Blues boss Paul Jewell says football clubs must learn to cut their cloth accordingly with the Championship set to introduce UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations from next season. The clubs meet at Derby this month to finally ratify introducing measures it they initially agreed they would develop last summer.

Football League clubs owe a total of £700 million with Town’s last set of accounts, to June 2011, showing that their debts — almost entirely owed to Marcus Evans - have reached £66.17 million, and will have grown since then, with wages 98.8 per cent of turnover.

Under the Financial Fair Play plan, clubs will only be able to spend what they generate with those that fail to comply facing transfer bans and possible points deductions.

Jewell, whose deadline day move for Portsmouth pair Joel Ward and Stephen Henderson broke down because the players wanted contracts he believed were excessive, says clubs will have to pay players less in future: “The players we wanted to bring in we think are good players but at the end of the day we’ve got to start saying in football ‘Well, that’s the price’, because we’ve got the Financial Fair Play [regulations coming in] and we’ll have to work to a budget.

“Everywhere I look I see people losing jobs, taking pay cuts and not being paid as much as they were. It’s the same with football clubs, we’ve got to work to the Financial Fair Play [regulations], so we can’t pay people what we’ve been paying them in the past, it just can’t happen.

“This club’s paid the price of administration before and we don’t want to be doing what Portsmouth are doing. You’ve got to cut your cloth, although I know fans don’t want to hear it.

“If we can get people here on decent money, not silly money, and keep them hungry - young players - that’s the way forward.

“We’re not going to pay them peanuts, but we don’t want to be getting into the realms of silly money because silly money next year can lead to irregularities.”

But he says some clubs, including West Ham, are hoping to avoid the new Championship reality by throwing money at promotion before the measures are introduced: “I was speaking to Sam Allardyce the other night and he said they’re spending money now because he’s thinking that if they stay in this league next year, they’d have to lose nearly 75 per cent of their players. A few clubs are putting their eggs into one basket, gambling to go up.”

Photo: Action Images

itfcsmithlarr added 11:51 - Feb 7 Jimmy's on silly money to warm our bench.
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Wallingford_Boy added 11:52 - Feb 7 Would love it if the Spammers didn't go up, LOVE IT
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Vic added 11:52 - Feb 7 Thank goodness that common sense is starting to be seen. It also explains some of the decisions in the club recently regarding signings/contracts etc.
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bgexile added 11:57 - Feb 7 are you quite sure about those stats Phil? ITFC account for almost 10% of the entire Football League debt?? Seems a bit steep doesn't it?
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itfc1981 added 12:02 - Feb 7 Norwich in PL :( Impossible for us to join them. :(
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hampstead_blue added 12:02 - Feb 7 At last! Common sense and football appear to be on the same pitch. Lets hope players realise the reality and that PJ has a great reputation for bringing players through to the top flight. Think of players such a Baines, Roberts, ect. Young players should come to Ipswich and use it either a launching pad or stay and become Legends! Well done PJ, keep it up.
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itfc1981 added 12:04 - Feb 7 Might as well have a closed in PL, as Championship clubs wont be able to get near. The same clubs will be going up and down every two years without exception.
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RetroBlue added 12:05 - Feb 7 Its more simple than Clubs watching their pennies . How about the greedy players and their agents taking a senisible outlook when negotiating their extortinate wage demands?
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PhilTWTD added 12:22 - Feb 7 bgexile Found that figure quoted by the Football League's chair: http://www.soccerex.com/industry-news/english-championship-clubs-set-to-adopt-fi
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Bergholtblue added 12:23 - Feb 7 “If we can get people here on decent money, not silly money, and keep them hungry - young players - that's the way forward. Best get rid of the likes of Bullard and Bowyer then quick, possibly Scotland, Edwards and Leadbitter. What about Chopra, what's he on? (Discounting the 250,000 hand out) As ITFC1981 says, this could close the door to the PL for many clubs. What about those coming down, will they still get parachute payments? When things go awry and the fair weather supporters stay away, out gates drop below 19,000. Is this enough to even sustain a place in Championship, or will League 1 now be inevitable? It seems to me that the fat cats at FIFA, EUF and the FA just want the rich clubs to be able to get richer at the expense of us provincial clubs?

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noitan added 12:26 - Feb 7 Clubs only able to spend what they GENERATE. Where do wealthy owners eg. ME, fit into this?. Are they allowed to be part of the generation of money or do they become irrelevant ?.
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Mark added 12:31 - Feb 7 I totally support the principle of these Financial Fair Play Rules as for too long now footballers' wages have been rising to and beyond crazy levels, while the hardworking fans are asked to pay more and more for their match tickets and season tickets. This is no joke given current economic circumstances and the unemployment risks that fans are facing, so I hope the new rules are effective. I do have some worry about the detail and impact on Ipswich however, for example if our attendance slumps next season and Marcus Evans cannot put in his own money to help us out where will we be? And what is the point of our rich owner if he can't put money in?

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The_suffolk_punch added 12:32 - Feb 7 “If we can get people here on decent money, not silly money, and keep them hungry - young players - that's the way forward." Young Players? Got abit of a nerve as you brought in Mr Ellington! Talk is cheap. Get some good young players and I will stand by you but I need to see the changes before I believe you! PJ
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adamisablue added 12:34 - Feb 7 wow. i live in holland at the moment, but still keep up with english football and to be quite frank, what im seeing at thew moment is starting to worry me slightly. first, they were talking about scraping relegation (an idea that was voted against and quickly rubbished) from the PL. next, they basicly blackmail every single lower league club into accepting a raw deal so all the young talant goes to the big boys for absloutly nothing. and now this? it does seem that the powers are trying to keep it elitist so no one even gets close to the big time. heres an idea, why not introduce this scheme at the top of the premier league to stop the likes of man city and chelski buying titles and trophys?

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baznsez04 added 12:35 - Feb 7 there is gonna be a hell of a lot of out of work footballers next year then. can only see this as being a negetive move for the fans. might as well go and support the local pub team. There will be far fewer big name crowd pleasers in this division and lower attendances leading to less revenue for the club leading to lowering wage bills leading to lower quality leading to lower attendances.....the circle goes on.......get the picture. not a good move IMO

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noitan added 12:35 - Feb 7 MARK. This is the burning question. What role will wealthy owners play in clubs and are they ALLOWED to put money in.
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DoobDude added 12:36 - Feb 7 Ipswich Town lecturing other clubs on their finances is like John Terry advising people on their relationships. Pot kettle black!
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RetroBlue added 12:48 - Feb 7 I think you'll find its ALL Championship Clubs"lecturing" on the state of the game , not just ITFC, pillock !
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Mark added 12:51 - Feb 7 Just to add a few more comments... The Championship is one of the best attended leagues in the Europe, so I think there will still be many quality players to see and it is an attractive league. If Premier League clubs come under the same rule (will they?? I read there were possible bans from Europe, but nothing like transfer bans and points deductions) then they cannot keep such big squads on big wages I suppose, so might have to offload further players to the Championship. Do the rules apply to all costs or just player wages? I thought the club were looking into that as part of the academy decision. Will the rules kick in this August or will there be a transition period? It is unfair on clubs who are stuck with high-earning contracted players if there is no transition. There will be so many players available cheaply this summer that we may be glad we haven't spent big in this January transfer window. Our caution might pay off, and all the contracts we have that run out soon may be to our benefit.

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BlueVelvet added 12:57 - Feb 7 the rules ought to apply to boardroom as well - lets hope that Oly Clegg only gets performance (on the pitch) related pay, and no fat cat gravy train bonuses
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BlueVelvet added 13:05 - Feb 7 Owner investment in clubs needs looking at. Whilst there has been an outpouring of grief for the sudden loss of the Forest owner, it is he who had the strangle hold over the finances and ultimate performance of the club. Whilst our heart strings are tugged by apparent altuirstic tendancies of the guy, we should not forget that if someone came in to buy Forest as a club, they would have to pay him £10's millions to clear his personal loan to the club before the club got anything - lets hope he had a good life assurance policy that wipes out his debts. Cloughy would turn in his grave.

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BecclesBlue500 added 13:13 - Feb 7 "..young players - that's the way forward" [sic] Young compared to what??? Need to carbon-date Bowyer, Bullard, Scotland etc - not sure whether they are triassic or jurassic................ PJ - welcome to earth. So anytime soon (if not already) it will have REALLY REALLY been brought home to ME that he'll never get his money back - he'll not be able to invest (other than by wiping off debt to the tune of £66m!) and has a 1 in 15-ish chance of geting prooted in any given year. Reasons to be cheerful, parts 1,2,3....

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Marshalls_Mullet added 13:17 - Feb 7 Baz...... where are the players going to disappear to?
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pitseablue added 13:19 - Feb 7 About time football got it's house in order and moved to the real world !
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newboy added 13:19 - Feb 7 The way round it is for ME to follow the example of other clubs and sponsor the stadium generating more income. If we can't get anyone to come to the club now due to the poor wages on offer and current situation it won't get any better next year. And it's fine for people to say it makes sense but speaking as someone who has not had a payrise in over 5 years in reality would any of us take less if we didn't have to.

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