Premier League Club Accounts

[Spursalot]

In fairness you are right, and I would say Spurs are actually an anomaly as they bucked the trend of the rest of the league even before we qualified for the Champions League. In 2009/2010, having finished 11th and 8th the 2 previous seasons, we still made ?ú119m - the 6th highest revenue in the league. Below us:

Villa -------- 91
Everton ---- 79
Fulham ----- 77
West Ham -- 72
Sunderland - 65

But the disparity doesn't compare to the teams above us (in reverse order):

City ----- 125
Liverpool - 185
Chelsea -- 213
Arsenal -- 226
United --- 286

All I am arguing for is some rules by the powers-that-be that reduce the gross inequality that has resulted from the increased worldwide televisation of football and the expansion of the 'Champions' League.

EDIT: in 2009/2010, the difference in revenue between us and Arsenal - the team that we finished one place behind - was about the same as the difference between us and Doncaster Rovers, who've just finished bottom of the Championship.

I disagree. Spurs are not an anomaly. We are a well run football club with people who know what they are trying to do. Our marketing strategies are awesome, and we try to play attractive football to appeal to the masses.

There is no reason other sides could not do this.


We are the proof that if you run your club well, you can compete.

 

[elltrev]

I disagree. Spurs are not an anomaly. We are a well run football club with people who know what they are trying to do. Our marketing strategies are awesome, and we try to play attractive football to appeal to the masses.

There is no reason other sides could not do this.

I mean an anomaly in the statistical sense, or "something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected". The average difference in revenue between the teams poorer than Spurs in 2009/2010 (i.e. between the 12th-poorest and the 13th-poorest or the 17th-poorest and 18th-poorest) was about ?ú4.4m. The difference between Spurs and the next poorest team - Villa - was ?ú28m. So that's what I mean by an anomaly - Spurs don't follow the trend in revenue for all the clubs below them.

But as I said, that's not my issue. As you said, Spurs buck the trend because it's a well run club with a grand history of playing good football. My issue is with the fact that the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE HAS DISPROPORTONATELY REWARDED ITS TEAMS AND CREATED A TWO-TIER SYSTEM WHICH REDUCES COMPETITION AT THE TOP OF THE LEAGUE.

Edit: The caps are just me trying to emphasise my fundamental point, which I don't think anyone has actually responded to.

 

[Rorschach]

This. The FFP rules are there to protect the status quo of the G-14 by making it impossible for any up and coming club to compete with them financially, as their legions of glory hunting fans plus Champions League football every season guarantees that they will always have a much higher turnover than everyone else thus ensuring that they can continue to cherry pick the best players from other clubs by offering them a substantial wage increase.

Chelsea and probably City have bought their way into the establishment at the right time and can now pull up the ladder behind them.

The FFP rules are intended to make clubs relatively self sustaining. In City and Chelsea's (PSG, Malaga, etc) cases they are not. The clubs cannot support their expenditure with their income without getting help from their owner. If the only thing FFP does is stop any new sugar daddy clubs then it will be worth it. If it keeps going the way it is now then the game will be totally ruined.

 

[Spursalot]

I mean an anomaly in the statistical sense, or "something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected". The average difference in revenue between the teams poorer than Spurs in 2009/2010 (i.e. between the 12th-poorest and the 13th-poorest or the 17th-poorest and 18th-poorest) was about ?ú4.4m. The difference between Spurs and the next poorest team - Villa - was ?ú28m. So that's what I mean by an anomaly - Spurs don't follow the trend in revenue for all the clubs below them.

But as I said, that's not my issue. As you said, Spurs buck the trend because it's a well run club with a grand history of playing good football. My issue is with the fact that the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE HAS DISPROPORTONATELY REWARDED ITS TEAMS AND CREATED A TWO-TIER SYSTEM WHICH REDUCES COMPETITION AT THE TOP OF THE LEAGUE.

Edit: The caps are just me trying to emphasise my fundamental point, which I don't think anyone has actually responded to.

I would disagree. People know they are in the Champions League so they are forced to pay higher transfer fees and higher wages to their players. If you took the CL money out of the game transfer fees would fall as a result and there would be minimal difference.

The players who are joining them would most likely be joining them if the Champions League did not exist. If you want to win things, you join the top teams. If you take the additional money out of the equation, they would still want to join the top teams.

So no, it has not created a two-tier system. If you buy sensibly you can challenge for the top three/four spots, even challenge for the title. It is just down to the clubs scouts/manager/whatever to make the sensible purchases.

 

[elltrev]

I would disagree. People know they are in the Champions League so they are forced to pay higher transfer fees and higher wages to their players. If you took the CL money out of the game transfer fees would fall as a result and there would be minimal difference.

The players who are joining them would most likely be joining them if the Champions League did not exist. If you want to win things, you join the top teams. If you take the additional money out of the equation, they would still want to join the top teams.

So no, it has not created a two-tier system. If you buy sensibly you can challenge for the top three/four spots, even challenge for the title. It is just down to the clubs scouts/manager/whatever to make the sensible purchases.

Hmmmm, seems like a very odd view to me. The current top teams are the top teams primarily because of the huge, disproportionate financial advantage that they have over the teams below them. If that financial advantage disappeared, maybe the top players would still want to join those clubs initially, but over time I'm sure that things would become more equal and there'd be more competition.

"If you buy sensibly you can ... even challenge for the title" - what evidence is there for this? If Chelsea and City hadn't got their billionnaire owwners, United would have won the title 11 times in the last 14 seasons. Yes Arsenal managed to do it 3 times, but they haven't for 7 years now. And their 3 times was a fantastic achievement by Wenger, which no other club has come close to via legitimate means.

 

[Spursalot]

Hmmmm, seems like a very odd view to me. The current top teams are the top teams primarily because of the huge, disproportionate financial advantage that they have over the teams below them. If that financial advantage disappeared, maybe the top players would still want to join those clubs initially, but over time I'm sure that things would become more equal and there'd be more competition.

"If you buy sensibly you can ... even challenge for the title" - what evidence is there for this? If Chelsea and City hadn't got their billionnaire owwners, United would have won the title 11 times in the last 14 seasons. Yes Arsenal managed to do it 3 times, but they haven't for 7 years now. And their 3 times was a fantastic achievement by Wenger, which no other club has come close to via legitimate means.

First bolded Opinion.

Second bolded Speculation without any backing up points. I do not think things would become more equal, because if money was less of an issue within the game, then winning would become a much much greater factor.


The two reasons that no club is challenging currently are:

Emirates Marketing Project- Have someone who financially bankroll them, would make zero difference if you took Champions League money away from them.

Manchester United- Have a far far greater turnover then any club in the PL, if you took out the Champions League money this would not change. They would still have more money then the rest of the teams in the league (barring bankrolled City and Chelsea).

If i accepted your premise that the financial pull of teams is the greatest point in a team being able to perform in the league, this would show me by removing Champions League money the only team you would screw up would be Arsenal, the one team that have challenged in recent years.

Seems the solution would exacerbate the problem.

 

[nw7 yid]

As I said before, in football success should be an incentive in itself; that's what sport is about. And I'm not against some financial reward; I'm just against the disproportionate reward that the Champions League teams get, because it creates a self-fulfilling 2-tier system that reduces competitiveness in the league.

My thoughts also.

 

[elltrev]

First bolded Opinion.

Second bolded Speculation without any backing up points. I do not think things would become more equal, because if money was less of an issue within the game, then winning would become a much much greater factor.


The two reasons that no club is challenging currently are:

Emirates Marketing Project- Have someone who financially bankroll them, would make zero difference if you took Champions League money away from them.

Manchester United- Have a far far greater turnover then any club in the PL, if you took out the Champions League money this would not change. They would still have more money then the rest of the teams in the league (barring bankrolled City and Chelsea).

If i accepted your premise that the financial pull of teams is the greatest point in a team being able to perform in the league, this would show me by removing Champions League money the only team you would screw up would be Arsenal, the one team that have challenged in recent years.

Seems the solution would exacerbate the problem.

It's impossible to prove what the "greatest point in a team being able to perform in the league" is I guess. But equally, it seems to me impossible (just in terms of common sense rather than proof) to deny that money spent on wages (in particular) and transfer fees has a huge impact overall. The fact that Chelsea and City have managed to get their initial success purely through spending loads of money supports that.

In fact, so does the fact that last season only three teams finished in a league position that was more than two spots away from their wage position (i.e. a table ordered by how much each team spends on wages). (West Ham underachieved by 8 spots, WBA overachieved by 8 spots, Bolton underachieved by 3 spots). And all of those 3 were in the bottom half. The top 10 teams were also the top 10 wage spenders. The top 3 teams were the top 3 wage spenders. The 4th-6th teams were the 4th-6th wage spenders. The 7th-10th teams were the 7th-10th wage spenders. Aside from the odd anomaly there is a clear relationship between a team's wages and their finishing position. Of course, part of that relationship might be because teams who finish higher earn more money and so are able to spend more on wages. But even if that's true, for me that is part of the problem as it creates this vicious circle I'm talking about. One season of success = more money = higher wages = better chance of more success = better chance of higher wages = better chance of more success etc etc. And this effect is greatest for the top teams, because of how astronomically higher their revenues and thus wages are. West Brom did well to finish 11th with a wage bill of just ?ú37m (19th in the league), but the highest wage bill of the clubs they finished above was ?ú56m - a diffference of just ?ú19m. Such a difference is far more surmountable than the difference of ?ú70m between Villa (7th) and United (3rd). The fact that the same 4 teams took 43 of 49 CL spots between 1997 and 2011 supports this 'vicious circle' view.

I'm not just talking about removing CL prize money. I'm talking about reducing revenue over a certain amount through other means as well (e.g. a limit on sponsorship deals, evenly distributed TV money, a 'tax' on gate receipts and merchandise revenue etc). In order to counteract the relatively recent effects of the televisation, globalisation and champions-league-ification of football and so to reign in the revenues of the top 6 so that they're not so disproportionately different from the rest of the league.

 

[SteveAWOL]

Assuming they knew the ban was starting after the transfer window had shut they could buy, buy, buy but if the ban came in to effect "immediately" the club wouldn't have time to go on a spending spree. Also, such a spending spree would just exacerbate their failing to abide by the FFP and UEFA could impose yet another ban. A three year transfer embargo, followwed by another, then another each year would stop the problem.

According to http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/ the FFP is based upon 3 year monitoring periods and the penalties can only be imposed the following season after the clubs have published their financial results.

So a club could go on a ?ú200m+ spending spree in summer 2013 and win the treble in 2013/14 and 2014/15 with their team of Galacticos, then after that has finished their financial accounts for the previous summer are published for UEFA to analyse and (if they follow the ECA recommendations) withhold their prize money or impose a transfer ban for 2015/16 and 2016/17 [-X

 

[Spursalot]

According to http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/ the FFP is based upon 3 year monitoring periods and the penalties can only be imposed the following season after the clubs have published their financial results.

So a club could go on a ?ú200m+ spending spree in summer 2013 and win the treble in 2013/14 with their team of Galacticos, then after that has finished their financial accounts for the previous summer are published for UEFA to analyse and (if they follow the ECA recommendations) withhold some of their prize money or impose a transfer ban for 2014/15 [-X

If they go on a 200m + spending spree they are going to fail to meet with FFP for the next 3-4 seasons.

Which could mean 3-4 seasons of a transfer ban, which would have a massive affect on the club.

 

[SteveAWOL]

If they go on a 200m + spending spree they are going to fail to meet with FFP for the next 3-4 seasons.

Which could mean 3-4 seasons of a transfer ban, which would have a massive affect on the club.

So long as the club is not burdened with debt (as Mansour has avoided doing with City) then one summer's transfer splurge will only affect 3 FFP periods. If a club like City had the chance to say sign C Ronaldo then perhaps they would take the plunge in order to have 2 seasons of almost certain trophy filled glory then employ a team of accountants and lawyers to mitigate the potential repercussions from UEFA in 2 seasons time.

If you already have purchased the best players that money can buy then a 3 year transfer ban is hardly the worst thing in the world.

 

[Spursalot]

So long as the club is not burdened with debt (as Mansour has avoided doing with City) then one summer's transfer splurge will only affect 2 FFP periods. If a club like City had the chance to say sign C Ronaldo then perhaps they would take the plunge in order to have 2 seasons of almost certain trophy filled glory then employ a team of accountants and lawyers to mitigate the potential repercussions from UEFA in 2 seasons time.

This is under the assumption that the club can cover the players wages with their income.

They cannot. Emirates Marketing Project currently look set to fail to meet FFP without one of these massive splurges you mention. By failing to meet FFP they will lose their CL money, and this will go round in circles with them unable to get on track for a number of years.

This is not helped by the difficulty they are facing to offload players they deem no longer good enough who are on massive wages.



If the FFP was upheld as 'a transfer ban and loss of CL money', you could seriously see Emirates Marketing Project going five or more years whilst unable to buy players.

 

[SteveAWOL]

This is under the assumption that the club can cover the players wages with their income.

They cannot. Emirates Marketing Project currently look set to fail to meet FFP without one of these massive splurges you mention. By failing to meet FFP they will lose their CL money, and this will go round in circles with them unable to get on track for a number of years.

This is not helped by the difficulty they are facing to offload players they deem no longer good enough who are on massive wages.

City now have the prestige of being Premier League champions in order to attract players so they don't need to offer such ridiculous wages. They also will now benefit from Champions League money, increased gate receipts (probably a bigger stadium which Mansour can pay for out of his own pocket) and sponsorship which should go some way to balancing their books whilst they offload the overpaid deadwood in their squad.

The Etihad Campus should also help them in the future by supplementing the club's income and also allowing them to develop more players of their own: The Swiss Ramble: Emirates Marketing Project's Amazing Deal: Know Your Rights

Although that pales into insignificance compared to the lengths other clubs are going to in order to increase revenue: Real Madrid reveal plans for $1bn resort and theme park in UAE ÔÇô in pictures | Football | guardian.co.uk

And I'm sure that the top clubs have teams of lawyers and accountants working out plenty of ruses which will allow them to pay players without falling foul of FFP, where there's a will there's a way...

 

[SteveAWOL]

Nice work if you can get it...

Chelsea's Champions League win shows cash is king - Neil Ashton | Mail Online

...The moment Roman AbramovichÔÇÖs team finished second in the Barclays Premier League in 2010/11 to qualify automatically for the group stages, the cash till instantly rang to the tune of ?ú3.1m.

They were then drawn to play six group matches, in games against Bayer Leverkusen, Valencia and Genk. For that, they were paid ?ú445,000 per game from UEFAÔÇÖs TV and marketing pool.

For the three group wins, all of them at Stamford Bridge, they were paid a bonus from the ?ú600m set aside each season. Each win in the group is worth ?ú640,000. Draws at Valencia and Genk earned them another bonus. This time, ?ú323,000 a point.

By the turn of the year, ChelseaÔÇÖs gate receipts, participation fees and the share of marketing revenues from the market pool in the Champions League was already touching ?ú42m.

After winning the group, there was the promise of more to come from a second round clash against Napoli. They earned ?ú2.42m for overcoming the Italians, another ?ú2.66m for beating Benfica and ?ú3.3m for their remarkable win over Barcelona in last monthÔÇÖs semi-final.

In the final, UEFA paid out another ?ú7.28m after they beat Bayern Munich in the penalty shootout. Add the gate receipts from the six home games Chelsea staged during their run to the final and it represents another ?ú2.4m in income for each game.

...Chelsea will be preparing to bank a cheque in excess of ?ú50m from the Champions League alone. There was a time when domestic silverware meant something in English football, but the UEFA Champions League has changed the rules. ItÔÇÖs top four or nothing now for English clubs indulging in double-digit transfer fees and super-sized salaries for the star turns.

The money means that much to the clubs, even in an off season. Chelsea, beaten by Manchester United in the quarter-final last season, still earned a staggering ?ú35.861m from the competition. UnitedÔÇÖs television and marketing payments topped out at ?ú43.039m for reaching last seasonÔÇÖs final against Barcelona at Wembley, let alone ticket sales from their six home matches.

Next season the solidarity payments are on the increase again...

 

[braineclipse]

So long as the club is not burdened with debt (as Mansour has avoided doing with City) then one summer's transfer splurge will only affect 3 FFP periods. If a club like City had the chance to say sign C Ronaldo then perhaps they would take the plunge in order to have 2 seasons of almost certain trophy filled glory then employ a team of accountants and lawyers to mitigate the potential repercussions from UEFA in 2 seasons time.

If you already have purchased the best players that money can buy then a 3 year transfer ban is hardly the worst thing in the world.

I would suggest watching that video at financialfairplay.co.uk that someone linked earlier in this or another thread (easy to find anyway), quite informative.

Under the FFP regulation player purchases will be put in the books under an amortization system with the fee being spread across the years of the first contract signed by the player at that club. This is the way we (and most clubs I think) do our book keeping anyway, but for FFP regulations all clubs will have to do it this way.

So if a club spends ?ú200m in one window either on one player with a 4 year contract or on several players with 4 year contracts it will be spread as ?ú50m per year for each of the next 4 years.

For the 3 year FFP monitoring periods that will mean an expenditure of between ?ú50-150m for the next 6 years, or rather for the next 6 years after the one where they made the purchases.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Premier League Club Accounts 2011/12

From The Sun:

ARSENAL’S board will face more questions when bitter rivals Spurs release their figures for last season.

They are set to reveal Tottenham spent £1million less PER WEEK on wages than the Gunners.

Arsenal have already confirmed a wage hike of 15 per cent to £143.4m in 2011-2.

If reports are correct, that Spurs remained at their 2010-11 level of £91.1m — or below it — it would mean Arsenal spent £52m more to finish just a point ahead.

Gunners chief executive Ivan Gazidis will say ‘Ah, but we qualified for the Champions League.’

Yet it was only Chelsea’s Munich miracle which denied fourth-placed Spurs and the Gunners will recoup that £50m from this season’s competition only if they win it.

Some Arsenal fans will also see further evidence the club are not using their wage budget effectively.

There is particular dismay about “deadwood” like Marouane Chamakh, Sebastien Squillaci and Johan Djourou, who earn the best part of £150,000 per week between them but are yet to make a Premier League appearance this season.

 

[ArcspacE]

Re: Premier League Club Accounts 2011/12

That '1 point ahead' is worth millions in CL revenue.

 

[markysimmo]

Re: Premier League Club Accounts 2011/12

That '1 point ahead' is worth millions in CL revenue.

Not £52m though

 

[THFC6061]

Re: Premier League Club Accounts 2011/12

Not £52m though

Exactly.

It would only approach something that figure if Arsenal ever won the damn thing.

 

[ArcspacE]

Re: Premier League Club Accounts 2011/12

They received 29m from their CL participataion last season

That excludes merchandise and ticket sales along with matchday revenue - 5 home games at around 1.5m/game - arond 8m alone