Premier League cost controls

[David_Nab]

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

This is why we said no.Does not suprise me ,as Samuals said this whole FFP is intended to maintain a status quo keep the same teams always winning.

[bertlambshank]

Very good piece that is.

[Pete3206]

'Elite' teams. How I despise that term.

[David_Nab]

Hopefully the other clubs will wise up when they actually relise what this means.Plus I love how Gil makes his point about it despite Man U being brought with a loan with huge interest payments every season.

[dave.woodhall]

Martin Samuels is wasted on the Mail, but this is a great idea:

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.

[Matt C]

Imagine the extra finance generated for other clubs from 99% of Man Utd's shirt sales.

[David_Nab]

Imagine how much further clubs will push up ticket prices to increase turnover ..Arsenal and Spurs have edge there due to location.Enough fans in London on good salaries who can afford what they charge.

[Deano58]

This is something I wrote about on a thread some time ago. As A City fan, I've been watching developments very closely for obvious reasons. I can understand why clubs resent City's riches, but that resentment is being used as a stick to batter clubs like Everton, Villa and similar sized clubs to City. People, particularly in the media, mistake rich for "big". If you aren't an established member of the Champions League self-appointed "elite", you are knackered forever by these rules. The whole point of the PL was to give the G14 clubs of which Liverpool and United were the only English members favourable treatment to stop them breaking away. When it became a G18, Arsenal became the third English member. No surprises then for guessing which clubs are behind the current moves to cement the status quo.

City have dispelled forever the myth that success in the Premier League is achieved by anything other than money. The "money doesn't buy success" claim was a lie put around by the rich clubs to support their claim to being more meritorious than the likes of City, Villa, Everton etc.

Leave City out of the equation for the moment and consider where these rules will leave your club. Even if you develop youngsters, united, arsenal and liverpool will still come and buy them. Even if Randy sells all his business interests and decides to help Villa get into the Champions League which is where the real money is, he won't be allowed to.

As for United Liverpool and Arsenal pulling out and going into a European Super League, it has already happened. They, effectively, have two teams. they get exemption from the early rounds of the FA Cup. But they want domestic income too. Do you think that the Premier League will be as marketable without the rich clubs who have achieved worldwide marketability unavailable to clubs not in the Champions League? The time for arguing about this was in 1992, the horse has long since bolted, what we can do is stop it getting worse and keep at least a glimmer of hope alive.

City have bought themselves into that group for now but, mark my words, one team and one team only will be excluded from the Champions League and it won't be PSG. Great schadenfreude for other clubs, I'm sure, but it won't help them one jot.

You should be proud that your club is saying "no" and seeing through this charade. 

[Villadroid]

This is something I wrote about on a thread some time ago. As A City fan, I've been watching developments very closely for obvious reasons. I can understand why clubs resent City's riches, but that resentment is being used as a stick to batter clubs like Everton, Villa and similar sized clubs to City. People, particularly in the media, mistake rich for "big". If you aren't an established member of the Champions League self-appointed "elite", you are knackered forever by these rules. The whole point of the PL was to give the G14 clubs of which Liverpool and United were the only English members favourable treatment to stop them breaking away. When it became a G18, Arsenal became the third English member. No surprises then for guessing which clubs are behind the current moves to cement the status quo.

City have dispelled forever the myth that success in the Premier League is achieved by anything other than money. The "money doesn't buy success" claim was a lie put around by the rich clubs to support their claim to being more meritorious than the likes of City, Villa, Everton etc.

Leave City out of the equation for the moment and consider where these rules will leave your club. Even if you develop youngsters, united, arsenal and liverpool will still come and buy them. Even if Randy sells all his business interests and decides to help Villa get into the Champions League which is where the real money is, he won't be allowed to.

As for United Liverpool and Arsenal pulling out and going into a European Super League, it has already happened. They, effectively, have two teams. they get exemption from the early rounds of the FA Cup. But they want domestic income too. Do you think that the Premier League will be as marketable without the rich clubs who have achieved worldwide marketability unavailable to clubs not in the Champions League? The time for arguing about this was in 1992, the horse has long since bolted, what we can do is stop it getting worse and keep at least a glimmer of hope alive.

City have bought themselves into that group for now but, mark my words, one team and one team only will be excluded from the Champions League and it won't be PSG. Great schadenfreude for other clubs, I'm sure, but it won't help them one jot.

You should be proud that your club is saying "no" and seeing through this charade.

Exactly!

But if there wasn't enough wrong with the FFP rules already, in terms of creating a fixed football caste system, these rules are far worse because they actually punish virtue.

So any club which reduces its wages substantially will be trapped at that low level, because even if they increase their income they cannot increase their wages even if the increase still keeps them below the level set by the FFP rules.

All the hype is about saving clubs from bankruptcy but its really only about protecting the football product, which requires a few dominant brands and a majority of losers who can never become winners.

Once these regulations are in place no one can seriously claim that the Premiership is any kind of contest.

The whole scheme is a form of match-fixing where the big clubs allow the minnows a share of the TV money for being the cannon fodder.

[dave.woodhall]

Imagine how much further clubs will push up ticket prices to increase turnover ..Arsenal and Spurs have edge there due to location.Enough fans in London on good salaries who can afford what they charge.

Plus tourists.

[Jarpie]

I'm surprised that so few clubs are against this as they wouldn't have any hope of rising upwards, such as Everton, Sunderland, Stoke, West Ham etc. unless they are very very happy to be doomed into mediocrity.

[eastie]

Imagine how much further clubs will push up ticket prices to increase turnover ..Arsenal and Spurs have edge there due to location.Enough fans in London on good salaries who can afford what they charge.

Plus tourists.

Maybe you should hotfoot it to Stratford on Avon dave and take a few copies of h&v with you and a few villa flags ?

[Villadroid]

I'm surprised that so few clubs are against this as they wouldn't have any hope of rising upwards, such as Everton, Sunderland, Stoke, West Ham etc. unless they are very very happy to be doomed into mediocrity.

Your conclusion seems the most likely.

I think that we have to accept that the Premiership's £5bn TV deal creates an even bigger hurdle for clubs in the Championship, and therefore fixing the contest to guarantee that income amounts to protectionism for the clubs you mention.

The trouble is that protectionism has a poor track-record for every other industry and so we must assume it will eventually the Premiership just the same.

[David_Nab]

Just a snippet from Samual defending his stance

Financial fair play means that a wealthy owner cannot put his own money into a club, but the Glazers can put Manchester United in hock to the banks for millions without penalty. How on earth is that financially sound? Of course it isn't. It's just an anti-competitive scheme to maintain the status quo dreamt up by Bayern, United, Real Madrid and Barçelona. It is no coincidence that the very lines of income that are OK under FFP are the ones where the established clubs fare best. There are lots of major companies that make losses. As long as those losses are sustainable because they have a strong balance sheet, nobody in financial circles is the least bit worried. Paris Saint-Germain seem to be ignoring it. I can only think that they have taken sound legal advice and have resolved to take the whole thing to EU competition authorities as soon as Michel Platini and his mates try to enforce it. Big Blue, Manchester.

Randy Lerner, the chairman of Aston Villa, said pretty much the same to me earlier in the season. He said the FFP rules focus on one specific part of the balance sheet as if it is the whole picture. One wonders why.