The Great Big FFP Debate

[Reuben klang]

And given the spending by City before the takeover they were given it, not generated it. I hope they're found guilty of every charge levied by the Premier League, have all 6 titles rescinded, are relegated to the National League North and are fined £100 trillion pounds. Cheats never prosper they say. If City are allowed to then the whole premise of financial fair play and a semi even playing field is not just out of the window, it's been launched through the window via trebuchet.

I get where you’re coming from but the FFP rules are a load of ********, they should be to stop clubs going bust not stopping wealthy owners putting money in to keep the old money on top.

Like Newcastle, they clearly have the money and are willing to spend it. They should be allowed to spend what ever they want as long as the money isn’t laden on the club like what the glazers are doing.

City are just ran supremely well right across the club from top to bottom. Look at PSG, you can make an arse of spending money.

Same with Man Utd they’ve wasted all their money over this last decade from over paying right at the start for Fellini when he had a buy out clause to paying huge wages on loan players like Falcao or players who just aren’t cut out for the league like AdM. Even under ETH they spent £70m on Anthony and left themself no more room left on the company credit card to get a CF.

Terrible management/ownership is Uniteds issue.

 

[Reuben klang]

It is pointless though, City will just pay for lawyers to find loopholes.

 

[Reuben klang]

Once Lance Armstrong was found out to be cheating no one looks at him at all. Even if City do get to keep their trophies everyone will know it is all fake.

They still won it on the pitch though, they have a great team and make the rest of the league look poor. Completely clutching at straws thinking all their titles are fake or will be deemed as fake.

Armstrong or Juve cheating is a completely different level of a cheating. Knowing the ball hits you and goes out but claiming it is cheating as well. Theres different levels of cheating. Spending a bit of money because your owner is wealthy is probably the lowest form of cheating you can get and shouldn’t even be in place!

Wealthy owners have always been part of the game since it became professional game. Right back to when Fergus Suter signed for Blackburn.

Just the goalposts have changed now where local business owners, just simply don’t have enough money - Sir Jim aside!

 

[Reuben klang]

yea because of money.... which they probably only had from breaking FFP.... god knows how many times.

Won on the pitch, more like won at the bank

Always been the case though realistically. Players follow the money.

 

[Reuben klang]

yea so they bought their trophies, due to cheating the system.
assuming they get penalised, even if they don't everyone will thank that anyway.

half the teams in the league probably have the wage expenditure of 4-5 man city players

FFP is crap though... It's like F1 all over again with the big teams at the top wanting rules which stop anyone else getting to the top to maintain the status quo

if your club can afford it without risking bankruptcy they should be able to do what they want.

Totally agree, no arguments from me!

It’s the same as these little sly moves these knobs in charge of the big clubs do with the super league. They’ve effectively got their own way with this nonsense new champions league structure.

 

[Reuben klang]

FFP is just to stop PSG and now Newcastle. The old money doesn’t want the new money as it’s spoiling the party. Look at the state of Barca with them having to do all that to compete but at the end it’s all down to just being ran extremely poor.

The league is better for the investment thats in it. I don’t think a wage cap would work because there are so many other ways to pay players, could end up doing side sponsorship deals etc

Anyway, goes back to OP - Should be to protect clubs, if you want to spend the money has to be put into the club and paid out. There and then. No loans, no gambling on future ticket sales etc

If City want to spend £200m on a player, so be it. They want to spend £1bn in a window, so be it as long as that money is there and isn’t issue in the form of loans.

 

[Reuben klang]

How anyone can think it would be good for the league to have pretty much no financial regulations at all is anyone’s guess.

I’m not surprised arknor, the Newcastle fan who’s only started posting in this section regularly after his team have been sportswashed, thinks it’s a good idea.

There would be, it would be to stop people gambling with futures of clubs. Having super wealthy owners who clearly have the money. If they want to spend it they should be allowed to.

Still got to spend it well, look at Utd, Chelsea and PSG in recent years. A couple of years back Barca wasted £450m on 3 players.

 

[Reuben klang]

Out of interest, what happens when a super wealthy owner no longer can or decides he no longer wants to keep funding massive losses?

>>

if you want to spend the money has to be put into the club and paid out. There and then. No loans, no gambling on future ticket sales etc

Long term contracts have been capped at 5 years i’m sure which is the only sticking point but i’m sure there would be a way that has to have that secured liked wise with the signings being paid over a few years.

Sigh play X for £100m on 4 years for 20m p/y the £200m has to be put into an account. It sounds ridiculous but it’s the only way I can see clubs being protected from owners taking massive gambles to try and get the premier league pay day.

 

[Reuben klang]

Clubs shouldn't be allowed to have 100% ownership. Germany's rule of 50+1 is by far the best. Clubs are more than a play thing. They are whole communities to some people.

Sponsorship needs to be looked at too as it is far too shady for some clubs.

In too deep though, you can’t force someone to sell a company if they don’t want too.

Similarly lets say it is past, how would united fans find this 51% of the market value which would have to be at the same price Sir Jim is paying for 25%.

 

[Reuben klang]

People need to understand the process these things go through because these "what about City" shouts are getting tedious. The PL have done their part in regards to the City situation - they've been charged. That is all the PL can do. It's now down to the independent commission (this is not the PL) to gather all the documentation and exchange of evidence from both sides relating to 115 separate charges before a hearing can be heard. This is not a straight forward, single charge of x has spent too much where gathering all the evidence can be done in a few months. City's charges are far more complex, relating to false accounting and there will be quite literally hundreds of thousands of documents to go through - it's going to take ages to do this, not least because City are slowing down the process at every stage.

Again so it's crystal clear, the PL have done absolutely everything they can do and the rest is now out of their hands. They, like you and me, are now waiting for the independent commission to gather all the evidence ready for a hearing.

Also, more importantly Citys lawyers are the best that you can possibly get and they’ll have them tied up in all sorts of loops. Nothing will come of the charges and if they do they’ll be appealed to the death and they’ll find a loop to get out of it. Just like they did with the UEFA one.

It’s the world we live in, money talks.

 

[Reuben klang]

So it’s now Villa(who’s owners have plenty of money BTW) will now likely have to sell their big players to the Sly6 to comply with FFP(remind me again what part of it is fair), just because they wanted to try and grow their club and compete, FFP completely designed to keep the top6 status quo and not let anyone else join the party.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1764754356820226417

I actually agree with this view.

Although it’s kind of back firing in the McDonalds league, Bein sport might have to pay well over the odds for TV rights so that PSG and others in the league can comply with FFP.

Mental.

 

[Reuben klang]

There will always been back doors, sell a box at auction? Romp the price up and have some random buy it.

Oh sir, this bottle of tap water costs £40,000.

As ridiculous as that sounds, theres ways and means to get revenue up. Could easily get a few million more per match day. They’ll have experts in the field working on loop holes right away.

 

[Reuben klang]

Does anyone else think points should be docked at either the start of the season or the end? With so many angles and teams involved it could and probably will have opened so many cans of worms for everyone!

 

[Reuben klang]

What benefit would there be to issuing penalties at the end of the season? It still leaves you in the exact same situation as you are now with nobody knowing where they stand until the final call on the penalties are made.

There's some merit to doing it at the start of a season but it's incredibly difficult to see how that's possible. If you issued them at the start of next season then you'd be dishing out punishments based on charges from 2 seasons prior (remember these charges already relate to last season) and there just isn't the time to file accounts, determine a breach, charge, hear the charge & subsequent appeal between the end of June (when a lot of clubs accounting period ends) and mid August when the season starts.

A) Based on what came out in the Everton appeal, it would have to be a bonkers size breach for any penalty to be above 9 points. 9 points is the penalty for a side going into administration so have a penalty greater than that would need a monster breach. B) Any change in the rules won't be backdated. These rules will apply until the new ones begin and clubs will still face charges for breaching these rules. E.g. if the rules change in the summer but Chelsea breach the old rules for the 3 years to the end of this season, Chelsea will still be charged next January based on the old rules. C) Although we don't know the exact details of the new rules yet (there's a few variations being reported), they're likely to be very similar to UEFA's and on the basis of them using UEFA's but with 85% for non European sides, as of the last set of published accounts, Chelsea would have breached the new rules by more than any other side.


*Chelsea are also under investigation relating to allegations that they 'done a City' with some hidden expenses etc under their previous ownership. This charge, if made and proven guilty, is likely to result in a greater punishment than a simple breach of spending rules.

True, the entire thing is just a disaster zone.

 

[Reuben klang]

They’re also on for conceding 100 goals as well.

Even that Derby team didn’t achieve that and they’ll likely beat their -69 goal difference.

According to transfermarket they sold 30.9 and spent 66.95, terrible season for them all round. Even with teams being docked points they’ve still had no chance of staying up. That’s really bad, anything but smart in foresight or hindsight. They’re awful and will be looking forward to the championship where they might win a game or two.

 

[Reuben klang]

WTF is going on in this thread, round and round in circles.

—

Anyway, reading a couple of articles on the athletic they’re saying that Newcastle and Villa maybe forced to sell some of their better (best) players to stay within PSR. Now, for me. This is where it’s going to get stupid and annoying. It’ll only further grow the gap between clubs and potentially set them both back a couple of years. Villa have a really good chance to get into the CL this year - if the league gets the fifth spot as well, it’s even more certain!

 

[Reuben klang]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1783180293253312708

Now this would be a good idea!

 

[Reuben klang]

Ah, see my edit. This rule is not being proposed in isolation. It's to go alongside the 70% squad cost rule. Newcastle, Villa and Forest won't be able to spend a penny more. It just limits what City (for example) could spend if their revenue ever got so high that 70% was more than 5x Sheffield Utd's tv money.

Sigh, I got excited before reading this. Waste of time then.

 

[Reuben klang]

Bloody stupid they have to resort to this type of thing in order to say within the spending limits.

 

[Reuben klang]

The thing is all sorts of "clever" stuff goes on with football clubs. Financial fair play is always going to be near impossible to police for the biggest clubs. This sort of thing isn't even new. Real Madrid as an example have on several occasions sold off chunks of land to the Spanish government at well over the market rate.

With the sums of money now involved it is actually harder for the smaller clubs to game the system. FFP rules simply act to prevent new entrants into what is essentially a cartel.

I’ve been saying that since day dot.

Or does it stop clubs ending up like Everton who are in a mess.

It hasn't stopped Everton being a mess though has it?

The only clubs being penalised are the "smaller" clubs like Everton and Forest. Man City have managed to avoid any penalties simply because of the complexity of what they do.

Doesn’t help that the PL boss comes out and calls them smaller clubs as well!

Everton have just been run really bad, mix in the shambles with 777 it’s just asking to be a nightmare. Feel for their fans. It should certainly be in place to stop anyone/entity with a history like them being involved in the running of a community asset!