Manchester City facing Financial Fair Play sanctions

[B20]

The argument of saving poorly managed clubs from bankruptcy sounds like a poor excuse to me as well. This is an issue that should police itself. How the hell is a threat from UEFA bigger than a threat from bankruptcy itself for the likes of Sporting (who may very well fail FFP as it stands). I'm sure as soon as soon as a few clubs started to shut down their neighbors would wise up. That cataclysmic scenario of everyone going bankrupt looks like stupid conjecture to me.

It's really not. The trend has been worsening and was simply not sustainable. Especially in Spain and Italy, this was becoming a problem.

The threat from UEFA is worse than the threat of bankrupcy because those clubs who do this generally do it for sporting reasons. Leeds would have had significantly less incentiveto spend what they did if they knew it would result in them not getting into Europe anyway.

The combination of sugar daddies and clubs spending beyond their means is self-reinforcing because it distorts the market for wage levels and tranfer fees.

The big problem with no FFP is that it discourages sane financial budgets.

And the fact is, it has already worked. Expenditure has lessened significantly all over Europe as a result of FFP.


For me, the problem with FFP is not so much what it does, but rather that it is only a first step. Situations such as Real and Barca's stranglehold on TV money, the loan system getting out of hand and so forth. There is plenty of things that, once you've embraced the notion of Fair Play beyond the pitch, should be regulated more strictly as well.

 

[RedRover]

City seem to be getting a lot of support for challenging FFP from supported of clubs outside the top bracket. It seems as though none of them can foresee the harm or dangers or the league turning into a battle of the cheque book every season?

There are two big reasons (in my opinion) why fans of the smaller clubs would feel that way:

1) the only real chance they have of making the top 4 is if someone buys their club and spends heavily; and
2) their club might be reliant on sales of young players to the top sides in order to progress and re-invest in stregthening the playing squad.

A lot of United fans don't live in the real world it seems. I've seen people referring to the likes of Dortmund as "smaller clubs" who support FFP. Dortmund are not a small club - they are CL regulars. The vast majority of other sides are not.

Football has created a situation where clubs can now sell an 18 year old English full back for somewhere in the region of £30 million to a top side. They would have always lost that player to a better team, but now they can get big money in and hopefully buy a few players to improve the side generally.

The reality of the situation is that fans are pragmatic. The effect of FFP may make Newcastle (for example) very slightly more likely to be able to finish in the top 4. But having £30 million to spend on three players having sold one makes it more likely, and having a billionaire free-spending owner even more likely.

FFP, in my opinion seemed to be fighting a noble cause - but it does entrench the "haves", United included, at the top of the tree while making it nearly impossible for any other club to relaistically compete over a significant period. As will be seen this year when Athletic lose umpteen players. Had they had a rich owner, perhaps that wouldn't be the case and they could hold on to them and bring a few in.

 

[bleedred]

There are two big reasons (in my opinion) why fans of the smaller clubs would feel that way:

1) the only real chance they have of making the top 4 is if someone buys their club and spends heavily; and
2) their club might be reliant on sales of young players to the top sides in order to progress and re-invest in stregthening the playing squad.

A lot of United fans don't live in the real world it seems. I've seen people referring to the likes of Dortmund as "smaller clubs" who support FFP. Dortmund are not a small club - they are CL regulars. The vast majority of other sides are not.

Football has created a situation where clubs can now sell an 18 year old English full back for somewhere in the region of £30 million to a top side. They would have always lost that player to a better team, but now they can get big money in and hopefully buy a few players to improve the side generally.

The reality of the situation is that fans are pragmatic. The effect of FFP may make Newcastle (for example) very slightly more likely to be able to finish in the top 4. But having £30 million to spend on three players having sold one makes it more likely, and having a billionaire free-spending owner even more likely.

FFP, in my opinion seemed to be fighting a noble cause - but it does entrench the "haves", United included, at the top of the tree while making it nearly impossible for any other club to relaistically compete over a significant period. As will be seen this year when Athletic lose umpteen players. Had they had a rich owner, perhaps that wouldn't be the case and they could hold on to them and bring a few in.

I think FFP should and will be just a first step in neutralizing the effect of money and if indeed teams do follow it, then other steps like limitations of transfer budget, salary cap etc., could be brought in. If FFP is doomed, then there is no hope in hell of stopping billionaire owners buying success.

 

[bishblaize]

Real Financial Fair Play would level the playing field properly so the league was not so predictable and small clubs had a realistic chance of building themselves up and actually winning things.

This is one thing I've struggled with. What would that look like? I really struggle to think of a system that is viable in the real world.

People say transfer or salary cap, but that ignores the difference of scale between clubs. How do you find a single system that works for Leicester City at about £25M per year turnover, Everton at £86M per year turnover and United at about £400M per year turnover? Cap it at £100M combined and it doesn't really help Everton. Cap it at £40M combined and that does nothing for Leicester City with their (presumably) £10pa wage bill. Cap it at £10M combined and you're limiting United to spending 2.5% of turnover of their money.

The US system is lauded, but football is much bigger than something like NFL or NBA, so you can't really compare the two. I believe NFL has things like a revenue sharing system, and of course the draft, which are both good ideas for that league. But they have about 32 teams, all more or less in the same order of size, with no relegation and promotion. A small team can take the best young player if offered. But Yeovil couldn't afford take Luke Shaw or Lallana, even if they were offered them. And can young players only stay in their own countries, or do you offer Shaw to clubs like Atalanta or Elche? Could we do revenue sharing with 92 professional clubs in England alone, and (I would guess) over 1000 clubs across Europe? Hard to see how, even if we ignore the political and legal rumpus it would cause.

Sharing TV money more equitably could be a good thing. But again that doesn't help all that much. United get more match day revenue than anyone else, and they get more commercial income than anyone else in the UK. United's matchday income is about the same as Everton's entire turnover. Even if everyone got precisely the same TV money United would be better off. Indeed it could have an inverse effect - United would be no worse off for being out of the Champions League and Everton would be no better off for being in it. Far from helping even things out, it would simply mean that the most supported clubs, locally and globally, had an advantage, that while smaller would be immune to poor performances.

There's also a deeper problem. I simply don't believe that its good for football for the most popular teams not to have the highest profile. Suppose hypothetically you had some completely even system where every season each team in the football league got a random allocation of 25 players and they all battled it out for the title. You'd probably get lots of different winners. But would people really enjoy it? Probably not, when the title was a three way fight between York, Mansfield and Exeter - only for all three to disappear the following season. People want to see United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs fighting for the title. They also want to see other well supported clubs, like Villa, Newcastle, City and so on in there too. So at some level its good for the game to have big teams fighting for titles. It would be good for the game if Newcastle, Villa and City (without sugar daddies) had a viable chance of winning too. But you can't artificially engineer the teams based on supporter numbers. That would mean a small little supported club like Wigan could never reach the top level.

Its really hard to think of a way to resolve the problem. I agree the current situation is unreasonable. But as I've said at length above, allowing a couple of teams to financially force their way to the top table at the expense of other clubs that were already there is no solution, either morally or technically. If it were plausible for lots of teams to take that route, fine. But it isn't so all it does is give us two inequalities rather than one.

 

[bishblaize]

Just from a legal viewpoint they wouldn't be able to apply it like that - in future, you could have a club that is passing FFP in the current period, who actually fails because of the inclusion of a fine from failing to pass the previously judged period. Under this method, UEFA could then fine a club again for failing and the cycle continues - you'd effectively have a club being double, triple, quadruple (etc..) punished because of one FFP failure until they are able to generate enough profit to cover both the break-even boundary plus the latest fine. Allowing this, it would arguably be in the interest of UEFA to issue larger fines because it could lead to potential future income - which creates a conflict that wouldn't be legal from a governing body.

Since the fine is discretionary not automatic there would be no chance of that cycle occurring unless by UEFA's explicit will.

And the regs are quite clear that clubs that are moving in the right direction will pass the FFP test. That, of course, is fairly loose phrase, but I think its fair to say that a club that broke even but for the fine from FFP in a previous season would pass a test of reasonableness at the CAS without breaking a sweat.

 

[Richard Cranium]

There are two big reasons (in my opinion) why fans of the smaller clubs would feel that way:

1) the only real chance they have of making the top 4 is if someone buys their club and spends heavily; and
2) their club might be reliant on sales of young players to the top sides in order to progress and re-invest in stregthening the playing squad.

A lot of United fans don't live in the real world it seems. I've seen people referring to the likes of Dortmund as "smaller clubs" who support FFP. Dortmund are not a small club - they are CL regulars. The vast majority of other sides are not.

Football has created a situation where clubs can now sell an 18 year old English full back for somewhere in the region of £30 million to a top side. They would have always lost that player to a better team, but now they can get big money in and hopefully buy a few players to improve the side generally.

The reality of the situation is that fans are pragmatic. The effect of FFP may make Newcastle (for example) very slightly more likely to be able to finish in the top 4. But having £30 million to spend on three players having sold one makes it more likely, and having a billionaire free-spending owner even more likely.

FFP, in my opinion seemed to be fighting a noble cause - but it does entrench the "haves", United included, at the top of the tree while making it nearly impossible for any other club to relaistically compete over a significant period. As will be seen this year when Athletic lose umpteen players. Had they had a rich owner, perhaps that wouldn't be the case and they could hold on to them and bring a few in.

Why shouldn't a team like United or Bayern which have operated in the right way to become profitable over a number of years have such a benefit rewarded?

The argument that City's investment will line the pockets of smaller clubs is only correct to an extent. City buy good players from big teams now. Furthermore, the new found ever presence of Chelsea and Man City in the top 4 as a result of plastic ownership has meant clubs like United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham won't all be able to get in the top four. Despite running a club in an ethical way. So if anything, saying City increase the chances of a smaller club making top four by breaking up the monotony of the top clubs is flawed. If anything, the two plastics have halved the places on offer every year.

All it would take is for two more plastic owners to come along and buy Swansea and Newcastle for example. Then the likes of Southampton and Tottenham have no hopes of top four. FFP doesn't prevent competition in football, it stops competitivity becoming a matter of how many oil drums your Arab owner sold this week.

 

[Plugsy]

As said earlier, City is just being used as a PR front for an otherwise distasteful regime. If they find themselves on a collision course with UEFA would they risk sullying their reputation if exposed as people who have deemed to have been somehow underhand in their dealings, especially when they can't throw money at their 'toy' any more.

UEFA have walked into the party, switched the lights on, turned the music off and confiscated all the drugs and booze. Big, big test now as to whether Mansour will be willing to stick it out, especially if it means his name being dragged through the mud and reputation and motives questioned. Going forward it won't be as fun any more. Pre-season meetings dominated not so much by the issue of who to buy but who to sell to meet the criteria.

 

[Adebesi]

This is one thing I've struggled with. What would that look like? I really struggle to think of a system that is viable in the real world.

People say transfer or salary cap, but that ignores the difference of scale between clubs. How do you find a single system that works for Leicester City at about £25M per year turnover, Everton at £86M per year turnover and United at about £400M per year turnover? Cap it at £100M combined and it doesn't really help Everton. Cap it at £40M combined and that does nothing for Leicester City with their (presumably) £10pa wage bill. Cap it at £10M combined and you're limiting United to spending 2.5% of turnover of their money.

The US system is lauded, but football is much bigger than something like NFL or NBA, so you can't really compare the two. I believe NFL has things like a revenue sharing system, and of course the draft, which are both good ideas for that league. But they have about 32 teams, all more or less in the same order of size, with no relegation and promotion. A small team can take the best young player if offered. But Yeovil couldn't afford take Luke Shaw or Lallana, even if they were offered them. And can young players only stay in their own countries, or do you offer Shaw to clubs like Atalanta or Elche? Could we do revenue sharing with 92 professional clubs in England alone, and (I would guess) over 1000 clubs across Europe? Hard to see how, even if we ignore the political and legal rumpus it would cause.

Sharing TV money more equitably could be a good thing. But again that doesn't help all that much. United get more match day revenue than anyone else, and they get more commercial income than anyone else in the UK. United's matchday income is about the same as Everton's entire turnover. Even if everyone got precisely the same TV money United would be better off. Indeed it could have an inverse effect - United would be no worse off for being out of the Champions League and Everton would be no better off for being in it. Far from helping even things out, it would simply mean that the most supported clubs, locally and globally, had an advantage, that while smaller would be immune to poor performances.

There's also a deeper problem. I simply don't believe that its good for football for the most popular teams not to have the highest profile. Suppose hypothetically you had some completely even system where every season each team in the football league got a random allocation of 25 players and they all battled it out for the title. You'd probably get lots of different winners. But would people really enjoy it? Probably not, when the title was a three way fight between York, Mansfield and Exeter - only for all three to disappear the following season. People want to see United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs fighting for the title. They also want to see other well supported clubs, like Villa, Newcastle, City and so on in there too. So at some level its good for the game to have big teams fighting for titles. It would be good for the game if Newcastle, Villa and City (without sugar daddies) had a viable chance of winning too. But you can't artificially engineer the teams based on supporter numbers. That would mean a small little supported club like Wigan could never reach the top level.

Its really hard to think of a way to resolve the problem. I agree the current situation is unreasonable. But as I've said at length above, allowing a couple of teams to financially force their way to the top table at the expense of other clubs that were already there is no solution, either morally or technically. If it were plausible for lots of teams to take that route, fine. But it isn't so all it does is give us two inequalities rather than one.

Im constantly plaugging this book on here but have you read Why England Lose? If not you should. It discusses all of this - particularly your penultimate paragraph, which is obviously a very interesting issue in itself. People need teams like Man United. If not to support them, (and I borrow from my old friend Tony Montana here) then to "point their fcking fingers and say, there's the bad guy." Not just United now, but Chelsea, City and everyone else at the top of the pile in the game.

I think the point is things have gone too far down this path to roll it all back and do what the US has done. Its not just a football problem either. Take banks - how do you deal with the issue of banker bonuses and income inequality etc etc when it is so entrenched. You get to a point where the vested interests are too entrenched and there is very little to be done about it. That si a very defeatist attitude I know but I am very pessimistic about things like that. For all the things Ive said in the last few posts on this subject, my real issue with FFP isnt whether it is right or wrong, because I do think it would be good to curb the excessive money sloshing around in football. My real issue is it wont be enforced properly anyway. Or I dont expect it to. As @RedRover implied, I expect it to be more a way of locking the gate so that no more upstarts break into the elite group of clubs that get to win everything.

 

[Richard Cranium]

As said earlier, City is just being used as a PR front for an otherwise distasteful regime. If they find themselves on a collision course with UEFA would they risk sullying their reputation if exposed as people who have deemed to have been somehow underhand in their dealings, especially when they can't throw money at their 'toy' any more.

UEFA have walked into the party, switched the lights on, turned the music off and confiscated all the drugs and booze. Big, big test now as to whether Mansour will be willing to stick it out, especially if it means his name being dragged through the mud and reputation and motives questioned. Going forward it won't be as fun any more. Pre-season meetings dominated not so much by the issue of who to buy but who to sell to meet the criteria.

UEFA need to make an example of City to set the standard of what's to come from FFP. If City challenge it, will they be excluded from the CL?

 

[bishblaize]

Im constantly plaugging this book on here but have you read Why England Lose? .

Just ordered , thanks for the tip.

 

[RedRover]

I think FFP should and will be just a first step in neutralizing the effect of money and if indeed teams do follow it, then other steps like limitations of transfer budget, salary cap etc., could be brought in. If FFP is doomed, then there is no hope in hell of stopping billionaire owners buying success.

I think that levelling the playing field is, in theory a fair and reasonable idea - but I can't see how it can be done. I assume salary caps would be linked in some way to turnover, so you'd still have very rich clubs relatively speaking.

 

[Plugsy]

UEFA need to make an example of City to set the standard of what's to come from FFP. If City challenge it, will they be excluded from the CL?

That's the eventual punishment, the ultimate one. I think City's refusal to respond to the request of UEFA to accept the initial sanctions mean that they're referring it back to the panel to consider perhaps harsher measures of which CL expulsion is an option but I suspect their belligerence will, if anything, see maybe the screw tightened a little strong but not by much, maybe an extra £5m on top of the time and a further reduction to CL squad size by one. If that really, I don't think UEFA want to be seen as too antagonistic at this stage but will insist their sanctions are accepted.

 

[A1X]

FFP is in the long-term financial interests of the clubs despite short-term kicking and screaming. If FFP ends up curbing City's wage bill then I'm sure in the future when the sugar daddy leaves the fans will be grateful the club aren't committed contractually to pay wages (and tax contributions) that by far outstrips the total earnings of the club.

So much about City is short-termist. You wonder how much of a shit their fans actually give about the future of their club. They won't be owned by them forever and the chances of being taken over by a similar sort of person willing and able to piss money up the wall for their own enjoyment is slim. I've a terrible feeling that in five years time City fans will be the strongest proponent of FFP and likely blaming the FA and UEFA for not acting sooner.

FFP asks nothing more than for a club to be self-sufficient or as close to it as possible so if the owners feck off the burden is not too great. Bizarre how that's considered a 'bad' thing, especially by fans of the clubs affected.

Brilliant post. You'd think these sort of clubs would have learnt from the fate which befell Anzhi.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

Teams like United and Liverpool won the jackpot because they were lucky enough to have great managers in great Football catchment areas

Just about this point. United were not lucky to have appointed SAF. They made a decision as to who they thought was the right man, and it ended up being a very good decision.
He could easily have been sacked early on in his United career, but United made the decision to stick with him, again, a very good footballing decision when you look back at it.

Teams at the top, are generally there, because they have made good business decisions.
Tottenham made a very good decisions buying Bale, then getting the fee they did for him. Their downfall was the decisions they made this summer, buying the players they did.

At the end of the day, right decisions bring you to the top, bad decisions take you to the bottom.

Of course Location comes into it quite a bit, but as said on here many a time. Manchester ain't exactly New York.

************************

To go on anyway. I am a United fan, of course I don't want City coming in here, spending all this money and becoming a great team. If they took over Everton for example, although, still frustrated, I wouldn't cared half as much.
I will admit that, a lot of United fans probably won't, but, FFP still has a place in the game.

When it comes to being fair etc, there are many things you could look at
Was it fair Arsenal had to pay for a new stadium when City and West have are given one.

 

[finneh]

Just about this point. United were not lucky to have appointed SAF. They made a decision as to who they thought was the right man, and it ended up being a very good decision.
He could easily have been sacked early on in his United career, but United made the decision to stick with him, again, a very good footballing decision when you look back at it.

Teams at the top, are generally there, because they have made good business decisions.
Tottenham made a very good decisions buying Bale, then getting the fee they did for him. Their downfall was the decisions they made this summer, buying the players they did.

At the end of the day, right decisions bring you to the top, bad decisions take you to the bottom.

Of course Location comes into it quite a bit, but as said on here many a time. Manchester ain't exactly New York.

************************

To go on anyway. I am a United fan, of course I don't want City coming in here, spending all this money and becoming a great team. If they took over Everton for example, although, still frustrated, I wouldn't cared half as much.
I will admit that, a lot of United fans probably won't, but, FFP still has a place in the game.

When it comes to being fair etc, there are many things you could look at
Was it fair Arsenal had to pay for a new stadium when City and West have are given one.

Of course we were incredibly lucky to have Sir Alex. We happened to select the best Football manager in the history of the game, at a time when selecting him had the biggest financial impact on our club. Was it a good business decision? Of course. Was it an incredibly lucky decision? Hell yes.

Even good business decisions come down to complete luck. Spurs' 7 signings this Summer could have all turned out to be great player's, Soldado could have scored 30 Premier League goals and Spurs could have won the League. It would be a 1 in a million occurrence, but so was having Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, Neville bros, Butt all coming through our academy at the same time and becoming a staple spine to our team for decades.

The fact is that you can't just say to a club like City "make good business decisions and you'll steadily progress", because if it were that easy every club would be a financial powerhouse. How easy would it have been 20 years ago for City to find the best manager ever to have lived, have a group of player's come through their academy that are worth a total of in today's market around £200m and climb up the League table until they are a force? Impossible is the answer.

The only way for a club like City to grow is for significant investment. The billion pounds that Mansour and Abramovich have spent is their lottery win, ours was Fergie and the class of '92.

 

[bishblaize]

The billion pounds that Mansour and Abramovich have spent is their lottery win, ours was Fergie and the class of '92.

So you think it should be allowed, or just that you can't blame City for being happy about it?

 

[Brightonian]

The only way for a club like City to grow is for significant investment. The billion pounds that Mansour and Abramovich have spent is their lottery win, ours was Fergie and the class of '92.

What utter shite. We didn't win Fergie in a lottery - we chose him because we believed he could be a great manager for this club. We stuck by him through some difficult early years because, again, we knew he had the potential to be something really special at this club.

And we didn't just stumble across the class of '92, either. We found them, trained them, made them the great players they are, and gambled on bringing them into the first team early and en masse. We reaped the rewards of our own actions and decisions.

If you consider Fergie and the '92 boys a 'lottery win' then all football is a lottery and no-one can ever be considered to have earned anything.

 

[KM]

The only way for a club like City to grow is for significant investment. The billion pounds that Mansour and Abramovich have spent is their lottery win, ours was Fergie and the class of '92.

C'mon that's nonsense. The Class of 92 was an indirect result of a complete overhaul of scouting in Manchester area and the youth department of Man Utd by Fergie. It does a great disservice to Fergie to call it a lottery.

 

[bleedred]

To go on anyway. I am a United fan, of course I don't want City coming in here, spending all this money and becoming a great team. If they took over Everton for example, although, still frustrated, I wouldn't cared half as much.
I will admit that, a lot of United fans probably won't, but, FFP still has a place in the game.

When it comes to being fair etc, there are many things you could look at
Was it fair Arsenal had to pay for a new stadium when City and West have are given one.

That's not true, considering the rivalry that has been build up with Chelsea, where little existed before Abhramovich. United fans were/are frustrated that Chelsea could spend enormous amounts and buy success and it would have been the same case had it been any other club. The fact that its city only makes the case worse.

 

[Infra-red]

It's really not. The trend has been worsening and was simply not sustainable. Especially in Spain and Italy, this was becoming a problem.

The threat from UEFA is worse than the threat of bankrupcy because those clubs who do this generally do it for sporting reasons. Leeds would have had significantly less incentiveto spend what they did if they knew it would result in them not getting into Europe anyway.

The combination of sugar daddies and clubs spending beyond their means is self-reinforcing because it distorts the market for wage levels and tranfer fees.

The big problem with no FFP is that it discourages sane financial budgets.

And the fact is, it has already worked. Expenditure has lessened significantly all over Europe as a result of FFP.


For me, the problem with FFP is not so much what it does, but rather that it is only a first step. Situations such as Real and Barca's stranglehold on TV money, the loan system getting out of hand and so forth. There is plenty of things that, once you've embraced the notion of Fair Play beyond the pitch, should be regulated more strictly as well.

Agreed. To that list I would certainly add leveraged buyouts. You cannot purport to be concerned with the safeguarding of clubs' financial futures, if you have nothing to say about debt.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

That's not true, considering the rivalry that has been build up with Chelsea, where little existed before Abhramovich. United fans were/are frustrated that Chelsea could spend enormous amounts and buy success and it would have been the same case had it been any other club. The fact that its city only makes the case worse.

But that is what I am saying. If they took over Everton. I would be frustrated, but its because of it being City, that makes it worse.
I am not saying I would have been happy if it was Everton they took over, because it is still a direct threat, the point is, City is what makes it worse as a United fan.
This season in the closing stages, when it came down to it, we would all have rather picked Chelsea of City, which is kind of what I am getting it.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

Of course we were incredibly lucky to have Sir Alex. We happened to select the best Football manager in the history of the game, at a time when selecting him had the biggest financial impact on our club. Was it a good business decision? Of course. Was it an incredibly lucky decision? Hell yes.

Even good business decisions come down to complete luck. Spurs' 7 signings this Summer could have all turned out to be great player's, Soldado could have scored 30 Premier League goals and Spurs could have won the League. It would be a 1 in a million occurrence, but so was having Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, Neville bros, Butt all coming through our academy at the same time and becoming a staple spine to our team for decades.

The fact is that you can't just say to a club like City "make good business decisions and you'll steadily progress", because if it were that easy every club would be a financial powerhouse. How easy would it have been 20 years ago for City to find the best manager ever to have lived, have a group of player's come through their academy that are worth a total of in today's market around £200m and climb up the League table until they are a force? Impossible is the answer.

The only way for a club like City to grow is for significant investment. The billion pounds that Mansour and Abramovich have spent is their lottery win, ours was Fergie and the class of '92.

I think it's unfair to say us appointing Fergie was our lottery win.
Of course every business decision comes with an element of risk/luck.
The difference is, we made our luck when we decided to appoint Fergie, when we decided to keep hold of him at a turbulent stage.

A club that does make good business decisions will steadily grow. It's not as easy as it sounds, of course not, but that's how things grow, with that element of risk/Luck.

 

[RedRover]

Why shouldn't a team like United or Bayern which have operated in the right way to become profitable over a number of years have such a benefit rewarded?

The argument that City's investment will line the pockets of smaller clubs is only correct to an extent. City buy good players from big teams now. Furthermore, the new found ever presence of Chelsea and Man City in the top 4 as a result of plastic ownership has meant clubs like United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham won't all be able to get in the top four. Despite running a club in an ethical way. So if anything, saying City increase the chances of a smaller club making top four by breaking up the monotony of the top clubs is flawed. If anything, the two plastics have halved the places on offer every year.

All it would take is for two more plastic owners to come along and buy Swansea and Newcastle for example. Then the likes of Southampton and Tottenham have no hopes of top four. FFP doesn't prevent competition in football, it stops competitivity becoming a matter of how many oil drums your Arab owner sold this week.

Firstly, I was (in respect of the post I replied to) referring to why fans of other clubs are not likely to be up in arms about clubs spending millions of pounds. They reality is that they would love that to be their club. I've heard people on here suggest that it wouldnt be the case but in the same way that our fans will be thrilled if we "buy" ourselves the title next year with an influx of expensive talent, a lot of fans of the smaller clubs would sell their right arm for a bit of success.

I work with loads of Newcastle fans who dream of a billionaire buying their club and turning them into title contenders. Easy for fans of succesful clubs tot ake the moral highground. A lot of fans of other clubs loath United as much as, and probably more than other teams. They see City as something they could become - i.e. succesful.

United and Bayern and whomever else may very well have "earned" their place at the top but that doesn't mean they are immune from challenges. The game as it is now isnt conducive to clubs "gradually building" because they are regularly robbed of talent by richer sides, so in that regard these other clubs have little choice if they are serious about being competative with the elite. That is the reality - rather than clubs who are already there saying "that's not an ethical way to do it".

United and other traditional "big clubs" were happy to take the huge income and commercial success that the PL has brought to them and were at the forefront of making the game what it is today - it was hardly surprising when others wanted to get involved. The club also enjoy the increased revenue and commercial success that comes from being in a high profile league that these other clubs contribute a huge amount to - not least because they often bring in big name players from around the world.

Any argument about competativeness of the league also falls flat for me - because these sides are not coming in and dominating every competition. The league itself is arguably more competative now than at any time before these clubs were "rich", with at least 5 sides capable of mounting a challenge next year - rather than the usual two horse race, usually involving United and another club that we had in the past.

As I've said above, this "moral line" that United fans believe to exist is arbitrary to me. There is no moral line in football and United fans are using it simply to argue akin to a child that "its not fair that they have x and y and we don't". It just sounds like sour grapes to me.

 

[PedroMendez]

Almost all small clubs support FFP. How do you explain that?
you just ignore all arguments for FFP and simplify the discussion to "you are just all sour grapes, who are scared of competition". Nonsense.

 

[finneh]

So you think it should be allowed, or just that you can't blame City for being happy about it?

I don't just think that significant investment should be allowed by the likes of Mansour and Abramovich, I think it should be hugely encouraged. Nowadays it is the only legitimate way of bridging the gap between a normal club and the rich. The Premier League for these last 8-9 years would be like the Scottish League without Rangers, if not for City/Chelsea. United would have twice the spending power of any of their rivals, especially since Arsenal have been bogged down with stadium financing these last 7~ years.

What utter shite. We didn't win Fergie in a lottery - we chose him because we believed he could be a great manager for this club. We stuck by him through some difficult early years because, again, we knew he had the potential to be something really special at this club.

And we didn't just stumble across the class of '92, either. We found them, trained them, made them the great players they are, and gambled on bringing them into the first team early and en masse. We reaped the rewards of our own actions and decisions.

If you consider Fergie and the '92 boys a 'lottery win' then all football is a lottery and no-one can ever be considered to have earned anything.

C'mon that's nonsense. The Class of 92 was an indirect result of a complete overhaul of scouting in Manchester area and the youth department of Man Utd by Fergie. It does a great disservice to Fergie to call it a lottery.

We believed he would be a great manager for the club. We believed Moyes would be a great manager for the club. We now believe LVG will be a great manager for the club. He initially did something to give us faith in him, which is why we stuck with him. He ended up being a once in a lifetime manager. Out of the hundreds of managers selected for big English teams in the last 25 years, Fergie was by an absolute country mile the best. We've now proven with Moyes it isn't because of some miraculous selection process that other cubs aren't privy to. We gambled on a manager and it was the one in a million that we got the best one of them all, a complete fluke. Last season we gambled and got a dud, as has happened on numerous occasions for most other clubs over the last 25 years.

Since the class of '92 we've found and trained many player's and brought them to the first team early, exactly as we did with Giggs, Scholes, GNev and Beckham. The result? A fair few decent squad player's and a few million each year in the bank when others are sold. If we weren't lucky with Beckham, Scholes, Giggs and Gary Neville (as well as others) in '92, where are the 4 World Class home grown player's in our current first XI? Since '92 we've had a grand total of 0 homegrown World Class (or even very, very good) player's graduate from our academy, but it isn't luck that 4 emerged together? I guess we differ on the definition of luck: if each season there is a conservative 1/8 chance of a great player graduating, statistics would suggest that 4 coming around in a single season is what? Like 4000 to 1?

 

[Brightonian]

We believed he would be a great manager for the club. We believed Moyes would be a great manager for the club.

Yes, and we fired Moyes after a difficult (well, disastrous) first season, but kept Fergie through a couple of difficult seasons. Again, good decisions not luck.

I guess we differ on the definition of luck: if each season there is a conservative 1/8 chance of a great player graduating, statistics would suggest that 4 coming around in a single season is what? Like 4000 to 1?

You think the chances of a Beckham or Scholes graduating to the first team were 1/8? Even nowadays players of such ridiculous quality would have a much better chance than that, and back then it was considerably easier to make the transition. Yes, we don't produce four first team players every year, because not every player is going to start to show the ability of a Paul Scholes. But the class of '92 simply could not have happened to a team with a worse academy, worse youth scouting or a manager who wasn't willing to take such a big risk.

Again, if you call Fergie and the class of '92 'winning a lottery', then I fail to see how anything in football (or life!) is not just luck. It's absurd.

 

[finneh]

I think it's unfair to say us appointing Fergie was our lottery win.
Of course every business decision comes with an element of risk/luck.
The difference is, we made our luck when we decided to appoint Fergie, when we decided to keep hold of him at a turbulent stage.

A club that does make good business decisions will steadily grow. It's not as easy as it sounds, of course not, but that's how things grow, with that element of risk/Luck.

A club that makes good business decisions may steadily grow. A good business decision in theory can turn incredibly sour and put a club back years. Likewise a great academy can merely have their talent pillaged by bigger clubs, which can again set them back years. We moan about City/Chelsea taking Everton's potential CL space, but what about us plucking their best player from them in Wayne Rooney? It's no different than if City bought Ross Barkley this Summer.

 

[bishblaize]

I don't just think that significant investment should be allowed by the likes of Mansour and Abramovich, I think it should be hugely encouraged.

No point repeating myself, I made this point earlier about the number of people around that could afford to do what City did.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/man...r-play-sanctions.388686/page-27#post-15677991

If there were enough to go round that would be one thing. There aren't.

 

[finneh]

Yes, and we fired Moyes after a difficult (well, disastrous) first season, but kept Fergie through a couple of difficult seasons. Again, good decisions not luck.

There is an inherent gamble in every selection. History shows us that almost every single manager can't take a club forward for 25 years (Fergie being the only one thus far shows that the odds are minute). We happened to select the one in a million, that's luck. We could quite easily spend the next 20 years trying in vein to find his replacement and going through a different manager every 2-3 years. That would be what normal clubs who haven't been lucky enough to chose the greatest ever have had to go through.

 

[bleedred]

I don't just think that significant investment should be allowed by the likes of Mansour and Abramovich, I think it should be hugely encouraged. Nowadays it is the only legitimate way of bridging the gap between a normal club and the rich. The Premier League for these last 8-9 years would be like the Scottish League without Rangers, if not for City/Chelsea. United would have twice the spending power of any of their rivals, especially since Arsenal have been bogged down with stadium financing these last 7~ years.

That's a stupid hypothetical argument that I have been countering all along in this thread. United's dominance was not because of the spending power , but because of SAF. If not for SAF, the league would indeed have been like Scottish league between City and Chelsea over the past few years and may still be so in the next few years, unless FFP or any other restriction comes to place. Even with similar spending power now, United will not have the dominance of the past, not because of the emergence of City/Chelsea, but just because SAF was great and no other can replicate it for years.

If SAF had retired in 2002 and Chelsea or City didn't emerge, It would have been more interesting with tough fight between chelsea, United, Liverpool, Arsenal and others. But now without SAF and no FFP, It will be only between City and Chelsea over the next few years,.

 

[bleedred]

There is an inherent gamble in every selection. History shows us that almost every single manager can't take a club forward for 25 years (Fergie being the only one thus far shows that the odds are minute). We happened to select the one in a million, that's luck. We could quite easily spend the next 20 years trying in vein to find his replacement and going through a different manager every 2-3 years. That would be what normal clubs who haven't been lucky enough to chose the greatest ever have had to go through.

So, Like @Brightonian had said previously, nothing in sports is earned then?. What a stupid thing to say that it was all down to luck.

 

[finneh]

No point repeating myself, I made this point earlier about the number of people around that could afford to do what City did.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/man...r-play-sanctions.388686/page-27#post-15677991

If there were enough to go round that would be one thing. There aren't.

There doesn't have to be enough Multi-billionaires. If Everton were taken over and spent £350m over the next 10 years they'd have a decent chance at doing exactly what Liverpool have done this season, getting into the CHampions League and having a run at the title. Likewise if Aston Villa were taken over and the new owner committed £200m over a 10 year period, they'd have a great chance at being up with Spurs. Who knows they'd have a good shot at European Football and maybe a few trophies (FA Cup, League Cup, Europa League).

Not every owner has to spend £1b in order to guarantee success. A passionate owner could spend 10-25% of this and provide a real boost for a club to enjoy the best period of their history. As we are seeing with Chelsea, the investment becomes self sustaining sooner than you'd think.

 

[Brightonian]

There is an inherent gamble in every selection. History shows us that almost every single manager can't take a club forward for 25 years (Fergie being the only one thus far shows that the odds are minute). We happened to select the one in a million, that's luck. We could quite easily spend the next 20 years trying in vein to find his replacement and going through a different manager every 2-3 years. That would be what normal clubs who haven't been lucky enough to chose the greatest ever have had to go through.

No, we got some luck, but a lot of it was down to judgement - the people making the decisions behind the scenes could see that whilst things weren't yet going well for the first team, Fergie was putting the foundations for success in place, and was showing signs of the potential to be an excellent manager.

You called it a 'lottery'. A lottery is pure chance. I've yet to hear a single argument from you that even vaguely supports a statement like that.

 

[Sir A1ex]

As I said in another thread earlier, FFP shouldn't be about stopping any major investment into clubs, and blocking all mobility. It may not be as "sportingly satisfying" (for want of a better phrase) for a club to just get lucky and find themselves able to compete at the top, but luck is a part of sport, always has been.

FFP should be there to cap the excesses. Clubs suddenly becoming substantially richer than anybody else in their league isn't good for anybody, and not only horribly skews and reduces the competition, but leads to ridiculous inflation across the board, putting pressure on smaller clubs, and leaving fans out of pocket.

Sol I've actually come round to the idea of a relatviely "softly softly" implementation of FFP, as long as it is consistent and enduring. I used to call for City to be chucked out of the CL etc (would still be funny, mind), but that is neither realistic nor particularly fair. If they can just be reigned in so that their income has some bearing on their wealth and they can't just wreck the whole thing by buying whoever they want, then the whole picture is a lot more healthy.

 

[bleedred]

There doesn't have to be enough Multi-billionaires. If Everton were taken over and spent £350m over the next 10 years they'd have a decent chance at doing exactly what Liverpool have done this season, getting into the CHampions League and having a run at the title. Likewise if Aston Villa were taken over and the new owner committed £200m over a 10 year period, they'd have a great chance at being up with Spurs. Who knows they'd have a good shot at European Football and maybe a few trophies (FA Cup, League Cup, Europa League).

Not every owner has to spend £1b in order to guarantee success. A passionate owner could spend 10-25% of this and provide a real boost for a club to enjoy the best period of their history. As we are seeing with Chelsea, the investment becomes self sustaining sooner than you'd think.

This idea you seem to suggest, is what is not fair in football. Let every club be taken over by rich people and eventually the result would be based on the bank balance rather than what happens on the field. I though the rich had the Forbes list to satisfy their ego, not everyone needs a football club to do that.

Even in the scenario you are mentioning, how many people are there in the world that are capable of guaranteeing that kind of investment and how many will realistically do that?.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

A club that makes good business decisions may steadily grow. A good business decision in theory can turn incredibly sour and put a club back years. Likewise a great academy can merely have their talent pillaged by bigger clubs, which can again set them back years. We moan about City/Chelsea taking Everton's potential CL space, but what about us plucking their best player from them in Wayne Rooney? It's no different than if City bought Ross Barkley this Summer.

To be honest, that is a terrible thing to bring up.

Everton getting 27m or whatever it was for Rooney was a great deal for them. As would Southampton getting 30m for Shaw.
These players cost their clubs very little, if not nothing.

Of course that is them losing their best players, but clubs like that have gaps that need filling. Taking 30m for one player, and using that 30m to sign 4/5 players and making the team stronger is better for them.
You could also argue that Southampting selling Walcott, Bale and Ox was clubs stealing their players...True, but that money was re-invested and got them back into top flight football.

A club lives and dies by it's decisions.

Us for example. This season, we need a big overhaul. We are going to have, probably our biggest summer ever. Imagine if we spend 150m on 5 players and they don't work out. That would knock a club like us back.
We are a big club, but nobody can just recover from that.

This is how teams come and go. It happened to Liverpool. It could happen to us. That is how power should change hands

 

[finneh]

This idea you seem to suggest, is what is not fair in football. Let everyclub be taken over by rich people and eventually the result would be based on the bank balance rather than what happens on the field. I though the rich had the Forbes list to satisfy their ego, not everyone needs a football club to do that.

Football isn't fair regardless. Money is king and those who have it win, those who don't, don't.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

There doesn't have to be enough Multi-billionaires. If Everton were taken over and spent £350m over the next 10 years they'd have a decent chance at doing exactly what Liverpool have done this season, getting into the CHampions League and having a run at the title.

If lets say Mansour never took over City. Lets say everything played out exactly how it did, apart from City.
In the last 5 years, Everton would have made the Europa 3 times and the CL once. They wouldn't have had to spend that 350m

 

[bishblaize]

There doesn't have to be enough Multi-billionaires. If Everton were taken over and spent £350m over the next 10 years they'd have a decent chance at doing exactly what Liverpool have done this season, getting into the CHampions League and having a run at the title. Likewise if Aston Villa were taken over and the new owner committed £200m over a 10 year period, they'd have a great chance at being up with Spurs. Who knows they'd have a good shot at European Football and maybe a few trophies (FA Cup, League Cup, Europa League).

Not every owner has to spend £1b in order to guarantee success. A passionate owner could spend 10-25% of this and provide a real boost for a club to enjoy the best period of their history. As we are seeing with Chelsea, the investment becomes self sustaining sooner than you'd think.

£350M over 10 years, or £35M per year. That's enough for two players priced at £15M and the wages to pay them. You honestly think that's enough to buy success?

 

[finneh]

To be honest, that is a terrible thing to bring up.

Everton getting 27m or whatever it was for Rooney was a great deal for them. As would Southampton getting 30m for Shaw.
These players cost their clubs very little, if not nothing.

Of course that is them losing their best players, but clubs like that have gaps that need filling. Taking 30m for one player, and using that 30m to sign 4/5 players and making the team stronger is better for them.
You could also argue that Southampting selling Walcott, Bale and Ox was clubs stealing their players...True, but that money was re-invested and got them back into top flight football.

A club lives and dies by it's decisions.

Us for example. This season, we need a big overhaul. We are going to have, probably our biggest summer ever. Imagine if we spend 150m on 5 players and they don't work out. That would knock a club like us back.
We are a big club, but nobody can just recover from that.

This is how teams come and go. It happened to Liverpool. It could happen to us. That is how power should change hands

So'ton went into administration and were bailed out by a billionaire owner who plowed millions into them to get them back to the Premier League.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

So'ton went into administration and were bailed out by a billionaire owner who plowed millions into them to get them back to the Premier League.

I knew the Southampton thing would come back to bite me I knew something happened, I just couldn't remember what.

The point still stands though with Rooney and Shaw. Clubs getting decent fees for this should always help them in the long run