Financial Fair Play/Financial Report (merged)

[jrb]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Mr Watkins has spoken.

A former director of Manchester United who is also a leading sports lawyer believes all Premier League clubs can meet Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules.

The rules are broadly designed to make clubs - from 2014-15 season - pay their bills and only spend what they earn.

There have been questions whether big spenders like Manchester City and Chelsea would be able to comply.

But Maurice Watkins, who spent 28 years on the United board, said Premier League clubs could meet the strictures.

Clubs which want to play in Uefa's Champions League or Europa League competitions must meet the new financial guidelines if they want to get a licence allowing them to take part in those tournaments.

Exceptions to the rules
"I don't think any English club is going to fail," said Mr Watkins, referring to that first 2014-15 season when the Uefa rules will be in place.

"Clubs will have been reading the financial fair play rules and regulations very closely to look for areas that they can use in their favour," added the lawyer, of the Brabners Chaffe Street firm.

He said he thought there were enough "exceptions" to the Uefa rules that English clubs making a financial loss could then use to make sure they were able to come up with a reduced figure which was acceptable to European football's governing body.

Those exceptions include not counting money spend on youth and training academies as a loss, and - in certain circumstances - allowing clubs to deduct the wages paid to players on pre-June 2010 contracts.

At Manchester City, for example, these two deductions - for financial fair play purposes - could wipe many millions of pounds off the club's total losses of £97.9m for season 2011/12.

European legislation
Mr Watkins, a member of the Premier League legal advisory group, said the challenge for Uefa would be when it was faced at some stage with potentially excluding a big club from one of its competitions.

"If someone is faced with exclusion, then I think we will see some potential arguments and challenges come into play [from clubs]." he said.

He said these could be on the basis of European Union regulations which prevent "anti-competitive collusion" and which prohibit "abuse of a dominant position".

Mr Watkins, who stepped down from the Manchester United board last year, was taking part in the LexisNexis Sport and Law conference in London.

His firm acted for Celtic last season in a Europa League row involving FC Sion, which eventually saw the Scottish club replace the Swiss one in the competition's group phase.

In addition to his football work, he is also chairman of British Swimming and interim chairman of the Rugby Football League.

Separately from the Uefa regulations, the Premier League is bringing in a form of financial fair play of its own.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

The thing is, once the leisure destination and all the other proposals associated with the land around the stadium are up and running, FFPR will be a distant memory. "Oh how we were worried at the time."

No other club in England, especially England, let alone Europe, has similar plans. It will be a game changer.
)

You've obviously taken a keen interest in the Campus project, so I'm interested to get your take, and an update of the facts on the Leisure Destination. Has there been any update on this from anyone associated with the club since the Etihad sponsorship deal of the Campus was announced?

My interpretation was that a feasibility study was done of building an "Internationally significant" leisure destination, and that it was found to be not feasible because of the location / weather etc. So instead it was decided the site would be used for our academy / training facilities and some local facilities (6th form college, swimmings pool etc) that would be sponsored (by Etihad). The beauty being that the cost of building these would not count towards FFP, but the revenue would count in our favour.

There has obviously been wild speculation on Bluemoon about Las Vegas style hotels, Disney theme parks, Ferrari World etc, but there seems to have been absolutely no mention of any leisure destination by anyone associated with the club for over 2 years. I may be wrong on that, and I'd be delighted to be proven wrong, but I was very much under the impression that the "internationally significant" leisure destination idea had been dropped by the club some time ago?

 

[jayfx]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Yeah you've misunderstood my question there I know all that.

If I had a go at answering my own question it's that the deal is fluid and will increase greatly to match PSG. I could be wrong though.

I should learn to read is what you mean, i agree :grin: . I keep seeing blah blah related party blah blah and just jump in.

LOL

I'm well out of my depth in this conversation too

 

[whp.blue]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Give us an example please. Qatar Tourism and PSG doesn't count.

Arsenals and the rags

We're getting up to 25m a year from Emirates for our new shirt deal as of next year. The Mancs are getting 40 odd million from GM (who sacked the bloke who sanctioned the deal). Both deals are pretty straight forward, and probably reflect the brand value of the clubs (am I the only one who feels uncomfortable using that kind of terminology in a football discussion?). You get more from Etihad, despite being a less valuable brand. If Everton or Newcastle had proposed a deal like that to Etihad they'd have been laughed at by the Etihad people.

the Mancs WTF???

 

[ped]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

everton or newcastle are not champions of england ,

 

[shed88us]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Certain members of staff will no longer be employed by City, but by an Abu Dhabi group, therefore meaning City no longer pay the wages.

 

[mancunial]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Certain members of staff will no longer be employed by City, but by an Abu Dhabi group, therefore meaning City no longer pay the wages.

Clever that,could be simple but effective

 

[City Raider]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Certain members of staff will no longer be employed by City, but by an Abu Dhabi group, therefore meaning City no longer pay the wages.

Clever that,could be simple but effective

as long as Doris in catering is still on her £100k per week

MCFC - ruining dinner ladies

 

[route46]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

Certain members of staff will no longer be employed by City, but by an Abu Dhabi group, therefore meaning City no longer pay the wages.

Clever that,could be simple but effective

could we not do this with players? put them on 50k basic, pay the rest by them being the face of some abu dhabi group

 

[RadcliffeRick]

Re: Financial Fair Play will not affect us.

I read an article somewhere that City are going to form a second company to pay non players wages in order to get the outgoings on wages down to a level acceptable to the FFP rules, I also read that a team not too far away already has 8 separate companies set up to pay the wage bills. I need to get their accountants to come to the bank manager with me to explain that even though I am in debt I am actually very, very rich and he needs to keep my overdraft facility as it is!! After all they have convinced 639million people that a club with massive debts is the richest in the world.