A number of Championship clubs are at risk from the Football League’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. By the 2015/16 season, losses in the Sky Bet Championship can be no more than £5m and shareholders are only permitted to invest £3m of their own cash.
Blackburn Rovers are top of the list of the clubs at risk of incurring penalties. Their announced losses for last year were £27 million which included £3.5m on agent’s fees. At the very least they could face a transfer embargo.
A number of Championship clubs are at risk from the Football League’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations. By the 2015/16 season, losses in the Sky Bet Championship can be no more than £5m and shareholders are only permitted to invest £3m of their own cash.
Blackburn Rovers are top of the list of the clubs at risk of incurring penalties. Their announced losses for last year were £27 million which included £3.5m on agent’s fees. At the very least they could face a transfer embargo.
QPR will undoubtedly have to be promoted this season to escape a reprimand from the Football League. They have perhaps one of the most expensive assembled squads this division has ever seen. To be fair they have trimmed their squad and have managed to loan out other large earners like Park Ji-Sung, Adel Taarabt, Loic Remy and Esteban Granero.
Leicester City may be less at risk than in the past having backed away from their strategy of throwing money at a problem and hoping for the best. This season they have been cautious with their spending, allowing a lot of large earners to leave and barely bringing anyone in.
The most curious case of apparent defiance of Financial Fair Play is Nottingham Forest. They have ambitious foreign owners that have set about a promotion at all cost mentality, sacking three managers within their first year at the club but finally looking settled with Billy Davies in charge.
Despite only selling one player for a significant fee and not being entitled to parachute payments they went about throwing relatively fairly large sums of cash. They haven’t officially confirmed their current position on the Financial Fair Play situation but a tweet from Billy Davies advisor Jim Price said ‘’FFP rules are illegal and unworkable’.
As with the Uefa regulations, it does seem likely that if a major club is seriously disadvantaged, they will ultimately be tested in court.