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

How can you compare Cantona transfer to Halaand when Vialla was signed for 12 times the amount in the same year
Vialla? What's that got to do with the PL or United? Lentini was the world record in 92 anyway, not Vialla and Haaland wont break the world record if he leaves this summer.

Regardless, that part was about the percentage of turnover. We'd need to know the turnover of United in 1992 was my point because turnovers were vastly different back then(the PL was only a couple of months old in Nov 92).

I do suppose there were better examples to use as a comparison but it wasn't me doing the comparing. Cantona wasn't cheap but he wasn't the PL's most expensive player and Haaland probably will be if he moves in the summer but not the world record as I said(IMO).
 
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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).
I don't think they're should be limits on what someone can ask for but if the buyer is heavily penalised for going over a certain amount then eventually the selling clubs will reduce prices or better still keep the players and develop.

The 3 best teams in Europe over the last 3 years have transfer records of between £65m and 75m. If that's enough to win you the European Cup then surely that's an acceptable number to agree on and charge the so called luxury tax on anything beyond that? If an outside investor buys Newcastle and wants to buy Halaand then let him, he pays Dortmund the 200m and pays 130m extra in luxury taxes that goes into a fund to spread around European national associations. No restrictions against investment but it is heavily penalised if it gets out of hand.

Wages is a harder number to agree a starting point on but it needs sorting out.
 
145 million for Haaland?. You can build a 50 thousand seater stadium for that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we invest in Maine Road rather than players back in the early 90's. I always thought that was the main reason we were relegated, several times.
 
I don't think they're should be limits on what someone can ask for but if the buyer is heavily penalised for going over a certain amount then eventually the selling clubs will reduce prices or better still keep the players and develop.
Bit naive if you ask me, selling clubs(and agents) are as much to blame for the state of football, if you're denying that you're not being objective. A selling club isn't going to care one jot if a buying club is penalised either and the clubs without high revenues rely on inflated transfers as part of their business strategy(we need to find a better way), they mostly have no intention of keeping those players. One player isn't going to win you the league on his own for a team like Southampton for example.

As for the rest of it, in principle I agree with a lot of what's being said on spending caps and rules on spending but one thing that always crops up, is that I do not trust UEFA or the FA to handle things fairly. Do you not see the problem in trusting UEFA to be impartial? When have they ever shown this trait? Look at the FA changing the rules on wage increases just coincidently at the time that United looked like they might fall foul of that rule in the upcoming review. Look at UEFA's leniency to cartel clubs over smaller clubs and the new clubs on the block.

Give them too much control and you will never wrestle it back from them, the cartel will once again lean on UEFA to shut smaller clubs out, just so they can fight for the spoils amongst themselves. Which is the only thing they want, rather than an even playing field.
 
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No club needs to buy Haaland for £200m. If a club chooses to do so and then if he is rubbish and it means they can't pay bills or buy the next Haaland then that is bad management. Why do we need to create rules to prevent that happening?

Because football clubs are more than businesses and mean lots to a community and fans? So why not create the rules so they protect fans and not owners? As fans what do we want?

I want to be able to go see my team play at a reasonable time for a reasonable price. The actual players are the cherry on top. It is brilliant seeing KdB every week but it was also brilliant seeing Bernabia. The price tag and the competition mean less than the magic that happens between a crowd and a player when i go support my team. I've fallen in love with beautiful players and also some munters but i've loved them all the same in that 90 minutes except for the Stuart Pearce era.

Fix the fear of not winning anything ever again, being crap and no one caring about you except for the people sat around you and you save football.
 
They have actually only finished together the top three 3 times in 30 years.
Top 4 was the second part of my argument for the first decade of the PL not being half as competitive as some people think(the 90s myth). United were never out of the top 4. Arsenal had two off seasons and one 5th place finish in the early years before quickly becoming a top 2 regulars, they had 7 out of 10 top 4 finishes. Liverpool were the worst performers of the big sly 3 but still ended up with 7 out of 10 top 4 finishes, which says it all doesn't it? Which other club even came close to that? I think I read somewhere, that the few times one of the big sly 3 did fall out of it, it seemed to coincide with outside investment into one of the clubs outside of the pack more often than not.

Just on a quick glance: 94/95 Arsenal finished 12th as Blackburn "bought the title", 95/96 Arsenal finish 5th as Newcastle challenge United for the title off the back of their £22.14m spree(top spenders that year) and managed to repeat their 2nd place finish the next year off the back of it, before falling away again.

Compare that decade with the previous decade which was Liverpool's era of dominance(9 out of 10), there were 5 out of 10 top 4 finishes for Arsenal and 6 out of 10 for United. I think that shows top 4 was far more predictable in the 90s than most previous eras before it and that's no coincidence either. I haven't totalled up this past decade yet but I think it's pretty obvious that top 4 has become far less predictable.

edit: I was right the first time on Liverpool's 7 out of 10 in the first 10 years of the PL, time to log off and rest my eyes. :)
 
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