There was a story in the paper the other day and it something along the lines of Bruce had to sell players to raise funds. It also mentioned something about financial fair play (FFP). And this was probably longer than just the other day but I'll be honest, I've switched off Aston Villa of late.
But these are important things to consider but lets be clear, they shouldn't be a surprise. Writing that I should also say that maybe, accepting it as a subject that we probably didn't want to embrace is probably acceptable also. But I think it's fair to say that Champions League football wont be happening any time soon.
But back to FFP for a moment and because we've only had one season of Championship football, we are in the fortunate position that we can look to the two Premier League seasons before it to come up with a figure that we're allowed to lose. After next season and another season in the Championship, things change.
At the moment, it's £83,000,000.00 we're allowed in losses. £35,000,000.00 for each Premier League season and £13,000,000.00 for last season.
And the truth is I don't know that much about FFP but I'd hazard a guess that the calculated losses are for the actual seasons played, so we've got some time before we learn what happened this season. I doubt it will be bas bad as the £81,000,000.00 reported for the last season we were in the Premier League but I think I can see why there is a need to raise funds.
In 2014/15, the losses were £26mn, the following season (2015/16) it was a massive £81mn. Those two added together are a total of £107mn and they are the last two Premier League seasons (where we can have losses of £70mn). So unless we sell quite a few players in the next few days (the end of our financial year is this month) or we've had a better year than I think most of us would think we have had, you can sort of see why Bruce has to sell before he can buy.
It is certainly going to make for an interesting season next time out and it explains the tweets from the owner around sustainability. I think a few things are starting to dawn on him. But I wanted to write about this news, because none of it should be a surprise to anyone. Where we find ourselves also shouldn't be a surprise.
Next season
Everyone knows my view on what we need next season so I'm not going to go over old news. But it is going to be an interesting one and for me, we have two options. We either conform to financial fair play right now or we gamble and go for it. If we gamble and succeed, we're a Premier League club again. If we don't gamble and don't succeed, we're a Championship club with a likely penalty fine this time next year and we're in the spiral of not having money.
But do we have the money to gamble? You see for me, it's the only option.