Re: Sunday Supplement
Sent the following email to them, figured it was worth sharing:
To whom it may concern,
The following is in response to "Are City's Finances out of Control?" on Sky Sports Sunday Supplement (<a class="postlink" href="http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/tv-shows/9147102/are-city" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www1.skysports.com/watch/video/t ... 2/are-city</a>?):
I think a good number of neutral football supporters look at Financial Fair Play (FFP) as a way of preserving the old guard, in an effort to protect a lavish party which only four clubs were previously able to attend, but to your credit the segment you aired didn't navigate the ethics of FFP regulations on the whole. Your concern was principally geared toward Manchester City's recent financial disclosing, and in that I'd like to respond.
For starters, it seems strange to discuss the enormous financial losses (and they are vast sums, let's admit) without highlighting the direction those losses are headed. If this is indeed a financially-focused segment, with attention paid toward the business aspects of a football club, then wouldn't a businessman make note that three years ago MCFC reported losses of 197.5m, two years ago losses of 97.9m, and this year losses of 51.6m? It seems like glossing over a trend toward profitability in a financial study is either willfully ignorant in the hopes of making a point, or just journalistically inept. At its current pace, MCFC hopes to be a fully profitable company -- the goal of every football club, beyond on-pitch success -- either next year or the year thereafter. I think that in a nine-minute long segment about the club's financial outlook it would have been possible to spend ten seconds acknowledging as much.
This does not in any way affect the current debate about last year's losses coupled with the previous year's, I grant you. The club itself appears confident that deducting pre-2010 wages and institutional development costs will bring their figures in line, but I certainly understand how the overall deductions can fall into the realm of public scrutiny. A lot of the focus, in that respect, has come to the issue of "intellectual property" payments from franchise branches of the club. Debating the actual value of these payments is subjective and admittedly interesting. I do object to the way these payments are being questioned entirely, though -- being phrased as essentially money laundering. If the New York Knicks opened a London basketball franchise called the London Knicks, in every way tied to its parent company, and poured all of its extensive resources -- marketing, scouting, training, and general experience -- into the team, then why exactly is it questionable that the London franchise owes the New York franchise financial restitution for the kick-start? Again, the amount of restitution is rightfully up for debate. The existence of it entirely shouldn't be viewed as alien or dirty play, though. It's just good business.
Mostly, however, I want to take objection to the youth academy tangent, and how it affects future British talent. The reported consensus, specifically voiced by Shaun Custis of The Sun, was that the current youth academy under construction at MCFC in no way aides the community of young British talent in development. Now in arguing how crazy this stance is, I'm not going to couple accusations of lazy work-ethic, or not doing your journalistic homework, with any accusations I have about general lunacy in coming to your conclusion. So far starters I'm sure you've read about the jobs created, the money that's been put into the community, and the general beautification (and rising property values) of the community. The way in which this helps a young footballer from the community is much more abstract, in the sense that the community is financially better off, but it's still worth including. Beyond that I'm sure you've seen the plans. From a structural standpoint, I don't think anyone will argue that the final product is the most state-of-the-art football academy in the world. Sixteen pitches, a 7,000-seat stadium, training facilities, gym facilities… exciting stuff. But I'll also assume that you read, in your travels, that MCFC modeled its educational components on the Ripon Grammar School -- the department of education's recommendation, and one of the country's most successful secondary schools -- in order to also provide a first-class education and balanced upbringing for young prospects.
Now in all of that, please account for the fact that 73% of the academy's attendees are British. Three out of every four students, at the most impressive football development facility in the world, are British. How exactly does that fail to help the future of British football? Is it because, as you said, they'll have no future in City's first eleven? That seems incredibly short-sighted. The goal for 1% of the academy, at most, is to develop into becoming a first-team Manchester City regular. The other 99% will hopefully develop into professional footballers. That's it. There's nothing wrong with that, either. That's part of the process, and fully understood.
You may choose to highlight the recent success of Marcos Lopes on the pitch, and choose to pay special attention to the fact that he's Portuguese, but you're missing the point on multiple levels. For one, you're also willfully ignoring Emyr Huws's recent first-team success -- he's Welsh, but that's hardly his fault. You're also skimming over a handful of our brightest EDS prospects, including British compatriots Devante Cole, Shay Facey, George Evans, and Jordy Hiwula. But you're also completely bypassing Lopes's recent comments on where to attribute his success -- namely, to his day-in and day-out training experiences with Manchester City's current crop of world class players. That seems simple… training with better players makes you better.
So in the end you have the world's greatest football academy, which has financially bolstered the local economy, with the finest academic and sporting facilities on offer, filled with impressionable young British kids at a ratio of 3:4, and your final consensus is that the future of British football doesn't profit from this? I think that's insane. I think you've received one of the most lavish gifts imaginable in the field of football development, and I think you've decided to poke it and prod it instead of opening and enjoying it. I think you've looked at each other and said "I've tried knocking it around, Bill, but no luck. Let's try accusing it." It's a gift. There's nothing about it that can be anything but good, and that goes double for the development of future British talent. Why don't you try saying thanks, or even just quietly enjoying it, instead of airing Sunday Supplements which explore different ways to find failure in it.
In the meantime, the supporters of Manchester City promise to say "thank you" to our benefactors that much louder, until the journalistic community decides to catch up.
Yours truly,
Andrew Stahl
