Financial Fair Play

opr

The Swiss Ramble did an excellent piece on FFP last week.

http://swissramble.blogspot.ie/2012/09/uefas-ffp-regulations-play-to-win.html

Opr

Beefy78

28064212 wrote: »

The difference would have been that Chelsea and City would have had to build slowly and sustainably instead of splurging €100million+ in a single summer on massive contracts that will cripple the club if the sugar-daddies pull out.

Alternatively, clubs like Leeds, Portsmouth and Rangers would not have suffered the financial implosions that they did if they had reasonable guidelines to meet

There's not a single example in either England or Spain of a club able to build slowly and sustainably to the point where they can compete with the very top clubs in those divisions. That's because the big clubs have rigged the rules of the game massively in their favour.

In the era of the Champions League and the mindboggling amounts of cash which accompany it the only way that the elite clubs have left which would allow another club to crash the party is to get bankrolled to it. FFP is designed to shut that door.

greendom

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

So you think FFP is to protect clubs like Leeds, Portsmouth and Rangers from making bad decisions?

Somehow I don't think Platini gives a rats ass about those clubs

That is 100% why Platini wants to enforce these rules. He doesn't want temporary owners to permenantly ruin football clubs

Liam O

Beefy78 wrote: »

There's not a single example in either England or Spain of a club able to build slowly and sustainably to the point where they can compete with the very top clubs in those divisions. That's because the big clubs have rigged the rules of the game massively in their favour.

In the era of the Champions League and the mindboggling amounts of cash which accompany it the only way that the elite clubs have left which would allow another club to crash the party is to get bankrolled to it. FFP is designed to shut that door.

The clubs can still be bankrolled by these types, it just ensures that if/when the money flow stops the club aren't saddled with a £100m+ wage bill and no way of sustaining it. Teams will have to improve their stadiums and other non footballing elements as they improve their teams making the model more sustainable.

Beefy78

They can be bankrolled but not to the extent where it's going to do them any good. So therefore what is the point? If UEFA were genuinely concerned with the situation they'd merely do as the Football League have started to do and insist on funds for future wages being ringfenced.

The whole point is moot because UEFA know full well that the second they try to take action against a club with any real financial muscle they'll be bitch-slapped into a long and expensive legal battle. And the clubs know this as well, hence Zenit sticking two fingers up at UEFA last week.

I support a club who have been financially mismanaged to the stage where we're on the brink of going bust. I'm 100% for systems and procedures to be put in place to punish clubs who spend money they haven't got. But the way to do that is not to stop people from putting money into top football clubs to then trickle down to the rest and certainly isn't to make the top leagues even less competitive than they currently are.

If you take FFP at face value then it is the worst thing to happen to football since the expansion of the Champions League killed top flight football in several countries.

Pepe LeFrits

Beefy78 wrote: »

There's not a single example in either England or Spain of a club able to build slowly and sustainably to the point where they can compete with the very top clubs in those divisions. That's because the big clubs have rigged the rules of the game massively in their favour.

In the era of the Champions League and the mindboggling amounts of cash which accompany it the only way that the elite clubs have left which would allow another club to crash the party is to get bankrolled to it. FFP is designed to shut that door.

Arsenal were competing until Abramovich came along and perhaps other teams in Italy like Roma and Lazio might have developed more if they didn't have the likes of Moratti and Berlusconi to deal with.

Richard Hillman

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Arsenal were competing until Abramovich came along and perhaps other teams in Italy like Roma and Lazio might have developed more if they didn't have the likes of Moratti and Berlusconi to deal with.

Arsenal were competing until they became a club more interested in making money than winning at football

Also Lazio would have failed at financial "fair" play. Im sure Roma were the same.

Roger Sterling

Didn't Lazio spend eye watering money in the Sven era? A mad fee for Mendieta springs immediately to mind.

wonderfullife

Roger Sterling wrote: »

Didn't Lazio spend eye watering money in the Sven era? A mad fee for Mendieta springs immediately to mind.

48 million yo-yos (euros) but i think that was pretty much the Veron money they used for that!! both kinda sucked thereafter.

Roger Sterling

wonderfullife wrote: »

Roger Sterling wrote: »

Didn't Lazio spend eye watering money in the Sven era? A mad fee for Mendieta springs immediately to mind.

48 million yo-yos (euros) but i thjink that was pretty much the Veron money they used for that!! both kinda sucked thereafter.

They went on a mad spree that Summer AFAIR though,Crespo and others came in too to the best of my recollection.

Richard Hillman

wonderfullife wrote: »

48 million yo-yos (euros) but i think that was pretty much the Veron money they used for that!! both kinda sucked thereafter.

Maybe but then there were the likes of Crespo, Vieri, Salas and many more before that

Pepe LeFrits

Lazio bad example. Maybe Dortmund is a better one. Shouldn't Bayern be winning the league every year?

Unless FFP makes a difference it's getting to the stage where clubs would be better off spending their scouting budgets on potential bored billionaires rather than players.

Dickerty

Ok, I'd like to raise this bad-boy again. As a Pool fan, I am enjoying a second summer of removing higher paid, experienced players in return for cheaper versions. Although I think the squad is better now, it is being done to make it a more sustainable business model, and with an eye on FFP.

Clubs like ourselves, Spurs, Arsenal and United are running a reasonably sustainable business. Losses some years, profits in others, but trying to balance income with expenditure. Then you have City and, to a lesser extent, Chelsea who have rich owners that write off losses as they invest huge sums in players. Chelsea have turned a corner in this regard, due to a slow down in big money buys while maintaining PL and CL challenges.

But City, and PSG, and Monaco are just disregarding the rules, spending hundreds of millions to try and leap-frog their competitors, and it seems like FFP is not about to fix it.

So what was the point, Michel? Are the Russian and Persian $ flowing into UEFA too tasty to ignore?

Pepe LeFrits

City have been roughly cost neutral this summer it seems; their spending has been balanced by getting massive earners off their books.

PSG and Monaco do seem to be ignoring it completely though; either they reckon it won't effect them, or they figure that they can raise their profile now and take whatever 'bad medicine' the panel dish out and adjust later.

Also, the Premier League published their own new financial rules yesterday I believe; haven't really had a chance to read them though.

IRISHSPORTSGUY

Dickerty wrote: »

Ok, I'd like to raise this bad-boy again. As a Pool fan, I am enjoying a second summer of removing higher paid, experienced players in return for cheaper versions. Although I think the squad is better now, it is being done to make it a more sustainable business model, and with an eye on FFP.

Clubs like ourselves, Spurs, Arsenal and United are running a reasonably sustainable business. Losses some years, profits in others, but trying to balance income with expenditure. Then you have City and, to a lesser extent, Chelsea who have rich owners that write off losses as they invest huge sums in players. Chelsea have turned a corner in this regard, due to a slow down in big money buys while maintaining PL and CL challenges.

But City, and PSG, and Monaco are just disregarding the rules, spending hundreds of millions to try and leap-frog their competitors, and it seems like FFP is not about to fix it.

So what was the point, Michel? Are the Russian and Persian $ flowing into UEFA too tasty to ignore?

You read too much British biased media.

Beefy78

Dickerty wrote: »

But City, and PSG, and Monaco are just disregarding the rules, spending hundreds of millions to try and leap-frog their competitors, and it seems like FFP is not about to fix it.

Why should it? Don't City's owners invest every penny as capital? This isn't debt that the Club is being saddled with (granted I'm not sure how they'd sustain the wage bill if the Sheik's walk away) so why on Earth should they be discouraged from injecting money into the industry?

City, PSG, Monaco and others need to throw huge sums of money at trying to win things because the established clubs have rigged the game so that no one else can win without doing so.

FFP is all about protecting the clubs at the top. It's a sham and is never going to be legally enforceable.