Premier League chairmen set to vote at Thursday's fair play showdown meeting

[David_Nab]

So this new rule basically means Man  U will never be challenged again..well done

[paulcomben]

Randy heard that there were going to be financial rules and decided to be a big girly swot and do too much too early, leaving us more Portsmouth than Swansea.

[peter w]

I agree with the club. Things will change they always do. if we impose a cap then the richest will always stay the richest and would make it nigh on impossible for anyone to get up to that level. I agree that something must be done relating to the spiraling wages but is going back to something we once got rid the right way?

[Toronto Villa]

It should have been a min and max wage cap irrespective of revenues.

Surely the only thing that would be achieved by that is that anyone who could earn higher than the cap would head off to Russia, Ukraine, Germany or Turkey?

The level of quality would drop and interest and revenue would drop with it.

Why would voting for that be in the interest of any of the people making the decision?

It would have to be a UEFA initiative. UEFA would need to get the collective backing of all of their members to avoid players just going where there wasn't a salary cap. The horse has bolted it appears but the new "solution" doesn't change anything.

[David_Nab]

I agree with the club. Things will change they always do. if we impose a cap then the richest will always stay the richest and would make it nigh on impossible for anyone to get up to that level. I agree that something must be done relating to the spiraling wages but is going back to something we once got rid the right way?

Good article here

Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League, said the regulations his clubs have introduced should not be likened to Uefa's financial fair play, and indeed the most striking first impression was how much more slack the 20 clubs have cut for themselves. Uefa's financial fair play rules restrict clubs in European competitions to making total losses of €45m in 2012‑14, while the Premier League's limit, agreed after nine months of discussion, is £105m over three years. That is still a great deal of money to lose between 2013 and 2016, given the £5.5bn bonanza expected to arrive in TV income alone.

The rules, the £105m loss and the measures restricting players' wages increases, are clearly a compromise. A deal has been done to reach a middle ground between clubs such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur who wanted a strict implementation of Uefa's €45m limit, and other clubs, including Manchester City, who wanted no restrictions at all.

Scudamore argued that these rules will protect the Premier League clubs financially in advance of this deluge of cash. The £105m is only allowed to be lost if an owner has guaranteed it and paid the money in. Losses not guaranteed by owners will be limited to the much more modest £15m over three years. That, the Premier League said, will prevent "another Portsmouth", the notoriously insolvent club that, in administration again, lurched into another tortured twist, with a new bid made to challenge that of the supporters trust, even as the current top 20 clubs were meeting.

The compromise is also broader, between a vision of football that has clubs living within their means, and one that wants owners buying them and pouring in cash to buy success. The compromise means the English game is still open to that model, but such an owner is limited to £105m over three years, plus investment in youth training and infrastructure. Scudamore specifically acknowledged that the rules will not allow turbo-fuelling like that of Manchester City, where Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan has injected around £1bn since 2008 to elevate City from ninth in the Premier League to champions.

There will be sanctions for breaching the rule, and Scudamore said they will push for it to be severe, a points deduction if the £105m is seriously overspent. The aim is to allow owners to put serious money into clubs, but not quite so serious as Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour have unleashed into their football ventures.

The wage limit is a little odd, and illustrates the greatest frustration with the conduct of these reforms. Most clubs' main aim is to ensure they do not blow the forthcoming vast fortune on ever-inflating players' wages. They have agreed to limit wage bill increases to £4m in 2013, then £8m, then £12m, out of the Premier League's TV income. Clubs, though, can increase wages as much as they like from owners' money up to the £105m overall, or from commercial revenue – or ticket income.

The Premier League says clubs will not be seeking ways to evade the rules because they themselves have introduced them. But this rule builds in an incentive to raise ticket prices – at a time when there is an almighty outcry about the high cost of supporting football.

There lies the missed opportunity. These rules do something to restrain overspending, although it is notable they are aimed at a Manchester City project, which at least sees money going in, rather than the Glazers' milking of Manchester United for £550m to pay the interest and costs of their own takeover. This has been pushed for by the American owners of United, Arsenal and Liverpool, who bought English clubs as investments, and have no intention of spending money on them.

They, and the other Premier League clubs, three of whom will be relegated at the end of the season, have been allowed to introduce these rules with no reference to the wider game and no involvement of the governing body, the Football Association. They are designed to guard against spending the prospective windfall on player wages, but not tied to any broader discussion, perhaps a commitment to reduce ticket prices, or increase investment in the grass roots. There has been no great consideration of wider issues affecting football, and the clubs have voted from their own self-interest or peculiarities of opinion.

Scudamore said they have been on "a journey" from "a fairly low threshold of financial regulation" to a set of rules requiring solvent, non-criminal owners and a reasonably sustainable way to run clubs. Many believe that journey should go a lot further, not just dampen player wages, and the millions owners can spend on the clubs they have bought.

Chelsea and Man City agree or not ,and even us for a time where only able to compete with outside funding.In Chelsea and Man City's case the success it brought has increased the awareness of the clubs and in turn their revenue to compete with United.This rule stops that happening again.It means the clubs are happy to have Man U dominate as long as they can feed of the scraps.

[Dave]

It should have been a min and max wage cap irrespective of revenues.

Surely the only thing that would be achieved by that is that anyone who could earn higher than the cap would head off to Russia, Ukraine, Germany or Turkey?

The level of quality would drop and interest and revenue would drop with it.

Why would voting for that be in the interest of any of the people making the decision?

It would have to be a UEFA initiative. UEFA would need to get the collective backing of all of their members to avoid players just going where there wasn't a salary cap. The horse has bolted it appears but the new "solution" doesn't change anything.

It does exactly what it sets out to do. Limits the possibilities of the next Chelsea, Man City, Blackburn Rovers or us when Lerner was willing to spend money.

It's not trying to do anything further than making sure the biggest clubs remain the biggest clubs. And it does that perfectly well.

[David_Nab]

100% Agree Dave

It's a sad day for the Prem League..

[DeKuip]

They talk about a points deduction as punishment, but it would be a good 12 months further on before they could really do so.
An overspending club could theoretically win the league and the Champions League before their accounts for that period are revealed.

[David_Nab]

I think you are going to see alot more commercial deals ,Man U have been signing up sponsorship like mad in the last few months.And attempts to bypass this like this

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1271135/paris-saint-germain-secure-%E2%82%AC150m-a-year-deal?cc=5901

[peter w]

And how useful is a system with owners can underwrite the losses? So, what actually changes?

[TheSandman]

It's the death of competition.

[wolfman999]

The Premier league, ever since its inception, has always been about naked self interest. Indeed, if I remember correctly it only came about following a threat of a break away by the usual suspects here, in Spain, Germany, Italy et all to form their own league closed to all outsiders.

Despite Sky continually telling us its 'the greatest league in the world', its probably as uncompetative as its ever been, with 2/3 clubs competing at the top, 2/3 sniffing about for 4th place and the rest trying to avoid relegation.

This decision is clearly designed to maintain the status-quo and will do so very well.

[DrGonzo]

Mancini has a little cry about not being able to spunk someone else's money:

"I do not agree," said Manchester City's manager. "If I am a rich man I want to spend all my money for my team; it's my job. It's only my personal opinion but I don't agree with the idea in general or these rules.

"We need to buy good players. If you want to buy good players you have to spend money. This isn't only for us, it's the same for every team but we will work hard and find a different way."

While clubs with annual player costs of more than £52m a year will now be limited to a £4m salary increase in 2013-14, they must also limit overall deficits to £105m over the next three seasons or face points deductions. These reforms promise to make it effectively impossible for a future billionaire club owner in the shape of City's Sheikh Mansour to lavish a fortune on their team in order to "buy" swift success.

"It is clear with this rule it is more difficult than 10 years ago," acknowledged Mancini. "In football, if you work well, you can find good players without maybe spending £30m on one individual, but it is also true that every time Manchester City move for a player, if his value is £10m, Manchester City will be asked for £30m. There should be other rules for this because sometimes you want to buy a player for £8m but it's £25m-£30m for Manchester City. This is the problem."


From the Grauniad:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/feb/09/manchester-city-players-salaries

[Fernando Partridge]

Not all 20 clubs voted. If reading had nt abstained from the vote the motion would never have come to pass. It went 13 to 6. 

[olaftab]

This will preserve the status quo by not allowing any new entrants into the "big cub" group.