Wolves journalist Liam Keen has given his take on club owners Fosun and their financial strategy during the summer transfer window.
Wolves have certainly not been strangers to the idea of spending big in the Premier League, with Transfermarkt putting their spend during their first two seasons back in the top flight at over £200m, spending more than £100m each season.
This summer, though, they were a lot more frugal and the club cut back on their spending, perhaps due to the financial losses that they have suffered recently.
Speaking on the latest edition of the E&S Wolves podcast about the situation as part of a larger discussion about Financial Fair Play, Keen claimed that whilst the club could have spent more and had the money to do so, they were more focused on keeping the club balanced financially:
“In terms of this summer, there wasn’t an issue in terms of a lack of funds necessarily, it’s more the – I suppose philosophy is the right word – of Fosun wanting Wolves to be independent, sustainable; not overspending, taking financial risks, getting into big debt. And that really is where the summer work came in.
“They were willing to spend, and obviously they did make a few sales with [Rafa] Mir going out, [Patrick] Cutrone on loan, a few other loans. So there was money available, there was budget and cash available. But it all comes down to Wolves weren’t going to go and splash out a net spend of £150m-odd or whatever it was, they’re not going to go and do that again – or they weren’t going to do that this summer. They want to be sustainable.”
TIF Thoughts on Liam Keen’s comments about Fosun and Wolves’ finances…
Have Wolves had a good transfer window?
Yes
No
You can certainly understand where the Wolves board are coming from, especially given the financial pressure they were under and the climate that football has been operating in for the past year and a half, you just hope that they haven’t been caught out at the wrong time.
Their drop-off last season in terms of their league finish shows that there are some problems in this squad, with an overreliance on Raul Jimenez potentially playing a part in proceedings, as well as their failure to find the back of the net in the league so far this season, so this is a squad that certainly needs investment at some point to make up the shortfall.
And having not done much movement in the summer window, hopefully that money has been held back for potential signings in January, because at the rate they have been going to start the season, they may very well need to bring in some players in January if things don’t improve between now and the turn of the year.
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