Financial Fair Play

[Baleforce]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

isn't that exactly what the goons did in 1913

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Football clubs are a poor example of a business though. In any other business you would try to eliminate your competition by stealing their customers.

You can't eliminate football clubs via business, as fans attatch themselves to the club, rather than the product. Each football club needs the others around it to be successful. It's a mutually beneficial sector. If all the businesses are stronger then there will be far more interest. It's one of the reasons La Liga isn't a the globally dominant brand.

Absolutely.

But that doesn't change the fact that FFP is, in essence, anticompetitive.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Football isn't business, it's a sporting competiton. All sports and competitions have rules.

I have no problem finishing a computer game in GHod mode, but it makes it much less of an achievement and it ruins the competitive element if we were a group playing against each other. To draw the analogy further, it's like going on ebay and buying all kinds of skills and weapons so I can skip all the hacking and slashing and just go kill the final boss. The real glory is in the journey.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Football isn't business, it's a sporting competiton. All sports and competitions have rules.

I have no problem finishing a computer game in GHod mode, but it makes it much less of an achievement and it ruins the competitive element if we were a group playing against each other. To draw the analogy further, it's like going on ebay and buying all kinds of skills and weapons so I can skip all the hacking and slashing and just go kill the final boss. The real glory is in the journey.

Fine sentiments.

But they will cut no ice with the European Court of Justice.

Preventing or penalising investment in a business will, if FFP is challenged, have to be deemed as anticompetitive.

 

[Spursalot]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Fine sentiments.

But they will cut no ice with the European Court of Justice.

Preventing or penalising investment in a business will, if FFP is challenged, have to be deemed as anticompetitive.

I don't think it would.

The overall business is 'The Premier League', the overriding body of which would have absolute authority to place it's own rules upon it's competitors.


If it wants to limit it's competitors then it has every right to do so.


After all, the clubs have every right to leave if they think they are being treated unfairly.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

I don't think it would.

The overall business is 'The Premier League', the overriding body of which would have absolute authority to place it's own rules upon it's competitors.


If it wants to limit it's competitors then it has every right to do so.

It can set its own rules with regard to all sorts of matters that apply to football specifically and sport generally.

But I very much doubt that it will be able to get away with setting its own economic rules.

 

[Spursalot]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

It can set its own rules with regard to all sorts of matters that apply to football specifically and sport generally.

But I very much doubt that it will be able to get away with setting its own economic rules.

In the case of Europa/Champions League you only get to compete if you get invited. If their rules state that you won't get in if you don't stick to FFP then what has that got to do with the Court of Justice?


They're not saying you are forbidden to invest in the team, in fact you are perfectly within your rights to pump millions upon millions into them if you want. However if you want an invitation to the European competitions then you will have to play by their rules.


I see no issue with that whatsoever.


The court would have no business deciding who they should or should not invite into their competitions.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

In the case of Europa/Champions League you only get to compete if you get invited. If their rules state that you won't get in if you don't stick to FFP then what has that got to do with the Court of Justice?

They're not saying you are forbidden to invest in the team, in fact you are perfectly within your rights to pump millions upon millions into them if you want. However if you want an invitation to the European competitions then you will have to play by their rules.

I see no issue with that whatsoever.

The court would have no business deciding who they should or should not invite into their competitions.

Indeed. They're not saying that it is forbidden to invest in a team.

But they are saying that investment in a team will be penalised. And that is a restriction on trade based on economic measures rather than on sporting measures and it therefore becomes an issue that falls within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Spursalot - I refer you specifically to this paragraph from the article:

In its Meca-Medina judgment of 2006, the ECJ set an even more important precedent: that sports do not constitute a special case before EU law. The court must apply the same tests to sports as it does to any area of economic activity. I was involved in both of these cases, and I would note that in each instance the governing bodies concerned had initially received the full support of the European Commission.

The message couldn't be clearer. If anyone challenges FFP, the chances are very high that the European Court will find in their favour.

The guy who wrote this article is experienced and expert not only in the field of European competition law but specifically in relation to sports.

 

[jts1882]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

I don't think it would.

The overall business is 'The Premier League', the overriding body of which would have absolute authority to place it's own rules upon it's competitors.


If it wants to limit it's competitors then it has every right to do so.


After all, the clubs have every right to leave if they think they are being treated unfairly.

I don't think that is correct.

In the US the overall business is the NFL, NBA etc and they can grant franchises. It's the Starbucks approach to sport.

But football, especially in the UK has been business for over a century. Our "club" has been a company since the late 1890s and we, unfortunately, pioneered the public company approach (which the FA foolishly backed by repealing their laws against it). The clubs are business entities and the leagues are the market. If the EU stand up to their free market principles they have to rule against FFP. But there is politics involved so they might not if UEFA and the national associations back the proposals.

 

[P.D.]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Thing is will any club want to risk their reputation on challenging it. Most clubs are in favour of it.

 

[Howard Webb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

I enjoyed chewing this article over, nice one!

I think the writer makes some leaps which undermine his thrust. He describes the anti competitive nature of FFP but most of these conditions already exist; smaller clubs will always be at a disadvantage if markets are the standard comparison and that is already the case. But to go further and say the problem is already catered for with the rules in place is not correct. Real Madrid and several clubs at the top of champions league football are heavily subsidised and regularly rely on bottomless funding despite ever increasing debt and this is partly what FFP is for. Rather than framing it as anticompetitive, its clearly a system which has existing problems in mind, rather than pointless additional beurocracy which could fall foul of the ECJ and is a solution to both the sugar daddy issue and the tax payer subsidy one too, and this goes to the key point about the extent and legitimacy of FFP; its a root cause of the growing gap between big and small clubs.

The system feels like a giant wage cap but the emphasis is on clubs spending what they don't have, as well as inflating a market every time a shiek or oligarch fancys redistributing his/her revenues and paying slightly average players over £150,000 a week without pause for thought. Existing rules are clearly inadequate.

Or sumfink

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Thing is will any club want to risk their reputation on challenging it. Most clubs are in favour of it.

Any club with a new, multi billionaire owner which wants to compete at the very top but which finds its path blocked by the vast and insurmountable financial superiority enjoyed by the existing elite.

 

[milo]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Any club with a new, multi billionaire owner which wants to compete at the very top but which finds its path blocked by the vast and insurmountable financial superiority enjoyed by the existing elite.

It would be a big risk to buy a club in the hope of successfully challenging FFP

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

It would be a big risk to buy a club in the hope of successfully challenging FFP

Easy enough to get around that, though. The club in question challenges FFP before the potential investor commits to buy.

That said, I don't think that it would be such a risk.

 

[Spursalot]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

I don't think that is correct.

In the US the overall business is the NFL, NBA etc and they can grant franchises. It's the Starbucks approach to sport.

But football, especially in the UK has been business for over a century. Our "club" has been a company since the late 1890s and we, unfortunately, pioneered the public company approach (which the FA foolishly backed by repealing their laws against it). The clubs are business entities and the leagues are the market. If the EU stand up to their free market principles they have to rule against FFP. But there is politics involved so they might not if UEFA and the national associations back the proposals.

It's not a free market as it currently stands. The 'businesses' (clubs) are all sorted into different 'markets' (leagues).


Can you name me another business sector that this behaviour applies to?

 

[Superhudd]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Any club with a new, multi billionaire owner which wants to compete at the very top but which finds its path blocked by the vast and insurmountable financial superiority enjoyed by the existing elite.

So.. its competitive to buy your way to the top to challenge 2 or three clubs.. yet for the other 15 or so clubs it don't matter that that club becomes un-competitive to them. And before you say they can get there own billionaire, I suggest that its rare to get because there has only been two in the last twenty years, and both not been done for the football club, but to advertise a region, whilst the other to keep the wolves at bay.

I will always side with a team that builds through stadium infrastructure, tickets and its fans/new fans.

No way will I side with a self important billionaire that has zero affection to a team who thinks they can buy anything they want.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

So.. its competitive to buy your way to the top to challenge 2 or three clubs.. yet for the other 15 or so clubs it don't matter that that club becomes un-competitive to them. And before you say they can get there own billionaire, I suggest that its rare to get because there has only been two in the last twenty years, and both not been done for the football club, but to advertise a region, whilst the other to keep the wolves at bay.

I will always side with a team that builds through stadium infrastructure, tickets and its fans/new fans.

No way will I side with a self important billionaire that has zero affection to a team who thinks they can buy anything they want.

With all due respect, mate, who you would side with won't have any bearing on the decision. This can't be an emotional decision.

 

[Spursalot]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

Final question.


If economical issues can't be used for deciding who gets does or does not get into a competition, why are Malaga not legally challenging their ban for next years European competition, which has been placed upon then for economic reasons?


And if you do an economic sanction for this, which will be a rule that Uefa has created, why not a rule for FFP?

 

[Superhudd]

Re: Very interesting article on Financial Fair Play

With all due respect, mate, who you would side with won't have any bearing on the decision. This can't be an emotional decision.

So you think its fair to be competitive towards 2 or 3, yet the club becomes uncompetitive to the rest of the league. What stopping the 15 or so clubs going to Europe saying that its unfair that they spend a billion on new players, that's uncompetitive.