offer hospitality for similar amounts and so on.

All of this would then be legitimate income.

The point of FFP isn't to stop rich Man City-style benefactors, its to stop Leeds United-style debt.

Ok guys...let's all write to Santa and ask him for a new owner for x-mas :O)

I have never been a finance genius, but I think either way we will hurt in the long run if we cannot get a run in CL soon, but since we have been so generous with our points lately, I cannot see that happen sometime soon.