One of the cornerstones of the last 2-3years of Nigel Doughty’s chairmanship before his untimely death was his belief in and determination to keep Forest in line with Financial Fair Play. His unwillingness to make large signings or dump a lot of money on wages like some of the promotion chasing brethren some say held us back from being promoted.
Financial Fair Play was meant to be introduced next season. Clubs, like in League One had caps of how much money they could spend of their turnover, i.e. 60%. This was stop clubs building up crippling wages which would bring them financial ruin as they chased promotion. It has been called a ticking time bomb, the financial mismanagement of some of these clubs, and to be honest it isn’t too far removed from what should have happened post ITV Digital Collapse.
However, the full details and signing off of this has not been ratified despite there being a deadline in the recent past and clubs won't meet again till the summer, far too late to be able to ring anything like this into play before the next season.
So it seems what was to be Doughty’s great lasting legacy of a club on sound footing may have been to no avail. Not that this is going to be scrapped, more postponed. There were opponents, notably those clubs who want to spend a lot to get promoted, i.e. West Ham. And it would stop clubs like Cardiff or Leicester from spending vast wages (Bellamy last season anyone, and as for Leicester’s wage bill)
The problem or so Ian Herbert writing in the Independent points out is that this all would become null and void should a team be promoted. Therein the Premier League they ramifications and penalties wouldn't be enforced and the club would escape. It's almost rewarding financial tomfoolery. Those who don’t get promoted would pay the double penalty of then falling foul of FFP. Until now.
And how would they be punished, well point dockings or denying promotion the next season would be likely. What could end up happen though is that some clubs take the NFL route of trying to fix wages and salaries to get round this, to effectively lower spend on wages with front loaded bonuses, or huge end of season benefits.
So all the efforts to bring the club to be fighting a fair fight and not just spunking cash up the wall chasing the dream, it seems has all, for now, been in vain.
Make no mistake, it is coming, but we’re just a little ahead of schedule. However if it is postponed it may make us a more viable option to buy as there is still a year to splash the cash.
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