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

[Spanishbob]

These indeed are very strange times. When a well run club is vilified by its own league members who make money off us by buying players at exorbitant prices( look dippers and villa and others) and send letterheaded forms to UEFA to get same club banned I’ve got to chuckle to myself how has it come to this? But has been said by many better writers then me they are hurting like mad and just don’t know how the fuck they can cope with us. The spanish mates I have here can’t understand the shit we get for having to best football they have seen since Barcelona in its pomp and why I try to explain the media bias in the uk. We all know to a man and girl ffp was a devisive devise to rein us in and us only.

 

[Spanishbob]

These indeed are very strange times. When a well run club is vilified by its own league members who make money off us by buying players at exorbitant prices( look dippers and villa and others) and send letterheaded forms to UEFA to get same club banned I’ve got to chuckle to myself how has it come to this? But has been said by many better writers then me they are hurting like mad and just don’t know how the fuck they can cope with us. The spanish mates I have here can’t understand the shit we get for having to best football they have seen since Barcelona in its pomp and why I try to explain the media bias in the uk. We all know to a man and girl ffp was a devisive devise to rein us in and us only.

Can I also add sorry for my misspelled writing I’m pissed. :-)

 

[Corky]

i was talking about the premier league not a shit spanish league ? united are in a mess and add the new signings to losses made. if £600milion in debt not financial trouble then you must be on the uefa board matey

at what point does that debt gets repaid or stop growing ? covid-19 fell nicely for the elite teams and united
it covers their backs to a point. but also the value of the club is cut by £600million if they sell up

You stated Barcelona in both your examples.

If you are in £600k in debt in a £1m house and earning £200k a year it is sustainable and lot better than someone in no debt with a £30k house in Bacup on £18 k a year, who can't afford to maintain their dilapidated back to back, so it is all relative.

The PL clubs are worth far more than their debts which get paid off when they are sold to the next owner.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Our old friemd Ed Thompson has resurfaced in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. At the end of an otherwise decent article on FFP, he comes up with this:


I mean, how wrong can you be? A strongly worded letter has landed on WSC's desk. Let's see if they print it.

 

[SilverFox2]

Our old friemd Ed Thompson has resurfaced in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. At the end of an otherwise decent article on FFP, he comes up with this:

View attachment 25820
I mean, how wrong can you be? A strongly worded letter has landed on WSC's desk. Let's see if they print it.

Seems that if the facts don't suit the article then presenting a scenario that does as a fact ie lying is perfectly acceptable in modern journalism.

Well researched Colin.

 

[dickie davies]

Our old friemd Ed Thompson has resurfaced in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. At the end of an otherwise decent article on FFP, he comes up with this:

View attachment 25820
I mean, how wrong can you be? A strongly worded letter has landed on WSC's desk. Let's see if they print it.

I was bored yesterday so I read the CAS' judgement of our case
I'd forgotten that we lost pretty much every argument and any obstacle our legal team put in place, CAS removed
The reason the UEFA ban was overturned was due to the lack of any evidence

 

[Blue Theatre]

When Platini first mooted the idea of FFP, my understanding is that it was to help protect us, the fans, from owners who could ruin our clubs (perhaps by chasing temporary glory, then leaving, taking the money with them).

On that basis, who has made that possibility more likely; the Glazers or the Sheikh ? I suppose you have to imagine that both (Glazers & the Sheikh) announce today that they're pulling out of the clubs next month ... which club would be worried about its future, if either ?

Possibly we'd be slightly more concerned.
But you'd also need to think back to what City were like under Thaksin / before the Sheikh took over ... there was a much greater chance then that City's debts would overwhelm them, and that no (good) buyer could be found for the club. Our future was not secure & potentially bleak.

I'd say its clear that the Sheikh"s involvement with City has made us *more* stable/ reduced the likelihood of a financial disaster hitting us.

So under the original purpose/ principles of FFP, I'd say City don't deserve the criticism/ sceptism/ investigations.

But of course, FFP has gradually morphed into something more sinister; a way to stop newcomers joining "the club" - or if somehow one does, of casting aspersions on their achievements, making them feel unwanted outsiders, and periodically trying to force them back out of "the club".

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

You stated Barcelona in both your examples.

If you are in £600k in debt in a £1m house and earning £200k a year it is sustainable and lot better than someone in no debt with a £30k house in Bacup on £18 k a year, who can't afford to maintain their dilapidated back to back, so it is all relative.

The PL clubs are worth far more than their debts which get paid off when they are sold to the next owner.

This is exactly the point. Debt itself is not a problem. What is a problem is the ability to service that debt out of the revenue you earn. United can easily service their debt. even though between 2015 and 2020, they've spent nearly £400m doing that. Imagine if they'd spent that money on transfers and wages?

If you want to borrow money to buy players, that's not in itself a problem as long as you can repay that money in the agreed timeframe. That's why FFP should look forward, not backwards. What you did or didn't do 3 years ago is pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is what you've got coming in and what you've got going out in the next 12-24 months.

As I've said before, what nearly took us into administration in 2008 was the £15m second instalment on Thaksin/Sven's transfers, that was due just after the 2008 year end and which we didn't have. Had FFP been in place back then, we could well have been in the bizarre situation of passing FFP yet being in administration when we passed it. Which shows how useless FFP really is in its current form.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I was bored yesterday so I read the CAS' judgement of our case
I'd forgotten that we lost pretty much every argument and any obstacle our legal team put in place, CAS removed
The reason the UEFA ban was overturned was due to the lack of any evidence

And because we had the best lawyers money could buy while UEFA could only muster the 19-year old mate of one of the ExCo member's sons, who was a first year law student at Stoke Polytechnic.

 

[Newman Noggs]

Our old friemd Ed Thompson has resurfaced in the latest issue of When Saturday Comes. At the end of an otherwise decent article on FFP, he comes up with this:

View attachment 25820
I mean, how wrong can you be? A strongly worded letter has landed on WSC's desk. Let's see if they print it.

I like the word "unprecedented" as though the attempt to ruin our club wasn't an "unprecedented" assault in itself. I also enjoy the idea that we should have allowed UEFA to employ a stronger legal team as though this was some sort of sporting event. Which to most outsiders, of course, it is.