[telegramsam]

Originally Posted by nffc

It is. There is sort of like a PL2 at the moment of teams who spend time bouncing between the two divisions. Fulham, Norwich, Bournemouth, Sheff Utd, Watford, West Brom, mostly spend their time swapping between getting promoted and going down without really changing either, though it did take Bournemouth a couple of years to get back up, they still did it within their parachute money, and they don't usually look like they would make a fair crack at staying up - Norwich seem to be happy going up, getting the year of PL TV money etc, then going down and having 3 years more to go back, and without really strengthening when they do. Fulham loaned out a fair amount of their promotion squad from 2 years back, then did the same with some of their PL players this time, Sheff did the same with Mousset who was a good player for them in the PL, etc.


It's quite rare to get non-parachute sides seriously breaking into the promotion picture, Brentford finally managed it last year, I think Swansea got Cooper straight after relegation so would be in their last year of parachute payments now, so I think they beat a parachute side in the final.



It really does give them the advantage of having the opportunity to retain players for a year or so from their PL squad to try and get back up (if Fulham had to sell Mitrovic, how well would they have done?) or gives them the opportunity to bring in a few near the end (Bournemouth fancied an extra striker, so spent £5m on Kieffer Moore, whereas Forest could only bring in Sam Surridge for much less than that and a young PL loan even when our main striker got injured) to help the promotion push.


I'm not even massively convinced by the argument it softens the blow either financially. If a big club went down (and it's happened with Newcastle a few times) how far would parachute payments go? Most of the top players would want to leave anyway as they'd drop out of the international picture in the 2nd tier.

You put it so right. Why should the relegated teams have an unfair financial advantage?