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Relegation harder than ever; should FFP rules still apply to QPR?
As the financial aspect of the beautiful game has grown tenfold since the turn of the decade, staying in the Premier League has gotten harder than ever, but moreover, getting back up even harder. The financial downside of relegation is just too much to bear for many clubs. Fulham, relegated just last season, currently sit bottom of the Championship with just one point from their first seven games, and Cardiff City are also in the bottom half of England’s second tier. Other recently relegated clubs, including Wigan Athletic, Bolton Wanderers, and Blackpool.
Nearly every team relegated loses the majority of their players. Over the summer Fulham lost eighteen players, the majority of them their former starters. What’s worse, is that most of those players want to go and move back up to the top flight. Many have release clauses in their contracts if the club is relegated, and the few who are sold go for next to nothing. Sascha Riether, a starter for Fulham last season, was sold for just over £300 thousand pounds. Cardiff were better of, but still lost most of their luxury players and their squad is almost un recognizable from theirs last season.
Parachute payments to relegated clubs are skyrocketing – reports claim that each relegated clubs receives £30 million in payments over the first year after they go down. But just as fast as those payments are going up, the wealth divide between the two leagues is going down. It has become harder and harder for relegated clubs – just a few weeks into the new season both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Felix Magath, managers of Cardiff and Fulham, respectively, have left their positions. Solskjaer stepped down with an obvious push from the club, while Magath was given the sack.
Of course, Queens Park Rangers are an exception, because they have the money. And it takes a lot of money to get back up, just to keep their best players. They are one of the few clubs to have gotten back up just the season after they were relegated. However, the club are facing fines other punishments for breaching Financial Fair Play rules. QPR are fighting those fines, and to an extent they have a morale upper hand. FFP rules should definitely apply at the top of the game, but it is just so hard for relegated clubs to rebound and regain stability without spending a lot of money they certainly should be given some break. You only have to look as far as Magath and Solskjaer to see why.