fbloke said:
Perhaps we dont give Platini the credit he deserves?
He may well have played an absolute blinder here, via FFP rather than being the donkeys arse he seems like at first glance?
He has said many times that he knew that debt was a problem and also that no-payment of taxes was also an issue but both of these things required new rules for UEFA to be able to make a stand on them.
Whatever UEFA tried to do it would have upset or destabilised some clubs and it also scared the 'cartel' out of the long grass.
He also knows that the clubs have, for the past two decades or more been stripping authority from UEFA to control the footballing affairs of the European game.
He has gone way out of his way to make it abundantly clear that the decisions he has been 'forced' to make on FFP have been at the behest of the powerful clubs, the big clubs, the current ruling elite of clubs.
If FFP is now perceived as a tool designed by these clubs with their own self-interest at the fore and simply something that UEFA have, under great pressure and against their original designs for debt control, now been handed by these clubs then UEFA can clip the power of the clubs via the EU.
Its an interesting thought that the big clubs could be forced to break up and end all their cosy ECA led agreements, referred to by Platini on a number of occasions SINCE the legal challenges were laid down.
Thinking in the round it might not be such an outlandish thought that UEFA and M. Platini have given the cartel not only enough rope to hang themselves but he has allowed them to build the gallows under the impression that others would be the victims.
No, fbloke, Platini has not played a blinder and he deserves no credit for abdicating every shred of responsibility which goes with his office at UEFA. For a start, it did not need any new rules for UEFA "to make a stand" on the question of debt or on the non-payment of taxes. He hasn't made any stand at all on the question of debt, apart from a cosy little deal with his friends from the G14 that some of them don't have to pay their debts, while debt is not allowed for any other club. On the non-payment of taxes, it was the inland revenue that put a stop to Rangers dodges, because they were illegal and were dealt with by using the law. FFP would have had no role at all anyway. In the main non-payment of tax was essentially a Spanish problem, and was dealt with only when the German government took up the question with the European commission: "How long must the German taxpayer pay Ronaldo and Messi's wages so that their clubs can pay no tax?" was the headline on the front page of Das Bild. It had nothing to do with the football authorities, who seem to have made the curious decision that Atletico Madrid's repayments, large as they are, don't affect their balance sheet enough for them to fall foul of FFP. Only investment, it appears, does that!
Now, to argue that he has introduced these regulations as a stroke of genius to show the criminal intentions of the magic circle so that the courts will quash them and thus destroy the power of the G14 is to ignore the facts. The argument that he only did this for these reasons ignores the slight difficulty that it is acting as a part of a cartel which is the offence, and the purity of motive is no defence and certainly no proof of innocence: "I was just obeying orders" has never worked as a plea! Platini is employed, and paid handsomely, for leadership, and he has shown none. He has given way to every threat made by the "magic circle", has defended the fines imposed on City and PSG, and, if he really "knows" that his rules are doomed in the courts why has he defended them so resolutely, imposed them so inflexibly and had nothing at all to do with M. Dupont's challenge to them? Why has he never done anything to help those clubs threatened with ruin by his regulations? Aren't they entitled to UEFA's protection rather than face the threat of financial implosion because the same cartel, in England, has foisted these same rules on the PL? Why has he chosen to waste four years hounding European clubs to save his own skin rather than spell out the consequences of secession to the "magic circle". This man is not a fit custodian of our game and doesn't even give a thought for the fans at all.
