The Agenda (Merged)

[OB1]

The suggestion that we'll structure payments to get around FFP is a bit much, Whether we pay upfront or in installments its still recorded the same on the books I think.

But as I said earlier, it may well depend on how we structure the actual deal, rather than the payments (which don't matter as you rightly say).

If we do a deal for a straight £30m then that's what goes in the books, whether we pay that in one lump sum or three instalments. But if we do a deal for £20m with another £10m contingent on hitting certain milestones (goals scored, games played, trophies won, etc) then I'm less sure about how we account for it. From what Mullock is saying I get the impression we only need to account for the add-on payments once the milestone is achieved.

Exactly as I read it. The fee has to be accounted for immediately, regardless of the payment terms, but if we agree to pay a £15m upfront fee and then £15m only if he's made 50 appearances or whatever, then it's a simple and pretty much incontestable workround. Still probably better payment terms than everyone else offers.

It's an interesting and encouraging article and reinforces my view that we did a good deal and uefa saved face.

Under normal accounting procedures:

Timing of payment is usually not a factor in deciding when the purchase that it is associated gets recorded in the books of account as an asset or expense.

If part of a fee is contingent on something that has not happened yet, it is not normally be deemed a liability until the contingent event actually - if ever - occurs and therefore there is no asset or expense to record.

 

[OB1]

You infer as you please
It's just that it is usually at odds with most City fans

I think I agree with you there SF.

However, do we as City fans ,have our own Agenda that seeks to criticise everything that is not 100% pro City ?.

All most of us want (I would say) is fair and balanced reporting on our club. No reasonable person supporting any club could expect that club to be immune from criticism. Furthermore, no City fan I know wants the levels of fawning the media display toward united and Liverpool to be replicated when reporting on City.

The reason that posters are so tetchy is because there is a constant, prevailing background noise of inequitable reporting on our club. It isnt everywhere, but it's ubiquitous enough to create a discernible nuisance at the very least. It is perfectly natural to react robustly when something you care about is denigrated unfairly. This thread is a manifestation of that urge.

Any blue who cannot see the utter disparity in how we are reported on, compared to united and Liverpool in particular, has got serious Uncle Tom syndrome issues imo. Whether that impacts upon the standing of the club in any meaningful way, and to what extent, is entirely another debate, however. I would say to a limited extent.

As long as there are disrespectful motherfuckers running our club down I (and others, I would expect) reserve the right to point their failings out, not only in terms of their reporting on City, but also more generally. The fact that their journalistic shortcomings make this a relatively easy task perhaps goes some way to explaining the volume of content in this thread.

Fair points GDM.

I only look in on "Agenda" issues occasionally and I think some of the indignation and conspiracy theories etc go too far; also I spend relatively little time on what the media says about other clubs but I do think that our club gets far too much crap written and spoken about it, either through ignorance or bias.

 

[Chippy_boy]

With respect to "pundit comments, commentator accents, running orders, referees, league tables etc. and the second is the context that it is painted in: they all hate us, they want to stop us, they are all rags etc."

I am sure not many people on here actually believe that, word for word. Clearly they don't all hate us and they aren't all rags. But that said, some of them do and some of them are. Deciding not to be paranoid really does not mean that some of the bastards are not out to get us!

The problem as I see it is that there are understandably - because of their consistent historical successes over decades - way more United and Liverpool "supporters" in the wider community than there are City supporters.

(I use quotation marks because I am differentiating between people who actually buy season tickets and regularly go to watch their club, and those who watch a bit on the TV and if asked in the street "which football club do you support".) In terms of the former category, the number of City, Liverpool and United supporters is broadly similar in that we all only have 1 ground and each has broadly the same capacity. (No ground is two, three or four times as big for example.)

But in terms of people who would claim loosely to be "a United fan" or "a Liverpool fan", there are WAY ore of those than City fans. Looking at the turnout in the US when we played Liverpool in New York, the delta over there at least is enormous. It's perhaps less of a chasm in the UK, but still we are way behind. This has profound consequences that are real, not imagined, and which manifest themselves in all sorts of ways. When you think about what it means, it would be bizarre if this was not the case.

First of all, statistically, more officials - refs, linesmen, 4th officials, adjuditory panel membersm whatever - will be United or Liverpool fans than City fans. This must be true, unless there is some unknown process that distorts the natural proportions in our favour, which I am sure there are not. This inevitably will lead over a period to a slanting of the offiating playing field in favour of those clubs vs ours. Whether there's a coordinated conspiracy or not (and probably not) then nevertheless a rag-supporting ref is unavoidably going to see a marginal foul with different eyes to a CIty supporting ref or even a neutral. Not every foul, or every tackle, but over the course of a season you will see bias. It's human nature and it's unavoidable. (Beyond that, some of them are actually downright dishonest I am sure, which makes matters even worse.)

Second, there will be more United and Liverpool supporting journalists than City ones. This bias is probably even greater since much of the journalistic output is London-centric where there are relatively very few City fans compared to those two clubs. So the propensity for articles to be written with red as opposed blue-coloured specs is even greater. Some of these people do clearly despise us. But even the ones who do not, are surrounded by peers and by a general public with more of a red disposition than a light blue one. It's natural as you chat to friends and colleagues at work, in the pub, wherever, that your views are formed - they become tainted if you will - in the context of the prevailing narrative, which is more broadly red than blue. And over time, the effect is accumulative. The more than is written and talked about, the more it is regarded as being true, whether it's actually true or not. And then the myths become compounded upon one another and the whole thing spirals.

Which brings me on to point number three. The audience these hacks are appealing to, are more likely to be red than blue. Printing pro red articles is a more popular thing to do than printing pro blue ones. Anti-blue articles might be even more popular still. In short, there's no incentive for these people to print "the truth", even if they can see it, which perhaps they can't anyway. They are institutionally brainwashed into a red-thinking perspective, and constantly rewarded for red-centric journalism.

Don't misunderstand, this is not some grand theory of coordinated agendas. And nor does it apply in every case. But taking everything in the round over the course of many seasons, I think it goes a long way to explaining what we witness. Pretending none of this exists and that it's all paranoia is rather naive, and I suggest actually illogical: It should expected that these biases exist and that they will have this effect. It would be rather bizarre if none of this were true.

 

[waspish]

That article does come across of criticising Uefa, so it's having a go a Uefa for not being harsher on city? because we can buy Bony..

 

[OB1]

Simon Mullock's sub-editor is a disrespectful motherfucker.

I think that is the main problem with that article; that and the fact that whilst Mullock definitely a Blue, he is not an accountant. Obviously, I do not expect a football journalist to be an expert in accounting but how things are accounted for is very relevant to understanding some of the matters involved in FFP.

I don't know with certainty all the facts about the Negredo deal but it does appear that neither none of City, Valencia or Negredo can back out of making his move to Valencia permanent. If that is the case, then despite the fact that it is being referred to as a loan deal initially, it is in substance a permanent sale with extended credit terms. Therefore, City it would be right in accounting terms to allow City to reduce their net spend for this season by the amount that they are guaranteed to receive from Valencia. And, if they choose to, they can pay cash upfront to Swansea.

I'm not sure that the article makes this clear enough but then its audience is not a bunch of accountants.

 

[SilverFox2]

Apparently the headline of the article bore little resemblance to the content (how often have we seen that in newspapers).

Since headlines sell newspapers to enable our read on the bus or at work we should perhaps be not too disappointed with this.
The paper attracts its readership (mainly non City supporters) with apparently anti City headline then educates them with its content which most agree is a little closer to the truth than Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea Man U and even Man City fans expected.

Dare I say the headline is a pinch.

 

[OB1]

That article does come across of criticising Uefa, so it's having a go a Uefa for not being harsher on city? because we can buy Bony..

I would not infer from the article that the writer thinks UEFA should have been harsher on City; maybe he does think they have not been particulalry harsh on City. However, the article does not cover the matter of what might have been if City had not been restricted in spend. Would City have gone in for Fabregas and Sanchez? That question continues to haunt me.

 

[Chippy_boy]

That article does come across of criticising Uefa, so it's having a go a Uefa for not being harsher on city? because we can buy Bony..

I would not infer from the article that the writer thinks UEFA should have been harsher on City; maybe he does think they have not been particulalry harsh on City. However, the article does not cover the matter of what might have been if City had not been restricted in spend. Would City have gone in for Fabregas and Sanchez? That question continues to haunt me.

Don't let it haunt you too long, I think the simple answer is damned right we would.

 

[OB1]

That article does come across of criticising Uefa, so it's having a go a Uefa for not being harsher on city? because we can buy Bony..

I would not infer from the article that the writer thinks UEFA should have been harsher on City; maybe he does think they have not been particulalry harsh on City. However, the article does not cover the matter of what might have been if City had not been restricted in spend. Would City have gone in for Fabregas and Sanchez? That question continues to haunt me.

Don't let it haunt you too long, I think the simple answer is damned right we would.

:-)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The suggestion that we'll structure payments to get around FFP is a bit much, Whether we pay upfront or in installments its still recorded the same on the books I think.

But as I said earlier, it may well depend on how we structure the actual deal, rather than the payments (which don't matter as you rightly say).

If we do a deal for a straight £30m then that's what goes in the books, whether we pay that in one lump sum or three instalments. But if we do a deal for £20m with another £10m contingent on hitting certain milestones (goals scored, games played, trophies won, etc) then I'm less sure about how we account for it. From what Mullock is saying I get the impression we only need to account for the add-on payments once the milestone is achieved.

Well why didn't we do that before instead of falling foul of FFP by such a small amount

We didn't know that we'd fail FFP until after it was too late or I'm sure we would have done.

I've just read that Arsenal have to pay Southampton £10k every time Oxlade-Chamberlain plays for more than 20 minutes. That would only be accounted for once due I'd guess.