I hope so mate. However the thought of Napoleon being bollock naked has brought my breakfast back up so cheers for that :))noirish said:Could it be that the emperor (UEFA) is in fact nude and we have nothing to worry about whatsoever?
strongbowholic said:Apropos of nothing, a Scouse mate of mine (dyed in the wool Scouse but not an obsessive candle waver) posted this elsewhere. Thought it amusing. It's the top 7 in the league:
1. Arab money
2. American money
3. Russian money
4. Don't spend money
5. What's money?
6. Gareth Bale money
7. Waste of money
Made me chuckle anyway.
aguero93:20 said:I think you're all attaching too much importance to a couple of events early on in the take-over, if they wanted a reason to come after us it's that we're going to permanently take one of Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool/Scum's place in the Champions League, even though we'll match any of them for global viewing figures soon enough.Chippy_boy said:Dribble said:This.
The good thing is that we quickly kicked him and his loads a money bullshit to the kerb. We are still trying to recover from that damage in the eyes of many and I fear irrespective of what we do in the future, that assumption about us will follow us around for years to come like 'same old Arsenal, always cheating'.
Every opportunity opposing managers get to mention money in relation to us, they take. Will we ever shake this assumption off? I don't know but it seriously pisses me off when it constantly gets mentioned.
Yes, I agree. The £100m Kaka bid was another catalyst imho. It was too big, too audacious for us at our stage of our development. Now perhaps as double league champions with an established squad and CL progress. But back then it was like a red rag to a bull. Platini mentioned it repeatedly as being totally wrong and although that was hypocritical given the similar sized deals that are done by other clubs, in a way I can see his point.
For all they knew at the time, we were going to just blow the whole of the establishment out of the water with a £1bn superteam that would render all competition null and void for the foreseeable. The fact that we were on a track to produce a solid, self-sustaining business, investing in the community etc perhaps sounded like hollow promises.
Perhaps we could have handled it better in hindsight, with a more softly softly approach. Dunno.
strongbowholic said:Apropos of nothing, a Scouse mate of mine (dyed in the wool Scouse but not an obsessive candle waver) posted this elsewhere. Thought it amusing. It's the top 7 in the league:
1. Arab money
2. American money
3. Russian money
4. Don't spend money
5. What's money?
6. Gareth Bale money
7. Waste of money
Made me chuckle anyway.
And you can't see the G14's motivation is to stop their Champions league places being taken is the key motivation behind this? Arsenal haven't been in a position to finish ahead of both Liverpool and Manure for a long time now, do you think they're more worried about losing the chance for a title bid or losing their top 4 spot? For the rest of the G14, the Italian clubs only method of making big bucks now is the CL due to the collapse of Serie A and the rest of them are watching each others backs. Platini has even said it himself that it was "Moratti, Berlusconi, Abramovich, Rummenigge, Gazinidis, Gill"Chippy_boy said:aguero93:20 said:I think you're all attaching too much importance to a couple of events early on in the take-over, if they wanted a reason to come after us it's that we're going to permanently take one of Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool/Scum's place in the Champions League, even though we'll match any of them for global viewing figures soon enough.Chippy_boy said:Yes, I agree. The £100m Kaka bid was another catalyst imho. It was too big, too audacious for us at our stage of our development. Now perhaps as double league champions with an established squad and CL progress. But back then it was like a red rag to a bull. Platini mentioned it repeatedly as being totally wrong and although that was hypocritical given the similar sized deals that are done by other clubs, in a way I can see his point.
For all they knew at the time, we were going to just blow the whole of the establishment out of the water with a £1bn superteam that would render all competition null and void for the foreseeable. The fact that we were on a track to produce a solid, self-sustaining business, investing in the community etc perhaps sounded like hollow promises.
Perhaps we could have handled it better in hindsight, with a more softly softly approach. Dunno.
No mate, I don't buy that. The pressure has come from the G14 not the Sky 4 who at the end of the day are only 4. And Liverpool haven't been one of the 4 for a while anyway. Scum will doubtless have never even considered the possibility of not being in the CL, it won't even have been on their radar. You might say the same of Chelsea. Only Arsenal would have been really worried and that is not enough to create a knee jerk reaction that is FFP. Do you think the Germans or Spanish or Italians give a toss about which 4 English teams they have to compete with? Nope.
They were all shit scared - all of them - that we might win everything for years unless reined back in.
Balti said:an owner of any business is entitled to invest in it as he/she sees fit seeking growth and profit
ultimately the ambition defines the strategy but of course financial limitations may (should) result in the adoption of a more prudent strategy
football has never been any different with clubs borrowing huge sums or selling off ownership to try and win/ compete and there have also been rich owners funding or trying to fund success with hugely varying degrees of success for many decades
the real problem is owners that cannot actually afford their chosen strategy not simply ambitious rich owners per se
FFP has grown into something that goes against all the free-market, free trade, democratic and aspirational principles that define us as a society
If you want a level playing field then simply wind back the clock back a few decades and stop Jimmy Hill from removing the wage cap and impose a transfer fee cap while you're at it. In fact why not impose a TV money cap as well and add a cap on UEFA cartel exec fat cat salaries for good measure lol
FFP should actually be about ensuring that clubs are run by responsible owners so that they don't get fucked up by incompetence and/or leeches. Responsible owners that respect and nurture the club that they own within financial parameters that they can afford. Owners like ours in fact.
Fuck FFP.
aguero93:20 said:And you can't see the G14's motivation is to stop their Champions league places being taken is the key motivation behind this? Arsenal haven't been in a position to finish ahead of both Liverpool and Manure for a long time now, do you think they're more worried about losing the chance for a title bid or losing their top 4 spot? For the rest of the G14, the Italian clubs only method of making big bucks now is the CL due to the collapse of Serie A and the rest of them are watching each others backs. Platini has even said it himself that it was "Moratti, Berlusconi, Abramovich, Rummenigge, Gazinidis, Gill"Chippy_boy said:aguero93:20 said:I think you're all attaching too much importance to a couple of events early on in the take-over, if they wanted a reason to come after us it's that we're going to permanently take one of Arsenal/Chelsea/Liverpool/Scum's place in the Champions League, even though we'll match any of them for global viewing figures soon enough.
No mate, I don't buy that. The pressure has come from the G14 not the Sky 4 who at the end of the day are only 4. And Liverpool haven't been one of the 4 for a while anyway. Scum will doubtless have never even considered the possibility of not being in the CL, it won't even have been on their radar. You might say the same of Chelsea. Only Arsenal would have been really worried and that is not enough to create a knee jerk reaction that is FFP. Do you think the Germans or Spanish or Italians give a toss about which 4 English teams they have to compete with? Nope.
They were all shit scared - all of them - that we might win everything for years unless reined back in.