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

BobbyBoy said:
Why does football need more money and not less? In 2026 Phil Foden would play for Man City for 100k per week if that was the going rate, if Mbappe is on £1m per week he wouldn't. Its that simple as far I'm concerned, your proposal for more investment probably keeps things ticking over for another 10 years but eventually it bursts.

All your arguments are valid, of course money has been the dominant factor since the beginning of time. However what's changed is the amounts, while Cantona and Keane may have been expensive at the time the figures involved didn't threatened the existence of the club if they went wrong. Now the numbers are so big that Barcelona can't pay their wages because 3 transfers went badly wrong. Griezmann, Coutinho and Dembele have cost that club about 600m, you would have to fill the Nou Camp every week for 10 years to pay that.

Look at the accounts of any of the top sides and income from match day is below 10% of turnover. Commercial deals and TV are the main sources of income. The game is reliant on outside sources to pay its bills and this pandemic has shown how vulnerable that situation is, French TV deal collapsed, English teams faced with claw backs, Inter's owners wanting out. The championship has to be the best example too much money in the game. 17 clubs pay more in wages that they take in in turnover, is there any other industry where that happens? Would it happen if there wasn't billions at the bottom of the rainbow? They are gambling their existence on getting lucky. Its madness at every level although at least the fans do have something to look forward too, its not the foregone conclusion of most leagues.

There has to be a tipping point when fans in Germany, France and Italy stop tuning in to see the usual 3 crowned as Champions, Spain at least spilts its winners. Looking the age profile of this City squad no one could say they would be surprised if they won the league for the next 5 years.

By that point Bayern will have 15/15,
PSG 12/12,
Juve 12/13,
City 8/9,

Neutrals won't pay to watch it, no viewers equals no TV deal and less commercial income. The game has to be in a position to survive once that happens and it can only happen by lowering the costs of wages and transfers.
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There are problems with your analysis. When we had the maximum wage in England English football became more and more uncompetitive because no European country followed that path. As late as the 1980s English clubs were demanding changes to the structure of the game so they could compete with the European giants. Football is the world game and as such is a highly competitive business, on and off the field. And just as nations find they have to attract personnel from all over the world to staff healthcare systems so football teams have to attract players from all over the world. And players' wages are bound to account for a lot of turnover in such a competitive system and so you have to pay competitive wages. This does mean money has to come into the game from outside. But one consequence of these high wages is that it creates interest. Boys and girls want to be footballers and the result is more sponsorship for club and player. What happens is that clubs rise and fall as they respond to the pressures in the game. Nothing is forever and the clubs who are pre-eminent today may well not be in the future. But what UEFA has done is to try and introduce permanence and it's failing. It's trying to protect Real and Barca in Spain, United in England, Juventus and Milan in Italy and so on. Now, many of these clubs have been mismanaged for years, notably Inter in Italy but also Barca, which had debts of over a million pounds in 1960! It may be that the bottom will fall out of the football market. This may well be the case in Europe if UEFA doesn't get it's grubby hands off the game's throat. If it does happen the game will have to adapt and, as usual, some clubs will do well and others won't and new clubs may enjoy their place in the sun. That is football.

The problem with the championship is very real but it is not unique to football. What makes it so difficult to accept is that there is a bond between a club and its fans but that bond is coming under enormous strain. At the moment there are 6 teams in the championship which have won the top flight title. And many clubs below championship level have illustrious pasts. Falling crowds and bad management account for their plight as do the popularity of other forms of entertainment and demographic change. Just like the corner shop faced with competition from the super- and hyper-markets they are losing the battle for survival and even though it is hard to say that clubs' playing in front of near empty stadia are essential to their community (which seems more prepared to watch City or United among others on the tele) no-one wants to see clubs go out of existence. But they do not attract investment of any kind and can't meet their wage bill. But it's not too much money in the game, it's too little in those clubs. The high street is learning this lesson and it will be brought home to all of us when we see how much of it does not reopen! The lesson is that you have to attract investment or operate at a different, lower level or not operate at all. That's not me being ruthlessly capitalistic and I don't look at some possible future developments benignly but clubs have to operate in the world as it is and UEFA had better help everyone by putting some serious thought into what is best for football and how it can further it.
 
BobbyBoy said:
You have taken me up wrong, City was the example I used in reference to Halaand. Halaand and overall cost was the point I was trying to make, change City to Liverpool or anyone else its not important.

My point was a player purchase like that shouldn't jeopardise a clubs viability. On the open market without buy out clauses he will cost 200m and another 100m in wages. Its not inconceivable a club buys him and it goes bellyup. Some sort of control is needed or we will be looking at Ollie Watkins type level players costing 100m in 10 years.
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Oh ok, well I do hope City don't become one of the clubs taking those sort of risks. 200m and City walk though, so it was a bad example to use. 100m is still a risk but a manageable one to replace a key player like Aguero(not just the goals but the star power he has too). You can't make too many of those signings though.

I think maybe there should be some protocols added with the Neymar and Mbappé type fees, a club should have to show their working before they buy, to UEFA or the FA. Punishing a club that's already in trouble doesn't really prevent anything, it just ups the stakes for the gambling club. Then again, I wouldn't trust UEFA or the FA to do this fairly, there would be favours galore for the cartel clubs, blocking their competitors transfers etc.

Also, do you think it would be fair to introduce rules on what the selling club can ask for a player? Or is it wrong to tell a club what they can ask? I say that because to my eyes the valuation side of players, is as much a part of why players are sold for such high fees. Even when a club argues they don't want to sell, most of the time that's just a ploy, to justify cranking the price up(Dortmund are masters at that game).
 
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Metalartin said:
Oh ok, well I do hope City don't become one of the clubs taking those sort of risks. 200m and City walk though, so it was a bad example to use. 100m is still a risk but a manageable one to replace a key player like Aguero(not just the goals but the star power he has too). You can't make too many of those signings though.

I think maybe there should be some protocols added with the Neymar and Mbappé type fees, a club should have to show their working before they buy, to UEFA or the FA. Punishing a club that's already in trouble doesn't really prevent anything, it just ups the stakes for the gambling club. Then again, I wouldn't trust UEFA or the FA to do this fairly, there would be favours galore for the cartel clubs, blocking their competitors transfers etc.

Also, do you think it would be fair to introduce rules on what the selling club can ask for a player? Or is it wrong to tell a club what they can ask? I say that because to my eyes the valuation side of players, is as much a part of why players are sold for such high fees. Even when a club argues they don't want to sell, most of the time that's just a ploy, to justify cranking the price up(Dortmund are masters at that game).
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All is fair in love and war. Adam Smith said that the moment you interfere with the workings of the market, there will be backroom deals done to everybody's detriment. And, boy, don't we see that in football.
 
It's not just the rich club's fault that prices are now so igh...as soon as it was known City had big investment, any player they inquired about suddenly had their price doubled by greedy smaller clubs. WE HAVE to pay more than they're worth now.
 
Metalartin said:
On point 1 you completely missed his point, which was spending within your means. You had to come up with a fantasy scenario where City not only break transfer records and pay the highest wages(neither of these have been true since the takeover up until now) but also do it back to back, to land themselves in trouble. This is not the way City do business and that's why the club has no debt. If you're going to talk about percentage of turnovers, at least do the legwork(give the figures) rather than guess. Turnovers today dwarf what United was getting in the 90s, so you could well be wrong in that assumption.

On Point 2, you've given me an opportunity to use one of my favourite sayings: Liverpool started the 60s in div2, where they spent the best part of a decade before they were financially doped back into significance by Littlewoods' owners. They weren't dominating the 60s at all, the 60s to mid 70s were actually a golden era in some peoples eyes, many different teams competing. Liverpool didn't dominate until the late 70s to the 80s. Match of the day was very much a big thing by then and there was the odd televised game. Besides that, it's quite clear the English game still grew during this period, so I don't think your point is valid on Liverpool's domination.

As for your United apologist view(typical Spurs fan ;) ), these "first few years" of dominance accounted for a full decade, it was one of the least competitive decades on record. It was far less competitive than this recent decade and yet the game grew just like it did in the 80s.

In both of those eras there were plenty of fans saying Liverpool's/United's dominance was bad for football/making it boring it's just that the press weren't adding to it like they do these days and social media meltdowns weren't a thing back then either.

The problem IMO, is people have rose tinted specs about what the 90s actually represented to English football(most historians say it was the worst thing to happen competitively). They have this idea that loads of teams were competing, that any team could win it, that's a fallacy, that was United's era with Arsenal occasionally challenging. The fact is, there have been far closer title races in the past decade and the top 4 has had more variation too. The big 3 has become a big 6 and the gap to the big clubs has widened but that was going to happen with or without Chelsea and City. I don't think Spurs would have found a way into the top 4 without Chelsea and City upsetting the status quo either. Weakening United and Arsenal has helped other clubs in many respects but their fans are blind to it.
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How can you compare Cantona transfer to Halaand when Vialla was signed for 12 times the amount in the same year
 
kun said:
What is it with people remembering Garry Cook with rose tinted specs?

"Totally professional"
The man was a business man with very little knowledge of football.
A walking PR disaster who missed out on nearly every truly high profile player.
Additionally, and most damningly, he insulted Nedum Onuoha's mother, who was going through cancer treatment.

He was important for the club as his aggressive style was very useful for a club trying to make a mark but he would have eventually become obsolete anyway and his position was completely untenable after the email regarding Nedum's mother.

I'm sorry but the guy was a nob (call me tosser all you like). He was relatively good at his job but his continuous PR mistakes make him a complete liability. I am 1,000,000% happier with who we have now than Cook.
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He was, in fact, very good at his job. He did a first class job overseeing the campus development. But you are right, he was a big head who put peoples backs up.
 
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Metalartin said:
On point 1 you completely missed his point, which was spending within your means. You had to come up with a fantasy scenario where City not only break transfer records and pay the highest wages(neither of these have been true since the takeover up until now) but also do it back to back, to land themselves in trouble. This is not the way City do business and that's why the club has no debt. If you're going to talk about percentage of turnovers, at least do the legwork(give the figures) rather than guess. Turnovers today dwarf what United was getting in the 90s, so you could well be wrong in that assumption.

On Point 2, you've given me an opportunity to use one of my favourite sayings: Liverpool started the 60s in div2, where they spent the best part of a decade before they were financially doped back into significance by Littlewoods' owners. They weren't dominating the 60s at all, the 60s to mid 70s were actually a golden era in some peoples eyes, many different teams competing. Liverpool didn't dominate until the late 70s to the 80s. Match of the day was very much a big thing by then and there was the odd televised game. Besides that, it's quite clear the English game still grew during this period, so I don't think your point is valid on Liverpool's domination.

As for your United apologist view(typical Spurs fan ;) ), these "first few years" of dominance accounted for a full decade, it was one of the least competitive decades on record. It was far less competitive than this recent decade and yet the game grew just like it did in the 80s.

In both of those eras there were plenty of fans saying Liverpool's/United's dominance was bad for football/making it boring it's just that the press weren't adding to it like they do these days and social media meltdowns weren't a thing back then either.

The problem IMO, is people have rose tinted specs about what the 90s actually represented to English football(most historians say it was the worst thing to happen competitively). They have this idea that loads of teams were competing, that any team could win it, that's a fallacy, that was United's era with Arsenal occasionally challenging. The fact is, there have been far closer title races in the past decade and the top 4 has had more variation too. The big 3 has become a big 6 and the gap to the big clubs has widened but that was going to happen with or without Chelsea and City. I don't think Spurs would have found a way into the top 4 without Chelsea and City upsetting the status quo either. Weakening United and Arsenal has helped other clubs in many respects but their fans are blind to it.
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This is spot on. In the first PL era you could name the top 3 before the season started: MU, ARSE, POOL.
 
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