YourBirdCanSing22 said:
Prestwich_Blue said:
It seems clearer what has transpired now and why we were upset with UEFA. We had been working on the basis of being able to exclude £80m of player wages in order to comply. That figure always looked high to me but Kieran Connor (aka Swiss Ramble) told me that UEFA had clarified the pre-2010 wages figure by saying that although FFP says that renegotiated contracts were not included, we could exclude any wages paid under those renegotiated contracts in 2011/12 that we would have paid under the old contract.
As an example, if we paid Player A £70k a week and renegotiated that up to £90k a week on or after June 1st 2010, we could still exclude the £70k. The statement seems to imply that they have back-tracked on that, hence we aren't allowed to exclude the £80m but a lesser amount. So that's why we believe they've gone back on their word.
To me, it looks like a catastrophic PR failure from our club. Again.
I'm not going to quote the rest of your ludicrous and idiotic rant again but you come over as a fully paid-up member of the foaming-at-the-mouth, green-ink using brigade who actually understands fuck-all about PR and strategic objectives. There's no PR failure from the club but if you read the club statement, the key part says:
At the heart of those discussions is a fundamental disagreement between the Club’s and UEFA’s respective interpretations of the FFP regulations on players purchased before 2010. The Club believes it has complied with the FFP regulations on this and all other matters.
What that means is that we were given guidance by UEFA (as were others) about the treatment of the wages paid to players signed on contracts prior to June 1st 2010 in the 2011/12 financial year. That led us to believe that we could exclude a certain amount for this and that excluding our figure would have caused us to escape without sanction. UEFA have done a u-turn it would seem and have not allowed the amount which we thought they said they would. And I had confirmation from an independent and highly respected source that this higher figure would be accepted by UEFA, which he'd got from the Club Licensing Panel itself at UEFA HQ in Nyon.
The outcome is that, at the last moment, we've been shafted and I know the club were furious over this. However, you have to pick your battles carefully and they've decided that this isn't a battle worth fighting and dying for. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the sanctions barely affect us in any practical way, apart from maybe the CL squad size. If we don't have to meet the 8 home-grown minimum requirement then it's probably not an issue at all. The fine is minimal if we comply with the conditions and all the indicators are that we will, and would have done anyway.
Also, by accepting such a settlement, it may make us look bad but it actually has benefits plus it helps UEFA out of their predicament as well. The club might actually be pleased if we get a bad press ironically as it makes UEFA look tough and that we've been forced to comply with something we were always going to comply with anyway but at minimal inconvenience to ourselves. It's what's known as a win-win situation. If we go into battle, we could well win but the cost to us might be a lot higher as we'd be painted as the villains far worse than we would this way. It will all have blown over once the World Cup starts and we've effectively paid the entrance fee to the G14 cartel.
