Can clubs ever compete in the PL and stay solvent?

[Garawa]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26813363

This article is about Southampton FC. Apparently they have £27m owing to clubs from outstanding player deals and will have a £30m bill for their new training ground. According to Match of the Day on Sunday will be forced to sell their World Cup players in order to try to pay their way out of their financial predicament.

Whilst news like this isn't that uncommon, I don't consider them to be a club that has spent big on huge names in order to survive in the top flight. In fact a lot of their players have been bargain buys or youth promotions so what have they done with their money. OK much will be due to them but with money about to be paid I don't see the need to have to sell in the summer. The only things would be massive pay rises for new players and management compensation payments. If they cannot survive in a league that pays £60m a year than can any club stay solvent in it??

This is the team that played in their final game:
BORUC - (Fiorentina - Free Agent)
CLYNE - (Crystal Palace - Undisclosed)
SHAW - (Promoted from youth)
SCHNEIDERLIN - (Strasbourg - £1.2m)
FONTE - (Crystal Palace - £1.2m)
LOVREN - (Lyon - £8.5m)
CORK - (Chelsea - £750,000)
WANYAMA - (Celtic - £12.5m)
DAVIS - (Rangers - Free Agent)
LALLANA - (Bournemouth - £20,000)
LAMBERT - (Bristol Rovers - £1m+)

Apart from the £20m or so for Lovren and Wanyama, the rest are pretty bargain basement and many of these deals go back years where the fee has since long been settled or for new ones where fees are outstanding. I would have thought much of this season's fees owed for participating in the Premier League should have been able to clear the majority of this without too much trouble.

[gillsfan1066]

Who the hell knows what goes on in the football world any more and to a certain extent I really don't care much . The players ,owners, and everyone involved are all completely out of control ,even a chap called Scally the owner of a small time, below average third division club (sorry 1st division club) spends more money flying backwards and forwards to his home in Dubai to watch the team play than he does on players.
What I long for is to go back to the day when each team was allowed a max of 2 "foreign players" , but of course those days are long gone.
What worries me most is that week in week out when I see BPL clubs playing they are full of "foreign" born players, when I watch Italian, French, Spanish games, rarely do English names ever seem to appear on the team sheet. Looks good for Brazil I don't think,lol.

[Rimshot]

Selling Shaw will go a long way towards resolving the problems at Southampton but it just shows what a problem the EPL is for the 'smaller' clubs and for English football generally. The fact is that EPL has become a financial circus and the teams largely vehicles for owners' egos. Cardiff City being a classic case.

These days I can't be bothered to watch "English" teams in Europe. Honestly, who cares which side wins between two international elevens who might all be with other clubs within 2-3 seasons and managed by people who may well swap jobs at the end of the campaign.

It's very common for fans of these clubs these days to say they couldn't give a monkey's about the national side - and they don't. Neither of course do the managers, largely because they aren't English.

I DO care about English football and until the power of the EPL is curbed, Greg Dyke can do and say whatever he wants; it will make little difference.

[Garawa]

I agree Chicago. What don't makes sense is the new "home grown" rule. This was meant to ensure squads included players that began their careers in England and therefore ensured more English players were in the squad. Whilst this would include some foreigners that came over very early in their careers it would limit the amount of foreigners and we were given examples of players who would be forced to leave their clubs. This never happened, in fact I haven't heard of one single player who was ditched. Somehow they found a work-around but how, the rules seem very clear and unambiguous. Any changes will need to be far clearer indeed, not the crazy League 3 proposals but something else entirely.

[Garawa]

Good points Rimshot. A great point made by Mark Lawrenson was that many of the banners around Wembley will be from lower league clubs yet we are the ones supposed to make way for these stupid ideas. Not sure their is an answer to all of this unless the ceiling comes crashing down by which they will be long gone and the clubs no longer exist. The only other option to cut all the revenue and that will never happen.

We have to limit the number of foreigners to a level that allows for a far greater number of English players, that must be the only answer. It may crush any aspirations of being Euro champions but should improve the national side. You can't have everything after all.

[Elgrande]

The thing is it is not a new problem; the Liverpool teams that won back to back European Cups featured only one English player. The rest were Irish, scots, Welsh, Zimbabwean and South African. The EU will not allow any rules that stops players from within the EU having freedom of movement.

[Garawa]

You are dead right about the EU but what I don't understand is that we are told clubs are proliferated by foreigners because they are cheaper. If so, why are they only cheaper compared to English players as Italy, Germany, Spain etc all seem to have a large quota of players from their own country, so much so that many other nations all appear to end up here! If we are perceived to be the best then presumably these players are the best but clearly they are not, apart from a select few of course.

[Garawa]

SSN says tonight that Southampton have no need to sell and won't until a new manager is in place!!!! Not sure if that is for the benefit of any disgruntled creditors or not but Lineker et al on Match of the Day all seemed certain they were in dire straights!!!! Perhaps one of the many Premier League windfalls just fell into their bank account!