Martin Samuel: The plot to shackle City & Chelsea

[fbloke]

I haven't managed to read every detail of every reply but one detail that shouts out at me from the letter is the phrase "owners, controlling shareholders and chief executives of..."

The opinions of the chief executive's is included in that list by way of padding and of course they mean Gill and Gazidis, ( Levy is Exec Chairman and Werner is Chairman so they are distinctly different) both paid mouthpieces for rich shareholders.

Its VERY interesting that they talk about controlling shareholders as that tells me that Kroenke (who wants to make money from Arsenal) is the man in the frame there and they have NOT suggested that Usmanov agrees as he actually wants to spend big.

They also significantly dont talk about the 'boards/board of directors of' clubs being unanimous or words to that effect.

I short this isnt even a clear indication that the 4 clubs mentioned fully back the stated postion merely that some of the people at those 4 clubs do.

If it was more than that then it would have made that clear in the letter.

one conclusion could be that they, the unnamed few, know that they are losing the argument and as time passes they are losing their control too.

 

[OB1]

Barclay makes a fool of himself again. He undermines his case by defending Bill Kenwright. Everton are one of the worst run clubs commercially and Kenwright is their equivalent of Peter Swales. They were winning titles in the 80s and have a strong fanbase but have done nothing to modernise their operation for decades. It is not the "market's fault" that Everton are in the mire...it's managerial incompetence.
Kenwright has been a total commercial failure and even clubs like Stoke City are run in a more professional way.
City's plans for the Academy were made clear from the first day of the takeover and are nothing to do with FFP... it's just that most media pundits chose to ignore them. It is an incredible situation when a few fat cats at the top of an induustry are allowed to run things in their naked self interest. No industry can operate without external investment and FFP will slowly lead to the death of football. The first impact will be a huge cut in TV money because no one will want to watch the same old Cartel winning things every season.

With the money that the owners of MCFC and PSG have, they could easily fund a European Super League. A nuclear option perhaps but money talks.

 

[fbloke]

Barclay makes a fool of himself again. He undermines his case by defending Bill Kenwright. Everton are one of the worst run clubs commercially and Kenwright is their equivalent of Peter Swales. They were winning titles in the 80s and have a strong fanbase but have done nothing to modernise their operation for decades. It is not the "market's fault" that Everton are in the mire...it's managerial incompetence.
Kenwright has been a total commercial failure and even clubs like Stoke City are run in a more professional way.
City's plans for the Academy were made clear from the first day of the takeover and are nothing to do with FFP... it's just that most media pundits chose to ignore them. It is an incredible situation when a few fat cats at the top of an induustry are allowed to run things in their naked self interest. No industry can operate without external investment and FFP will slowly lead to the death of football. The first impact will be a huge cut in TV money because no one will want to watch the same old Cartel winning things every season.

The same Stoke whose owner is also the owner of the principle sponsor and the one who has pumped over £90m in in loans and debt/equity in the last 5 years?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The Barclay article is not quite as bad as I'd feared but, like so many others, it misses the crucial point. The top teams got the most cash, so could pay the biggest wages, attract the best players and therefore remain at the top. That's the situation those clubs engineered, encouraged and perpetuated through higher ticket prices, keeping all home ticket receipts, failure to cap wages or fees, etc.

The cartel of the rags, Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea complacently and patronisingly sailed along through the CL, taking the money and using it to maintain their dominance. Chelsea were seen as an annoyance but they'd been up there anyway so no one's nose was really pushed out of joint. Then we came along and Liverpool started to struggle. Spurs got their nose in as well so instead of 4 clubs comfortably sharing the top four places between them, it was now 4 from 6. Now it looks like Liverpool have dropped out of the race completely, at least for the time being. Nothing to do with shit owners who thought they could turn a fast buck or less shit owners who were generally pretty clueless. It was our fault for robbing them of their history and heritage.

Now Arsenal could be about to join them. Nothing to do with having a warring boardroom, a manager to whom spending money was somehow seen as classless and ambition limited to securing fourth place. No - it's all our fault again so let's stop City.

And then we have the rags, burdened with debt by another group of grasping owners, who only know one way of doing things, which is to spend as little of your own money as possible but borrow as much of anyone else's as you can, then secure it against the assets of the club you've bought. The debt restricts your ability to spend as much as youd like but so what, we'll just stop others doing it.

Spurs have a billionaire owner but no way is he going to risk his own money. So he's not bothered and is happy to join with the cartel. Despite the fact his club pioneered holding companies and flotation, which did so much to shape the modern football business. When it suited them to flout the rules, they did so deliberately & willingly.

No one was bothered about these things when John Wardle risked a large part of his fortune to keep us afloat. I'm all for fair play but it's got to be fair to all 20 clubs, not just a few.

Fantastically put.

I don't have the time to rant about how Financial Fair Play is nothing of the sort but it isn't. Like PB, I'd accept proper FFP that was designed to make the league truly competitive - Samuel touches on U.S. style sports income distribution - but what these clubs want and what UEFA's rules serve to perpetuate is an elite group of clubs. Fortunately, as PB mentioned in another post, City are through the door and should be able to stay there. We have very smart people owning and running the club and I would hope that they are quietly assessing all their options and planning for various scenarios. The question I have is a what point do City need to get tough and make some noise about all this?

We certainly should be offering proposals about restricting owners like the Glazers, Shinawatra and the Venkys taking over clubs. Something like the NFL, where secured debt is strictly limited to $200m and prospective owners have to demonstrate their financial strength and managerial competence. If we want to avoid another Portsmouth then stop owners like Gaydamak from taking them over in the first place.

 

[coleridge]

Fantastically put.

I don't have the time to rant about how Financial Fair Play is nothing of the sort but it isn't. Like PB, I'd accept proper FFP that was designed to make the league truly competitive - Samuel touches on U.S. style sports income distribution - but what these clubs want and what UEFA's rules serve to perpetuate is an elite group of clubs. Fortunately, as PB mentioned in another post, City are through the door and should be able to stay there. We have very smart people owning and running the club and I would hope that they are quietly assessing all their options and planning for various scenarios. The question I have is a what point do City need to get tough and make some noise about all this?

We certainly should be offering proposals about restricting owners like the Glazers, Shinawatra and the Venkys taking over clubs. Something like the NFL, where secured debt is strictly limited to $200m and prospective owners have to demonstrate their financial strength and managerial competence. If we want to avoid another Portsmouth then stop owners like Gaydamak from taking them over in the first place.

Like OB1, I don't have time for all of this. But it's too early, PB. Sitting tight and seeing the hand being played by Gill & Co is correct. Any decent lawyer knows that you don't bid against yourself and so why should ADUG join in this ephemeral debate? When they are directly asked to act in a certain way, you'll see some action and, in my view, ADUG, Chelsea, PSG and others will win. The market always does...

 

[Joker]

FFP is purely a protectionist measure but of course it's proponents will never say that.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.playthegame.org/fileadmin/image/knowledgebank/Challengesforfootball_pdf/Stefan_Szymanski.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.playthegame.org/fileadmin/im ... manski.pdf</a>

If we had an owner like Sheikh Mansour we wouldn't be in the mess we're in at the moment. People like Kroenke treat football clubs like any other business, which is why ticket prices are set purely according to the dictats of "demand and supply".

 

[Anonymous]

Like I say, get the case built and get 'em into court. It's the only way to shut these fuckers up.

 

[LoveCity]

I agree, surely it's time to ditch our dignified silence after watching these teams sneakily try and work behind our back? Get on the phone to Chelsea and get in court.

The FA stalled us over 100 years ago as anyone who has read Gary James' book knows. City had won the FA Cup playing great football and were on the cusp of a golden age with huge attendances when the snooty FA decided to put the northern upstarts in their place, invented some charges, and banned half the team (plus our first great manager) from playing the following season. The Meredith 'bribery' scandal came after that.

 

[The Flash]

Due to firewall issues at work, I am unable to follow the link to the Fail website and the article. Could someone copy and paste please?

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I don't have the time to rant about how Financial Fair Play is nothing of the sort but it isn't. Like PB, I'd accept proper FFP that was designed to make the league truly competitive - Samuel touches on U.S. style sports income distribution - but what these clubs want and what UEFA's rules serve to perpetuate is an elite group of clubs. Fortunately, as PB mentioned in another post, City are through the door and should be able to stay there. We have very smart people owning and running the club and I would hope that they are quietly assessing all their options and planning for various scenarios. The question I have is a what point do City need to get tough and make some noise about all this?

We certainly should be offering proposals about restricting owners like the Glazers, Shinawatra and the Venkys taking over clubs. Something like the NFL, where secured debt is strictly limited to $200m and prospective owners have to demonstrate their financial strength and managerial competence. If we want to avoid another Portsmouth then stop owners like Gaydamak from taking them over in the first place.

Like OB1, I don't have time for all of this. But it's too early, PB. Sitting tight and seeing the hand being played by Gill & Co is correct. Any decent lawyer knows that you don't bid against yourself and so why should ADUG join in this ephemeral debate? When they are directly asked to act in a certain way, you'll see some action and, in my view, ADUG, Chelsea, PSG and others will win. The market always does...

I think the club are paying a very clever hand. Like Don Corleone they will take all the insults then act from a position of strength. I know that in another contentious area they have done this already. But we don't have to actually say anything explicit ourselves. Journalists never say no to a good story for example. I'm sure they've got things in hand.