But over what period are they paying? Any Fofana deal will run into issues on payment terms - we will want +90% now, BCC do not like that for FFP reasons.
This might be the case with the new UEFA FFP Cost Control rules that come into place over the next few years (have no idea) but I believe is not the case for current Premier League FFP. When payments are made makes no difference. I guess clubs want to pay over longer terms for much the same reason that you or I don't want to pay for our homes in one go (you try finding £100m down the back of a sofa... for a player I mean, not the house!).
I think the situation (but note that I am not an accountant and especially not an accountant for a football club) is actually:
PL FFP is based on Profit and Loss. The cost of a player is capitalised as an intangible asset and amortised on a fixed line basis over the course of the contract (well, unless you are Derby who I think decided that a player kept their full value for the duration of the contract which is what the EFL challenged as it inflated the value of their assets and crucially removed losses for the years in question) so keeping fees out of it to keep it simple:
Player x is bought for £80m on a 5 year contract with payments agreed as 25% up front in Year 1, 25% Year 2, 50% Year 3. I think the impact is:
End of Year 1:
Balance Sheet:
- Asset: Intangible Assets increase by £64m (80m minus year 1 amortisation of 16m)
- Asset: Cash/Bank decreases by £20m
- Liability: Creditors owed within 1 year increases by £20m
- Liability: Creditors owed after 1 year increases by £40m
- Net Impact -£16m (i.e. loss appearing on the balance sheet against P/L)
Profit & Loss (used for FFP):
- Amortisation of intangible asset £16m
End of Year 2:
- Asset: Intangible Assets decreases by £16m
- Asset: Cash/Bank decreases by £20m
- Liability: Creditors owed within 1 year increases by £20m
- Liability: Creditors owed after 1 year decreases by £40m
- Net Impact -£16m (i.e. loss)
Profit & Loss (used for FFP):
- Amortisation of intangible asset £16m
etc.
Obviously there is an additional P&L impact associated with paying Player X's salary.
Note that if the club then sell the player in Year 3 for £90m the P&L impact for that year is something like +£42m (transfer fee minus book value, so 90-(80-16-16)). Which obviously means net P&L over the 3 years of +£10m as you might expect for a player brought for £80m and sold for £90m.