Reasonable Arguments against Financial Fair Play

[Fame Monster]

Might have been done before. Does anyone have any? It seems to me that it's a fundamentally good way to run a football club.

That's not me being assertive by the way. I don't know the intricacies of it so perhaps somebody might be able to tell me why there's so much opposition to it.

 

[Bilboblue]

Restriction of trade.

 

[mancunial]

It's racism

 

[Fame Monster]

Restriction of trade.

Does it not ensure that clubs trade in a sustainable way?

 

[Bilboblue]

Restriction of trade.

Does it not ensure that clubs trade in a sustainable way?

Would the european union stop a corner shop owner that won the lottery from building a chain of stores to compete with Tescos/Asda etc. if he was making a loss every year?

Not at all. As long as he was paying his employees on time and in full they would say nothing about it.

Same same.

 

[City Raider]

It's an ingenous mechanism to protect the elite. How else do you explain a system that allows debt, but doesn't allow a benefactor to build a club with his own money?

Of course you can argue that clubs should be run according to their means, but how does this allow anyone to challenge the status quo?

Oh the irony of having the word 'fair' in there.

 

[Skashion]

Yes, it's quite easy under the current self-sustained Champions League oligarchy. Getting into the Champions League means lots of money. That money then goes towards making sure you can get qualification the next year and so on. FFP makes it impossible to break that cycle by gambling your way in by 'speculating to accumulate' i.e. spending more to begin with. Basically this arrangement enshrines a European super elite and confines everyone else to mediocrity.

It also says nothing about debt or an owner/s loading a club with debt, you simply have to be able to pay the interest. So a club loaded with massive debts (the rags) is considered healthier than City, a club with lower ticket prices, award-winning community scheme and massive investment in the local area. Arsenal is also considered very healthy by these standards. The fact that they've got fans protesting outside the grounds (rightfully so) against ridiculous ticket prices is completely irrelevant to them and of course it would be; UEFA think it's fair game to charge people £176 minimum to see the Champions League final.

UEFA are a bolus of self-appointed wankers who couldn't give two fucks about the fans or about non-elite clubs. Their interests are extraordinarily narrow; making sure the world's most marketable teams get into their competition; selling advertising space in their competition for all that it's worth.

 

[swblue]

In principal yes, and if it had been put in place 20 years ago then it would be hard to disagree with you.

However, putting it in place after the usual teams have had 20 years of Champions League money isn't fair. For the most part they benefited and prospered from being in the right place at the right time (Leeds, who fucked it up, being the obvious exception).

You only have to look at the Premier League to see what the Champions League money has done. In the last 15 years 7 teams have finished in the top 3. The 15 years before that it was something like 15 teams. They turned football into a business, and an elite set of clubs have benefited. To then go againsts the principals of business (that basically someone can invest what the hell they like) is ridiculous. It's clearly an attempt to protect the position of the elite clubs (and prevent a breakaway).

 

[Bluemoon dan]

Have a look on the Daily Mail website (I know, I know) and look for Martin Samuel's columns on it. He explains the reasons why it is wrong in a far more eloquent way than I can ever do. In basic terms he says its the equivelent of raising a drawbridge on the teams that arent in the champions league when it comes in to force as the only way to generate enough turnover to get in to the champions league is pretty much by being in it.

 

[Anonymous]

I think fundamentally, a sporting body cannot dictate how a multi million pound business is actually run. However it can lay down rules and criteria for participation in a competition it organises.

Whether that can stretch to business models used would be a matter for the courts to decide I'd imagine.