What an absolutely amazing story.
Both clubs on the brink of existence in recent years. Both languishing in the lower leagues (in Luton's case in the non-league for 5 years). Both had meteoric resurgences due to sound financial and football management.
I hope it's Luton who go up, but if it hadn't been us I would have been delighted for Coventry.
Whoever goes up will almost certainly come straight down again, but this will not diminish their achievement in getting there in the first place.
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Agreed, it’s remarkable
i remember watching Luton play Oxford a few years ago in the conference and it was looking pretty bleak for both clubs tbh. If you told me Luton would be a game away from the PL on that day I’d have said you were mad.
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It is great news
But, there is a huge sadness with it. The cheats have completely pulled the ladder up (Chelsea started it of course and take a large amount of blame as well) and it's impossible for proper working class clubs like these two and Manchester United to compete, even with massive fan bases
Inevitably whichever one goes up either goes bankrupt or straight back down
The competition is dead. Football is dead
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Spurs started it in the mid-80s by forming a holdco to avoid the League's regulation of finances. Also moves such as stopping the sharing of gate money. Trend accelerated with the Champions League which was the bacillus for Chelsea.
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Davos, I am not sure that is true - it is almost impossible to compete at the top these days it is true but with a premier league income there is no inevitability about relegation. Lower midtable downwards in fact there is a reasonable equality of income. Brighton showing what can be done on a more modest budget.
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oh and premier league clubs do not go bankrupt - the risk of that is far higher in the championship where nearly all clubs make big losses.
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Glad for you Geoff
i was chatting to a senior bod at Luton Council yesterday and they ve just signed off on the “celebrations” ( trickle but miffed that they need to commit to the cost when it’s a 50:50 out come)
The really good news for the town is that getting promoted will lock in the new stadium
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*ickle bit miffed
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Guy - check how much Brighton's owners have put into the club
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"oh and premier league clubs do not go bankrupt - the risk of that is far higher in the championship where nearly all clubs make big losses."
Not immediately but look at the number of clubs who have overextended themselves trying to compete in an uncompetitive League, been relegated and then had significant financial issues (points deductions etc)
Really, only I seem to know about football finance.
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Opening line of one of the best football books ever. Yes, yes I know this is not exactly a rich literary field.
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Davos premier league clubs get huge parachute payments. The main financial problem in football is not what is spent in the premier league -but what is spent trying to get into the premier league. The clubs most likely to fail are those that gamble on getting to the premier league and fail. Getting promoted makes bankruptcy less likely not more likely. The league that is really screwed financially is the championship for those that dont escape it.
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Would Luton play from Milton Keynes?
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Would make sense to play at MK, use the income of bigger stadium to fund a refurb of KR.
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Makes as much sense as Wimbledon I suppose. The MK Hatters.
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Thanks Guy, I am aware of parachute payments distorting the competition in the championship
Unfortunately, as you seem to know but not acknowledge, the anti-competitive nature of the premier league has also made the championship less competitive and more likely to cause financial issues for clubs
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The promoted clubs also tend to depend on two or three star players, who will then be snapped up over time by the bigger clubs, making them fairly easy prey. see Leicester and Leeds.
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Pogba 94.5 2016
Antony 86m 2022
Maguire 80m 2019
Sancho 76.5 2021
Lukaku 76.2 2017
Di Maria 68m 2014
Casemiiro 60m 2022
Fernandes 57m 2020
Martial 54m 2015
Fred 53m 2018
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Of the 10 most expansion signings in EPL history. man utd have 50%
Davos you are hereby banned from tedious trolling re city
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heh @ trying 2 equ7 plastic manyoo with proper local clubs like coventry and luton
that’s a v good 1
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Expensive obvs
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Roger is another one who clearly doesn't follow football finance
It's a very interesting topic but most get their knowledge from the Sun or clickbait media and so spend the time getting a deep, fundamental understanding of it
I have spent the time doing that and continue to do so
Others present opinion as fact
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Pure facts above @1133
Hth
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Davos, my only point is that you are wrong to suggest that getting to the Premier league causes financial problems. The premier league unlike the championship actually makes profits. What causes the problems is overstretching to get the Premier League and failing. It is the championship not the premier league that is a financial basket case.
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It must drive both Citheh's real fans mad that their team are about to do a treble and everyone is talking about man utd.
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it's also purefact that Hitler sold more paintings in his lifetime than van Gogh did in his. Sometimes there is a requirement for a little context. Like 113 instances of alleged financial fair play breaches against Man City for doing things like booking a £20m fee from the women's team for the right to use the name Manchester City.
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Spurs debt: £706m
Man U: £500m+
Everton: £409m
Brighton: £306m
There are only 3 teams without debt. Two had ultra-rich owners that wiped out (or had wiped out) debts of £1.5bn between them, and the third was run by Mike Ashley.
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will be really glad to see either of these guys back in the PL
slight pref for Luton although as I know several Cov fans irl I am being discreet in expressing this
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scep tick with a brilliant understanding of the difference between balance sheet and P&L there
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Worth mentioning the impact of this completely unnecessary debt foisted on the club by rapacious owners? The Glazers have made Man Utd significantly less competitive than they would otherwise have been by placing an enormous financial millstone around the club's neck.
This isn't debt to buy players or a stadium...
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Scep Tick, it is perfectly possible to have debts and make profits, most successful companies do.
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or, as the kids are saying in TikTok these days, what Laz said
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And they're not making profits.
https://offthepitch.com/a/premier-league-financial-forecast-2022-clubs-forecast-accumulate-losses-ps590-million-despite-all
2022: Clubs forecast to accumulate losses of £590 million despite all-time high turnover
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There are very few self sustaining clubs in English football due to the ladder being pulled up by the cheats and Chelsea but also others doping on owners money
United and Liverpool are sustainable due to massive fanatic fan bases but that's about it
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The useful idiots posting Man Utd’s expensive list of transfers are missing the point.
United can account for their spending in line with FFP, City cannot.
it also ignores the massive amount of off book spending City indulge in. Whether it’s the rest of Haaland’s hidden wages or the £20m his dad got.
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The cheats haven't lost a single game since the charges levied against them
Like allowing a nonce to work in a school but instead of kids, it's working class fans getting fcked
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The off the books payments forms part of the cheating yes
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how can you be in debt to the tune manu are and not be in breach of the rules?
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Heh, is there a serious question?
Do you even follow football and it's finances?
Sad!
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Not really, football is largely not for me.finance definitely not
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No I totally agree with todgersmellie, the Glazers should be removed as owners immediately and the club given over to fan stewardship.
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Fair roger, fair
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I think they all are if proper market conditions apply. There’s enough money floating around. of no club ran a debt then wages - the big moneystealer - would reduce to actual earnings rather than a reputation washing premium.
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The market has been distorted by first chelski and then citheh. It isn't hard to work out when it started.
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Luton were the first Southern club to go professional. The original sellouts.
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"I think they all are if proper market conditions apply."
Possibly yes but that's my point, it's not a proper market, it's a distorted competition without any competition
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Genuinely sad that Manche$ter Utd have created a system where you have to spend big to succeed. They’re a global club without any local fanbase really, and they’ve been able to distort the market by signing players like Sancho for £85 mill and not succeed. Sad!
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What distorted the market was the abomination that is the Champions League. That provided the incentive for the likes of Chelsea and City.
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As I said, it goes back way before then. Indeed the secret professionalism before 1885 distorted things; that there is a Blackburn Rovers but not a Blackburn Olympic is a direct result of that. Then the creation of the Football League was a tsunami for most clubs north of Coventry.
The abolition of the maximum wage in 1961 suddenly switched everything towards heavy backing. For all the romance of Shankly, Liverpool were VERY heavily backed by the pools. Everton ditto. Then things like gate-sharing were dropped, the Spurs avoidance of oversight, the Premier League distorting television money, the Champions League, and the Bosman ruling all worked in favour of bigger clubs.
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Exactly and working class clubs like Manchester United have always been there for the massive fan base, defending football and ultimately keeping it going (which is now being abused by sportswashers like the cheats who insult their once proud fan base, causing it to shrink rapidly and be replaced by kids and tourists)
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https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/netflix-english-game-real-history-…
FA cup final 1882. Fancy passing the ball instead of dribbling like the Etonians. Shocking insolence.
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‘Luton were the first Southern club to go professional. The original sellouts’
did not know this. Had always thought it was Woolwich Arsenal.
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Really quite disappointed with this bait. I doubt even a livarpool fan would go near it.
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Luton were the first professional club in the south, Woolwich Arsenal the first in the Home Counties.
The passing game was given a huge boost by professionalism because players could train together. The first passing teams were those with some sort of proximity - Queen's Park all lived near the park, the first successful Midlands team (Wednesbury O.A.C.) were co-workers and had games in their breaks. One reason why the Royal Engineers was so successful in the amateur era was because they were barracked together in Chatham so had ample opportunities to work "combination" play. Story goes that the goalkeeper Merriman had a football in his quarters, and would yell out in spare moments for anyone available to join him for practice in the quad.
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‘I doubt even a livarpool fan would go near it.‘
I’ve yet to find bait so obvious even a liVARpool tourist wouldn’t take it m5
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