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Wolves get raw deal from FFP

 

I used to see a lifelong Wolves fan for lunch once a month.   He was approaching ninety, but still went to games.   Sadly he passed away the other week.

As football finance guru Kieran Maguire has noted, Wolves continue to be constrained by financial fair play rules.  Radio 4 this morning described them as this year's 'crisis club' and the pessimists have certainly been piling in.

Martin Samuel wrote sympathetically in the Sunday Times yesterday, saying that the Premier League drives talent away with regulatory red tape: 'Why could Al-Hilal sign Neves? Because Wolves needed the money. And why did Wolves need the money? Because the club had to comply with an artificial construct known as financial fair play. So Wolves are going skint, yes? No.

There is no suggestion that Wolves are in financial trouble, only that they are failing to meet the rigours of FFP. Wolves’ owners appear to have the money to run the club, and invest in the club, and in fact came up with a powerful strategy to maintain it as a Premier League entity having forged links with the agent Jorge Mendes. Plenty of rivals no doubt wished they had thought of that. Now they are being tipped for relegation.

The Mendes link turned Wolves into a Portuguese enclave which is limiting in other ways but he knew the Portuguese scene and, in particular, its young players. Mendes steered many of them Wolves’ way with the promise that exposure in England could lead to a move to a bigger, Champions League, club. It certainly worked for Diogo Jota and would have done for Neves, too, had the lure of Saudi loot and Wolves’ desire for the biggest transfer fee not been so urgent.

Wolves have also lost a fine coach in Julen Lopetegui and while a job for Gary O’Neil, his replacement, is good news for domestic managers, Lopetegui’s unnecessary departure takes another layer of shine off the Premier League. He left because the job was not as advertised, and that was because Wolves have been made to behave as if they are going bust, when they are not. A coach that was promised investment was instead told to work with severe financial constraints, leading to a steady stream of sales and expired contracts. The league has driven Lopetegui out and delivered Neves to Saudi Arabia. '

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