The January 2026 Transfer Window

[Tomphil2]

19 minutes ago, Tim Southampton Rover said:

Gueye fee was undisclosed, however, rumours are that it was £1.8m. If accurate, that would represent a slight profit on him, which is more than what we all expected we'd get for him. Bank it, learn from it, spend it (hopefully!).

Nope that was pure Nixon spin the fee is alleged to be c1 million Euro's which is presumably about what was paid for him.

No doubt plenty add ons involved so i look forward to many future payments when he suddenly turns into this mythical goal machine in a sub championship standard league.

[wilsdenrover]

16 minutes ago, Tugayslongwalkoff said:

Can anyone confirm that after bringing in circa £40m in transfer fees for Adam, Sammie etc that we are now in a different FFP cycle and all that money now means fuck all in terms of being able to make some significant investment for once? 

FFP is a rolling three year cycle.

Wharton was sold during the 23-24 accounting period so 25-26 will be the last year to include his fee.

Sammie was sold during the 24-25 accounting period so 26-27 will be the last year to include his.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by wilsdenrover

[Blow-in]

14 minutes ago, Tomphil2 said:

Nope that was pure Nixon spin the fee is alleged to be c1 million Euro's which is presumably about what was paid for him.

No doubt plenty add ons involved so i look forward to many future payments when he suddenly turns into this mythical goal machine in a sub championship standard league.

If he is going to come good in a sub-championship league, we should have held onto him.

[Jimmy612]

4 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

FFP is a rolling three year cycle

Wharton was sold during the 23-24 accounting period so 25-26 will be the last year to include his fee.

Sammie was sold during the 24-25 accounting period so 26-27 will be the last year to include his.

Absolutely incredible to think about the degradation of the squad after selling two players for a total £40m.  The reinvestment has been absolutely appalling, and has left us with very few saleable assets (Alebiosu and maybe Gudjohnsen). There is absolutely zero legacy from selling them. 

[wilsdenrover]

To add to my previous post.

Our recent operating losses have been reasonably constant at around £17.5 million.

£17.5 million x 3 = £52.5 million

Allowable 3 year loss for FFP = £39 million

player trading profit needed for compliance = £13.5 million

Bare with me 😁😁

Venkys London accounts have player trading profit for  23/24 + 24/25  at a combined £36.8 million.

Based on those ‘back of a fag packet’ workings, we could have a net transfer spend of circa £23.3 million this year and still be FFP compliant.

That’s before you take into account the removal of exempt expenses such as ground maintenance (ha!).

Clearly those figures won’t be bang on but hopefully it demonstrates how far from breaching FFP we currently are.

Of course if we spent that much and didn’t go up it would come back to bite us (as the Wharton and Sammie money disappears from the calculations). 

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by wilsdenrover

[alcd]

1 minute ago, Jimmy612 said:

Absolutely incredible to think about the degradation of the squad after selling two players for a total £40m.  The reinvestment has been absolutely appalling, and has left us with very few saleable assets (Alebiosu and maybe Gudjohnsen). There is absolutely zero legacy from selling them. 

Because most of the money has been spent on wages and other running costs. Admittedly most of the little that has been spent has been wasted.

[Eddie]

3 hours ago, bluebruce said:

It doesn't even have to be as deep as all this. Our biggest problem has been refusing to sign up senior players to reasonable contracts. Exacerbated by an overreliance on loans to pad the squad out (often very poor ones) and a refusal to adequately reinvest received transfer funds, even though that can yield even bigger profits down the line. Instead we buy a load of cheap dross which very rarely works out, and you know what they say - buy cheap, buy twice.

Because of all this, every window is playing catch up. If we hadn't been ballsing those three things up, we'd have been promoted by now.

A lot of our players sign reasonable contracts. 2-3 year deals with an option are pretty standard these days, but we just can't get them to renew. We seem to be operating with a mindset that players will routinely renew within the final 6 months of their deal on similar terms (if not worse terms). That just doesn't happen these days. 

[RevidgeBlue]

22 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

FFP is a rolling three year cycle.

Wharton was sold during the 23-24 accounting period so 25-26 will be the last year to include his fee.

Sammie was sold during the 24-25 accounting period so 26-27 will be the last year to include his.

 

 

I think it was Eddie who absolutely nailed Gestede in a podcast about there only being a limited window of opportunity to reinvest due to FFP rules.

Gestede couldn't answer that and merely kept repeating a lame excuse about how the transfer budget for the year was unaffected no matter how many sales were made.

Which is utterly bizarre when you think about it.

[Jimmy612]

3 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

To add to my previous post.

Our recent operating losses have been reasonably constant at around £17.5 million.

£17.5 million x 3 = £52.5 million

Allowable 3 year loss for FFP = £39 million

player trading profit needed for compliance = £13.5 million

Bare with me 😁😁

Venkys London accounts have player trading profit for  23/24 + 24/25  at a combined £36.8 million.

Based on those ‘back of a fag packet’ workings, we could have a net transfer spend of circa £22.3 million this year and still be FFP compliant.

That’s before you take into account the removal of exempt expenses such as ground maintenance (ha!).

Clearly those figures won’t be bang on but hopefully it demonstrates how far from breaching FFP we currently are.

Of course if we spent that much and didn’t go up it would come back to bite us (as the Wharton and Sammie money disappears from the calculations). 

 

 

Whilst these are back of a fag packet, information like this is what the LET should be honing in on, researching, and reporting for all to see.  Could also be very valuable for the coalition to do some digging.  One of the most frequently trotted out arguments for the current ownership is that they can't possibly spend money because of PSR/FFP. 

[jim mk2]

31 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

FFP is a rolling three year cycle.

Wharton was sold during the 23-24 accounting period so 25-26 will be the last year to include his fee.

Sammie was sold during the 24-25 accounting period so 26-27 will be the last year to include his.

Did we really have class acts like Szmodics and Wharton playing for Rovers?

Seems light years now from the current dross in blue and white

[bluebruce]

47 minutes ago, Tomphil2 said:

But we had better squads....

Chris Brown 278 championship games, 13 Premier League

Luke Varney 339 championship games, 8 top flight.

 

As i said i wouldn't want any of them but it's cast iron that they'd get picked now before this seasons version of Gueye, goals last season or no goals.

He'll score a few in China and disappear into the football wilderness abroad, i'll happily be corrected if not i wish him well.

I will argue on this no more iv'e made my point.

Having better squads is all the more reason they should have been capable of goals.

Those appearance stats really do mean sod all. Starting in different countries, Gueye isn't close to done with his career. Comparing apples and oranges.

Nothing cast iron about it. In fact most people seem to disagree with you. If you would pick strikers who never score then I'm glad you're not the manager. Brown is the worst striker to have had as many games as he has at Rovers in my lifetime.

[bluebruce]

10 minutes ago, Eddie said:

A lot of our players sign reasonable contracts. 2-3 year deals with an option are pretty standard these days, but we just can't get them to renew. We seem to be operating with a mindset that players will routinely renew within the final 6 months of their deal on similar terms (if not worse terms). That just doesn't happen these days. 

I was talking about renewals.

[Browjd]

When was the last first team player to sign a new contract (because they were going to stay and not to help club maintain their value)?

[RevidgeBlue]

2 minutes ago, Browjd said:

When was the last first team player to sign a new contract (because they were going to stay and not to help club maintain their value)?

No idea.

Scott Wharton?

Gallagher?

[wilsdenrover]

12 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Did we really have class acts like Szmodics and Wharton playing for Rovers?

Seems light years now from the current dross in blue and white

I could’ve mentioned the Raya sell on too…

[MarkBRFC]

5 minutes ago, Browjd said:

When was the last first team player to sign a new contract (because they were going to stay and not to help club maintain their value)?

Scott Wharton just recently.

Before that, Harry Pickering in December 2023.

[Tomphil2]

6 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Having better squads is all the more reason they should have been capable of goals.

Those appearance stats really do mean sod all. Starting in different countries, Gueye isn't close to done with his career. Comparing apples and oranges.

Nothing cast iron about it. In fact most people seem to disagree with you. If you would pick strikers who never score then I'm glad you're not the manager. Brown is the worst striker to have had as many games as he has at Rovers in my lifetime.

Why did he have so many games when we had a better squad than now ?

Think about it.

He wasn't in teams because of his goal threat it's not rocket science and i don't remember him being farmed out to china in his prime years either.

It's nothing to do with comparing apples and oranges it's to do with rotten apples and rotten apples i.e two very limited forwards and the debate who was the rottenest overall. 

Championship versus Chinese leagues ?  It's not even close and by the way i dread to think of your forward line up if you were manager, sounds like you'd be a one up top 'Gueye' .i just hope you'd have someone else who could actually control a football in the team.

[roversfan99]

There is a fairly pointless article in the LT about how well Cleary did last night despite with quotes from him and Ally McCoist despite the article admitting from the start that we are unlikely to go back for him.

Also describes him as a "terrific teenager" before saying that hes 21.

[KentExile]

37 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Based on those ‘back of a fag packet’ workings, we could have a net transfer spend of circa £23.3 million this year and still be FFP compliant.

 

Is that taking into account that transfer fees paid out are split in the accounts over up to 5 years or the length of the players contract (whichever is shorter)

If you need to take that into account then they could technically spend circa £100M in January and still be compliant (obviously thy would need to sell a few to balance the books next year)

* obviously the most sensible time to do the big spend would have been last year when we were in the top 6 and it had only been 1 year since the Wharton sale & 6 months since the Szmodics sale

Edited 45 minutes ago by KentExile

[Waggy76]

24 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Did we really have class acts like Szmodics and Wharton playing for Rovers?

Seems light years now from the current dross in blue and white

The dreadful standard of the current dross as never been seen before in blue & white shirts !

[Tomphil2]

War chest incoming.

Nixon article 'Rovers have cash to spend due to FFP wiggle room'

Once he browsed on here this evening.

[RoversClitheroe]

Max Dean 

[wilsdenrover]

9 minutes ago, KentExile said:

Is that taking into account that transfer fees paid out are split in the accounts over up to 5 years or the length of the players contract (whichever is shorter)

If you need to take that into account then they could technically spend circa £100M in January and still be compliant (obviously thy would need to sell a few to balance the books next year)

* obviously the most sensible time to do the big spend would have been last year when we were in the top 6 and it had only been 1 year since the Wharton sale & 6 months since the Szmodics sale

I hadn’t taken that into account as I’d completely forgot 🤦‍♂️

That being said, I think spending £100m could cause issues as FFP looks forward as well as backwards.

I’m pretty confident we won’t get to find that out though 😁

[KentExile]

3 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Max Dean 

someone from Belgium? what are the odds eh?

[KentExile]

3 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

I hadn’t taken that into account as I’d completely forgot 🤦‍♂️

That being said, I think spending £100m could cause issues as FFP looks forward as well as backwards.

I’m pretty confident we won’t get to find that out though 😁

I was taking things to extremes to make a point as to the extent of the underspend

 

But if £30M was spent in January last season, where might we be now? 

Eustace would still be here for a start

And if it didn't work out, some of the players bought could have been sold to balance the books

Edited 37 minutes ago by KentExile