This transfer window is the first installment in a series which will show what a load of nonsense FFPR is. It is the response of a set of intellectually challenged football godfathers who have no clear idea of what they should be trying to do and little idea of what they ere actually doing.
It is never a good idea for a governing body to take sides with one faction in the sport especially when that faction is so obviously completely self-interested and when it wishes to outlaw what is in the best interests of the game. When the two wise men of Milan added their voices to support FFPR Platini should have smelled a rat immediately. Inevitably FFPR are a "problem" for those who supported them most vociferously: they are not a problem for City. You were told what would happen, Michel, but you wouldn't listen and at the start of this summer you showed us all what a real plonker you truly are. City prepared to spend £150 million and you had to try and pacify your broke Italians. The Germans are moaning more than ever, and you're as clueless as you were last year.
Sheikh Mansour, on the other hand, knows exactly what he's doing. It's often said that City were just lucky because the Sheikh could have bough any club. Wrong! The Sheikh took a clear business decision to buy a football club in a lousy area and then buy the polluted, poisonous ground round it and develop it. This is known as regeneration, and for people who build Dubai in the middle of the desert it really isn't much of a challenge. The bad news for FFPR, Michel, is that the Sheikh isn't half way through yet. But he's put his money where many mouths across Europe were and he's built a clb with a turnover of £350 million pa - and it's growing fast. Now, the Sheikh was fully aware that buying an English club was a smart move, and we are now seeing that the PL is beginning really to show its financial power: Americans can watch any and every single PL match and the PL is watched all over the world. The TV audience is vastly more important than those who go to the ground in financial terms and the PL is worth nearly 3 times more than the Bundesliga.
In his befuddled state Platini used to lecture City on all this. He used to love telling us that clubs must break even, only spend what they earn and look to their financial stability. That's what City have just done: it's your Italian mates who are struggling, Michel. And City have done this BEFORE the massive new TV deal makes itself felt. Sorry, Michel, but there's more to come next year!
What Platini never saw was not justthe financial power of the PL but its enormous financial potential, but Sheikh Mansour certainly did. And he's used it to turn City into a financial giant - another "northern powerhouse"! Perhaps Platini should try to understand that English football in general and Manchester City in particular are not the "problems" and have actually a lot to give the game which is of real benefit. Maybe if he took an objective look at ownership models in Germany which create real financial problems for clubs, turn the league into nothing but a one horse race and pledge the league to 10 euro tickets for the privileged few entitled to them and asked if this subsidy model is anywhere near as effective as we're told, he might drop his vendetta against those who really do act in the best interests of the game.
