City & FFP | 2020/21 Accounts released | Revenues of £569.8m, £2.4m profit (p 2395)

[KS55]

It was fine. We were fine. It was eventually sorted out. All clubs eventually agreed. Or were forced to agree. Some clubs were fined. Some of that fine money went straight to the richest football clubs in Europe. Then the big Italian clubs who needed money and had Chinese owners in place went to UEFA and pleaded, begged and cried to UEFA to change and relax the FFP rules. UEFA agreed. FFP died as UEFA created it.

TBF LFC did well via the Moores Family and Littlewoods for years. Just like Juventus and Fiat. And AC Milan and Berlusconi. We won't mention Real Madrid, Franco, the Spanish Government, the Madrid Council, or the Spanish Banks. We won't mention Barcelona, the Catalan Government, and the Catalan Banks. We won't mention United, the Glazers, Delaware and the Cayman Islands. Tax havens. We won't mention Bayern and their corrupt President Uli Hoeneß or the corrupt Franz Beckenbeur. We won't mention UEFA, their corrupt President Michel Platini, and their corrupt practices. We won't mention United, Liverpool and Arsenal stopping away money going to the away clubs. We won't mention United, Liverpool and Arsenal carving up the Sky Sports Football money for themselves when football began again in 1993. Would you like me to carry on?

Bravo!

 

[cadds92]

One situation I think could happen is that it will only take one of the traditionally big names to have an ageing squad and realise they have little or no resale value in their team and are going to need more than €100m to rebuild.

I still think the old FFP model came under serious question when UEFA realised how much badly the regulations were affecting the likes of Inter Milan and AC Milan.

 

[Andrew___K]

Perhaps I'm over simplifying things, but would we not benefit more than most from this? We're already one of the best teams in Europe and miles ahead in England. It would effectively make it more difficult for the teams below us to bridge the gap.

This won't happen anyway. Can't see any English team other than Arsenal agreeing to this. I'm struggling to understand why Real are pushing for this considering the rebuild they're going to need.

Madrid are stacked with youth and need only one summer to fix their attack and maybe add 1 CB. They're almost Bayern of La Liga and would hugely benefit from proposed rules.

Edit: essentially it's anti-PL set of rules, created to compensate for English clubs' financial advantage.

 

[aguero93:20]

It was fine. We were fine. It was eventually sorted out. All clubs eventually agreed. Or were forced to agree. Some clubs were fined. Some of that fine money went straight to the richest football clubs in Europe. Then the big Italian clubs who needed money and had Chinese owners in place went to UEFA and pleaded, begged and cried to UEFA to change and relax the FFP rules. UEFA agreed. FFP died as UEFA created it.

TBF LFC did well via the Moores Family and Littlewoods for years. Just like Juventus and Fiat. And AC Milan and Berlusconi. We won't mention Real Madrid, Franco, the Spanish Government, the Madrid Council, or the Spanish Banks. We won't mention Barcelona, the Catalan Government, and the Catalan Banks. We won't mention United, the Glazers, Delaware and the Cayman Islands. Tax havens. We won't mention Bayern and their corrupt President Uli Hoeneß or the corrupt Franz Beckenbeur. We won't mention UEFA, their corrupt President Michel Platini, and their corrupt practices. We won't mention United, Liverpool and Arsenal stopping away money going to the away clubs. We won't mention United, Liverpool and Arsenal carving up the Sky Sports Football money for themselves when football began again in 1993. Would you like me to carry on?

Don't mention a large part of Bayern's income coming from overvalued sponsorships from companies that are shareholders in the club either.

 

[Andrew___K]

@aguero93:20 There's a surprising lack of articles on the topic across the internet. Could this 'leak' to French newspapers be just a touchstone to test the reaction of audience? Such groundbreaking changes cannot be designed and implemented in less that 1 year. How long did it take to set up FFP 1.0, can't remember details?

 

[aguero93:20]

@aguero93:20 There's a surprising lack of articles on the topic across the internet. Could this 'leak' to French newspapers be just a touchstone to test the reaction of audience? Such groundbreaking changes cannot be designed and implemented in less that 1 year. How long did it take to set up FFP 1.0, can't remember details?

Yeah it's called kite flying. They'll leak it and see what the mood is like across the leagues. The article stated the UEFA board would begin to discuss it today so that piece will allow them to gauge reaction and adjust the policies accordingly. Could well be UEFA getting pressured to do something as ridiculous as the proposal that was leaked by a few major clubs and doing this all so they can point and say "look, no fucking chance, nobody else agrees with you so fuck off".

 

[aguero93:20]

@aguero93:20 There's a surprising lack of articles on the topic across the internet. Could this 'leak' to French newspapers be just a touchstone to test the reaction of audience? Such groundbreaking changes cannot be designed and implemented in less that 1 year. How long did it take to set up FFP 1.0, can't remember details?

FFP took about 3 years from memory but was a full piece of legislation, this would be adjustments to that legislation so could be done in a much shorter time period. However, nothing they bring in now can affect deals that predate it so presumably if it were to take place any contracts held by a club now couldn't be affected.

 

[moomba]

Why do Liverpool fans never mention the £50mill+ FSG gave Liverpool FC to clear it's debts?

Or the fact they were in breach of FFP rules the year we got fined, but got put on monitoring rather than a punishment because the didn't qualify for Europe.

 

[CC1]

Is this, perhaps, why rags have pushed all the boats out now for Sánchez? Knowing their expenditure might be curbed?

 

[Andrew___K]

Yeah it's called kite flying. They'll leak it and see what the mood is like across the leagues. The article stated the UEFA board would begin to discuss it today so that piece will allow them to gauge reaction and adjust the policies accordingly. Could well be UEFA getting pressured to do something as ridiculous as the proposal that was leaked by a few major clubs and doing this all so they can point and say "look, no fucking chance, nobody else agrees with you so fuck off".

Let's hope it's the latter.

 

[IH8MUFC]

But that would make for much more equality between clubs, which is the absolute last thing they want.

They could do all kinds of things to limit the advantage of the big clubs if they wanted to.

They don't want to, they just want to hit a few of them, who aren't welcome at the party.

I don't disagree with you at all.

Just look at the NFL for the way to structure a fair sporting competition. There's a salary cap and the team with the worst record gets pick the best young player for the following season.

Football is broken it's ridiculous that clubs such as; us, rags, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool can have better players on the bench than teams like; Huddersfield, Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Swansea and Watford can have in their starting 11.

Football isn't really much of a sport anymore. The games are getting worse with teams parking the bus as it's the only thing they can do due to the competitive disadvantage they have.

 

[Newman Noggs]

I don't disagree with you at all.

Just look at the NFL for the way to structure a fair sporting competition. There's a salary cap and the team with the worst record gets pick the best young player for the following season.

Football is broken it's ridiculous that clubs such as; us, rags, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool can have better players on the bench than teams like; Huddersfield, Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Swansea and Watford can have in their starting 11.

Football isn't really much of a sport anymore. The games are getting worse with teams parking the bus as it's the only thing they can do due to the competitive disadvantage they have.

But in the PL era has always been like this. The rags have won the Premier League title 13 times, Chelsea 5 and Arsenal 3. Blackburn managed to financially compete for a year and Leicester came from nowhere to win it 2 seasons ago. If anything, the latter showed that with the influx of growing tv money less fashionable clubs can actually compete now in a way they hadn't done for the previous 22 seasons. So why is competition so important now that it requires rule changes?

 

[Andrew___K]

I don't disagree with you at all.

Just look at the NFL for the way to structure a fair sporting competition. There's a salary cap and the team with the worst record gets pick the best young player for the following season.

Football is broken it's ridiculous that clubs such as; us, rags, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool can have better players on the bench than teams like; Huddersfield, Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Swansea and Watford can have in their starting 11.

Football isn't really much of a sport anymore. The games are getting worse with teams parking the bus as it's the only thing they can do due to the competitive disadvantage they have.

Agree that it's broken and needs to be fixed. I personally miss pre-Bosman era with restrictions on the number of foreign players, even though the quality of top-level football is undeniably better now. There were much more diversity at that time, 'moneybags' like Berlusconi's Milan still existed but couldn't hoover all the trophies every year.

NFL, NBA, NHL are closed leagues functioning in one country, in one economic environment. Citing them as an example doesn't make much sense - salary cap designed for England wouldn't work at all somewhere in Croatia. Draft systems are usable only in small closed leagues.

 

[aguero93:20]

But in the PL era has always been like this. The rags have won the Premier League title 13 times, Chelsea 5 and Arsenal 3. Blackburn managed to financially compete for a year and Leicester came from nowhere to win it 2 seasons ago. If anything, the latter showed that with the influx of growing tv money less fashionable clubs can actually compete now in a way they hadn't done for the previous 22 seasons. So why is competition so important now that it requires rule changes?

Because Barca and Real have just figured out that they can't afford to stockpile the best players in Europe anymore and Bayern don't like competition.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I don't disagree with you at all.

Just look at the NFL for the way to structure a fair sporting competition. There's a salary cap and the team with the worst record gets pick the best young player for the following season.

Football is broken it's ridiculous that clubs such as; us, rags, spurs, arsenal, chelsea and liverpool can have better players on the bench than teams like; Huddersfield, Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Swansea and Watford can have in their starting 11.

Football isn't really much of a sport anymore. The games are getting worse with teams parking the bus as it's the only thing they can do due to the competitive disadvantage they have.

That & the fact that 99% of football managers are complete frauds, with no real idea how to build a football team in the moder era, & no ambition other than staying in a job, so bang average managers become known as 'top' ones, for doing it a little bit better, for a while.

But re ffp, the kind of models you have mentioned, could have course have been brought in when ffp was first mooted.

Make it so that after 5 years or so, all the teams would be starting equal.

Then the likes of Manchester Utd, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich & of course, the wonderful Liverpool, all still have their wonderful history, & massiveness, so it's no problem for them to remain at the very top without spending all the money right ?

Exept they know, all this 'history' & 'special club' stuff, is fucking bullshit, & just a matter of circumstances coming together at the right time, which allowed said clubs to become financially better off. Without having a financial advantage over most clubs, none of them would even be able to guarantee staying in the top two divisions. That is the reason Blackpool & Preston North End, Wolves, Villa, Leeds, Forest, etc etc etc are not competing with them now: money, nothing else.

And the proof of how this can go wrong ? Manchester City, one of the biggest clubs in the history of football in this country, being in the 3rd division because of a spell of shit management. Would we have been there if we could spend Utd, Arsenal & Liverpool level money on players & managers ? Would we fuck! We just happened to be shit, at the wrong time, whilst they coined it in & sold their 'brands' worldwide on TV.

Clubs coming from big cities, had gained an inevitable advantage, prior to that, due to the potential for fans paying in, something else where we were 'historically' one of the biggest.

If all this stuff had been equalised 100 years ago, there might not even be a Liverpool or a Utd or a City in the top leagues nowardays, or even in existence.

Now, a select bunch of clubs who happened to be at the top during a select period, have taken over football & are constantly fixing it for themselves to stay there.

They have no 'right' to be there historically or otherwise.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Because Barca and Real have just figured out that they can't afford to stockpile the best players in Europe anymore and Bayern don't like competition.

And City look like becoming the top club in Europe.

 

[BedsBlue68]

On the other hand, Chelsea's (and City's) loan system would be destroyed if all proposals are implemented. It would favour only Bayern, Madrid and maybe Barca. Academies and youth development would become useless for top clubs like City (25-player squad rule, no players on loan).

Surely the Spanish model of having "B" teams in the league would be affected by this. Barca basically loan a team of players to Barca B. The fact they are the same legal entity might come in whereas we have professionals lent to Girona etc. In effect they are the same transactions of player movement? So is the B team an advantage which will allow Spanish teams to get around the 25 player squad rule?

 

[IH8MUFC]

But in the PL era has always been like this. The rags have won the Premier League title 13 times, Chelsea 5 and Arsenal 3. Blackburn managed to financially compete for a year and Leicester came from nowhere to win it 2 seasons ago. If anything, the latter showed that with the influx of growing tv money less fashionable clubs can actually compete now in a way they hadn't done for the previous 22 seasons. So why is competition so important now that it requires rule changes?

Well technically it's been like this longer if you include Liverpool in the 80's. Even so long gone are the days when a team can be promoted and realistically win the league like they were able to before.

 

[IH8MUFC]

Agree that it's broken and needs to be fixed. I personally miss pre-Bosman era with restrictions on the number of foreign players, even though the quality of top-level football is undeniably better now. There were much more diversity at that time, 'moneybags' like Berlusconi's Milan still existed but couldn't hoover all the trophies every year.

NFL, NBA, NHL are closed leagues functioning in one country, in one economic environment. Citing them as an example doesn't make much sense - salary cap designed for England wouldn't work at all somewhere in Croatia. Draft systems are usable only in small closed leagues.

A salary cap would work and it would make everything a lot fairer. The best players wanting the most money would need to be spread out across the league. Not all stock piled at the "big clubs".

 

[Barcon]

Agree that it's broken and needs to be fixed. I personally miss pre-Bosman era with restrictions on the number of foreign players, even though the quality of top-level football is undeniably better now. There were much more diversity at that time, 'moneybags' like Berlusconi's Milan still existed but couldn't hoover all the trophies every year.

NFL, NBA, NHL are closed leagues functioning in one country, in one economic environment. Citing them as an example doesn't make much sense - salary cap designed for England wouldn't work at all somewhere in Croatia. Draft systems are usable only in small closed leagues.

One out of three.