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

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

We're also having to accept a sponsorship from supermarket heroes Lidl.

We'll be known as The Lidl Club of Manchester.

But, as part of the deal, they will be offering discount trips to Abu's Derby (one of the nation's finest corner shops).

 

[Marvin]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I went to bed mulling over this Chelsea impact theory (a definite sign of getting old)... and I'm going to revise my view slightly, but only slightly.

When Chelsea came along, there was an impact in as much as someone tossing a pebble into a lake. MOST of football (outside of the elite) probably saw it as just another nail in the coffin of football. Chelsea didn't threaten their existence or anything - they were just a rich sugar daddy club bullying their way to the top (much as City are accused of today).

In once sense, yes, they changed the footballing landscape. There was a new kid in town, and they weren't a flash in the pan as many had predicted they would be, and they did manage to attract some impressive players and win things.
But in another sense, nothing really changed. 95% of clubs still stood no chance of being in the elite, they were still poorly run financially, the only hope of any success was a domestic cup win. Manchester United still pulled 70K crowds and bought talent in the same way they always had. Real Madrid carried on with their spending as they always had too. Only now, Chelsea could do the same. But the landscape didn't change for 95% of clubs.

Some argued that Chelsea's inflated transfer fees and wages pushed up costs elsewhere. Well, clubs also overcharged Chelsea in the way they overcharged us when we first started. Clubs weren't forced to match Chelsea's wages. After all, Chelsea could only realistically gather 30 players or so and pay them a small fortune - there would still be plenty of other players in the pool to choose from.

So, for some of the big boys, I suppose they could argue Chelsea had an impact on them. A huge one? - no, I don't think so really. Enough to cause all their financial woes? - absolutely not.
For the rest of the world, nothing much changed, instead of Arsenal v United for the league, it because Chelsea v United instead. A change, of sorts, but not one that rocked anybody's boat. All that happened was that there was a shuffle in the upper eschelons of power clubs, just as there has been since City's money arrived. The rest of football just gets on with knowing they can't win much.


And now, almost inevitably, Platini's attempting to modify his own rules because they are starting to pose a threat to the elite. He will argue that FFP will forever be a game of cat and mouse as they seek to close loopholes and fine tune the policies to keep the game 'fair'. But at the same time, he's hardly giving the rules long enough for people to adhere to them before changing them.
It raises the question in his 'cat and mouse' world... is the mouse he's chasing 'fairness' or is it just the new money clubs?

Platini is telling us, and others that we much make money. In order to do so in a market that's already dominated by some heavy hitters, City and others have to be creative. We have to think up new ideas that the others haven't thought of. We let the big boys rest on their laurels, and overtake them on the blindside in much the same way as companies like Google overtake Microsoft, or Apple resurge back to success ahead of Sony etc.
But when we are innovative, it's automatically perceived as an FFP workaround.

Effectively we're being told not only that we need to be profitable, but how we can make those profits... and can only do so in the manner of the other longer established players. That's crippling innovation.
Worse still for Platini... some of our ideas will work, and the established elite will want to copy them (as they are at liberty to do so). That is where Platini will come unstuck.
He's being told by the elite to curb how clubs 'get around FFP', but the moment those clubs realise THEY can make some more money doing these things, they'll want the restrictions lifted - leaving Platini looking the fool.

The elite clubs hate innovative startups like City - until they start to benefit from those innovations themselves. Then all of a sudden we're welcomed into their group as they throw overboard the weakest of their former cohorts who've served their purpose. It's interesting to see how Chelsea are no longer the pariahs for football. Focus has moved to City and PSG.

Sooner or later, we will be 'stalwarts' looking in on another new startup coming to the fore, and complaining about them. I suppose it's the nature of the beast.

Platini didn't seem to mind money and 'change of landscape' when he voted for Qatar to host the World Cup. New opportunities seemed to be a great idea then. If money and new found football success is good enough for Qatar, it ought to be good enough for East Manchester too.

Totally changed the transfer mkt, and pushed the top players outside the reaches of the majority of clubs, and also any time a club had a top player, like SWP, they had him for 1-2 seasons. Chelsea made a huge impact on the game and magnified the disparity between the top and bottom by inflating fees and wages for the top players. Prior to Chelsea, the record transfers were relatively minor, and then they jumped

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I went to bed mulling over this Chelsea impact theory (a definite sign of getting old)... and I'm going to revise my view slightly, but only slightly.

When Chelsea came along, there was an impact in as much as someone tossing a pebble into a lake. MOST of football (outside of the elite) probably saw it as just another nail in the coffin of football. Chelsea didn't threaten their existence or anything - they were just a rich sugar daddy club bullying their way to the top (much as City are accused of today).

In once sense, yes, they changed the footballing landscape. There was a new kid in town, and they weren't a flash in the pan as many had predicted they would be, and they did manage to attract some impressive players and win things.
But in another sense, nothing really changed. 95% of clubs still stood no chance of being in the elite, they were still poorly run financially, the only hope of any success was a domestic cup win. Manchester United still pulled 70K crowds and bought talent in the same way they always had. Real Madrid carried on with their spending as they always had too. Only now, Chelsea could do the same. But the landscape didn't change for 95% of clubs.

Some argued that Chelsea's inflated transfer fees and wages pushed up costs elsewhere. Well, clubs also overcharged Chelsea in the way they overcharged us when we first started. Clubs weren't forced to match Chelsea's wages. After all, Chelsea could only realistically gather 30 players or so and pay them a small fortune - there would still be plenty of other players in the pool to choose from.

So, for some of the big boys, I suppose they could argue Chelsea had an impact on them. A huge one? - no, I don't think so really. Enough to cause all their financial woes? - absolutely not.
For the rest of the world, nothing much changed, instead of Arsenal v United for the league, it because Chelsea v United instead. A change, of sorts, but not one that rocked anybody's boat. All that happened was that there was a shuffle in the upper eschelons of power clubs, just as there has been since City's money arrived. The rest of football just gets on with knowing they can't win much.


And now, almost inevitably, Platini's attempting to modify his own rules because they are starting to pose a threat to the elite. He will argue that FFP will forever be a game of cat and mouse as they seek to close loopholes and fine tune the policies to keep the game 'fair'. But at the same time, he's hardly giving the rules long enough for people to adhere to them before changing them.
It raises the question in his 'cat and mouse' world... is the mouse he's chasing 'fairness' or is it just the new money clubs?

Platini is telling us, and others that we much make money. In order to do so in a market that's already dominated by some heavy hitters, City and others have to be creative. We have to think up new ideas that the others haven't thought of. We let the big boys rest on their laurels, and overtake them on the blindside in much the same way as companies like Google overtake Microsoft, or Apple resurge back to success ahead of Sony etc.
But when we are innovative, it's automatically perceived as an FFP workaround.

Effectively we're being told not only that we need to be profitable, but how we can make those profits... and can only do so in the manner of the other longer established players. That's crippling innovation.
Worse still for Platini... some of our ideas will work, and the established elite will want to copy them (as they are at liberty to do so). That is where Platini will come unstuck.
He's being told by the elite to curb how clubs 'get around FFP', but the moment those clubs realise THEY can make some more money doing these things, they'll want the restrictions lifted - leaving Platini looking the fool.

The elite clubs hate innovative startups like City - until they start to benefit from those innovations themselves. Then all of a sudden we're welcomed into their group as they throw overboard the weakest of their former cohorts who've served their purpose. It's interesting to see how Chelsea are no longer the pariahs for football. Focus has moved to City and PSG.

Sooner or later, we will be 'stalwarts' looking in on another new startup coming to the fore, and complaining about them. I suppose it's the nature of the beast.

Platini didn't seem to mind money and 'change of landscape' when he voted for Qatar to host the World Cup. New opportunities seemed to be a great idea then. If money and new found football success is good enough for Qatar, it ought to be good enough for East Manchester too.

Totally changed the transfer mkt, and pushed the top players outside the reaches of the majority of clubs, and also any time a club had a top player, like SWP, they had him for 1-2 seasons. Chelsea made a huge impact on the game and magnified the disparity between the top and bottom by inflating fees and wages for the top players. Prior to Chelsea, the record transfers were relatively minor, and then they jumped

Are you seriously suggesting that prior to Chelsea, the top players were available to all?
And that the transfer records were relatively minor?

The jump in transfer fees is a result of TV money, not Chelsea. TV money affected the entire PL far more than one single club did.


Let's look at the British transfer record before and after Chelsea:

Before:

1977 Keegan 0.5m
1979 Gray 1.4m (300% in 2 years)
1984 WIlkins 1.5m (negligible growth)
1986 Hughes 2.3m (150% in 2 years
1989 Waddle 4.2m (190% in 3 years)
1992 Gascoigne 5.5m (130% in 3 years)
1995 Collymore 8.5m (160% in 3 years)
1999 Anelka 22.5m (180% in 4 years)
2002 Ferdinand 29m (130% in 3 years)


After:
2006 Shevchenko 31m (10% in 4 years)
2008 Robinho 32m (5% in 2 years)
2009 Ronaldo 80m (260% in 2 years)
2013 Bale 85m (8% in 4 years)

So where's the evidence for Chelsea causing escalation? It's a myth. The record fee growth rate has massively slowed down. Before them, the fees had at least quadrupled every decade, since them, they have just been a touch over doubling (you can make a case for tripled at a push).

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

We are trapped in a gold fish bowl at the moment as we talk about the impact Abramovitch had. We assume that this question is simply about the ability of other teams - our friends in the magic circle - to compete with his investment. "Fergie" said Utd couldn't compete, Wenger rarely says anything else. Neither found it unacceptable that no other PL club could compete with them until Abramovitch arrived. It must be pointed out that we are talking about competition from the financial point of view, because the PL actually became more competitive in the purely sporting sense of the term - somebody other than Arsenal or Manchester United had a chance of winning the PL, though Manchester United have still won twice as many PL titles as Chelsea since the advent of Abramovitch.

The courts may accept that some measures may be needed to protect sporting competition, but it is hard to see that it is more threatened in European football now than it has ever been. Primarily, though, and by far, the courts' concern is competition in the commercial sense, and here the law points in one consistent direction. European competition law does not exist to protect vested interests FROM competition. It exists to protect the right of individuals, companies etc TO compete and it sees INVESTMENT as the best way to make individual companies more competitive. In other words it is not concerned with the moanings of Ferguson, Wenger, Berlusconi or anyone else about Abramovitch's money, but about the effect that that money will have on Chelsea in particular and football in general. In this way FFP is a protectionist measure designed to limit competition by limiting investment in one particular asset, as has been pointed out ad nauseam on this thread and elsewhere. If those who framed European law were to seek an example of their vision of the investment model in action they would look no further than Manchester City; heavy investment in players, increased interest, attracted other players, many of very young age and made it possible to retain young players so making it practical to build the best CFA in the world. More people want to watch City so it makes economic sense to increase ground capacity (so helping the construction industry) and comfort to compete with other sports and entertainment outlets ( promotinng hi tech industries to provide all kinds of services for the spectators). Finally to anchor its routes in the community the club's owners are part of the biggest ever investment in a housing project in...Manchester? Britain? Europe? And the money spent on players stimulates investment plans at other clubs which brings benefits to them and so on and so on. Manchester City show how investment brings benefits to football, consumers, communities....and it has not only NOT taken a penny out of the game but has NOT damaged its sporting competitors at all in the commercial sense - in fact their revenues are going UP because of increasing interest.

At the moment we have no guide to how FFP might work in practice other than the somewhat fanciful dreams of Mr Platini, but Ferran Soriano tells a story which, I suspect, is not far from what the results would be. Apparently Ferran is fascinated by the slide rules that his father used to use. My mother used them daily at work and I was taught use one at school. They were, s he says "amazing tools, wonderfully precise...They were used to make simple and complex calculations." The companies making them were nearly all Swiss and were very profitable. In 1972, however, the first scientific electronic calculator came on to the market. The development costs were huge and, of course had required heavy investment, but, of course the company was soon exceptionally profitable, no-one used slide rules anymore and by 1980 all the companies making them had refused to change and had gone out of business. The point is obvious. FFP would have erected an insuperable barrier to investment in calculators, the slide rule companies would have not only stayed in business but their market share and profits would have been protected from competition - and look how different, and how much poorer life for everyone would be now. In industry and commerce this kind of protectionism is a block to progress.

What might be the consequences, more specifically, for football? Interestingly Mr Platini argues that the way to prosperity and success is through the academy and a bigger ground. Funnily though when the world cup presents a real opportunity to improve grounds FIFA finds it has to rely on state aid. This either causes riots as Brazilians object to £13 billion being spent on them while the sick lie on hospital floors waiting for treatment or FIFA has to rely on such "statesmen" as Vladimir Poutine who will silence any opposition to wild expenditure in the cause of national prestige. Just the image football wants. Other than that clubs such as Southampton, Leicester and Stoke have decent new grounds, all of which are actually smaller than the ones they replaced and so have to charge much higher prices and all of which seem to have resulted in a dodgy period in the lower divisions for the clubs concerned. Arsenal have, indeed, replaced Highbury with the bigger and better Emirates, but only by a lengthy period of debt which has damaged the club's ability to compete at the top level greatly. Then there is Liverpool. Ten years? And still not a sod moved. Plans at long last approved - but you scousers are going to pay through the nose for it to pay off the debt, and that really is a promise. And these are the owners we really do want - FFP lovers to a man, all looking forward to the profits they HAVE to make.

 

[ftg]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I went to bed mulling over this Chelsea impact theory (a definite sign of getting old)... and I'm going to revise my view slightly, but only slightly.

When Chelsea came along, there was an impact in as much as someone tossing a pebble into a lake. MOST of football (outside of the elite) probably saw it as just another nail in the coffin of football. Chelsea didn't threaten their existence or anything - they were just a rich sugar daddy club bullying their way to the top (much as City are accused of today).

In once sense, yes, they changed the footballing landscape. There was a new kid in town, and they weren't a flash in the pan as many had predicted they would be, and they did manage to attract some impressive players and win things.
But in another sense, nothing really changed. 95% of clubs still stood no chance of being in the elite, they were still poorly run financially, the only hope of any success was a domestic cup win. Manchester United still pulled 70K crowds and bought talent in the same way they always had. Real Madrid carried on with their spending as they always had too. Only now, Chelsea could do the same. But the landscape didn't change for 95% of clubs.

Some argued that Chelsea's inflated transfer fees and wages pushed up costs elsewhere. Well, clubs also overcharged Chelsea in the way they overcharged us when we first started. Clubs weren't forced to match Chelsea's wages. After all, Chelsea could only realistically gather 30 players or so and pay them a small fortune - there would still be plenty of other players in the pool to choose from.

So, for some of the big boys, I suppose they could argue Chelsea had an impact on them. A huge one? - no, I don't think so really. Enough to cause all their financial woes? - absolutely not.
For the rest of the world, nothing much changed, instead of Arsenal v United for the league, it because Chelsea v United instead. A change, of sorts, but not one that rocked anybody's boat. All that happened was that there was a shuffle in the upper eschelons of power clubs, just as there has been since City's money arrived. The rest of football just gets on with knowing they can't win much.


And now, almost inevitably, Platini's attempting to modify his own rules because they are starting to pose a threat to the elite. He will argue that FFP will forever be a game of cat and mouse as they seek to close loopholes and fine tune the policies to keep the game 'fair'. But at the same time, he's hardly giving the rules long enough for people to adhere to them before changing them.
It raises the question in his 'cat and mouse' world... is the mouse he's chasing 'fairness' or is it just the new money clubs?

Platini is telling us, and others that we much make money. In order to do so in a market that's already dominated by some heavy hitters, City and others have to be creative. We have to think up new ideas that the others haven't thought of. We let the big boys rest on their laurels, and overtake them on the blindside in much the same way as companies like Google overtake Microsoft, or Apple resurge back to success ahead of Sony etc.
But when we are innovative, it's automatically perceived as an FFP workaround.

Effectively we're being told not only that we need to be profitable, but how we can make those profits... and can only do so in the manner of the other longer established players. That's crippling innovation.
Worse still for Platini... some of our ideas will work, and the established elite will want to copy them (as they are at liberty to do so). That is where Platini will come unstuck.
He's being told by the elite to curb how clubs 'get around FFP', but the moment those clubs realise THEY can make some more money doing these things, they'll want the restrictions lifted - leaving Platini looking the fool.

The elite clubs hate innovative startups like City - until they start to benefit from those innovations themselves. Then all of a sudden we're welcomed into their group as they throw overboard the weakest of their former cohorts who've served their purpose. It's interesting to see how Chelsea are no longer the pariahs for football. Focus has moved to City and PSG.

Sooner or later, we will be 'stalwarts' looking in on another new startup coming to the fore, and complaining about them. I suppose it's the nature of the beast.

Platini didn't seem to mind money and 'change of landscape' when he voted for Qatar to host the World Cup. New opportunities seemed to be a great idea then. If money and new found football success is good enough for Qatar, it ought to be good enough for East Manchester too.

Totally changed the transfer mkt, and pushed the top players outside the reaches of the majority of clubs, and also any time a club had a top player, like SWP, they had him for 1-2 seasons. Chelsea made a huge impact on the game and magnified the disparity between the top and bottom by inflating fees and wages for the top players. Prior to Chelsea, the record transfers were relatively minor, and then they jumped

Are you seriously suggesting that prior to Chelsea, the top players were available to all?
And that the transfer records were relatively minor?

The jump in transfer fees is a result of TV money, not Chelsea. TV money affected the entire PL far more than one single club did.


Let's look at the British transfer record before and after Chelsea:

Before:

1977 Keegan 0.5m
1979 Gray 1.4m (300% in 2 years)
1984 WIlkins 1.5m (negligible growth)
1986 Hughes 2.3m (150% in 2 years
1989 Waddle 4.2m (190% in 3 years)
1992 Gascoigne 5.5m (130% in 3 years)
1995 Collymore 8.5m (160% in 3 years)
1999 Anelka 22.5m (180% in 4 years)
2002 Ferdinand 29m (130% in 3 years)


After:
2006 Shevchenko 31m (10% in 4 years)
2008 Robinho 32m (5% in 2 years)
2009 Ronaldo 80m (260% in 2 years)
2013 Bale 85m (8% in 4 years)

So where's the evidence for Chelsea causing escalation? It's a myth. The record fee growth rate has massively slowed down. Before them, the fees had at least quadrupled every decade, since them, they have just been a touch over doubling (you can make a case for tripled at a push).

Extremely well made point

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Looking at this list of world transfer records, it's very difficult to see how Chelsea can be blamed for things when Real Madrid were splashing the cash before and after Abramovich, and they weren't just 'pipping' the existing record, they were obliterating them.

 

[Marvin]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Totally changed the transfer mkt, and pushed the top players outside the reaches of the majority of clubs, and also any time a club had a top player, like SWP, they had him for 1-2 seasons. Chelsea made a huge impact on the game and magnified the disparity between the top and bottom by inflating fees and wages for the top players. Prior to Chelsea, the record transfers were relatively minor, and then they jumped

Are you seriously suggesting that prior to Chelsea, the top players were available to all?
And that the transfer records were relatively minor?

The jump in transfer fees is a result of TV money, not Chelsea. TV money affected the entire PL far more than one single club did.


Let's look at the British transfer record before and after Chelsea:

Before:

1977 Keegan 0.5m
1979 Gray 1.4m (300% in 2 years)
1984 WIlkins 1.5m (negligible growth)
1986 Hughes 2.3m (150% in 2 years
1989 Waddle 4.2m (190% in 3 years)
1992 Gascoigne 5.5m (130% in 3 years)
1995 Collymore 8.5m (160% in 3 years)
1999 Anelka 22.5m (180% in 4 years)
2002 Ferdinand 29m (130% in 3 years)


After:
2006 Shevchenko 31m (10% in 4 years)
2008 Robinho 32m (5% in 2 years)
2009 Ronaldo 80m (260% in 2 years)
2013 Bale 85m (8% in 4 years)

So where's the evidence for Chelsea causing escalation? It's a myth. The record fee growth rate has massively slowed down. Before them, the fees had at least quadrupled every decade, since them, they have just been a touch over doubling (you can make a case for tripled at a push).

Extremely well made point

It is well made, but I am not sure I accept it yet.

I just remember after the Chelsea takeover when Chelsea decided they wanted a player in the Summer they would just keep hammering the bids in until the seller agreed to let the player go, and with the player concerned about to join a team fighting for the title / Europe it pretty much worked every time. For example as soon as CFC bid for SWP we knew it was only a matter of time before he would go, and that had happened repeatedly throughout domestic football

Of course there were other teams in Europe involved in the transfer market such as Real Madrid, but if's very much my memory that when Abramovic first took over Chelsea, that transfer fees rocketed.

Yes Percentage wise I can see that when you go from £4m to £8m that's a 100% increase, but mathematically as the record gets higher you need exponential growth to keep the percentage rise at the same rate. It's much easier to create triple digit percentage rises in the early era of the Sky League than it is later on when most of the influx of TV money has already come into the game, and there comes a point when the straw breaks the camel's back. What about the ability of competing clubs to match the Chelsea transfer fee and wages?

 

[bluechampion7891]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Looking at this list of world transfer records, it's very difficult to see how Chelsea can be blamed for things when Real Madrid were splashing the cash before and after Abramovich, and they weren't just 'pipping' the existing record, they were obliterating them.

Dont have exact figures but lots of Italian clubs had top fees in the 25-30 million ranges in the late 90's early 2000's which is kind of surprising given that clubs like Milan have practically a "free" team now

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Are you seriously suggesting that prior to Chelsea, the top players were available to all?
And that the transfer records were relatively minor?

The jump in transfer fees is a result of TV money, not Chelsea. TV money affected the entire PL far more than one single club did.


Let's look at the British transfer record before and after Chelsea:

Before:

1977 Keegan 0.5m
1979 Gray 1.4m (300% in 2 years)
1984 WIlkins 1.5m (negligible growth)
1986 Hughes 2.3m (150% in 2 years
1989 Waddle 4.2m (190% in 3 years)
1992 Gascoigne 5.5m (130% in 3 years)
1995 Collymore 8.5m (160% in 3 years)
1999 Anelka 22.5m (180% in 4 years)
2002 Ferdinand 29m (130% in 3 years)


After:
2006 Shevchenko 31m (10% in 4 years)
2008 Robinho 32m (5% in 2 years)
2009 Ronaldo 80m (260% in 2 years)
2013 Bale 85m (8% in 4 years)

So where's the evidence for Chelsea causing escalation? It's a myth. The record fee growth rate has massively slowed down. Before them, the fees had at least quadrupled every decade, since them, they have just been a touch over doubling (you can make a case for tripled at a push).

Extremely well made point

It is well made, but I am not sure I accept it yet.

I just remember after the Chelsea takeover when Chelsea decided they wanted a player in the Summer they would just keep hammering the bids in until the seller agreed to let the player go, and with the player concerned about to join a team fighting for the title / Europe it pretty much worked every time. For example as soon as CFC bid for SWP we knew it was only a matter of time before he would go, and that had happened repeatedly throughout domestic football

Of course there were other teams in Europe involved in the transfer market such as Real Madrid, but if's very much my memory that when Abramovic first took over Chelsea, that transfer fees rocketed.

Yes Percentage wise I can see that when you go from £4m to £8m that's a 100% increase, but mathematically as the record gets higher you need exponential growth to keep the percentage rise at the same rate. It's much easier to create triple digit percentage rises in the early era of the Sky League than it is later on when most of the influx of TV money has already come into the game, and there comes a point when the straw breaks the camel's back. What about the ability of competing clubs to match the Chelsea transfer fee and wages?

I think rather than the fees skyrocketing, there were just a lot more high value transfers happening. In part because Chelsea had the money to pay high fees, in part because they needed to buy a LOT of high value players at once, and partly because other clubs would inflate prices knowing that Chelsea had the money, and needed the players. Pretty much the very same situation we've found ourselves in, only we've had a very specific FFP deadline to try and beat, which Chelsea didn't have.

I do agree that Chelsea would 'get their man' - and that's memorable because it wasn't something Chelsea could have done previously (much like us). But in reality, I believe they just became one more 'rich club' who stood a high probability of getting who they wanted.
Imagine Gareth Bale 30 years ago. He'd have ended up at United, Juventus, Barca or Real Madrid as the big bidders of the day. Today, he might have ended up at Bayern, Barca, Real Madrid, Chelsea, United, City, PSG etc. Admittedly, some of those clubs have more 'pull' than others, but essentially more teams are potential bidders for the world's best players, but if push comes to shove, we're still talking about 2 or 3 who will claim the absolute best players. In that sense, little has changed. Some of the clubs involved have changed, and arguably there's more clubs capable of the mega transfers, but there's absolutely no way the situation is worse since Abramovich arrived. It's either 'about the same' or 'better', and I'd argue with the advent of PSG and City, it's most definitely better.

The clubs moaning the most are Liverpool and Arsenal - because they would have had the pick of the 'best of the rest' that the super rich clubs didn't want, or couldn't fit into their team, and they could buy them at a price that wasn't record breaking, but still above that of the average PL club like Villa, Everton, City, Spurs, etc.

That situation's changed now... and from their perspective - yes, they are now having to pay more to get the 'best of the rest' players. That's because City, PSG and Chelsea are now highly credible destinations for such players, and the clubs can afford them.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

We are trapped in a gold fish bowl at the moment as we talk about the impact Abramovitch had. We assume that this question is simply about the ability of other teams - our friends in the magic circle - to compete with his investment. "Fergie" said Utd couldn't compete, Wenger rarely says anything else. Neither found it unacceptable that no other PL club could compete with them until Abramovitch arrived. It must be pointed out that we are talking about competition from the financial point of view, because the PL actually became more competitive in the purely sporting sense of the term - somebody other than Arsenal or Manchester United had a chance of winning the PL, though Manchester United have still won twice as many PL titles as Chelsea since the advent of Abramovitch.

The courts may accept that some measures may be needed to protect sporting competition, but it is hard to see that it is more threatened in European football now than it has ever been. Primarily, though, and by far, the courts' concern is competition in the commercial sense, and here the law points in one consistent direction. European competition law does not exist to protect vested interests FROM competition. It exists to protect the right of individuals, companies etc TO compete and it sees INVESTMENT as the best way to make individual companies more competitive. In other words it is not concerned with the moanings of Ferguson, Wenger, Berlusconi or anyone else about Abramovitch's money, but about the effect that that money will have on Chelsea in particular and football in general. In this way FFP is a protectionist measure designed to limit competition by limiting investment in one particular asset, as has been pointed out ad nauseam on this thread and elsewhere. If those who framed European law were to seek an example of their vision of the investment model in action they would look no further than Manchester City; heavy investment in players, increased interest, attracted other players, many of very young age and made it possible to retain young players so making it practical to build the best CFA in the world. More people want to watch City so it makes economic sense to increase ground capacity (so helping the construction industry) and comfort to compete with other sports and entertainment outlets ( promotinng hi tech industries to provide all kinds of services for the spectators). Finally to anchor its routes in the community the club's owners are part of the biggest ever investment in a housing project in...Manchester? Britain? Europe? And the money spent on players stimulates investment plans at other clubs which brings benefits to them and so on and so on. Manchester City show how investment brings benefits to football, consumers, communities....and it has not only NOT taken a penny out of the game but has NOT damaged its sporting competitors at all in the commercial sense - in fact their revenues are going UP because of increasing interest.

At the moment we have no guide to how FFP might work in practice other than the somewhat fanciful dreams of Mr Platini, but Ferran Soriano tells a story which, I suspect, is not far from what the results would be. Apparently Ferran is fascinated by the slide rules that his father used to use. My mother used them daily at work and I was taught use one at school. They were, s he says "amazing tools, wonderfully precise...They were used to make simple and complex calculations." The companies making them were nearly all Swiss and were very profitable. In 1972, however, the first scientific electronic calculator came on to the market. The development costs were huge and, of course had required heavy investment, but, of course the company was soon exceptionally profitable, no-one used slide rules anymore and by 1980 all the companies making them had refused to change and had gone out of business. The point is obvious. FFP would have erected an insuperable barrier to investment in calculators, the slide rule companies would have not only stayed in business but their market share and profits would have been protected from competition - and look how different, and how much poorer life for everyone would be now. In industry and commerce this kind of protectionism is a block to progress.

What might be the consequences, more specifically, for football? Interestingly Mr Platini argues that the way to prosperity and success is through the academy and a bigger ground. Funnily though when the world cup presents a real opportunity to improve grounds FIFA finds it has to rely on state aid. This either causes riots as Brazilians object to £13 billion being spent on them while the sick lie on hospital floors waiting for treatment or FIFA has to rely on such "statesmen" as Vladimir Poutine who will silence any opposition to wild expenditure in the cause of national prestige. Just the image football wants. Other than that clubs such as Southampton, Leicester and Stoke have decent new grounds, all of which are actually smaller than the ones they replaced and so have to charge much higher prices and all of which seem to have resulted in a dodgy period in the lower divisions for the clubs concerned. Arsenal have, indeed, replaced Highbury with the bigger and better Emirates, but only by a lengthy period of debt which has damaged the club's ability to compete at the top level greatly. Then there is Liverpool. Ten years? And still not a sod moved. Plans at long last approved - but you scousers are going to pay through the nose for it to pay off the debt, and that really is a promise. And these are the owners we really do want - FFP lovers to a man, all looking forward to the profits they HAVE to make.

I totally agree with this.

UEFA are clinging on to a claim that FFP helps to protect the wider industry and therefore is a legitimate application of financial restrictions, but there is no evidence to suggest that the financial state of clubs across Europe is any better than it was before FFP was brought into place. In fact, there's hardly been enough time for it to have an effect before they are talking about 'adjusting' it. Which only suggests the adjustment is for other reasons, and not the wider benefit.

UEFA are essentially condoning the barrier to entry. It's already very high and they are saying to clubs 'if you can't get over the bar, you can't join'. They then restrict the techniques to get over that bar. Then they say 'you can only earn revenue using the techniques the current establishment are using' - which is particularly difficult given the market share for those techniques is already well defined. Any 'innovative' new techniques are considered an attempt to flout FFP.

What UEFA SHOULD be doing is figuring out how to lower that barrier, so that more clubs can compete. They are approaching it entirely the wrong way.

It's almost like they are saying... "the best way to have affordable housing is if everybody gets a highly paid job, then they can buy up the unsold properties on millionaire's row". Instead they should be saying... "we need to housing more affordable".

Putting aside the fact that our new wealth is bringing success to us -- the only way FFP can really work is by restricting the extent to which wealth can influence success, and that really means capping expenditure on players. If you're a wealthy club, great -- go and build wonderful stadiums, offer cheaper tickets etc etc, but you can't materially affect the outcome of success just because you're wealthy. THAT would be fair.
I know the reality is more complex, and any FFP attempt would be hard to implement, but surely that's the right way to go?