That 'top 6 club' is us isn't it?
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If proof were needed that Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations really are being taken seriously by English football’s leading clubs, the logjam of cast-offs, misfits and outcasts preparing to return to pre-season training this week says everything about the new reality dawning over the Premier League.
The start of the 2011-12 season signals the beginning of the three-year monitoring period of FFP, which enables clubs to post losses totalling no more than £45?million during that time.
And the new financial strictures are beginning to bite, with clubs no longer prepared to cut quick deals to offload unwanted players and prospective buyers more reluctant than ever to make early raids on the transfer market in order to have their new additions in place in time for the start of pre-season.
The fallout of FFP is the prime reason for the delayed start to the transfer madness this summer.
Aside from Manchester United, whose £49.8?million spending spree has largely been funded by the £80?million sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid two years ago, and some astute business undertaken by Newcastle and Sunderland, the Premier League transfer market has been dormant.
Clubs are now more interested in cutting waste than adding to it. One senior figure at a top-six club claimed privately last week that his team is weighed down by so many players who need to be moved on that there is not enough room for them on the plane due to carry the squad to their overseas pre-season tour.
Even Manchester City, roundly criticised for lavishing millions on fees and wages during the first two years of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s ownership, are on a fast-track towards financial prudence in order to comply with FFP, which is why Roberto Mancini’s summer recruitment drive has yet to slip into second gear.
When he left Eastlands for Italy at the end of last season, having guided City into the Champions League, Mancini expected a raft of fringe players to have been replaced by at least three top quality arrivals by the time he returned for pre-season.
Yet Gaël Clichy is the only new face so far and he will take to the training field on Tuesday with the likes of Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor and Wayne Bridge — three players loaned out last season and with no future under Mancini.
Adebayor’s £165,000-a-week wages are frightening potential buyers away, while interested parties such as Zenit St Petersburg and Paris St Germain have been rebuffed by the Togolese forward, who cost £25?million on arrival from Arsenal two years ago.
Similarly, there are few takers for Bellamy and Bridge, beneficiaries of the inflated salaries signed off during Mark Hughes’s reign as manager, while Roque Santa Cruz, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Shay Given are also finding their transfer valuations or wages to be too high for prospective buyers.
City, in turn, are loathe to cancel contracts and write players off. Doing so would merely add to the losses on the balance sheet.
So until Mancini can shift his shadow squad, his prospects of injecting new blood will remain compromised.
It is a similar story at Liverpool and Tottenham, where Kenny Dalglish and Harry Redknapp are under pressure to shift dead wood before recruiting new players.
Redknapp is struggling to find clubs willing to meet Tottenham’s valuation of Robbie Keane and David Bentley, while Dalglish is left with the challenge of undoing the mess caused by the panic buying during the final months of the Hicks-Gillett regime at Anfield.
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool have yet to find clubs willing to take on the six-figure weekly salaries of Joe Cole or Milan Jovanovic.
Karl Oyston, the Blackpool chairman who continues to play hardball with Liverpool over Charlie Adam, insisted last month that his club will wait until mid-August before making a concerted effort to trade in the market.
That is when panic is likely to set in, but who will blink first? The players on bloated contracts or the clubs foolish enough to pay them?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8611865/Fair-Play-rules-leave-clubs-with-unwanted-players-in-a-dormant-market.html
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If proof were needed that Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations really are being taken seriously by English football’s leading clubs, the logjam of cast-offs, misfits and outcasts preparing to return to pre-season training this week says everything about the new reality dawning over the Premier League.
The start of the 2011-12 season signals the beginning of the three-year monitoring period of FFP, which enables clubs to post losses totalling no more than £45?million during that time.
And the new financial strictures are beginning to bite, with clubs no longer prepared to cut quick deals to offload unwanted players and prospective buyers more reluctant than ever to make early raids on the transfer market in order to have their new additions in place in time for the start of pre-season.
The fallout of FFP is the prime reason for the delayed start to the transfer madness this summer.
Aside from Manchester United, whose £49.8?million spending spree has largely been funded by the £80?million sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid two years ago, and some astute business undertaken by Newcastle and Sunderland, the Premier League transfer market has been dormant.
Clubs are now more interested in cutting waste than adding to it. One senior figure at a top-six club claimed privately last week that his team is weighed down by so many players who need to be moved on that there is not enough room for them on the plane due to carry the squad to their overseas pre-season tour.
Even Manchester City, roundly criticised for lavishing millions on fees and wages during the first two years of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan’s ownership, are on a fast-track towards financial prudence in order to comply with FFP, which is why Roberto Mancini’s summer recruitment drive has yet to slip into second gear.
When he left Eastlands for Italy at the end of last season, having guided City into the Champions League, Mancini expected a raft of fringe players to have been replaced by at least three top quality arrivals by the time he returned for pre-season.
Yet Gaël Clichy is the only new face so far and he will take to the training field on Tuesday with the likes of Craig Bellamy, Emmanuel Adebayor and Wayne Bridge — three players loaned out last season and with no future under Mancini.
Adebayor’s £165,000-a-week wages are frightening potential buyers away, while interested parties such as Zenit St Petersburg and Paris St Germain have been rebuffed by the Togolese forward, who cost £25?million on arrival from Arsenal two years ago.
Similarly, there are few takers for Bellamy and Bridge, beneficiaries of the inflated salaries signed off during Mark Hughes’s reign as manager, while Roque Santa Cruz, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Shay Given are also finding their transfer valuations or wages to be too high for prospective buyers.
City, in turn, are loathe to cancel contracts and write players off. Doing so would merely add to the losses on the balance sheet.
So until Mancini can shift his shadow squad, his prospects of injecting new blood will remain compromised.
It is a similar story at Liverpool and Tottenham, where Kenny Dalglish and Harry Redknapp are under pressure to shift dead wood before recruiting new players.
Redknapp is struggling to find clubs willing to meet Tottenham’s valuation of Robbie Keane and David Bentley, while Dalglish is left with the challenge of undoing the mess caused by the panic buying during the final months of the Hicks-Gillett regime at Anfield.
Unsurprisingly, Liverpool have yet to find clubs willing to take on the six-figure weekly salaries of Joe Cole or Milan Jovanovic.
Karl Oyston, the Blackpool chairman who continues to play hardball with Liverpool over Charlie Adam, insisted last month that his club will wait until mid-August before making a concerted effort to trade in the market.
That is when panic is likely to set in, but who will blink first? The players on bloated contracts or the clubs foolish enough to pay them?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/8611865/Fair-Play-rules-leave-clubs-with-unwanted-players-in-a-dormant-market.html
