Report: Proposed FFP changes could benefit Newcastle but be disastrous for the Premier League as a whole

We have some pretty strong opinions on Financial Fair Play rules here at nufc.news if you haven't already noticed so it stands to reason we have thoughts on the new 'anchoring' proposal.

The Premier League are set to debate yet another change to FFP/Profit and Sustainability Rules as they desperately scramble to make the rules 'fair'.

In the latest proposal, called 'anchoring', all Premier League clubs will be set the same 'squad cost cap' which will be a multiple of the lowest earning side's TV revenue, which initially doesn't sound like it would be a significant amount.

It's obviously designed to level the playing field with the current rules, and all other proposals so far, still keeping a nice big golden gate around the precious 'big six'.

Sky Sports

The proposed rule change could actually be good news for Newcastle

The report in inews suggests that detractors think it will financially cripple the Premier League and could therefore result in it being harder for teams to attract big players, however, they also point out that last year's cap would have been set at £518million which was only Chelsea exceeded, so it's perhaps not a bad solution.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire gave a real-world example to the iPaper.

“You would take the budget for the club that is deemed to be the smallest – so for this season it would be Burnley or Bournemouth – and you say the amount of money that can be spent by the richest club would be linked to Burnley’s budget on a multiple.

“So far the multiple we’ve seen discussed is 4.5, so if Burnley spent £100m on player costs, the richest club would then get a budget of £450m.”

Maguire went on to say how it would actually benefit Newcastle and other clubs trying to disrupt the 'big six'.

Newcastle still have to navigate the current PSR restrictions this summer

When we first started looking into 'anchoring' it seemed like a ridiculous idea, but actually, the more we look at it the more it makes sense. If the Premier League absolutely must govern how much clubs can spend, which incidentally, we don't think they should, then this way makes the most sense for now.

The vote on the new system is set to take place on Monday and discussions will take place on how to implement it and whether it would run concurrently to the UEFA model that's also set to be implemented. It's believed that the rule has a large backing and is likely to go through with only the Manchester clubs strongly opposed, which is what you'd expect, really given their turnover.

Whatever the outcome, it won't affect this summer's transfer window with the new rules not set to come into force until next year which means Newcastle still have the current FFP restrictions to deal with this summer. Great.