For all the mentally exhausting talk of how FFP and PSR have ruined the game for many and forever more, I haven’t yet read a solution that will make the game more competitive (while remaining sustainable).
The current system failed miserably. A new system will be drafted in the summer and allegedly it will be somewhere along the lines of clubs allowed spend 70% of their revenue on transfer fees and wages. So Man Utd get to spend 70% of £1 billion, versus Everton’s 70% of £180 million.
While this is most certainly placing a permanent glass ceiling on those outside the top 6, it isn’t actually a new concept – it is how it has gone on forever; just without the scrutiny. (In 1993, the year Man Utd broke the British transfer record for Roy Keane at £3.75 million, we were buying Joe Parkinson for less than a tenth of that; they were rich, we were skint.) From an Everton point of view, it’s just unfortunate we have slipped from the haves in the 80s to the have-nots.
On to the solution. Or mine anyway: the PSR Draft:
The team that comes up from the Championship through the play-offs are considered 20th, and allowed lose £200 million on top of their 70% of revenue calculation (if they chose to do so).
2nd in the Championship is allowed lose £190m; Championship Winners £180m, 17th in the Prem £170m, 16th £160m, all the way in a sliding scale until the Premier League winners are not allowed to lose anything above their 70%.
How does it remain sustainable? Of course, clubs don’t ‘have to’ lose up to their threshold. Stringent and careful owners won’t over-stretch themselves. However, those rich ones who want to invest, can… but, if they do, it is to be turned into equity or a bond from the owner that’ll never saddle the club. And that’s it. At the end of the season, if you finish 17th again and your owner is daft enough to invest another £170m, so be it.
It won’t solve everything (70% of a billion argument) but it gives smaller clubs with rich owners more opportunity and wiggle room to invest. Man City may still be able to buy Branthwaite for £100 million, but perhaps they’ll have to sell three of their squad players to do so.
As a wise man once said, if you aren’t part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. So that’s my solution. And rather than slate PSR & FFP on this thread (it’s been done to death), perhaps tell me your own alternatives?