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

[FanchesterCity]

The danger with a court ruling is that they may not rule absolutely for or against FFP, instead, they could spell out which aspects of FFP they believe to be legitimate and which they don't.

The problem with that is that before FFP, there were no restrictions, so a court throwing out some aspects of FFP is not new benefit to clubs.... however, if they identify some legitimate aspects of FFP, then that will only steer UEFA in a slightly different direction, but now a legally supported one.

It's a bit like saying 'you can't use a gun in this fight, UEFA, but we do think a baseball bat is ok'. We'll just be hit with a baseball bat then, and we'll have even less hope of challenging it.

It's only really a win for clubs if it's entirely ruled illegal, anything less is still a problem.

BUT, it's clubs behind us that have the bigger problem, we (as we always knew) just about scraped into the elite before the drawbridge came up, and we're still having to squeeze our way in.

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

the real date we should be interested in is the court case with DuPont..and it's progress. Cant be far away now.

The case that intrigues me is the one brought by the PSG fans,and not an interested business as such.
This pits UEFA against consumers - and the law considers the consumer to be king if I'm not mistaken!

I wouldn't hold out much hope on Europe and consumer rights. The EU is all about the protectionism of itself and is a major cause of poverty in Africa because of tariffs imposed on food exporters from that continent, which only goes to force up consumer food prices in Europe. With that in mind, what chance remains for the rights of football supporters?

 

[Chippy_boy]

the real date we should be interested in is the court case with DuPont..and it's progress. Cant be far away now.

The case that intrigues me is the one brought by the PSG fans,and not an interested business as such.
This pits UEFA against consumers - and the law considers the consumer to be king if I'm not mistaken!

Article 101 doesn't exactly make the consumer king but it does protect his rights. It prohibits associations to limit investment and declares any agreement doing thins to be void unless such an agreement "contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit," Such agreements have to do the minimum indispensable to improving production or distribution of goods and promoting technical or economic progress and giving consumers a fair share of the benefits. The PSG fans are arguing that the agreement (the FFPR) have led directly to their club having to increase ticket prices, with no benefit to consumers and no identifiable technical, economic or distributive progress.

And how could anyone disagree with that? I am certain our drive to increase match day revenues and the hikes we've seen in ticket prices are a direct consequence of FFP, with absolutely zero benefit to the consumer.

 

[FanchesterCity]

That's a very hard sell for a PL club, especially City.
We've seen our revenues grow massively and we'll benefit from increased TV rights.
It's a damn hard sell to claim FFP has put ticket prices up.

Of course, ultimately it all counts towards our revenue, which in turn counts towards our spending, but proportionally, it's very small.
I just can't see a PL being taken seriously saying FFP caused ticket prices to go up.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

Fanchester, it's PSG fans who are arguing that FFP has led to THEIR ticket prices going up, not ours. We aren't going to court on these grounds. PSG fans are taking action because of specific increases, which I believe are supposed to be really hefty. Some prices have doubled, they claim. Their case is that the club was punished last season for breaches of FFP, and that they were certain to breach the break even rule again this year, triggering even greater sanctions, unless they could increase income massively. This was because their deal with the Qatari tourist board was considered a related parties' deal an so it's value for FFP purposes was reduced substantially. Since immediate increases in sponsorship were not forthcoming, TV income could not be increased, they were faced with either selling assets or raising admission prices. The break even rule does not therefore promote economic progress since the sale of players weakens the club and it does not bring any benefits to the consumer. So, yet again you are confusing the issues with vague waffle of guns and baseball bats. This case is concerned with specific events and causal connections, and you seem totally unaware of them.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Fanchester, it's PSG fans who are arguing that FFP has led to THEIR ticket prices going up, not ours. We aren't going to court on these grounds. PSG fans are taking action because of specific increases, which I believe are supposed to be really hefty. Some prices have doubled, they claim. Their case is that the club was punished last season for breaches of FFP, and that they were certain to breach the break even rule again this year, triggering even greater sanctions, unless they could increase income massively. This was because their deal with the Qatari tourist board was considered a related parties' deal an so it's value for FFP purposes was reduced substantially. Since immediate increases in sponsorship were not forthcoming, TV income could not be increased, they were faced with either selling assets or raising admission prices. The break even rule does not therefore promote economic progress since the sale of players weakens the club and it does not bring any benefits to the consumer. So, yet again you are confusing the issues with vague waffle of guns and baseball bats. This case is concerned with specific events and causal connections, and you seem totally unaware of them.

My post was in response to the one prior to mine where it was suggested our ticket prices were a consequence of FFP, and I replied saying that would be a hard sell.

But even for PSG, it's not an easy sell, since there were alternative courses of action they could have taken - such as selling some players.

Of course we as fans can quite easily say it's forcing prices up, but you'd have to prove that in court, which would be difficult when ticket price increases were rising prior to FFP too.... I don't think it's a clear argument.

Had you read my post in context of the prior one, you'd not have reached your wrong conclusion about my post.

 

[FanchesterCity]

If you want to debate the PSG fans case, that's fine too...
Those fans can 'claim' FFP rules are pushing up ticket prices, the counter argument is that breaking the FFP rules causes that, not the rules itself. It's a subtle, but very important distinction. The existence of FFP alone has not demonstrated a clear increase in ticket prices, but the breach of it (probably) has.

Get caught drink driving and you lose your job as a consequence. That doesn't mean the drink drive laws are costing people their job.

I hope they they successful with their case, but as ever, it's by no means certain.

 

[80s Shorts]

The danger with a court ruling is that they may not rule absolutely for or against FFP, instead, they could spell out which aspects of FFP they believe to be legitimate and which they don't.

The problem with that is that before FFP, there were no restrictions, so a court throwing out some aspects of FFP is not new benefit to clubs.... however, if they identify some legitimate aspects of FFP, then that will only steer UEFA in a slightly different direction, but now a legally supported one.

It's a bit like saying 'you can't use a gun in this fight, UEFA, but we do think a baseball bat is ok'. We'll just be hit with a baseball bat then, and we'll have even less hope of challenging it.

It's only really a win for clubs if it's entirely ruled illegal, anything less is still a problem.

BUT, it's clubs behind us that have the bigger problem, we (as we always knew) just about scraped into the elite before the drawbridge came up, and we're still having to squeeze our way in.

What if it's a rounders bat.

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

Fanchester, it's PSG fans who are arguing that FFP has led to THEIR ticket prices going up, not ours. We aren't going to court on these grounds. PSG fans are taking action because of specific increases, which I believe are supposed to be really hefty. Some prices have doubled, they claim. Their case is that the club was punished last season for breaches of FFP, and that they were certain to breach the break even rule again this year, triggering even greater sanctions, unless they could increase income massively. This was because their deal with the Qatari tourist board was considered a related parties' deal an so it's value for FFP purposes was reduced substantially. Since immediate increases in sponsorship were not forthcoming, TV income could not be increased, they were faced with either selling assets or raising admission prices. The break even rule does not therefore promote economic progress since the sale of players weakens the club and it does not bring any benefits to the consumer. So, yet again you are confusing the issues with vague waffle of guns and baseball bats. This case is concerned with specific events and causal connections, and you seem totally unaware of them.

My post was in response to the one prior to mine where it was suggested our ticket prices were a consequence of FFP, and I replied saying that would be a hard sell.

But even for PSG, it's not an easy sell, since there were alternative courses of action they could have taken - such as selling some players.

Of course we as fans can quite easily say it's forcing prices up, but you'd have to prove that in court, which would be difficult when ticket price increases were rising prior to FFP too.... I don't think it's a clear argument.

Had you read my post in context of the prior one, you'd not have reached your wrong conclusion about my post.

The post prior to yours was from Chippy boy, which commented on PSG and argued that price rises at City could be shown to be a result of FFP.

The "alternative courses of action", such as selling some players, raise the precise question of the legitimacy of the break even rule. UEFA must demonstrate to the court the reasons why it will not allow the most obvious "alternative course of action" which is investment by the owners of the club. In particular they must demonstrate that there are actual advantages in terms of economic and/or technical progress which will result from the limit imposes on investment and that the consumer derives benefits from the resultant progress. Tell us straight, no waffle or bluster, how exactly UEFA will do that.

The relevance to City is that this case will show that a permanent and universal ban on owner investment will not necessarily promote progress at all but will increase the pressure on clubs to raise ticket prices as a way of increasing revenue. Selling players would damage the interests and development of the club if done purely to balance the books. We are back to the fundamental principle: commercial law is founded on the principle that investment is essential and must be encouraged while FFP rests squarely on the principle that it is harmful and must be banned. It is clearly contrary to the letter and spirit of European law.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Incidentally, the PSG fans case rests on two issues:

Issue 1 - FFP sanctions cause a loss of performance / quality of product
This argument is simply that the quality of PSG's product is diminished because they can't buy the best components (players)

Issue 2 - FFP sanctions cause increased consumer prices
In order to increase revenue, and (as you've said) unable (or limited) in options, they force consumer prices up.

This is according to their lawyer, Emmanaul Daoud,

There's also a wider issue of abuse of dominant position etc, but in terms of harm to bear by the consumer, it's points 1 and 2.