You need to be a financial/accounting genius to understand boardroom chatter nowadays and fortunately we have a few on here.. Thankfully they can make this more understandable to oiks like me.
In my early days supporting Wednesday, nobody queried why Wednesday were top of the list in buying players when there was a maximum wage therefore creating a level playing field. We even broke the then world record transfer fee when we bought Jackie Sewell.
Clubs accounts were ,lets say, very vague. You had a good idea who the dodgy clubs were. You would assume other clubs had spies in other clubs camp. A certain club, t'other side o't Pennines, seemed to gazump us on occasions offering better terms to the likes of Dennis Law and Harry Gregg when they were en route to sign for us.