Financial 'Fair' Play (FFP) and Third-Party Ownership (TPO)

[.allan]

This may be news to some and not others but either way i thought it would be interesting to share.

I had a talk at Uni today from a lawyer who specialises in football law, his name is Daniel Geey if any of you have heard about him before this is an example he gave to us today:

He shared an example which describes the fairness of FFP through TPO's.

The example that he gave was; Arsenal and Porto bid for a player, the fee is £10m to acquire the players services, Porto have bid £10m made up of 50% from a TPO, this means Porto have agreed to allow a TPO a certain percentage of the players economic rights for a fee in this case £5m, where as Arsenal have to pay the full £10m due to the restrictions on British clubs having to own a player outright.

With me so far?

For the purpose of this example lets say both clubs sign the player.

In terms of FFP this means that Porto only have to actually declare £5m pounds to FIFA for the financial accounts where as Arsenal have to declare the full £10m therefore putting them financially at a disadvantage for their accounts to FIFA.

So in conclusion due to certain governance restrictions in football the FFP isn't actually fair, this is only 1 example that was talked about and thought may be have some interest to some.

 

[Falastur]

There are plenty of ways that FFPR isn't fair. It is, after all, solely a tactic designed to cripple English football in general and City in particular. However, third party ownership is a negligible factor since UEFA are attempting to ban it outright at the moment.

 

[Why Always Ste]

Cripple the game for all I care.

The Academy system is a disgrace at these big clubs and too many players are thrown in the bin,the lads that are good are not given chances either.

We don't sign a big name?

One more door open for one of our Academy prospects.

Let's produce our own players and give them chances at top flight (this goes for all clubs)

I believe with that Academy we are having built we can compete ;)

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

Here's something I've been thinking of for a while. Technically, City are part of a business empire rather than a stand alone business, so why can't they diversify into other areas like other businesses do? Tesco, for example, do banking, broadband, mobile phone coverage and insurance under the Tesco logo, and I see no reason that City could not operate a lease business on two or three oil wells in a certain Middle East country. I know of a certain eminent gentleman from that region who has more oil wells than he can shake a stick at, and if he requires a business which can manage some of them for him, I'm sure that City could employ the staff to do just that. For a fee of around £30m per oil well and on a 20 year lease, I'm sure that City could recruit the staff to operate the gentleman's interests in the business perfectly.

 

[Stoned Rose]

Here's something I've been thinking of for a while. Technically, City are part of a business empire rather than a stand alone business, so why can't they diversify into other areas like other businesses do? Tesco, for example, do banking, broadband, mobile phone coverage and insurance under the Tesco logo, and I see no reason that City could not operate a lease business on two or three oil wells in a certain Middle East country. I know of a certain eminent gentleman from that region who has more oil wells than he can shake a stick at, and if he requires a business which can manage some of them for him, I'm sure that City could employ the staff to do just that. For a fee of around £30m per oil well and on a 20 year lease, I'm sure that City could recruit the staff to operate the gentleman's interests in the business perfectly.

 

[Falastur]

Here's something I've been thinking of for a while. Technically, City are part of a business empire rather than a stand alone business, so why can't they diversify into other areas like other businesses do? Tesco, for example, do banking, broadband, mobile phone coverage and insurance under the Tesco logo, and I see no reason that City could not operate a lease business on two or three oil wells in a certain Middle East country. I know of a certain eminent gentleman from that region who has more oil wells than he can shake a stick at, and if he requires a business which can manage some of them for him, I'm sure that City could employ the staff to do just that. For a fee of around £30m per oil well and on a 20 year lease, I'm sure that City could recruit the staff to operate the gentleman's interests in the business perfectly.

For two reasons - one, FFPR says that you can include money earned from non-footballing ventures, but only if the money is made in a close proximity to the stadium. This is why phase two of the Etihad Campus project is to build commercial structures in designated zones along the roads around the stadium. Two, because as you say we are part of a business empire and actually we may not be Sheikh Mansour's biggest financial interest. He may not want us absorbing profits just for the sake of satisfying a bunch of cretins in Switzerland when he could use that money better in other areas of the business.

 

[I'm no cynic but...]

Here's something I've been thinking of for a while. Technically, City are part of a business empire rather than a stand alone business, so why can't they diversify into other areas like other businesses do? Tesco, for example, do banking, broadband, mobile phone coverage and insurance under the Tesco logo, and I see no reason that City could not operate a lease business on two or three oil wells in a certain Middle East country. I know of a certain eminent gentleman from that region who has more oil wells than he can shake a stick at, and if he requires a business which can manage some of them for him, I'm sure that City could employ the staff to do just that. For a fee of around £30m per oil well and on a 20 year lease, I'm sure that City could recruit the staff to operate the gentleman's interests in the business perfectly.

For two reasons - one, FFPR says that you can include money earned from non-footballing ventures, but only if the money is made in a close proximity to the stadium. This is why phase two of the Etihad Campus project is to build commercial structures in designated zones along the roads around the stadium. Two, because as you say we are part of a business empire and actually we may not be Sheikh Mansour's biggest financial interest. He may not want us absorbing profits just for the sake of satisfying a bunch of cretins in Switzerland when he could use that money better in other areas of the business.

What I'm suggesting is nothing more than a shuffling of office furniture. Just as our 'friends' can use accountants set up in the Cayman Islands, there's nothing to stop Sheikh Mansour setting up an office to oversee some of his business interests at the Etihad, and if he should use City as the overlords of certain assets of his, I don't see anything wrong with it. At least City would then rightly qualify for paying Corporation Tax to HM Government! As for your second point, I don't know what his motives in owning City are, other than for publicity purposes, but the more successful his business activities are, the more publicity his country gets and the more he can promote tourism in that region.

But one thing's for sure. If City did set themselves up in this way, then Platini's jaw would drop and steam would be seen blowing out of Gill's ears.