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Financial Fair Play

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

That's the thing though: it won't get worse. A MASSIVE proportion of our spending went on players who weren't even bit-part. Off the top of my head, the £200m loss included players like Wayne Bridge, Roque Santa Cruz, Bellamy, Adebayor, Michael Johnson and Martin Petrov, all of whom were on disproportionately high contracts. They came when we were literally throwing money at anything which had a semi over what our club could be. We gave Gareth Barry an £80,000 contract ffs, and as much as I love Gareth Barry, he isn't worth that much. Just looking at those players mentioned above, we shed about £40m which hasn't been accounted for yet! We are taking shameful losses on these players, but are more than making up for it in the added TV revenue.

The long and short of it is this: we're respecting the FFP proposals by reeling in spending (I know, I know) while cutting costs. PSG are spending more and more and more. Only one of these teams are flouting FFP.

There will always be criticisms of how we have won the Premier League and the FA Cup, and I'll probably get dig's abuse for saying this, but: I wish that every football fan feels the way I have in the last two years about their football team at some point in the future.

And £38m for a GHod amongst men like Sergio Aguero is not taking the tinkle ;)

That is the biggest pile of rubbish i have ever read, did not realise people were still trying to protect city or chelsea, if you want peoples respect at least admit your corrupt.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

I am struggling to find decent sources for this, but: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-tourism-authority-said-ink-800m-psg-deal-483551.html

French football club Paris Saint-Germain has reportedly secured a major new deal with the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) worth at least €150m ($198m) over each of the next four seasons.
According to a report in Le Parisien newspaper, the agreement will be worth more than €200m in its final season in 2015/16 to the Qatar-owned club.


A massive F You to UEFA and FFP.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

That's the thing though: it won't get worse. A MASSIVE proportion of our spending went on players who weren't even bit-part. Off the top of my head, the £200m loss included players like Wayne Bridge, Roque Santa Cruz, Bellamy, Adebayor, Michael Johnson and Martin Petrov, all of whom were on disproportionately high contracts. They came when we were literally throwing money at anything which had a semi over what our club could be. We gave Gareth Barry an £80,000 contract ffs, and as much as I love Gareth Barry, he isn't worth that much. Just looking at those players mentioned above, we shed about £40m which hasn't been accounted for yet! We are taking shameful losses on these players, but are more than making up for it in the added TV revenue.

The long and short of it is this: we're respecting the FFP proposals by reeling in spending (I know, I know) while cutting costs. PSG are spending more and more and more. Only one of these teams are flouting FFP.

There will always be criticisms of how we have won the Premier League and the FA Cup, and I'll probably get dig's abuse for saying this, but: I wish that every football fan feels the way I have in the last two years about their football team at some point in the future.

And £38m for a GHod amongst men like Sergio Aguero is not taking the tinkle ;)

I have nothing against old Chel$ki or City fans. It's not their decisions to have their clubs taken over.

But I do think your "pot calling the kettle black" attitude is really perplexing. You have mentioned in various posts earlier that Man Utd bought their first title in years, City is moving in the right direction and PSG are not etc.

Come on, no one can deny that money had and will always play a role in most football success stories. But City is probably the one that benefited the most. Chel$ki has secured UCL qualification when they were took over. PSG are in a similar position in their league. But where's City when they were took over by the sheikhs?

If I not mistaken you lots were not even close to a UEFA Cup place. The key members of the team that won the title were made up of big money purchases, some nice buys (Hart) and just one local boy (Richards). This doesn't compared well with the other sugar-daddy teams (may be Anzhi, I profess I don't know them very well), and not even Man Utd 92/93 team was that deprived of home grown talents. The only saving grace is that it's tougher to win the league now than in 92/93.

I recall some nice chaps at City, they are very traditional football fans and the atmosphere of going to pre-Sheikh City games were generally much better than most other grounds.

I am not saying you guys should not enjoy gatecrashing the Big 3, may be there are a lot new bandwagon fans now, but that's unaviodable. However, keeping an objective view on other club's forums would be much appreciated, at least by me.

Well, the way you are describing PSG somehow made me feel you are in fear of them or some other sponsored clubs, taking into consideration City still could not even deal with (relatively) "poor teams" like Ajax and Napoli etc.
 
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Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

So UEFA punish little Malaga. Wonder if they'll do the same to Emirates Marketing Project who lost £97m or Chelsea? Will they fudge!
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

So UEFA punish little Malaga. Wonder if they'll do the same to Emirates Marketing Project who lost £97m or Chelsea? Will they fudge!

Malaga's sheikh owner bought them loads of expensive players, but haven't been keeping up with their increased running costs. FFP so far has been mostly about trying to get clubs to run within their means. Whether they'll do something about where those means come from is still an open question.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Malaga's sheikh owner bought them loads of expensive players, but haven't been keeping up with their increased running costs. FFP so far has been mostly about trying to get clubs to run within their means. Whether they'll do something about where those means come from is still an open question.

They've already proved they won't do anything as they let Emirates Marketing Project get away with that scandalous naming rights deal, £400m for a stadium that they don't even own!
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

I am struggling to find decent sources for this, but: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/qatar-tourism-authority-said-ink-800m-psg-deal-483551.html

French football club Paris Saint-Germain has reportedly secured a major new deal with the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) worth at least €150m ($198m) over each of the next four seasons.
According to a report in Le Parisien newspaper, the agreement will be worth more than €200m in its final season in 2015/16 to the Qatar-owned club.


A massive F You to UEFA and FFP.

And there is nothing UEFA can and will do about it
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

I don't think the Malaga ban is the same thing as that which might be applied to City, Chelsea, PSG, etc., which haven't actually started yet (the period has started by the rules only get applied at the end.

With Malaga you have a club which has bought expensively but not paid its bills.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Think qpr will have trouble meeting it if this is anything to go by http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...rry-Redknapp-launches-attack-QPR-players.html

mental to think he is paid more then bale, what the hell were they thinking? i think they will go down and down again the is no way a club can sustain that, i hope for there sake they have clauses for relegations in the players contracts.

Redknapp fined Bosingwa after the defender refused to sit on the bench for the game against Fulham last week. Redknapp said: ‘He didn’t want to be a substitute so he went home. He has been fined two weeks’ wages — £130,000. Not bad for two weeks is it? Not too bad for playing on a Saturday.’

Our top earner not getting £65,000 a week? No wonder Modric wanted to leave.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Hi Mr Green, I think world football is bigger than all American sports (I ssume this means USA/North America as you mention NBA ), by a massive amount too, not even on the same block

the prem alone is the biggest sporting league in the world IIRC, add in la liga, serie A, the world cup, CL, South American leagues and fanaticism, etc no USA sport is anywhere near that level
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Hi Mr Green, I think world football is bigger than all American sports (I ssume this means USA/North America as you mention NBA ), by a massive amount too, not even on the same block

the prem alone is the biggest sporting league in the world IIRC, add in la liga, serie A, the world cup, CL, South American leagues and fanaticism, etc no USA sport is anywhere near that level

My point was made in reference to City's "progress" in meeting FFP.

I might not make myself clear earlier, but I think:
- City claimed a huge stadium naming right contract that helps them to "achieve" a smaller loss financially on paper. Yeah, I do acknowledge the world football is a bigger fish to American major leagues, but this doesn't mean in an open market, they can such a contract, their attractiveness both as a club and Manchester is not as commercially valuable as New York, LA, London etc, hence it's ridiculous for anyone to think the contract City got is commercially comparable to Citi Field (Mets), MetLife (Giants and Jets) or Farmers Field (for a NFL team in LA).

- FFP is a joke as it involves more than one country (even within EU, where most of the top teams competing the major European trophies, the level of leagues and commercial models are different too).

- The focus of FFP on sustaining income should be on controlling expenses instead.

In fact, I personally would rather not have FFP. Though money could buy the "wealthier" clubs success, but football is a funny game, out-of-requirement Santa Cruz could score twice to beat Madrid. City who have many more expensive new toys still could not beat Ajax.
 
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Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

EXCLUSIVE: Martin Samuel reveals Arsenal's big idea to hand the title to Manchester United and cream off the profits in a plot which could destroy English football

All you need to know about the latest proposal for financial fair play in the Premier League is that, if the rules were passed, Venky’s catastrophic takeover of Blackburn Rovers would still be permitted. Jack Walker’s title win, however, would not.

Yes, he could have bought the club just the same, but Walker would not have been allowed to do much of worth with it. He would not have been able to invest at a level that could bring quick success; he would not have been able to challenge the established elite effectively.

So no Alan Shearer, no Chris Sutton, probably no Kenny Dalglish either, because what would be the point? And no league title. Manchester United would have won the championship in 1995, as they did in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997 and the modern era’s greatest achievement would never have happened.

Walker could still have purchased Blackburn, the club he loved, but only to manage their mediocrity, perhaps with small incremental improvements each year. The revolution, the great leap forward, the dream of every supporter across the land, would have been thwarted by supposed fair play.

Venky’s plans, meanwhile, would pass on the nod. There are to be no restrictions on those who want to buy a club and ruin it. Sell their best player, under-invest, bring in a cabal of clowns to run the show, get relegated. The elite are more than happy for the new money men to do that.

It is Walker, and those like him, that have them running scared. They fear competition, not tame bottom feeders. Manchester United are fine with Blackburn selling them Phil Jones; they just don’t like being taken on over Shearer or Carlos Tevez.

On Tuesday, December 18, when Premier League chairmen met to discuss the latest financial fair play proposals, four elite clubs attempted a coup. Until that moment, the general consensus had been that regulation was required to prevent another Portsmouth, but not another Emirates Marketing Project, which seems reasonable.

There is a significant difference between owner investment and owner loans. There can be no repeat of the chaos at Pompey, but this can be achieved without restriction on fresh funds coming into English football to make the league more competitive.

And then the game changed.

On Arsenal headed notepaper, a letter was handed out, signed by four clubs — Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur — stating the existing FFP proposals did not go far enough and that greater limitations should be placed on owner investment.

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David Gill, the chief executive of Manchester United, rose to speak. He questioned why the Premier League had to serve the needs of oligarchs and oil-rich Sheiks. Manchester United were focused on the health of the competition, he said — at this point it would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh — and he would go a stage further. The league should consider implementing UEFA financial fair play proposals to the letter, even getting UEFA in to regulate and ensure their strict application.

The rest of the clubs are thinking over this proposal before their next meeting. Some may even be stupid enough to consider it seriously.

Effectively, what Gill wants is for a man like Bill Kenwright, chairman of Everton and the leading theatrical impresario in the world, to check his business dealings with Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former chairman of the bank that could yet do for the European economy what Lehman Brothers did for the fiscal stability of the United States.

Dehaene is the figure Michel Platini, UEFA president, has made chief investigator and chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the Club Financial Control Body and, therefore, one presumes, the man Gill would have rooting through the finances of Premier League football clubs, too.

He would certainly have more time to concentrate on the project, having resigned as chairman of Dexia Bank on July 1, 2012. You may recall that Dehaene was due to speak on financial propriety at a Leaders In Football conference in London in 2011 but couldn’t make it because his bank had gone skint requiring a £3.45billion bail-out from the Belgian government. This in addition to the £5.18bn it had received to stay afloat in 2008, when Dehaene took over.

Dexia Holdings confirmed a loss of £9.73bn for 2011 and was subsequently embroiled in a scandal after the revelation that, between 2006 and 2008, Dexia Bank Belgium had loaned £1.3bn to two of their largest institutional shareholders to buy shares in other arms of the company to keep their stock price afloat.

Since resigning from Dexia, where a further £70.2bn is to be spent to allow what is termed the ‘orderly resolution’ of their financial problems, Dehaene has been taking his rather personal interpretation of financial fair play to new levels.

Now a member of the European Parliament, he was forced to issue a revised declaration of interests after failing to detail £4.41million of share options in a Belgium-Brazilian beer conglomerate AB InBev.

This is the man Gill would place in charge of the financial policing of the English game.

So what is in it for Manchester United and friends? Money, obviously.

If clubs like United and Arsenal, with the biggest grounds and revenue streams, can limit spending to percentage of turnover, they will always have the biggest transfer pot and therefore the greatest chance of success. That is why owner investment terrifies them. Forget this guff about the health of the league. If they wanted that, the elite would be advocating some of the wealth redistribution initiatives that exist in American sport.

Profits from a Manchester United shirt sold beyond their catchment area — in the West Country, for instance — would be split throughout the 20 Premier League clubs, as happens to New York Yankees merchandise sold outside club shops or the New York metropolitan area.

Not going to happen here, is it?

Gill will not be giving too many speeches in favour of that one.

This is about exclusion, not fairness, and the established elite do not like the idea of another Sheik Mansour coming along. They don’t like Roman Abramovich buying the best players, either.

And, if they can rope in enough dopes who see the plan simply as a way of saving money and cutting expenditure, this naked self-interest may carry the day. So far, only Chelsea, Emirates Marketing Project, Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa are against it and 14 votes are needed to alter the rulebook.

Once secured, forget the dream of your very own Jack Walker. All any new owner will be able to do is maintain the status quo.

As for Gill, his plan to deliver English football to Europe’s governing body, not so much wrapped in a bow as trussed like a turkey, coincides a little too neatly with his campaign to get elected to UEFA’s executive committee at the next UEFA Congress in May. Call it his dowry.

Ivan Gazidis, the man whose vision has helped make Arsenal the club they are today, is another with serious political ambitions.

He has already wormed his way on to the executive board of the European Clubs Association, as their representative on UEFA’s Professional Strategy Council, as well as holding a position on the ECA Legal Advisory Panel.

In addition, there is his slot on the FA’s Professional Game Board, the FA Council, FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber and the Premier League’s Working Group for Elite Player Performance. Quite the busy boy, considering he joined Arsenal as chief executive only in 2009. A cynic would think he had an agenda: or a plan.

A better plan than selling the best player to Manchester United and ramping up the ticket prices, one hopes. No wonder Gazidis wants his Premier League rivals bound in financial red tape. How else are his club to get back in the game?

It has been another illuminating week at Arsenal with the admission that manager Arsene Wenger knew selling Robin van Persie to Manchester United would take the title to Old Trafford, proof if any were needed that he no longer regards Arsenal as title contenders.

‘It is painful to see United so far in front of us,’ Wenger said. ‘You know when you sell Van Persie to United that this will be the case.’

Yet, if Wenger thought Arsenal could win the league, surely he would not have agreed the transfer that took this hope away.

All about the money? Robin van Persie's sale betrays Arsenal's supposed ambitions

One can only presume from his analysis, therefore, that he did not see Manchester United as rivals even before the season began. Then followed Wenger’s justification of Arsenal’s extortionate ticket prices, with Emirates Marketing Project returning 900 seats for yesterday’s game after fans balked at the £62 cost.

‘The only way we can pay the wages and compete without any external help is through ticket prices,’ Wenger insisted.

And don’t say you were not warned. The fans will be the collateral damage of financial fair play. There is a going rate for player wages and it cannot fall without triggering free contract clauses. So, if the owners pass a mess of rules that stop them paying the bill, who do you think is going to get stuck with it?

Not Stan Kroenke. Not Gazidis, either. His big idea involves handing the title to Manchester United, creaming off the profits while trying to negotiate Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project out of contention with politics, lawyers and sneaky little closed-door carve-ups. Until that works, you pick up the tab.

Liverpool and Tottenham are clearly vying to gobble the meagre crumbs from Arsenal and United’s table, but why any of the other clubs are supportive, who knows?

West Ham United could soon move to the Olympic Stadium, with a genuine chance for expansion.

Why would they vote to limit their possibilities simply to ensure the success of an established few? Why would any club with potential, from Aston Villa, to Sunderland or Southampton? Maybe it’s the Arsenal-headed paper reeling them in.

It always stood for something in the days when the club were the province of tradition, old Etonians and old money. Arsenal had class.

Arsenal had never been relegated. The chairman was posh and his name was hyphenated. When he talked, football listened.

This missive, however, is the work of an absentee American chairman and a chief executive whose grand plan would as good as hand the title to United each year, with his team coming an expensive second. Expensive for those watching, that is.

And who will preside over this, the world’s dullest league: why our old mate from Bank de Potless in Belgium. Thirty five quid a month on Sky, if you’re interested.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2261817/Arsenal-Manchester-United-financial-fair-play-plot-ruin-Premier-League--Martin-Samuel.html

This steaming pile of crap article has made me angry. :evil:
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

At work, could you summarise please mate.

Martin Samuel claiming that a joint proposal from United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs to ban sugar daddies from the English game would kill English football.
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

You would now only be allowed to build your club organically, incrementally and not suddenly gazump everyone with your winning lottery ticket. Does he really believe that the only thing that keeps fans of the lesser clubs going is the hope that someone might come along and buy them a title?

BTW, is Samuel a Wham fan? Would explain the part about why they should even bother with a new stadium.

Also, Blackburn's title win is the modern era's greatest achievement? :ross:
 
Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Martin Samuel claiming that a joint proposal from United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs to ban sugar daddies from the English game would kill English football.

You would now only be allowed to build your club organically, incrementally and not suddenly gazump everyone with your winning lottery ticket. Does he really believe that the only thing that keeps fans of the lesser clubs going is the hope that someone might come along and buy them a title?

BTW, is Samuel a Wham fan? Would explain the part about why they should even bother with a new stadium.

Also, Blackburn's title win is the modern era's greatest achievement? :ross:

He's chosen the wrong horse for this race! The ideas put forth by those clubs is the right way forward. Otherwise it becomes Rollerball rather than Moneyball. Corporate clubs, playthings for the rich industrialists with no long term plan to become self-sustaining. How boring. Football Manager with the unlimited money cheat on.

Teams being taken over by sugar daddies has had a far worse effect on the game than teams trying to built their teams within a budget. Portsmouth several times, Villa I suppose, Man Utd's debt (manageable as it is), Liverpool's first takeover, Emirates Marketing Project's Thai owner being in court for Human Rights violations. It's not like the budget is 5 quid a week, is it?!

I'm sure there is a middle ground. Proportional growth, an upper limit, having to break even sounds like a good start. Posting losses and writing them off wouldn't be acceptable in many other industries. Just because the pockets are deeper doesn't mean it should be overlooked.
 
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