Which is a horrid negotiating position for them, if that be the case just send Gill over to put in ridiculously high bids.
Eden Hazard | "I am signing for Chelsea"
- Thread starter jdmufc
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
- Status
Which is a horrid negotiating position for them, if that be the case just send Gill over to put in ridiculously high bids.
Will never happen - why would UEFA throw out a top team from the CL? They want the best teams in there or it devalues the competition.
That said, I feel clubs will need to at least look as if they're trying to comply. If not you'd like to think UEFA would make an example of them for flagrantly breaching the rules.
Mind you - what if City simply sign a sponsorship deal with a large Abu Dabi based company? Be interested to see what happens when the lawyers get involved.
I just think city will find a loophole there as will many others. Can't see uefa taking strict action sadly. Would love it if they were. Football needs strict regulation.
Is the French league still ongoing?
1 game to go. Montpellier 3 points clear of PSG.
All this 'loophole' bullshit is way too legalistic. FFP are the eligibility rules for entry to a sporting event, not a legal statute. They can be interpreted, and modified, at UEFA's discretion. There are no loopholes.
They were issued to give clubs fair warning of what was required, not to be a feeding ground for lawyers. They don't have to be precise and exact in the legal sense. Take the 'fit and proper person' rule for club ownership in the PL. How do you decide what fit and proper means? And who decides? Answer: the Premiership.
Tell that to Chancery Lane, I'm sure they'll agree with you.
anyone read this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9256828/Football-finance-webchat-with-Matt-Scott-live.html
Comment From John
I understand that sponsorships can be looked into with Financial Fair Play, and UEFA can rule on their validity, but what about transfers? Is there anything in place to stop a small club in the UAE from buying one of City's youth players for £100million in order to balance the books? What if Sheik Mansour wasn't directly involved in the other club. I'm sure he has equally rich relatives willing to do him a favour.
12:34
Matt Scott:
There are always ways around rules, John. I don't know for sure if Uefa have thought of that one but I don't believe so. But Tevez and Aguerro at Al Jazira? Who knows?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/9256828/Football-finance-webchat-with-Matt-Scott-live.html
Comment From John
I understand that sponsorships can be looked into with Financial Fair Play, and UEFA can rule on their validity, but what about transfers? Is there anything in place to stop a small club in the UAE from buying one of City's youth players for £100million in order to balance the books? What if Sheik Mansour wasn't directly involved in the other club. I'm sure he has equally rich relatives willing to do him a favour.
12:34
Matt Scott:
There are always ways around rules, John. I don't know for sure if Uefa have thought of that one but I don't believe so. But Tevez and Aguerro at Al Jazira? Who knows?
Is he any good as right winger too or is left winger where he rather play?
You beat me to it Rams. Theres no way FFP can work. The only upside is the Chelsea syndrome = no matter how rich you are there is a limit to how much you are prepared to throw down the shitter.
He can play across the front, and roams around. Even if started on the left he will come across to the right, or become more central.
The rules are actually very well written from that point of view. Rather than have a specific rule about sponsorships they actually have a very general rule about fair value transactions from related parties.
These transactions can be any from of income or expense. So, yes, outrageous transfer fees are covered.
The defintion of related party is nice and loose as well. There does not need to be common ownership or managment to make something a related party. Siginificant influence is enough.
Basically, if UEFA have the will to enforce the rules, City will not be able to get completely get round them with loopholes. They might be able to improve their postion marginally with a bit of accounting trickery but they will have to eventually significantly reign in their spending if they want to pass the tests.
The rules are designed to be fairly flexible in the early years. Older contracts do not count, movement in a positive direction will be taken into account etc. But I do believe that over the longer term City will have to start spending broadly in line with their income.
There's also another possibility for the media banter. Slim, you might say, but it is there. Hazard could be affected to some degree by the idea of playing for a club like City as 'beneath' him. In that case, his media banter would be the opposite of what everyone on here thinks it is. Instead of him stringing us along, it's him stringing City along: "You actually thought a club like yours could ever sign me?! Had you believing there for a second, didn't I? You thought this was about money? Yeah...no. But go on and enjoy that store-bought trophy."
It would be petty as hell, but this is the (very real) other side of ego. Whether it's in the field of music, or film, or research, etc, it doesn't matter: in the world of super-talent there are people whose egos can and do function this way. (Berba, for example. Although in his case City were still an uncertain prospect) Your average people don't. In their case, "I want to get paid what I'm worth" is the vast and overwhelming norm. (This is not to say that your Agueros and Silvas and Toures are average. Just that it's quite possible that Hazard's media banter could realistically be the opposite of what we're all afraid it is.)
Because some idiot writing for a newspaper says something it must be true? The media don't have a clue. Some of the stuff that's been written in the so-called quality press about United's finances has been downright laughable. Why do people think journalists know anything about anything?
A lazy cliche about 'ways around rules' isn't much of a contribution to the debate. As I understand it, UEFA have allowed themselves plenty of room for interpretation with clauses like 'fair value'. That's all they need.
In the final analysis UEFA will determine who plays in their competition.
Aye, well said.
If anyone thinks that UEFA hasn't thought of this "ways around the rules" then surely they're kidding themselves.
Lollage
They're right to an extent. For one, City will soon be able to justify the huge amount of sponsorships they get from related businesses since they are now champions and can show similar amount of income from sponsorship as an Arsenal or a United. Given a low base of their sponsorships, I won't be surprised if their turnover shoots up by 40-50% over the coming few seasons.
Add to that, there are always 'off-the-book' payments that are easy to make. A house in the name of ABC's aunt in Dubai, an office job worth 1 mn EUR to xyz's uncle at a related company. Its all do-able.
UEFA won't have the balls to kick anyone out of the competition, although I hope I'm wrong.
How do you define outrageous in a world where Carroll goes for 35M?
UEFA don't need to define it. They're the judge, jury and executioner.
I have just looked at recent articles on Hazard, and they are still using the "definitely the blue" quote. The Independent are even using it. Paid journalists being so bloody lazy. 
We're convinced he's going City, Bluemoon convinced he's coming here. Fun times.
What has that lot convinced he's coming to us?
He may well have been waiting to see how the season ended. If you are treated as the second coming I don't think 50-100K more a week make any fecking difference relative to being at the right club.
Ronaldo is a clear example of what SAF can do with a talented player and that should be attractive. But now you also have the no small matter of trophies and any outsider would expect City to pick up a few over the next few years.
That and money will probably win the day, he sounds like the sort who underrates the contribution of others in his development ("it's all me").
Ronaldo is a clear example of what SAF can do with a talented player and that should be attractive. But now you also have the no small matter of trophies and any outsider would expect City to pick up a few over the next few years.
That and money will probably win the day, he sounds like the sort who underrates the contribution of others in his development ("it's all me").
United make about £100M per year from commercial activities. There's no way City could justify making even half of that. And that's the only area in which they can significantly increase their income. And they lost £200M last year. Their situation is hopeless.
Their only chance is that UEFA will bottle out of enforcing their own rules.
What have off-the-book payments got to do with it? Are you suggesting they're going to pay their players with jobs for their uncles and houses for their aunts?
The example above was "a small club in the UAE buying one of City's youth players for £100million" and an idiot Telegraph journalist suggested that Uefa would not have thought have that and therefore City could bypass the rules in that way.
Like any other financial transaction, transfers can be assesed for fair value.
It will obviously be possible for a club to marginally improve their postion by using backhanders to get someone to overpay. But this cannot be used as a simple way of blowing the FFP regs out of the water as suggested on the Telegraph site.
teague has basically got it. It's all about fair value.
If City sell a youth player for £100m as part of their 'income', Uefa will see it and then will compare the transfer to other similar deals, where the average price of a youth player being sold is probably say less than £1m.
City's FFP income for that player will then be adjusted down to be in line with what the value would actually be if they weren't blatantly cheating. This doesn't mean that Uefa are going to take £99m from City, just that for the purposes of calculating their FFP income, £99m of that £100m will be ignored.
The same is true of sponsorship deals and kit deals. It was encouraging to see that City's latest kit deal with Nike wasn't anything extraordinary. Seems they're at least going to attempt to play fair in that respect, rather than tying up a £400m kit deal with Emirates Sportwear.
Potato Potatoe
Fact is you can skim small differences in many transactions and be done with it. It's not easy but doable.
I do like the 20man squad concept though, sounds like a viable way to punish without exclusion. It hits at the heart of it as well as it makes the club less attractive to players. Barcelona could probably have done everything they've done in the last few years with a 20-man squad, mind.
Fact is you can skim small differences in many transactions and be done with it. It's not easy but doable.
I do like the 20man squad concept though, sounds like a viable way to punish without exclusion. It hits at the heart of it as well as it makes the club less attractive to players. Barcelona could probably have done everything they've done in the last few years with a 20-man squad, mind.
If they start reigning in their spending now they could actually get quite close to passing. See http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/manchester-city-masterplan.html for details.
That plan might be a little optimistic but I think that if City now start spending like a normal top table club they will be close enough to passing the tests that they would only suffer minor sanctions from UEFA.
If, on the other hand, they keep spending like twats they will fail the tests by miles and will rightfully be thrown out of European competition.
I can't really imagine that we would get both Hazard and Kagawa and Kagawa seems the much more likely of the two to be coming to us.
The "interpretation" element can be as damaging as it is useful.
Trying to stop clubs doing what they are doing is one thing - but get too tough and what next? - a return to the top clubs talking about a "European Super league" again? Or Lawyers running challenges to the rules? Could be a nightmare for UEFA.
Bottom line is clubs hold the power because without the top sides the CL and related competitions are worthless.
The chances are UEFA will let a lot slide.
Imagine a split in European football, like what happened to darts a while back. All the sugar daddy clubs running off to get into bed with eachother.
I think most of the top clubs will support the banning of city from ucl, its in their interest. So yeah Super league problem doesn't arise here.
The thing is though that this would not be a case of the clubs lining up against UEFA. The vast majority of clubs would line up on UEFA's side against any club who took the piss with these regulations.
The clubs and their owners need these regulations in place to ensure a viable long term business model for their clubs. UEFA only put these regulations in place because the clubs wanted it.
The majority of clubs will play within the rules. If one or two decide to flout them and then cause huge wage and transfer inflation for everyone else those infringing clubs will have the book thrown at them.
Almost all Clubs are in favour of FFP regulations. The football league clubs have just voted in their own version. The SPL wil do so as well later this month. The bundesliga already has it.
It's great to be able to pop in here and get regular updates on people's opinions on the FFP regulations without any Hazard discussion getting in the way.
We're signing him. I've decided.
That plan is nonsense, and that guy is talking through his.....whatever.
When Abra first acquired Chelsea they were losing about £80M per year. They announced their intention of breaking even. Last year, eight years of qualification for the latter stages of the CL and three Premiership titles later, they lost about £70M. And Chelsea incurred nothing like the financial obligations of City. Their wage bill was far lower on a greater revenue base. It can't be done.
I'd bet my house with rambler or anybody else that City's losses next year will be well over £100M. Only gross fraud could lead to a different result. And gross fraud is detectable.
Its more the case of clubs finding e-ways on how to twist the rules in their favor.
No matter how many times you say this it never quite penetrates
If UEFA say 'you are not eligible to enter our competition' that's the end of it. Their's is the final word.The 'rules' were published to let clubs around Europe know in advance the future terms of entry to the CL. UEFA will interpret FFP as they see fit.
- Status