BluessinceHydeRoad
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 26 Mar 2012
- Messages
- 2,562
Re: City & FFP (continued)
The composition of yesterday's meeting speaks volumes for the other worldliness of the proceedings. There they all were: representatives of UEFA, Platini himself, representatives of the ECA, Rummenigge himself, Berlusconi, to press the claims of the down at heel to inclusion in the CL, representatives of some "important" clubs and representatives of City and PSG to be bullied, brainwashed and battered into submission. Reports have not yet said if Rummenigge was in uniform or not! And rather than face up to the real issues they spent the day avoiding them. It was like the TUC of the mid-70s - rabble rousing speeches from those who didn't realise they actually represented no-one.
Dupont does indeed agree that much int the 100 or so pages of the FFP regulations is perfectly acceptable, but what he does not accept at all is the break even rule, the obligation to make a profit every year. He doesn't accept the idea that you must restrict your losses to £30 million over three years or to any other figure fished out of the trouser pocket of Rummenigge's uniform or Platini's Charlie Corolli pants. There can be no restriction on investment by owners and shareholders. City's apparent scheme to extend the break even period to 10 years is no more acceptable to M. Dupont.
This is because the matter has little to do with City or PSG but is for the soul of football. We forget that Dupont's case is brought in a Belgian court against UEFA and the Belgian FA on behalf of a football agent. City had nothing at all to do with it and still don't. It is our supporters who give Dupont support, as do PSG's, and they did it quite late in the day.
For M. Dupont his TARDIS is all important. The vital issues are time and relative dimensions in space. Dupont does not see it as a cataclysmic, cosmic struggle between Rummenigge's Bayern on the one hand (with feeble support from Wenger) and City and PSG on the other. If he did, he'd probably say that City and PSG were doing rather well and poised to do a great deal better in the near future. He isn't any more concerned about the PL than any other. But he is very concerned with space. As he says, if you position yourself in Brussels, a big city, the "capital" of the EU, and ask what chance does FFP allow you of ever having a top football team, the answer is depressing. Who will, who can ever invest in Anderlecht so it can take on Rummenigge's fiefdom with any realistic chance of winning? The same miserable logic applies to Dutch clubs, Swiss, Austrian, any clubs from eastern Europe or the Balkans and to 75% (at least) of the clubs from the "big" leagues. FFP will make football uncompetitive and "ossify" competition.
The problem also extends into time and this is the problem with City's suggestion of extending the break even period to 10 years. This could, in fact, be the ultimate exercise in pulling up the ladder! At its worst it would give City and PSG (and maybe Monaco) - ie those clubs with rich owners NOW - time to establish themselves, but then the opportunity would go forever, and rich men would see no point in investing in any club as we approached 2020 and certainly the nearer we get to D-Day in 2024. Dupont wants to protect the rights of FUTURE owners and shareholders.
Going a little further, I agree with the poster who said he was opposed to FFP on principle, and I think Dupont takes this view of the break even rule. I don't see the need for regulation. If we look at the UEFA publications justifying them we are forced to conclude that they are dealing with problems which don't exist or which are none of UEFA's business. The CBI would never dare to try and insist that all its member companies made a profit. Clubs have to obey commercial law and those Spanish clubs which didn't did so with the connivance of their government. Rangers twisted the taxman and got clobbered. What would FFP have done to stop this? Which football clubs have gone bust in the last 50 years? Leeds haven't! Portsmouth haven't! Thanks to FFP? If the problems are "financial instability" and "competitive integrity" what good did it do punishing the two most "financially stable" clubs in the world? In fact, if we look for the league with the largest number of financially troubled clubs we find it in .... Germany - exactly where most of these daft rules have been taken from, and where the president of the European hysterics association works so hard to ensure they continue doing their destructive work.
The composition of yesterday's meeting speaks volumes for the other worldliness of the proceedings. There they all were: representatives of UEFA, Platini himself, representatives of the ECA, Rummenigge himself, Berlusconi, to press the claims of the down at heel to inclusion in the CL, representatives of some "important" clubs and representatives of City and PSG to be bullied, brainwashed and battered into submission. Reports have not yet said if Rummenigge was in uniform or not! And rather than face up to the real issues they spent the day avoiding them. It was like the TUC of the mid-70s - rabble rousing speeches from those who didn't realise they actually represented no-one.
Dupont does indeed agree that much int the 100 or so pages of the FFP regulations is perfectly acceptable, but what he does not accept at all is the break even rule, the obligation to make a profit every year. He doesn't accept the idea that you must restrict your losses to £30 million over three years or to any other figure fished out of the trouser pocket of Rummenigge's uniform or Platini's Charlie Corolli pants. There can be no restriction on investment by owners and shareholders. City's apparent scheme to extend the break even period to 10 years is no more acceptable to M. Dupont.
This is because the matter has little to do with City or PSG but is for the soul of football. We forget that Dupont's case is brought in a Belgian court against UEFA and the Belgian FA on behalf of a football agent. City had nothing at all to do with it and still don't. It is our supporters who give Dupont support, as do PSG's, and they did it quite late in the day.
For M. Dupont his TARDIS is all important. The vital issues are time and relative dimensions in space. Dupont does not see it as a cataclysmic, cosmic struggle between Rummenigge's Bayern on the one hand (with feeble support from Wenger) and City and PSG on the other. If he did, he'd probably say that City and PSG were doing rather well and poised to do a great deal better in the near future. He isn't any more concerned about the PL than any other. But he is very concerned with space. As he says, if you position yourself in Brussels, a big city, the "capital" of the EU, and ask what chance does FFP allow you of ever having a top football team, the answer is depressing. Who will, who can ever invest in Anderlecht so it can take on Rummenigge's fiefdom with any realistic chance of winning? The same miserable logic applies to Dutch clubs, Swiss, Austrian, any clubs from eastern Europe or the Balkans and to 75% (at least) of the clubs from the "big" leagues. FFP will make football uncompetitive and "ossify" competition.
The problem also extends into time and this is the problem with City's suggestion of extending the break even period to 10 years. This could, in fact, be the ultimate exercise in pulling up the ladder! At its worst it would give City and PSG (and maybe Monaco) - ie those clubs with rich owners NOW - time to establish themselves, but then the opportunity would go forever, and rich men would see no point in investing in any club as we approached 2020 and certainly the nearer we get to D-Day in 2024. Dupont wants to protect the rights of FUTURE owners and shareholders.
Going a little further, I agree with the poster who said he was opposed to FFP on principle, and I think Dupont takes this view of the break even rule. I don't see the need for regulation. If we look at the UEFA publications justifying them we are forced to conclude that they are dealing with problems which don't exist or which are none of UEFA's business. The CBI would never dare to try and insist that all its member companies made a profit. Clubs have to obey commercial law and those Spanish clubs which didn't did so with the connivance of their government. Rangers twisted the taxman and got clobbered. What would FFP have done to stop this? Which football clubs have gone bust in the last 50 years? Leeds haven't! Portsmouth haven't! Thanks to FFP? If the problems are "financial instability" and "competitive integrity" what good did it do punishing the two most "financially stable" clubs in the world? In fact, if we look for the league with the largest number of financially troubled clubs we find it in .... Germany - exactly where most of these daft rules have been taken from, and where the president of the European hysterics association works so hard to ensure they continue doing their destructive work.