Wolves chairman Jeff Shi: Financial fair play can wait
Wolves chairman Jeff Shi has admitted financial fair play is a ‘challenge’ for the club – but his priority is signing the right players.
After an outlay of £47million on transfer fees alone since Fosun took over in 14 months ago, the club have grown increasingly wary of breaking financial fair play rules.
However, despite that they were willing to shell out £10million on Jurgen Locadia on transfer deadline day, albeit the deal was scrapped by them and PSV.
And Shi told the Express & Star the threat of issues arising from financial fair play – which dictates clubs cannot make a £39m loss over a three-season rolling period – was ‘too far away’.
He said: “FFP is a challenge of course but we’re not always doing things based on that.
“I think it’s too far away. Sometimes you cannot think too long in the future and limit yourself for current things to do.
“Of course we’ll keep it in mind. That’s a challenge, but not the major challenge.
“The main challenge is still about finding the right players and who can fit into the system at the right price with the right profile.
“We’re happy with the season so far – of course we’re happy. Only the results can tell, but things are going well.”
Meanwhile former Wolves player Don Goodman believes Nuno Espirito Santo’s team need to learn to ‘fight and scrap’ if they’re to win promotion this season.
The ex-striker has been impressed with Wolves so far but says the defeat to Cardiff last month was a reality check.
“I’ve seen a couple of teams pass their way out of the league, like Bournemouth and Swansea, but you usually need a good mix,” Goodman said.
“If you’re going to get promoted you need to be able to win games when you don’t play well, and to do that in the Championship you have to be able to fight and scrap. Are these young foreign lads going to be up for that on a cold night in February?”
“The early acid test for them was the game against Cardiff, if they’d won that I would have sat up and taken real notice. But they lost and it was a little bit of a reality check for them, while it may also have provided a template to other teams. It’s still been a good start for them, though, and there’ll be more tests for them to pass around the corner.”
