[Boromir88]

Cutbacks in the Hidden Valley
-Boro

The 2nd of TTN's club reports is Imladris, the ancient Elven refuge. Last season Imladris experience some success, finishing 2nd in Group F, but then getting smoked out of the Round of 16 by Erebor 3-nil. This mean Imladris' 88 million payroll was likely too high, eventhough when factoring in sales and other income, they probably came out about even.

So, it was by no means a crummy 2012 for Imladris, but their issue in the offseason was finding themselves in the troublesome middle-ground. They were a decent team, but would need to keep their top stars (Elros, Varda, Arwen). And that would just be to hopefully maintain their level of play. If they wanted to improve on last year's performance, many felt they would need to get another solid mid-fielder (perhaps Aragorn) to play with Arwen. This would surely mean increasing the payroll even more and that was going to be out of the question in the minds of the owners.

The Rivendell group proposed new 1-year deals and to the majority of their players it would be 1 to 2 mil cut in salary. Then the hope was to use the extra money to make an important signing that could improve the team but keep costs down. Premier defender, Varda, and another reliable defenself, Erestor, re-signed for less money with Imladris. So their defense should be in good form as last year. However it was a greivous blow when Elros announced he would depart, leaving Imladris with a mighty void to fill at their goalie position. Then their best mid-fielder, Arwen, left for another too. As it turned out, Arwen is playing for less money this year, but told the Imladris press in her exit interview, if she was going to take less money it would be for a team that had better title chances.

Not exactly the start to the off-season Imladris was hoping for, as with Arwen and Elros gone, their payroll is expected to be much lower than last year. It will be a hard task finding replacements for the loss of production.

But, one thing that had not failed going noticed, the sons of Elrond (who own minor shares with the club) did re-sign and will likely take their forwards positions for Imladris again. Elladan and Elrohir did not have to eat a salary cut, and it's leaving many wondering if everyone else on Imladris was expected to take a cut, why not the sons of Elrond too? Is it simply nepotism, while the rest get labelled greedy if they didn't accept a pay cut "for the good of the team?"