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

[Didsbury Dave]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

There are some very interesting noises coming from that meeting, particularly that platini quote. It looks to me like he's paving the way for significant change...particularly the "we have succeeded" line. That's his lunge for the moral high ground and damage limitation line. He loses less face by claiming that FFP was a success and now needs modifying.

There can be no doubt that City and PSG made a watertight case for the ridiculousness of these rules. Anyone with any common sense knows an industry which bans investment is based on lunacy.

It's funny Platini already sees FFP as a success. I wonder if that's because privately he was under enormous pressure to sanction City and PSG, and that this summer's fines, transfer spend limits, squad limitations, etc have put him a position with strength with regards the rest of the cartel and what happens next.

What I mean by that is, is it inconceivable that he's now saying to the likes of Bayern that the "sugar daddies" now know they can't just spend without limits on players, and that dialling back the regulations having made the point to City and Paris is the right and proper thing to do. After all there are many practical realities to FFP which are a farce (leveraged buy outs, debt burdens etc). Clubs like United, Madrid, even Barcelona, who carry heavy debt burdens, are subject to illegal state aid, etc are the next logically on UEFA's list of "bad" clubs to go after.

Anyway what I'm saying in a convoluted way is that I'm not surprised that there will be a dialling back of FFP and i'm not surprised if they find ways to allow for people like Mansour to come in and invest over a longer period of time to challenge the elite.

Most importantly though for City, FFP has now become an irrelevance. I can see us being in a position where needing to spend even 200 million next summer won't be a problem.

Exactly how I see it. The only way it has been "a success" is what you refer to: he can turn round to Gill et al and say "there, we did it".

There simply has to be a complete rework of FFP and I see this as the start of it. Who even knows what pressure has been brought behind the scenes by City and PSG? One thing's for sure: there were some heavyweight discussions taking place in the summer when the announcements were delayed. I think the legal implications of this, when faced with pockets as deep as The Sheikh's, could bring UEFA down completely. Imagine if City or PSG pursued for damages? What kind of sums we could be talking there?!?!

I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of some kind of off-the-record deal done in the summer. We took the little hit (£20m was it, and a 21 man Euro Squad) so UEFA could look like they've won, with a promise that that's the end of it and FFP is rewritten completely this season under the pretence of UEFA being the drivers, rather than them running scared.

Like you, I think the way is going to be cleared for us now.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

FFP has more or less stopped the influx of overseas investors into the British game, and the peak of Billionaires created by the privatisation of Eastern European state assets has also passed, so the drive to reinforce FFP has gone. But they'll keep some form of it in place to ward off new clubs. What's the incentive or the Champions League clubs to lift the barrier to their private club? There's none. City will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of FFP if the reports on the healthy state of City's finances are true.

I think there is an incentive to open up the membership of the 'elite':

1) An established 'elite' becomes stale and ultimately less exciting. So far, CL's done well, but in recent years, fans have complained about the general predictability of things. The group stages haven't had the massive appeal they were supposed to have.

2) Any elite group of business has to walk a fine line between fending off competitors and increasing profitability through to growing the market, or improving their product. Sometimes that means swapping out the dead wood of the elite and bringing in a new player. Any group of businesses will be open to another new business IF they can see a way of benefitting from it. The likes of City and PSG are overtaking some of the old guard, and bringing new interest to CL, and potentially new and more sponsorship.

3) Some of the investment that's happened at PSG and even more so at City might be wanted by some of the elite. Because of that, they can't hit City and PSG too hard, just in case they need some of the same magic dust in future.

 

[FanchesterCity]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Regarding Platini's claim of 'success' - it's may not only be a case of saving face, but of presenting the case for more fine tuning.
He will be able to argue that there have been some failures, but generally the implementation has been successful, but in order to continue with FFP, adjustments will need to be made.

Now, the public presentation of those adjustments will be to add more 'fairness' to the regulations and make FFP better for everybody, but behind the scenes it could well be an excuse to change the regulations to target specific clubs whilst allowing other clubs to be judged on a different set of parameters than those used with City and PSG et al. Basically he's setting the scene to say 'All in all, it's not perfect, but it's gone quite well - we just need to change the rules to make it better' (changing the rules = shifting the goal posts to suit specific clubs).

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

FFP has more or less stopped the influx of overseas investors into the British game, and the peak of Billionaires created by the privatisation of Eastern European state assets has also passed, so the drive to reinforce FFP has gone. But they'll keep some form of it in place to ward off new clubs. What's the incentive or the Champions League clubs to lift the barrier to their private club? There's none. City will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of FFP if the reports on the healthy state of City's finances are true.

I think there is an incentive to open up the membership of the 'elite':

1) An established 'elite' becomes stale and ultimately less exciting. So far, CL's done well, but in recent years, fans have complained about the general predictability of things. The group stages haven't had the massive appeal they were supposed to have.

2) Any elite group of business has to walk a fine line between fending off competitors and increasing profitability through to growing the market, or improving their product. Sometimes that means swapping out the dead wood of the elite and bringing in a new player. Any group of businesses will be open to another new business IF they can see a way of benefitting from it. The likes of City and PSG are overtaking some of the old guard, and bringing new interest to CL, and potentially new and more sponsorship.

3) Some of the investment that's happened at PSG and even more so at City might be wanted by some of the elite. Because of that, they can't hit City and PSG too hard, just in case they need some of the same magic dust in future.

And also, ultimately, the money invested by the billionaires filters down through football. The hypocracy of Arsene Wenger complaining g about our spending and then trousering £70m to pay off their stadium debt it astounding.

UEFA cannot be so stupid as to to not remember than it's only 25 years since the entire game was on it's arse, in terms of support and cash. It can happen again. Has there ever been another industry which was so cocksure that it turned away external investment?

 

[BillyShears]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

FFP has more or less stopped the influx of overseas investors into the British game, and the peak of Billionaires created by the privatisation of Eastern European state assets has also passed, so the drive to reinforce FFP has gone. But they'll keep some form of it in place to ward off new clubs. What's the incentive or the Champions League clubs to lift the barrier to their private club? There's none. City will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of FFP if the reports on the healthy state of City's finances are true.

I think there is an incentive to open up the membership of the 'elite':

1) An established 'elite' becomes stale and ultimately less exciting. So far, CL's done well, but in recent years, fans have complained about the general predictability of things. The group stages haven't had the massive appeal they were supposed to have.

2) Any elite group of business has to walk a fine line between fending off competitors and increasing profitability through to growing the market, or improving their product. Sometimes that means swapping out the dead wood of the elite and bringing in a new player. Any group of businesses will be open to another new business IF they can see a way of benefitting from it. The likes of City and PSG are overtaking some of the old guard, and bringing new interest to CL, and potentially new and more sponsorship.

3) Some of the investment that's happened at PSG and even more so at City might be wanted by some of the elite. Because of that, they can't hit City and PSG too hard, just in case they need some of the same magic dust in future.

And also, ultimately, the money invested by the billionaires filters down through football. The hypocracy of Arsene Wenger complaining g about our spending and then trousering £70m to pay off their stadium debt it astounding.

UEFA cannot be so stupid as to to not remember than it's only 25 years since the entire game was on it's arse, in terms of support and cash. It can happen again. Has there ever been another industry which was so cocksure that it turned away external investment?

That's always been my biggest hatred of Wenger and Arsenal. The fact they've pocketed more money from us than any other PL club, which has allowed them to be as financially strong as they are and pay off their stadium debts, and yet he still complains about our spending.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I think there is an incentive to open up the membership of the 'elite':

1) An established 'elite' becomes stale and ultimately less exciting. So far, CL's done well, but in recent years, fans have complained about the general predictability of things. The group stages haven't had the massive appeal they were supposed to have.

2) Any elite group of business has to walk a fine line between fending off competitors and increasing profitability through to growing the market, or improving their product. Sometimes that means swapping out the dead wood of the elite and bringing in a new player. Any group of businesses will be open to another new business IF they can see a way of benefitting from it. The likes of City and PSG are overtaking some of the old guard, and bringing new interest to CL, and potentially new and more sponsorship.

3) Some of the investment that's happened at PSG and even more so at City might be wanted by some of the elite. Because of that, they can't hit City and PSG too hard, just in case they need some of the same magic dust in future.

And also, ultimately, the money invested by the billionaires filters down through football. The hypocracy of Arsene Wenger complaining g about our spending and then trousering £70m to pay off their stadium debt it astounding.

UEFA cannot be so stupid as to to not remember than it's only 25 years since the entire game was on it's arse, in terms of support and cash. It can happen again. Has there ever been another industry which was so cocksure that it turned away external investment?

That's always been my biggest hatred of Wenger and Arsenal. The fact they've pocketed more money from us than any other PL club, which has allowed them to be as financially strong as they are and pay off their stadium debts, and yet he still complains about our spending.

He complains about it because it suits his narrative, not because he actually believes it.

 

[OB1]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

I see what you did there ;-)

I'd be surprised - (a) it's not really their game and (b) they haven't got any money.

IBM were hinted at a few pages ago (it is their game and they do have the money) but that doesn't fit with the German comment.

Could be Software AG I suppose, but I don't think they are big enough?

Not sure I'd agree with (a). They already have pretty substantial deals with the NFL. I think they are a McClaren F1 sponsor as well as being involved in golf and tennis. As somebody pointed out, they recently signed a deal with Bayern Munich to provide sports analytics functionality (something they provided for the German World Cup winning team).

I thought they also already had something in place with regarding analytics with one of the other Bundesliga sides.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

And also, ultimately, the money invested by the billionaires filters down through football. The hypocracy of Arsene Wenger complaining g about our spending and then trousering £70m to pay off their stadium debt it astounding.

UEFA cannot be so stupid as to to not remember than it's only 25 years since the entire game was on it's arse, in terms of support and cash. It can happen again. Has there ever been another industry which was so cocksure that it turned away external investment?

That's always been my biggest hatred of Wenger and Arsenal. The fact they've pocketed more money from us than any other PL club, which has allowed them to be as financially strong as they are and pay off their stadium debts, and yet he still complains about our spending.

He complains about it because it suits his narrative, not because he actually believes it.

Not so sure about that. If you keep saying the same thing over and over eventually you start to convince yourself, even if you didn't believe it in the first place. He's become such a bitter old **** - in large part because of his being a "specialist in failure" - I don't think he can see the wood for the trees these days.

 

[BillyShears]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

He complains about it because it suits his narrative, not because he actually believes it.

I wonder what will shape the narrative when Arsenal supporters realise that even with "financial doping" they can't catch up to City because Wenger is long past his use by date.

 

[stony]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Why do City want the monitoring period extended if we're going to be ok with this years figures ?

 

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The composition of yesterday's meeting speaks volumes for the other worldliness of the proceedings. There they all were: representatives of UEFA, Platini himself, representatives of the ECA, Rummenigge himself, Berlusconi, to press the claims of the down at heel to inclusion in the CL, representatives of some "important" clubs and representatives of City and PSG to be bullied, brainwashed and battered into submission. Reports have not yet said if Rummenigge was in uniform or not! And rather than face up to the real issues they spent the day avoiding them. It was like the TUC of the mid-70s - rabble rousing speeches from those who didn't realise they actually represented no-one.

Dupont does indeed agree that much int the 100 or so pages of the FFP regulations is perfectly acceptable, but what he does not accept at all is the break even rule, the obligation to make a profit every year. He doesn't accept the idea that you must restrict your losses to £30 million over three years or to any other figure fished out of the trouser pocket of Rummenigge's uniform or Platini's Charlie Corolli pants. There can be no restriction on investment by owners and shareholders. City's apparent scheme to extend the break even period to 10 years is no more acceptable to M. Dupont.
This is because the matter has little to do with City or PSG but is for the soul of football. We forget that Dupont's case is brought in a Belgian court against UEFA and the Belgian FA on behalf of a football agent. City had nothing at all to do with it and still don't. It is our supporters who give Dupont support, as do PSG's, and they did it quite late in the day.

For M. Dupont his TARDIS is all important. The vital issues are time and relative dimensions in space. Dupont does not see it as a cataclysmic, cosmic struggle between Rummenigge's Bayern on the one hand (with feeble support from Wenger) and City and PSG on the other. If he did, he'd probably say that City and PSG were doing rather well and poised to do a great deal better in the near future. He isn't any more concerned about the PL than any other. But he is very concerned with space. As he says, if you position yourself in Brussels, a big city, the "capital" of the EU, and ask what chance does FFP allow you of ever having a top football team, the answer is depressing. Who will, who can ever invest in Anderlecht so it can take on Rummenigge's fiefdom with any realistic chance of winning? The same miserable logic applies to Dutch clubs, Swiss, Austrian, any clubs from eastern Europe or the Balkans and to 75% (at least) of the clubs from the "big" leagues. FFP will make football uncompetitive and "ossify" competition.

The problem also extends into time and this is the problem with City's suggestion of extending the break even period to 10 years. This could, in fact, be the ultimate exercise in pulling up the ladder! At its worst it would give City and PSG (and maybe Monaco) - ie those clubs with rich owners NOW - time to establish themselves, but then the opportunity would go forever, and rich men would see no point in investing in any club as we approached 2020 and certainly the nearer we get to D-Day in 2024. Dupont wants to protect the rights of FUTURE owners and shareholders.

Going a little further, I agree with the poster who said he was opposed to FFP on principle, and I think Dupont takes this view of the break even rule. I don't see the need for regulation. If we look at the UEFA publications justifying them we are forced to conclude that they are dealing with problems which don't exist or which are none of UEFA's business. The CBI would never dare to try and insist that all its member companies made a profit. Clubs have to obey commercial law and those Spanish clubs which didn't did so with the connivance of their government. Rangers twisted the taxman and got clobbered. What would FFP have done to stop this? Which football clubs have gone bust in the last 50 years? Leeds haven't! Portsmouth haven't! Thanks to FFP? If the problems are "financial instability" and "competitive integrity" what good did it do punishing the two most "financially stable" clubs in the world? In fact, if we look for the league with the largest number of financially troubled clubs we find it in .... Germany - exactly where most of these daft rules have been taken from, and where the president of the European hysterics association works so hard to ensure they continue doing their destructive work.

 

[BillyShears]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Why do City want the monitoring period extended if we're going to be ok with this years figures ?

Because it allows them to spend quickly if needs be without worrying about FFP.

It's also about being able to manage your own business however you choose. Lets say next summer Messi's on the market for 100 million, plus we want to spend another 150 million upgrading the squad bringing down the average age etc. A longer monitoring period allows us to do this because the idea would be that a spend like that would see you good for the next 4/5 years in terms of transfers.

Actually pretty much what we did when Mansour came in. We spent big, our finances have caught up, but UEFA found a window to slap us on the wrist because it took us a touch longer than they liked for the finances to catch up. Next time round with an extended monitoring period, we will have no such pinch.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Sorry not an expert on FFP at all but may I have my say??


Go Fuck yourself Platini,Wenger,and any other **** who berates City.

I'm liking this pinch at the moment.

Ask Randy Lerner,Jurgen Klopp etc what they think about FFP....

I am actually laughing about FFP at this moment because we are home and dry if all things on here and what Soriano has been saying are correct,in profit shortly etc.

Summer will be the key for me,Reus,Pogba and Barklay would be my dream.

 

[stony]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Why do City want the monitoring period extended if we're going to be ok with this years figures ?

Because it allows them to spend quickly if needs be without worrying about FFP.

It's also about being able to manage your own business however you choose. Lets say next summer Messi's on the market for 100 million, plus we want to spend another 150 million upgrading the squad bringing down the average age etc. A longer monitoring period allows us to do this because the idea would be that a spend like that would see you good for the next 4/5 years in terms of transfers.

Actually pretty much what we did when Mansour came in. We spent big, our finances have caught up, but UEFA found a window to slap us on the wrist because it took us a touch longer than they liked for the finances to catch up. Next time round with an extended monitoring period, we will have no such pinch.

Yes I understand that, but for the last week or so, people have been banging on about the new sponsors for the CFA and saying that the FFP rules will no longer bother us. If they are longer a hinderance to us why do we want the monitoring period extending?

 

[BillyShears]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Summer will be the key for me,Reus,Pogba and Barklay would be my dream.

I reckon minimum 2 of those 3 come in.

 

[OB1]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Why do City want the monitoring period extended if we're going to be ok with this years figures ?

Maybe they think that will give them a case to get money back?

Maybe they think it is the right way to do things and want to be a force for good?

Maybe they just don't want their options limited in the way they have been this summer?

Frankly, any investment timeline that is imposed externally on a business is going to be arbitrary but a three year one in the context of what City are trying to achieve is absolutely ridiculous and anti-competitive. The core problem is that powerful voices, within football, wanted to try and prevent City accomplishing their objectives. However, the penny may be dropping that they can do no more than slow City down with their Financial Foul Play rules.

 

[Sir peace frog]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Sorry not an expert on FFP at all but may I have my say??


Go Fuck yourself Platini,Wenger,and any other c**t who berates City.

I'm liking this pinch at the moment.

Ask Randy Lerner,Jurgen Klopp etc what they think about FFP....

I am actually laughing about FFP at this moment because we are home and dry if all things on here and what Soriano has been saying are correct,in profit shortly etc.

Summer will be the key for me,Reus,Pogba and Barklay would be my dream.

bravo sometimes look at this thread and think "wtf are people going on about" I just don't understand all the jargon and technical ,so im with you ,Go Fuck yourself Platini , Wenger , and any other c**t who berates City

 

[chris85mcfc]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Sorry not an expert on FFP at all but may I have my say??


Go Fuck yourself Platini,Wenger,and any other c**t who berates City.

I'm liking this pinch at the moment.

Ask Randy Lerner,Jurgen Klopp etc what they think about FFP....

I am actually laughing about FFP at this moment because we are home and dry if all things on here and what Soriano has been saying are correct,in profit shortly etc.

Summer will be the key for me,Reus,Pogba and Barklay would be my dream.

bravo sometimes look at this thread and think "wtf are people going on about" I just don't understand all the jargon and technical ,so im with you ,Go Fuck yourself Platini , Wenger , and any other c**t who berates City

I'm with you, enjoy reading it but some of it goes over my head.

Perhaps we could have an 'idiots guide to current FFP ongoings' thread.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

The ten year thing doesn't hold water for me.

A club could go on a berserk spending spree for 10 years with no hope of breaking even, win everything and at the end say "fuck you UEFA, now what".

Or they could go a spending spree for 3 or 4 years, grow their revenues enormously, move towards break-even and at the end of the 10th year be found to have narrowly missed. And then face sanctions for spending that happened 6 or 7 years before?

Neither scenario is very sensible. And nor would it protect clubs from growing beyond their organic means and risking bankruptcy in the future. Sounds like a model that works for us and PSG but in reality not for the good of football.

 

[St Helens Blue (Exiled)]

Re: City & FFP (continued)

Summer will be the key for me,Reus,Pogba and Barklay would be my dream.

I reckon minimum 2 of those 3 come in.

Hope so fella