Relaxation of FFP rules due to Covid-19

https://www.gq.com.au/fitness/sport...mage-gallery/e101f7c4392bc23193f4944b88a379e5

You’re right there to an extent. A lot of teams have spent similar amounts in the period. But only two have a net figure of over a billion. The rest fall away pretty quickly in terms of numbers. And that’s why net spend is so important in transfer talk, it shows how well a squad is financially managed. Whether the debt is perfectly serviceable is irrelevant, the fact is that it’s better for business if your net spend is lower rather than higher. But as I’ve said on here before, it’s horses for courses, different clubs do different things. No necessary right or wrong way.
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Winning the Net Spend Cup every year only confirms the lack of ambition of a football club , your owners want to draw a profit , our owners re-invest in the club and community , enjoy your couple of year in the limelight , we both know it will not last , Klippety has worked miracles this year with just ten players , he has flogged them to death.
Unless your Yank owners make a considerable investment the title will be back at the Etihad next season , but you have waited 30 YEARS so a few more will not hurt.
 
There's been a lot of posts in here since I last logged on but I do want to go back to a couple of things you've said as I still don't really know what you're trying to say.

You said "You say FFP wouldn’t have stopped it but if there’d been sanctions applied from the off, it certainly wouldn’t have deteriorated notably further. Transfer bans or points deducted, they’re the punishments the clubs fear the most. But it wasn’t applicable back then so it is what it is"

Are you trying to say that if there was some form of FFP back then that had looked at the way that money was loaded on to the club then that would be fine as they would have been sanctioned? If you are then that makes sense, clubs shouldn't be on danger of folding due to the financial shenanigans of charlatan owners, there absolutely should be regulation to stop that from happening.

If you're saying that FFP regs as they were written when introduced would have stopped then from getting into financial difficulties then you're just plain wrong. All the clubs you mention as struggling in recent times would all have sailed through FFP easily, FFP as it was originally written does not stop clubs going bust. It just stops competion to already rich clubs. It really is that simple.

The rules have been changed now (at the request of AC and Inter Milan coincidentally) to allow structured and safe investment in some form I believe but it still very much restricts competion and is absolutely a protectionist set of rules. So in my opinion it is bad for the sport altogether.

I also really need to pull you up on this particular line from this post as, frankly, I thought you were better than that to be honest.

That line I've quoted above is utter guff. Net spend actually only shows a very small fraction of how well a squad is financially managed. What all the winners of the Net Spend Trophy (usually Liverpool or Spurs fans in recent years ) have in common is that have sold their best player at that time for a crazy sum.

Net Spend only takes into account spending on incoming and outgoing transfers, it doesn't show what effect selling or retaining players has on other areas of the balance sheet. As an easy example PSG have a poor net spend due to the huge amount of money spent on Neymar, what it doesn't take in to account though is the huge boost in profile and therefore sponsorship income to the team. That's just the financial side too, it also doesn't show how signing someone like Neymar makes it easier to sign better quality players due to the draw of being in the same side as someone with that profile.

City bought Kompany for a ridiculously small amount but can you imagine how much we'd have made if we sold him in his prime? We'd have been the Net Spend Trophy holders for decades if we had, especially if we'd also sold David Silva (21m to buy) and Aguero (32m, less than Andy Carroll to Liverpool the same season). We also probably wouldn't have won anything so would have lost out on all the prize money and trophies. We wouldn't have then got better sponsorship deals which brings in more money and better players and more trophies and so on.

The two biggest indicators of how successful teams are likely to be is having a terrible net spend figure (I.E. not selling your best players) and a high wage bill. If I remember right from the most recent figures United and Liverpool have the highest wage bills in the UK, obviously United are demonstrating that a huge wage bill and terrible net spend doesn't guarantee success, but it will be interesting to see if going forward Liverpool chase actual sustained success or just go back to competing for the Net Spend trophy we hear so much about.

In the post covid world there won't be any more crazy sky high transfers like Bale, Coutinho or Neymar so would Liverpool fans be satisfied to see Van Dyke or Mane sold off to enable you to buy in three or four more players and go back to scraping around 4th, 5th or 6th in the league? Or would you happily concede the Net Spend trophy if it meant you can keep your best players and build on the success you've been given? It's a no brainer in my opinion.

Liverpool has pretty much the same income as all the other top teams in the world so there's absolutely no reason you need to sell to buy. It has to be remembered that the entire concept of 'Net Spend' has been created and pushed by chairmen who are more interested in shareholdersi dividends than on field success, it's a weird phrase that distracts fans from the greed and absolute lack of ambition shown by their clubs owners and management.

In my opinion of course.
A brilliantly eloquent post.

Well said, that man!
 
There’s a lot to respond to there, but I’ll do my best. On the first section, it’s not about debt limitation, namely that the auditors would have looked at their outgoings and seen clearly that they were living beyond the money that came into the football club from elsewhere. That’s when the red flags are going up. They may be able to service that debt perfectly well but it doesn’t detract from the fact that it shouldn’t have happened. I also agree 100% that whilst it does benefit and hinder clubs in different ways, it does help the biggest clubs on occasion perhaps unfairly. However the mandate for all clubs to spend within their means is a brilliant concept. Of course the fans of the likes of Leeds and Portsmouth loved the good times and that, but the most important thing is that they’ve still got their club. The fact that an arbitrary figure can come in and reduce a community asset to rubble and fuck off isn't something that should ever be allowed to happen again. And you mention how even the teams at the bottom can compete financially with a lot of big hitters in Europe. Maybe in the boardroom, but not on the pitch, they’re light years behind. You only have to look how many British teams have won the UEFA Cup/Europa League in the last 30 years who weren’t in the top six or so. The top of our league is ridiculously strong, the rest not so much.
Re the Southampton point; we gave them a lot of money over a period. This was down to their scouting system and the way they’ve developed players which made them attractive. Yes, they’ve lost a lot of players but that’s the nature of football. What it did do is give Southampton a transfer budget like they’ve never had in their lives. They can buy anybody they want. Of course the money still has to be spent wisely but they’re certainly not hard done by. They could have maybe taken that squad a step further to the Leeds of c2000 where they’d made the jump to the CL. But they chose not to, that was their decision. It’s a time of mad numbers being thrown about, for both players and clubs. And tapping up? Every single transfer deal in the world has it. Every single one. If you don’t think that’s the case, you’re way off there, mate.
Clubs can kick the door in at UEFA, Chelsea are a prime example of this. Desperate to get in the G8, couldn’t get near it. Won the CL, different story. If you win the CL this year which I’ve already said on here that you will, the narrative will change again. I might be wrong but I don’t reckon so. Once you’ve won, you’re in the gang. I appreciate that’s a rather facile way of putting it but that seems to be how it plays out rightly or wrongly.
One final thing; not one owner gives two fucks about anything other than the bottom line. They wouldn’t be arsed if they had 40/50k different fans there every week. Community gestures and the like are pure PR frosting. Of course there are fundamentally decent people at all clubs who do great work but the actual people at the top are far more removed than you think. My pal has met and interviewed John Henry on a number of occasions and he’s everything you say he is. I know on here that a vast majority of this forum would die on a hill defending the owners but I can assure you that it’s not the case with us. They mean nothing to us, nothing. We were here before them and we’ll be here long afterwards. Nobody is under any illusions about American investors, we wrote the book on them. And the book on how to get rid of them. The only thing I’m interested in is Klopp and his squad. I’m long past seeing elite level football clubs as paragons of moral virtue, they couldn’t be further from it.

Well that was a "back tracking post" that somehow had no real content. I've noticed (the few posts i have read) that you continually backtrack and modify your comments later to fit the correct information your receive here.

I understand bigger clubs will always use their money and success as a lure to get players.

Your post supporting it and Liverpool's actions are an almost perfect example of a bigger bullying club, stealing players.
Just because a smaller club agrees a deal in the end to let a player go doesn't mean "tapping up" up is morally right. Just because "other's do it" doesn't make it right. But as you say most clubs do it. Just some clubs have "friends" and the press who help the process.
Targeting one club doesn't make it right though.
Yes, you are doing a up and coming club (trying to do things the right way) a favour by giving them your money if they were struggling. But you are also suppressing that club if you keep going back time and time again.

I mean Liverpool would never step in the way of a player wanting to leave for more money and success right?
I mean they wouldn't start a press campaign calling that player a greedy snake and insisting that he had been offered a good deal right?
I'm sure i saw the statement from LFC saying they were happy to see Sterling leave as they were well compensated. Oh wait...

I suppose a new tactic could be to tap a player up, telling him to run down his contract and come in on a free. LFC would never do this right? I mean how else would a player know the other team wanted him if he wasn't tapped up? City do let "boring" players go though.

The truth is the whole system is bent from top to bottom. The difference is only "one" clubs thinks they are morally better and doing things the right way...
 
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Winning the Net Spend Cup every year only confirms the lack of ambition of a football club , your owners want to draw a profit , our owners re-invest in the club and community , enjoy your couple of year in the limelight , we both know it will not last , Klippety has worked miracles this year with just ten players , he has flogged them to death.
Unless your Yank owners make a considerable investment the title will be back at the Etihad next season , but you have waited 30 YEARS so a few more will not hurt.
The mickey mousers will spend big this summer and will STILL be a major force, if you think any other your kidding yourself.
 
The mickey mousers will spend big this summer and will STILL be a major force, if you think any other your kidding yourself.

When a football club attempts to furlough their staff it would suggest otherwise , and i am not just singling out the Dippers after COVID football is in for a reality check and their will be very few spending big ,not forgetting the Dippers yank/hedge fund owners will expect a return on their investment.
 
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Winning the Net Spend Cup every year only confirms the lack of ambition of a football club , your owners want to draw a profit , our owners re-invest in the club and community , enjoy your couple of year in the limelight , we both know it will not last , Klippety has worked miracles this year with just ten players , he has flogged them to death.
Unless your Yank owners make a considerable investment the title will be back at the Etihad next season , but you have waited 30 YEARS so a few more will not hurt.

I don’t think you understand how the ownership of Liverpool works with FSG. They don’t take one penny out of us, the money that comes in belongs to the football club. They make their money by leveraging us as an asset in their portfolio to buy more assets. We’ve bought expensive players and we’ve picked others up for shirt buttons. Whatever we’ve done though, it’s clearly working. As does yours. I’ve no doubt it’ll be a two horse race agin next year.
 
Well that was a "back tracking post" that somehow had no real content. I've noticed (the few posts i have read) that you continually backtrack and modify your comments later to fit the correct information your receive here.

I understand bigger clubs will always use their money and success as a lure to get players.

Your post supporting it and Liverpool's actions are an almost perfect example of a bigger bullying club, stealing players.
Just because a smaller club agrees a deal in the end to let a player go doesn't mean "tapping up" up is morally right. Just because "other's do it" doesn't make it right. But as you say most clubs do it. Just some clubs have "friends" and the press who help the process.
Targeting one club doesn't make it right though.
Yes, you are doing a up and coming club (trying to do things the right way) a favour by giving them your money if they were struggling. But you are also suppressing that club if you keep going back time and time again.

I mean Liverpool would never step in the way of a player wanting to leave for more money and success right?
I mean they wouldn't start a press campaign calling that player a greedy snake and insisting that he had been offered a good deal right?
I'm sure i saw the statement from LFC saying they were happy to see Sterling leave as they were well compensated. Oh wait...

I suppose a new tactic could be to tap a player up, telling him to run down his contract and come in on a free. LFC would never do this right? I mean how else would a player know the other team wanted him if he wasn't tapped up? City do let "boring" players go though.

The truth is the whole system is bent from top to bottom. The difference is only "one" clubs thinks they are morally better and doing things the right way...

I haven’t backtracked on anything. If someone has said something I agree with then I’ll say so. It’s not like we started the conversation at absolutely polar ends of the debate. There’ll be things I say that some agree with, and vice versa. That’s not backtracking, it helps to clarify issues and advances the conversation.
Tell me this then; if this pillaging of lesser clubs or whatever is such a thing, has it bothered you that your own team’s spending over the last decade or so has cherrypicked all the best players of the clubs you’ve bought from? To be clear, I don’t see what the issue is really as footballers have transferred clubs and allegiances forever. As transient professions go, it’s right up with the leaders. But your club made very generous offers to a lot of clubs & players, not many if any saying no. Is that a crime? Of course not, it’s modern day football where money is king. Is it ideal? No, but that’s another debate altogether. It seems daft to use Liverpool as some bully in the transfer market when only one club has dominated the market buying wise in the last decade. The figures alone bare that out. Again, it’s not a problem, that’s modern elite level footy. And nobody thinks any club is any better, they’re all ****s as I’ve said here many times. They would rather piss their own fans off then fall out with another club, rivals included. That’s one of the biggest indictments of modern football right there.
 
I don’t think you understand how the ownership of Liverpool works with FSG. They don’t take one penny out of us, the money that comes in belongs to the football club. They make their money by leveraging us as an asset in their portfolio to buy more assets. We’ve bought expensive players and we’ve picked others up for shirt buttons. Whatever we’ve done though, it’s clearly working. As does yours. I’ve no doubt it’ll be a two horse race agin next year.

Your club was bought for a "steal" by FSG (their words) for £1.1billion , your club was recently valued at nearly £2billion , they will leverage purchases against your club , how does that help Klopp in the transfer market ? He's spent around £300m net and he has already been knocked back for the £50m required for Werner , unless you buy a minimum of three quality players it will not be a two horse race , because Klopp cannot possibly flog the same ten players week in, week out for three consecuitve seasons
You have ten excellent players , the rest of your squad is dross.
 
Your club was bought for a "steal" by FSG (their words) for £1.1billion , your club was recently valued at nearly £2billion , they will leverage purchases against your club , how does that help Klopp in the transfer market ? He's spent around £300m net and he has already been knocked back for the £50m required for Werner , unless you buy a minimum of three quality players it will not be a two horse race , because Klopp cannot possibly flog the same ten players week in, week out for three consecuitve seasons
You have ten excellent players , the rest of your squad is dross.

They paid nowhere near that for us, it was around £240m. To be fair, it was done when we were not far from administration so probably was a steal. But their motivation for getting involved was the same as every other owner who gets involved these days - the TV money. And as I’ve said, our transfers are funded by the monies that come into the club, it’s not FSG funding them directly. As our revenues have grown exponentially since Klopp’s arrival, so there’s been more transfer funds available. If we hadn’t got £142m for Coutinho, we wouldn’t have bought Allison & Van Dijk like we did. But the money came in and so it went back out.
The Werner thing is a non issue for me. Good little player but if they’ve decided they don’t want him then fair enough. I trust Klopp 100% when it comes to transfers, he’s earned that many times over. As to who we’ll bring in, I really don’t know. I’d imagine a forward of some kind is pretty likely though. But every member of the squad has played enough games to get a medal so they’ve all played their part there. Hardly dross.
 
It was actually £29m but it remains that he was signed by Rodgers.
Nonsense? How many players can you name that have been signed by Klopp and their career has gone backwards? I’ll give you Karius and in the spirit of generosity, I don’t think Keita has really hit top form. I’ll be interested to hear the others who you don’t think have improved under his tutelage.
36.9m, actually. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/roberto-firmino/profil/spieler/131789
 

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