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

[blueinsa]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The ruler of Qatar, asked yesterday what he thought of FFPR?

"My answer? David Luiz!"

I like these guys.

I like the way we still get tarred with the same brush as PSG even after comments like this.

Two clubs in a similar position but with 2 different ways of dealing with the situation.

Paris have done nowt wrong, imagine how strong we would be now if we had taken their stance the last two years.

I hope they continue to throw money at it and blow the whole fucking thing apart.

They can start by giving us £70m for Toure!!

PSG are fortunate in that they don't sit in our league along side green eyed rivals who have also made sure the domestic competition has adopted FFP.

Its the PL FFP that we will be wary of far more than UEFA's which as far as im concerned is completely fucking toothless, as PSG are showing the world.

 

[Blue Mooner]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

There are two sides the FFP and legality coin.

On the one side, there's fairly prima facie that it restricts business by placing limits on investment and 'policing' partnerships and sponsorship deals that are entirely legal.

On the other hand, there's the argument that clubs opt to be part of Premier League, and in this case, CL too. There are competition rules set out by UEFA and clubs are at liberty to withdraw from their competition.

A parallel that you COULD draw, is this:

The Olympics sets out the rules for it's 100m sprint competition, and a disabled or highly scientific competitor wishes to take part. The disabled competitor is aided by the use of a high speed wheelchair (or set of super fast artificial limbs) and the scientific competitor has developed a pair of trainers that allow him to run faster than any other competitor.
The Olympic Games committee opt to ban both competitors. The two competitors claim cases of disability discrimination and general discrimination respectively. Both competitors are paid sportsmen and failure to participate affects their earnings. In fact, the Olympics are THE number one competition for athletes - there is no viable alternative competition that could generate the same earnings.

This is the crux of the problem. Football clubs are businesses (yes) but they enter into a private competition (CL).
A similar situation occurs when we hear of golf clubs prohibiting women, and managing to circumvent sexual discrimination laws.

So, the issue will be two-fold.

1) Is Champions League (run by UEFA) simply a competition that sets out a set of rules that must be adhered to in order to partake (including fines)?
2) If it's MORE than a competition, then could those rules be anti-competitive, or restrictive?

Even if it's considered just a competition, that doesn't necessarily mean it can invent any rules it likes, but it does make like more awkward for anybody wishing to oppose those rules. i.e. you can have a competition that excludes women (or men) but you can't have one that excludes black or gay people etc.

It could also be argued that collusion between clubs (regardless of UEFA's involvement) is a form of price fixing, but it's tenuous. Agreeing to limit expenditure, or set investment caps could be seen as creating a barrier to entry, knowing full well it will secure the positions of the 'cartel' and restrict opportunity for others. But I repeat, it's quite tenuous at best.

Needless to say, in summary, it's not quite as clear cut as many think, which in part, is probably why UEFA and clubs are reluctant to get into a protracted legal wrangle that could take years to resolve and create a great deal of negative press for both sides. It's likely City have chosen to be pragmatic and play along with UEFA. The compromise reached allows both parties to save face.

DuPont isn't faced with sponsors and brand value.... he has little to lose and a lot to gain from a test case.

Your post misses several points, Fanchester. In the case of the Olympic sprinters those taking part in the olympic sprints have to meet certain stringent sporting standards, in the form of qualifying times, before they get anywhere near the Olympics proper. I believe Pistorius met the standard for some meetings and competed, so there's no question of discrimination. UEFA lays down purely sporting criteria for qualification for its CL and those meeting them can compete. They may not lay down conditions which are not in accordance with European laws. As Petit pointed out:

More fundamentally, the requirement to break even challenges the way the EU should function as laid down in Article 101 of the European Treaty. From the very start, in the eyes of the law, there is no real question that UEFA is an association of “associations (national associations) of companies (the clubs)” and that, if need be, its regulations are “decisions” must be in accordance with what is laid down in Article 101 (1) of the Treaty.

Those taking part in CL almost need to qualify, so there's little difference, other than UEFA also impose additional criteria (financial).
The point being made though is that the criteria set can be perceived as discriminatory, but holds firm still. Hence men can't enter the women's race... even though they meet all criteria bar one (gender). It's not considered sexual discrimination though.

article 101:
1. The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market: all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the internal market, and in particular those which:

(a) directly or indirectly fix purchase or selling prices or any other trading conditions;

(b) limit or control production, markets, technical development, or investment;

(c) share markets or sources of supply;

(d) apply dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;

(e) make the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.

2. Any agreements or decisions prohibited pursuant to this Article shall be automatically void.

3. The provisions of paragraph 1 may, however, be declared inapplicable in the case of:

- any agreement or category of agreements between undertakings,

- any decision or category of decisions by associations of undertakings,

- any concerted practice or category of concerted practices,

which contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit, and which does not:

(a) impose on the undertakings concerned restrictions which are not indispensable to the attainment of these objectives;

(b) afford such undertakings the possibility of eliminating competition in respect of a substantial part of the products in question.

It's nowhere near as clear cut as you suggest and sport DOES clearly impose restrictions on competitive events that would contravene EU law were it not a sporting competition (e.g. gender based competition).

The counter argument to the anti-competitive angle is that clubs are free to form their own league if they wish, and they are not prohibited from spending as much as they like... they are only prohibited from doing so IF they wish to partake in CL.
A club is free to resign from the PL if it wishes too, and apply to join the FL if it wished to do so). Of course, that's very unlikely given it would be bad for business, but it's an option available.

It's simply far too simplistic to claim 'it's a no brainer and in City's favour'. It's not. We don't know which way any ruling would go. If either side knew for certain, they'd have made the call already.
I 'think' a great deal of UEFA's criteria would fail, but again, you never can tell, and there can be some strange rulings from time to time - which is probably why City opted to take the safer route... since the restrictions imposed don't outweigh the gamble through the courts.

Sorry, but your analogy doesn't hold water. If you are going to develop analogies to justify existence of FFP or it's potential legality then you have to find other 'similar' precedents. You made the point yourself that the rules being imposed here are not 'sporting' they are financial. Having women's and men's sports simply makes sense in the context of the sport as there still exists today too much of a gulf in physical abilities between men and women. I don't think there are any 'rules' per se that would prevent a woman playing in the premier league it's simply that no woman is currently good enough to compete. The other poster makes a similar point about Pistorius.

As soon as you make rules that impact how a business operates In a supposed free market, irrespective of the fact you are joining a sporting competition, and particularly where there exists no viable alternative sporting competition, in which to operate your business, then you are operating like a cartel. If football clubs are allowed to float on the stock exchange a la the rags then these businesses have to be bound by the same competition laws. Clearly the arguments would have to be tested in a court of law but I have no doubt that the weight of the argument is strongly against FFP being legal.

 

[abu13]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The ruler of Qatar, asked yesterday what he thought of FFPR?

"My answer? David Luiz!"

I like these guys.

I like the way we still get tarred with the same brush as PSG even after comments like this.

Two clubs in a similar position but with 2 different ways of dealing with the situation.

Paris have done nowt wrong, imagine how strong we would be now if we had taken their stance the last two years.

I hope they continue to throw money at it and blow the whole fucking thing apart.

They can start by giving us £70m for Toure!!

Yeah, i totally agree,

It just amuses me how us and PSG operate in such different ways but we are the ones who cop for most of the negativity.

I personally would love for us to be more bullish but understand why we have adopted the approach we have.

 

[fbloke]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Its going to be really interesting to see how UEFA and their FFPR is viewed in a few years time.

I imagine that very few people consider the allowances made for the development of young players to be a bad thing but to be honest I do.

In order to invest in an academy a club has to have the money in the first place. The building of facilities such as City's CFA wont suddenly occur simply because it is deemed as good investment by UEFA.

The bigger clubs will not only have the best physical facilities with indoor pitches, 7,000 seater stadiums, live in accommodation and hydrotherapy pools etc but they will also have nutritionists, coaches, physio's etc far above what any smaller club can afford. Let's ignore the contracts that they can afford to pay players as well!

FFP will take less than a decade to not only kill the dreams of success but also strangle clubs like Southampton's alternative way of competing.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

@Fanchester:

I don't disagree with your conclusion, i.e. that it is not a open and shut case and could go either way.

But I do disagree with how you arrived at your conclusion.

There is no doubt that FFP falls under the scope of Article 101 of the TFEU, which is designed to control restrictive practices and anti-competitive arrangements. However, EU competition law accepts that effects that are restrictive can be acceptable where those effects are inherent in the pursuit of justified objectives. It matters not whether participation in the CL is by invitation, or on merit: It is governed by Article 101, irrespective.

If UEFA were to successfully defend a case brought against FFP, it would have to show that any restriction on the free movement of players, and downward pressure on wages was an unavoidable and proportionally justified consequence of rules introduced for the good of the game as a whole. And probably also that no alternative rules - without anti-competitive consequences - could achieve the same objectives. They would not get anywhere by trying claim that EU law does not apply because it's an invite-only competition - that's irrelevant.

http://www.soccernomics-agency.com/?p=469

I'm not really saying it doesn't apply just because it's a competition / sport related... I'm just arguing that there are elements of sport that do manage to justify exemptions. The business vs sport area is very grey and hence I don't think it's necessarily 'obvious' that every rule UEFA introduces would be immediate ruled as 'contravening business law' just because we are a business too. Sport has lost plenty of cases where it contravened law, but it's also won a few too.
I'm not buying 'the Sheik can afford the best lawyers' and 'UEFA are stupid'. They pay a pretty penny for their own legal team too!... and you're still at the mercy of the courts, no matter how amazing your legal team is. It's always a bit of a gamble!

And yes, of course, there are some valid reasons why restrictions might be put in place that 'seem' to be inhibiting progress, but in some eyes, might be interpreted and reasonable in in the best interests of the industry as a whole.

Even the article 101 element saying 'investment should not be limited' seems clear cut, but UEFA could argue it's never placed a limit on investment, it's only put restrictions on the ratio of spending to revenue, and even then, only when it comes to certain parts of the business (i.e. it doesn't say you can't invest 1 billion, you can, just not on players, unless your revenue supports it). They've never said you can't toss 1 billion in infrastructure, and IF you could bump your revenues up, you could spend 1 billion on players too.

I'm playing devil's advocated of course, but they've never actually put an absolute limit on anything.

Also, I think the ECA (European Club Association) which represents the clubs, might also be a fly in the ointment, in that (in theory) UEFA have agreed their approach with the ECA which they'll claim is the proxy for all clubs.
At some point, I assume City will have said they are in broad agreement with the regs, so moaning afterwards looks bad. That said, IF it's deemed against the law, then it won't matter what clubs agreed too... it'll be illegal and that's that.

The most likely scenario is that only some aspects are deemed troublesome, and they'll be adjusted to fall within any EU ruling. I just can't see a major 'it's all illegal, and it's dead' outcome.

Finally, the more I think about it, the more I think FFP can work in City's favour. IF (big iF) FFP manages to effective raise the drawbridge, and IF City manage to get onboard the 'big club' boat, then our competition will be the G14 (+/- a couple of other clubs). That's better than FFP being abandoned and other rich backers coming into the picture.

I know the Sheik has plenty of money, but I do not believe he wishes to spend purely for the sake of it. As long as he can fulfil his plans at City, it's probably good news that FFP closes off the route for everybody else currently outside of the elite.

I can't say I really like that, because at present I view City as an example of the good guys trying to break the glass ceiling - albeit with a tonne of money. It would be a bit hypocritical for me to support the raising of the drawbridge once we're an established elite club - even though it would surely benefit us ;-)

The differentiation between us and PSG is clear in our eyes. But to the outside world, we're two peas in a pod, and the fact that we only spend x million and PSG spend n million doesn't really matter. To the neutral observer, we're both depicted as 'the negative side of modern football' and the only people that want to see us do well are ourselves and our sponsors, possibly some media channels. We will only be able to turn that image around once we've stabilised and make healthy profits with a wage bill that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb - a situation I think we CAN get to, but it'll take time.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Would we as fans not be able to put in a challenge against FFP in regards to it limiting the quality of product available?
Surely we pay for our tickets and if FFP restricts player availability and the opportunity to bring in other players then this limits the quality of the product we are purchasing.
By reducing our squad, we as consumers are not getting a fair deal. You would not buy a box of Weetabix if it had four missing from it.
I don't not like speaking in terms of consumers and products where football is concerned. But once you take away the emotional attachment of following a football club, football is the product and we are the consumers.

Welcome to the forum.

Long time lurker ?

Or have you been reincarnated ?

Hi pal and thank you.

More of a reincarnation although I only had a few posts. The majority of them were in the old skool dance music thread in the cellar.

Did not have access to the email account I used and could not remember the log in details, so started again.

Are you named after the Kid Unknown track? if so it was a fucking brilliant tune. Breakbeat house iirc.

 

[baildon blue]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The ruler of Qatar, asked yesterday what he thought of FFPR?

"My answer? David Luiz!"

I like these guys.

Im wearing my half and half UEFA Cup PSG scarf next season.

You better be joking . No City fan should wear an half an half scarf .

 

[waspish]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The ruler of Qatar, asked yesterday what he thought of FFPR?

"My answer? David Luiz!"

I like these guys.

Haha..

Don't know if it was him or someone else at PSG when talking about FFP he said well the other teams have had 20 odd year off spending big

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Its going to be really interesting to see how UEFA and their FFPR is viewed in a few years time.

I imagine that very few people consider the allowances made for the development of young players to be a bad thing but to be honest I do.

In order to invest in an academy a club has to have the money in the first place. The building of facilities such as City's CFA wont suddenly occur simply because it is deemed as good investment by UEFA.

The bigger clubs will not only have the best physical facilities with indoor pitches, 7,000 seater stadiums, live in accommodation and hydrotherapy pools etc but they will also have nutritionists, coaches, physio's etc far above what any smaller club can afford. Let's ignore the contracts that they can afford to pay players as well!

FFP will take less than a decade to not only kill the dreams of success but also strangle clubs like Southampton's alternative way of competing.

I think there's a real danger that big clubs will create super academies that effectively become the ONLY channel to success.... ie. if you want to make it, you have to be at one of the elite academies. That will manifest itself with clubs have 1000 kids on their books, and cherry picking the cream of the crop.

For the general good of football, I'd prefer to see a limit on the amount of players a club can have.... across all ages, then the stockpiling issue can't happen. It certainly looks like Chelsea envisaged that situation and started stockpiling.

We'll end up becoming like the Ivy League of universities, along with other top clubs.

The trouble with introducing FFP is that none of us have a crystal ball, but there's a decent chance there'll be some unforeseen negative consequences.... it'll be interesting to see what they turn out to be!

 

[mad4city]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Its going to be really interesting to see how UEFA and their FFPR is viewed in a few years time.

I imagine that very few people consider the allowances made for the development of young players to be a bad thing but to be honest I do.

In order to invest in an academy a club has to have the money in the first place. The building of facilities such as City's CFA wont suddenly occur simply because it is deemed as good investment by UEFA.

The bigger clubs will not only have the best physical facilities with indoor pitches, 7,000 seater stadiums, live in accommodation and hydrotherapy pools etc but they will also have nutritionists, coaches, physio's etc far above what any smaller club can afford. Let's ignore the contracts that they can afford to pay players as well!

FFP will take less than a decade to not only kill the dreams of success but also strangle clubs like Southampton's alternative way of competing.

You're dead right. I mentioned this in thhe B Team thread. FFP (like the introduction of B teams into the league) will only serve to endorse and enshrine the sort of 'puppy farming' that the bigger clubs are already currently engaged in. For example, I believe Chelsea had over twenty players out on loan, last season. In effect, that's almost 50 first team-ready players at one club. Will they all get a run in the Chelsea first team? Will they heck as like! The majority will be sold to clubs further down the food chain because that's their level of ability.
So middling clubs - who've proved perfectly capable of producing players to that standard and beyond, for decades - will be forced to pay through the nose for what they used to be able to provide for themselves for free and indeed, even make a profit on. Furthermore, the rare gems - your Keegan at Scunthorpe or say, Rush at Chester will become even scarcer to find because the big puppy farm clubs won't just be cherry picking any longer, they will be hoovering up anybody with a glimmer of promise with promises that the ordinary - non Champion's League - clubs cannot hope to match.
What hope, for example have a club like Bury of producing and profiting from another Colin Bell, with City, United and probably Liverpool too, dangling all sorts before kid's eyes? It's easy to argue that it was always so but that ignores the new urgency that FFP puts on those three clubs to produce and profit from - young players. And given the new financial imperatives, get this, there will be less kids coming through from the ranks into City, United and Liverpool. They won't be able to afford to take the chance on missing out on CL football because they were blooding a new goalie/ centre half.
It all points to a carve up by the business men at the expense of the betterment of the game.