Chris in London
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 21 Sep 2009
- Messages
- 13,288
bluenova said:
And yet M Platini often singles out City to illustrate FFP objectives. He referred to us chasing Kaka when he pleaded with the European Parliament not to overturn FFP. He referred to us again in the context of the remarks this thread deals with. He has referred to us many other times, which is odd because the one team that doesn't need to worry about using a highly leveraged and unsustainable business model is us. (We aren't living off credit cards and getting ourselves into more debt than we can manage, we are living off our savings, and we've got lots and lots of savings.) But he has never once mentioned Leeds languishing in the second and third tiers, as a result of doing just what FFP is supposed to be guarding against.
Funny, that.
The thing is, if there was not a European elite in existence already, FFP might have worked in the way you suggest it is intended to work, though frankly I doubt it. The fundamental problem with FFP is that it is being introduced about 20 years after a self-perpetuating elite came into being.
You only have to look at our own league for evidence of how our elite clubs have benefitted from sitting at Europe's top table. For years and years there was no real discussion about who would be the top 4 teams every season: rags, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. The only serious issue was what order they would come in, but the points gap between 4th and 5th was usually pretty significant. And when our top 4 went into Europe, they did well: often 3 or 4 of our teams would be in the last 8 of the champions league, but none of our other teams did so well in the UEFA cup. So our top 4 were on a par with the best in Europe, but the rest were steadily falling further and further behind. There were odd exceptions - Everton one year, Spurs another, but until we came along the established elite was pretty secure. And it is no surprise that the ones at the top of the tree stayed there, because they had access to the richest pickings.
In fact, when you look at who Europe's 'big' clubs are now (the ones who qualify year after year and who usually get into the last 16, say), they fall basically into two categories: long term established teams, like Madrid, Bayern, Ajax, Milan, Rags, Liverpool etc, who were in at the beginning of the champions league and who have stayed there ever since; and then the teams who have been bankrolled by a sugar daddy - Chelsea, us joining them, and PSG is I suppose a bit of both. But can you think of a single example of a team that is now a major champions league player but was neither in at the beginning of the champions league era nor has been bankrolled the way we have and Chelsea have? Me neither.
In other words, the experience of the last 20 years has shown that if you aren't already part of the European elite that shares the greatest riches between itself, the only way you will actually join that group is by throwing vast quantities of cash at it. And now the rules are being changed so you can't do that either.
Whatever the original thinking behind FFP, the way it is being applied prevents anybody who wants to spend money they haven't earned chasing the dream from doing so, and effectively prevents anybody else from challenging the established order because the income differentials between those who have Champions League TV money and those who do not has been growing for 20 years and is now just too great a chasm to bridge. And it's getting wider all the time. Look at what it has taken us to break the Sky 4 cartel.
For make no mistake, it is a cartel that FFP guards. It protects an elite. It is wrong.