As Ipswich look to be leaving the January transfer window with a weaker squad than the one they entered it with, it leads me to question what is Marcus Evans’s plan for the football club.

Evans’s tenure at ITFC can be split very simply into two categories – pre-FFP and post-FFP.

After buying the club and the debt at a knockdown price he immediately invested £12 million into the playing squad under existing manager Jim Magilton.

When Magilton failed to get promotion the reins and heavy financial backing was handed over to Roy Keane, who threw more money at the squad in both transfer fees and wages and didn’t even get close to achieving the goal of promotion.

The story remained the same through Paul Jewell’s disastrous spell in charge of ITFC, more of Evans’s money was squandered, again with little reward and after a haphazard attempt at cutting the wage bill down to allowable levels within the new FFP rules, panic ensued and £1.5 million was spent on Paul Taylor and a host of loanees were brought in.

This wasn’t enough to save Jewell’s job as ITFC were left stranded at the bottom of the Championship a long way from safety and looking down the barrel of playing their football in the third tier for the first time since 1957.

Enter Mick McCarthy, and a manager who has turned the club's fortunes around with a mix of canny free agent signings, developing existing players and a smattering of small fees spent. He has turned water into wine on a few occasions and worked expertly under the FFP regulations put in place by the Football League, taking ITFC to the brink of promotion in 2014/15.

However, in November 2014, the FFP rules were changed for the 2015/16 and onwards to be closer to the rules of both the Premier League and UEFA, now rather than a loss of £6 million before infrastructure and youth development spending, Championship clubs are now permitted to lose £39 million over a three-year period, and specifically £13 million for the season 2015/16.

As things stand these new rules seem to be too rich for Evans, or more likely much more money than he is willing to commit to ITFC after the previous poor return on his spending – once bitten, twice shy.

There are a number of clubs spending money with existing squads that are superior to ITFC’s – some in receipt of huge parachute payments (Hull, Burnley) and some without (Middlesbrough, Derby) and then further clubs coming from behind where we were but spending big money on a promotion push (Sheffield Wednesday, Brighton).

These clubs appear willing to spend up to (and in some cases) above the new limits, and if they plan to do so for a consistent period of time, McCarthy will face an even more difficult task to keep Ipswich competitive, especially when the new TV deal kicks in for the Premier League sides which will further increase parachute payments for the relegated clubs.

How long will Marcus Evans be happy to keep contributing £5 million+ per year to keep Ipswich as a club in the Championship with an ever diminishing chance of promotion? If we get to the summer transfer window, and the big spending clubs in the Championship continue to do so, then Evans will either choose to stump up the money to do so or look to step aside and find someone that will.

Ipswich were one of the clubs to vote against the changes in the FFP rules, wanting it to be kept at the previous level of £6 million allowed losses, and despite the sale of Tyrone Mings in the off-season the investment into the squad this season coupled with the accounts from last season appear to show that our losses will be more in line than the previous FFP rules rather than the current ones.

As an Ipswich fan, I’d prefer it if it is Evans that makes the large investment required into ITFC, he is a known quantity (of sorts) to the fans and has run the club well in the period that Mick has been in charge.

The club is (deliberately?) in a good position for a sale if Evans is willing to cut losses on the debt – a successful academy running at a position very close to Category One, a top manager tied down for the next two seasons, a strong spine of Championship players tied down for the foreseeable future, a loyal fan base and a stable balance sheet.

A smart businessman like Evans, who has been burned badly once by football will have the option of chasing a bad debt or cutting his losses. There is no guarantee of promotion out of this league, and the extra spending Evans would need to make could easily be a further £10 million a year until we get over the line – that could be another £50 million added to his investment, or quite easily another £100 million – and that still may not be enough.

The approach of spending around £5 million per year will make promotion very difficult, and the likelihood is we will get further away rather than closer as time goes on – if spending was to begin on the squad then the prize for promotion would be worth it, but is the game now too rich for Evans?

brittaniaman added 09:45 - Feb 2 I always wonder what would have happened if the West Ham owners ( (Goldsmith and co.) had bought in to our club instead of buying WH. ?????? because there was talk of them taking over at one time.
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Bert added 17:30 - Feb 2 An informed and wise blog. The fact remains that MM is pretty good at spotting players under the radar for a few quid or as loan players who are happy to come to Ipswich because MM knows his stuff. What does a few million buy ? Very little is the answer so unless Evans is willing to spend £5- £10 million on a quality player, MM is broadly right in saying that there is very little out there that is much better than we have got. I sense that Evans would consider a player recommendation from MM so let's sit tight and hope that our team has the dedication and skill to get us where we want to be. Teams like us have done it before.

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62WasBest added 00:36 - Feb 3 xrayspecs - I can accept many of your points but it has to be said that when ME made money available to the previous managers he was not really experienced in running a club. If money was wasted you have to point the finger at the quality of his managerial appointments he made. The one thing that is obvious to me is that ME is trying to run this club along the lines of any business outside of the crazy world of football finance. Even in in the time ME has been here football has changed, particularly with the introduction of FFP - though even that has been diluted so that common sense cannot prevail, allowing the football financial roulette wheel continues to spin pretty much as before. One thing ME is not is a gambler.

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westernblue added 11:36 - Feb 3 Really good, informative blog - which has generated interesting responses. It is understandable that ME, already covering significant losses, after all a businessman not a philanthropist, might be reluctant to see them steeply increase (and he must still wake up in a cold sweat thinking of the Keane and Jewell eras). While promotion would completely change the position, that of course cannot be guaranteed - and the club's balance sheet still has an eye watering level of debt (as an earlier post said the debt was there to be purchased from major creditors at a discounted price). A silver lining is that the club's assets still do not extend to the PR freehold estate, as who knows an opportunity to hive such an asset off might one day have proved irresistible to the ownership (whoever that might be). So where can such increased investment come from? The Mings sale perhaps suggests otherwise, but it would increase confidence if the club made a commitment to using windfalls by replacing players sold (we are always told every player has his price) with incoming quality - easy maybe in retrospect, but I can't help feeling that the offer early last season for Dids was astonishingly high, and perhaps earlier this season too for Murph. Otherwise fingers crossed that MM and TC can conjure promotion against the odds - hope springs eternal.

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distractored added 09:09 - Feb 4 I thoroughly agree with the thoughts expressed above by Bossman and RegencyBlue about the club's losses being used as a tax write-off for Evans. During these austere times his other businesses are unlikely to be quite as profitable as they have been, hence there is less tax to be written off, and less cash available for the club. It's been long enough now, with four different managers, for it to become plain to me at least that the main problem we face is presently with the club's ownership and nowhere else.

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sidtheswan added 07:34 - Feb 6 The annoying thing about all this is we have the supporters to compete with all the other teams mentioned . We are Ipswich we have a great history and a whole county and parts of Essex behind us as well as pockets around Europe . As much as I don't like MM he is managing with his hands tied . We need investment in the squad then we need to play more attractive football and compete at the top not just for the play offs. Look at the premier league we are bigger than half the clubs and need to get back there before it's too late . In the Field of Dreams the line was " If you build it they will come ". This has never been more true and we need it now . COYB!

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Geoff added 11:12 - Feb 6 All the present squad needs is two really decent players like Ryan Fraser who will be leaving us at the end of the season. With out the investment i fear a very sharp fall in season tickets as the majority of fans are fed up with our style of play and apparent lack of ambition.
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roytheboy added 11:32 - Feb 6 I knew nothing of these rule changes, or that ITFC voted against them, our Management has kept this pretty quiet, I am fast losing faith in our club and it's future, there is a limit to how much genuine supporters will stand before they start drifting away, it is simply unfair and misleading to us supporters who each season cling on to the hope of promotion, knowing that we will be very lucky to achieve it without financial speculation, please take note Marcus and Mick.

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