[St Charles Owl]

I'm looking at the Seals now - thinking at least they had a go.
Yes they got into financial problems, but they have new money now.
I'm sure they will be investing in new quality players again - I'm not sure we will.

Phil, I think you are missing the point about how FFP works!!! Having wealthy owners will mean that Villa are able to pay the wage bill now but that won't help them with FFP. By all accounts Villa are at around a loss of 33m over the last two seasons and staring down the barrel of a projected 55m loss this season if nothing changes. Under FFP they can only sustain a loss of 6.5m over the coming season, so they have a near 50m hole to fill if they don't want to head directly into sanctions. They can certainly take a chunk out of that by letting expensive loans go as they have done and by selling a few players for profit, as they seem to be trying to do but new owners will not be able to inject any transfer money into the club because they simply cannot currently afford it if they intend to stay within FFP.

But under the new rules there is another kicker to all this. When Leicester, QPR and Bournemouth decided to spend through the roof and completely flout the FFP rules by "buying" promotion, the EFL changed the rules on the sanctions they can hand out to clubs to prevent this from happening. The new rules include a few key things that will prevent a club buying its way out of the division, firstly a club who is looking likely to go over the 39m threshold, as Villa and by the way Wednesday are, then those clubs need to submit a 2 year business plan showing what they intend to do to stay within the limits. If the EFL are not happy with this plan or lets say Villa put in a plan that is agreed as ok and then go out and splash 20m on a player, a move that will see them go over the limit, then the EFL now have the ability to simply not register the player and therefore he will be unable to play for that club even if they buy him. This prevents clubs saying one thing and then doing something completely different in terms of financing transfers. There are other more severe punishments beyond that but that one alone will prevent teams going out and blowing away a budget to gain promotion.

FFP is stupid in my view, if a club has a wealthy owner let him spend his money, but in its current state the EFL will shut clubs adding new players to their books if they do not take them seriously, and Villa are top of that table currently!!