Premier League FFP Salary Increase

[fm20]

Does anyone else find that the £4m/year increase allowed is in reality REALLY small? I'm coming into season 3 with Liverpool and my overall financial control is excellent but I somehow need to trim £12m from the wage bill for this season, apparently. £12m/year works out at £230k/week.

The club is profitable and currently has over £100m in the bank - between season 1 and 2 I had a net transfer income of £72m, then between seasons 2 and 3 (so far) a net transfer income of £50m. I've been sensible with new contract offers (making money as Liverpool in early seasons seems quite tough) - although Gerrard is still on £150k/week and negotiations are proving tough with him to reduce that, Coutinho and Sturridge are on £130k/week and Henderson is on £105k/week. This is not a club that is breaking the bank on salary, especially considering they are now two time league and European cup winners.

Dropping another £12m would mean losing another two of my key/first team players, without replacements.

I'm not certain if this is a fixed annual increase, or whether it's over a few years (like the loss restriction), if it is an annual increase I expect I'm going to get into some trouble here, although I'm not sure what. Also, if it is annual it would seem that not increasing the wage bill needlessly each season is a mistake!

Anyone any thoughts, or already being hit with a penalty from the Premier League?

 

[mersk]

Yes, it's small. It's too small. Unfortunately you can't blame SI or UEFA for this rule, as it's Premier League specific if I'm not mistaken. So you'll have to blame FA (join the club - no seriously, we meet every other Thursday, join the club).

This rule means that clubs that have already increased their wage budgets before this rule - yes I'm looking at you, Manchester City and Chelsea - are being rewarded for their lack of morals. Other clubs, like Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool that have lower wage budgets, will need to spend years to come up to the same level, and in turn being able to compete for the same players.

But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that if you lower your wages to save money for the club, the FA punishes you. Because the £4m rule only applies to the previous year, not an average of say, the last 3-5 seasons or something of the likes. So you can picture the following scenario:

You start off with a £90m per year wage expenditure, and you want to get it up to around £105m to be able to sign higher quality/reputation players. You lower it to £82m the following year, to save money and invest in other areas of the club. The following year after that, ie the third year, you'll only be allowed to raise it to £86m, and only in the fourth year can you raise it back to £90m. Fifth year, £94m. Sixth year, £98m. Seventh year, £102m. And finally, eighth year, £106m.

So it took you 8 years to get it up to the level you wanted. In the meantime, Chelsea have increased it from corrupt-level-oligarch to ruining-the-game, and City have increased it from LOL to ROFLMAO. By the way, by that time the general increase in costs + inflation probably means you haven't achieved anything.

Thanks to FA for rewarding the **** clubs and punishing the clubs trying to cut down on costs.

So, those are my thoughts anyway.

 

[fm20]

Thanks. As I feared and it's exactly that situation I've come up against. By avoiding giving new contracts *last* season when I didn't have the money, I'm potentially going to run foul of the rules *this* season, when I do. It's not even the fact that I'm signing higher quality players - it's keeping the existing ones necessarily; A £4m increase on £90m less than a 4.5% increase - even if you sign no-one but a few higher earners have automatic increases you may also not comply.

The one area that SI could improve is actually mentioning this as part of the regular FFP reviews that the board does. It's only because I clicked on the specific link that I even realised this was part of the regulations. It also doesn't help that IN EVERY OTHER part of the game, wages are listed weekly. It's not like most people are going to casually translate £100m/year into a weekly wage figure.

Any idea what the penalty will be for non-compliance?

 

[Tezzz]

Yeah it nearly caught me out going into my 3rd season. Only because I've spent **** loads on wages though.

It's either 3 or 4 world class players... or improve a few of your own players contract and sign 1-2 world class players. I can see why they've done it though.

 

[mersk]

Well, you can choose to display wages yearly in Preferences I believe. But yeah, I've talked to SI people about this on their forums and they conceded that it's not clearly enough stated.

The penalty is the same amount in fines. So if you increase by £10m one year, the fine will be £6m.

 

[fm20]

Well, you can choose to display wages yearly in Preferences I believe. But yeah, I've talked to SI people about this on their forums and they conceded that it's not clearly enough stated.

The penalty is the same amount in fines. So if you increase by £10m one year, the fine will be £6m.

No worries then - bit of a pain, but given the improved financial situation of the club, ground improvements that have taken place (meaning more £ coming in) and the fact I'm yet to receive over £40m of deferred transfer revenue it's not going to be a major disaster. I guess the board will be less impressed though.

 

[Tezzz]

Think it works out about an extra 75k - 80k will equal to around £4million. Don't know what **** I was chatting in my last post. And yeah at least the punishment isn't that bad anyway.

 

[SteVieBizzLe]

I do like how FFP is now included as opposed to older versions of FM but I dont think it is applied properly, whether its just bad mechanics IRL or the game cant process the complexity of the process but in my first season i won the Championship with Bolton.

At the end of the season I was hit with a fine as my overall revenue for the season resulted in about 5.6m in losses I think you are only allowed 4m if i remember rightly.

What griped me about this was about 3-4 days after the fine came through, the game processed all my winnings/TV money and delayed transfer funds coming in etc etc basically earned me plenty of incoming revenue to avoid a FFP fine but came in a few days late, not sure if that is supposed to be the way but seems harsh to punish me because my projected finances meant I failed FFP but my over achievement in the league and the acquired winnings were not taken into account.

 

[bondj700]

Yes, it's small. It's too small. Unfortunately you can't blame SI or UEFA for this rule, as it's Premier League specific if I'm not mistaken. So you'll have to blame FA (join the club - no seriously, we meet every other Thursday, join the club).

This rule means that clubs that have already increased their wage budgets before this rule - yes I'm looking at you, Manchester City and Chelsea - are being rewarded for their lack of morals. Other clubs, like Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool that have lower wage budgets, will need to spend years to come up to the same level, and in turn being able to compete for the same players.

But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that if you lower your wages to save money for the club, the FA punishes you. Because the £4m rule only applies to the previous year, not an average of say, the last 3-5 seasons or something of the likes. So you can picture the following scenario:

You start off with a £90m per year wage expenditure, and you want to get it up to around £105m to be able to sign higher quality/reputation players. You lower it to £82m the following year, to save money and invest in other areas of the club. The following year after that, ie the third year, you'll only be allowed to raise it to £86m, and only in the fourth year can you raise it back to £90m. Fifth year, £94m. Sixth year, £98m. Seventh year, £102m. And finally, eighth year, £106m.

So it took you 8 years to get it up to the level you wanted. In the meantime, Chelsea have increased it from corrupt-level-oligarch to ruining-the-game, and City have increased it from LOL to ROFLMAO. By the way, by that time the general increase in costs + inflation probably means you haven't achieved anything.

Thanks to FA for rewarding the **** clubs and punishing the clubs trying to cut down on costs.

So, those are my thoughts anyway.

Although in general I agree with you that the rules punish clubs being run in the right way your examples are a bit off. Arsenal for example now have the 3rd highest wage bill in PL above Chelsea and Liverpool had the 5th highest last year (will be even higher this year after all signings). Spurs had the 6th highest wage bill last year so hardly an example of a low spending club either.

In the last 5 years Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs have won 1 FA cup and 1 League cup between them so it be argued that they spend almost as much as the clubs with 'no morals' to win nothing. The FA are at least trying to level the playing field even though whether it will work remains to be seen. But with West Ham, Southampton and Swansea all in the top 8 currently maybe clubs that are being well run might start to get their rewards.

 

[Henry8597]

I do like how FFP is now included as opposed to older versions of FM but I dont think it is applied properly, whether its just bad mechanics IRL or the game cant process the complexity of the process but in my first season i won the Championship with Bolton.

At the end of the season I was hit with a fine as my overall revenue for the season resulted in about 5.6m in losses I think you are only allowed 4m if i remember rightly.

What griped me about this was about 3-4 days after the fine came through, the game processed all my winnings/TV money and delayed transfer funds coming in etc etc basically earned me plenty of incoming revenue to avoid a FFP fine but came in a few days late, not sure if that is supposed to be the way but seems harsh to punish me because my projected finances meant I failed FFP but my over achievement in the league and the acquired winnings were not taken into account.

Them funds will go towards next years figures which means you should pass next time round easily.