, Blackburn Rovers: Life under an embargo

Blackburn Rovers: Life under an embargo

Incase you have been to outer space for the past 9 months or so Blackburn Rovers are currently under a transfer embargo. Their MD, Derek Shaw, can see ‘light at the end of the tunnel‘ as they come closer to lifting the restrictions.

The embargo restricts the club to the following:

24 or fewer established players (players aged 21 or over that have made at least 5 starting appearances for the club). 
  
Where clubs have fewer than 24 established players, they will only be permitted to sign players in the following circumstances (with the player in question being added to the club’s list of established players regardless of his age or previous playing experience): Where the employee costs of a player being signed are less than £600,000 per annum (or pro-rata if signed on a shorter contract). 

What this effectively means is the club can have a squad no bigger than 24 players and can spend around £10k a week on incoming signings.  This figure is actually the average wage for Championship players so in itself it is not overly restrictive.  What Blackburn are finding difficult is the inability to pay loan fees for players – reportedly the reason they missed out on the signing of Southampton’s Sam Gallagher – as well as the obvious ban on paying a fee for signings.

Rovers much criticised owners Venkys have once again put in over £28m of their personal wealth to help fund the club last season.  The club have taken a hard-line with their big earners who were deemed replaceable, settling contracts with the likes of Leon Best, Bradley Orr, Jake Kean, Danny Murphy and Dickson Etuhu to name a few.  Add to that the summer departures of Joshua King, David Dunn, Paul Robinson and the hefty sale of Rudy Gestede and Rovers are actually making good progress with their mammoth task of reducing their outgoing costs.

What FFP fails to take into account however is the effort the club are making, they deal only in facts, the club are still paying big money every month to many of those released and until those contracts are fully paid up the club will continue to be losing big money.

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