So much casual racism in this thread. "They are Arabs so have to be underhand" City guilty without trial. I don't remember anybody bothered when the Moores family had Liverpool and Everton and slung all their money to take a 2nd division club to English and Euro domination. They were white i suppose though eh.
Newcastle could be sold to an Arab sheikh
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A 7-8 strong team Premier League (maybe more teams in time) is a bigger draw than the CL or European Super League in terms of TV ratings worldwide and commercial interest. Those continental old money clubs are simply threatened and want to breakaway, but a Premier League with 7-8 title contenders would continue to have the financial upper hand and would buy the best players available in football, leaving the continental old money clubs the scraps and left overs. Considering global audiences, who would watch some European Super League without English clubs when they could turn on the Premier League and watch a lot of strong clubs fighting for the title?
I don't think the Glazers and Kroenkes would want to break up from the Premier League either. There's more money in the Premier League.
Side point, but does anybody else find it amusing that the two city fans above me each parroted one of the key arguments their chairman gave this week in his risible attack on UEFA? I'm not saying you're both plants, but please send me your full names, social security number and season ticket number just to put my mind at rest.
At the moment, the latter group of clubs mean far more than city and PSG. This might change in 20 years if you keep on playing liquid sex football, start clothing the needy and homeless, teaching them to sing 'blue moon' and letting them into your stadium for free, but the current group of football watchers couldn't give a feck about city. We've just had the most exciting title race in years and people were far more interested in seeing Liverpool win/lose it than watching one of the best teams in the PL era. They are a far bigger club and incite for more emotion (negative and positive) in more people around the world. Advertisers know this, so do investors, so do TV companies.
You are correct that the Premier League teams will definitely be the biggest holdouts in breaking away to form a new league. They have a lot more to lose. But to pretend that the non-moneyed teams will always be delighted to be a part of the 'Most Competitive League in The World (TM)' is just false. The Kroenkes and Glazers want to go where the money is, and if that's in a superleague instead of spending millions on players to have a shot at finishing in the top 6, then they will make that clear. Hell, they already have. It's no coincidence that the most vociferous calls for UEFA to 'deal with' city and PSG have been coming from representatives inside Liverpool, Spurs and United. These are the clubs that see their positions threatened, are swimming against a tidal wave to compete financially and risk losing their best players to warm your bench.
It depends who is playing in the Premier League and who is playing in the Superleague. If your '7-8 title contenders' are city, Chelsea, Newcastle, Leeds, Wolves, Leicester and Everton then you bet your arse more people will be watching Barcelona, United, Liverpool, Real, Bayern, Juve, Milan and Ajax fight for the Superleague. Even if they were forced to play their kids because the rich playground of the Premier League sign their entire first teams each year they'd get more viewers.
At the moment, the latter group of clubs mean far more than city and PSG. This might change in 20 years if you keep on playing liquid sex football, start clothing the needy and homeless, teaching them to sing 'blue moon' and letting them into your stadium for free, but the current group of football watchers couldn't give a feck about city. We've just had the most exciting title race in years and people were far more interested in seeing Liverpool win/lose it than watching one of the best teams in the PL era. They are a far bigger club and incite for more emotion (negative and positive) in more people around the world. Advertisers know this, so do investors, so do TV companies.
You are correct that the Premier League teams will definitely be the biggest holdouts in breaking away to form a new league. They have a lot more to lose. But to pretend that the non-moneyed teams will always be delighted to be a part of the 'Most Competitive League in The World (TM)' is just false. The Kroenkes and Glazers want to go where the money is, and if that's in a superleague instead of spending millions on players to have a shot at finishing in the top 6, then they will make that clear. Hell, they already have. It's no coincidence that the most vociferous calls for UEFA to 'deal with' city and PSG have been coming from representatives inside Liverpool, Spurs and United. These are the clubs that see their positions threatened, are swimming against a tidal wave to compete financially and risk losing their best players to warm your bench.
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I can't see any team getting bought these days and suddenly becoming a world force like City and Chelsea. FFP won't allow that to happen. PSG and City are being investigated for it now and these clubs got taken over before FFP was brought in and it is a lot more stricter nowadays.
Newcastle will have to steadily work their way into the elite category. Obviously their finances and signings will change massively but there not going to be going out and buying the best in Europe like City, Chelsea, PSG did. A few more signings like Almiron will probably the best they can hope for, for at least 2-3 seasons. Or signings on the scale that Wolves have been buying.
Before FFP, Newcastle would have been able to go out and spend £500m in one window and there would be no restrictions for them to do that. I think Chelsea spent something like £120m in their first window on like 6-7 players with a lot of them being very highly rated sought after players. The equivalent to that now, would be in excess of £400m on 6-7 players of similar stature due to the market prices increasing. There is no way, even if Newcastle afford it, that they will be spending that sort of money this window or for the next few windows.
Newcastle will have to steadily work their way into the elite category. Obviously their finances and signings will change massively but there not going to be going out and buying the best in Europe like City, Chelsea, PSG did. A few more signings like Almiron will probably the best they can hope for, for at least 2-3 seasons. Or signings on the scale that Wolves have been buying.
Before FFP, Newcastle would have been able to go out and spend £500m in one window and there would be no restrictions for them to do that. I think Chelsea spent something like £120m in their first window on like 6-7 players with a lot of them being very highly rated sought after players. The equivalent to that now, would be in excess of £400m on 6-7 players of similar stature due to the market prices increasing. There is no way, even if Newcastle afford it, that they will be spending that sort of money this window or for the next few windows.
Remind us again which theocratic statelet the Moores held captive...
Please. You are holding one person responsible for the actions of a country, why? I will tell you why. He is an Arab so you think everything he says and does is a lie. Liverpools main sponsor has been proven to launder money for terrorists and cartels but of course you are not up in arms against that because it doesn't suit your agenda. Utd has Saudi sponsors. It's as clear as day. You have already convicted us of all allegations without trial, you insinuate everything we do is underhand. It's either racism or just being bitter because we have ruined your stranglehold on the league. 142 years of being able to spend your own money changed overnight by a corrupt cartel scrambling to protect themselves. Disgusting. Debt is of course ok though. What a surprise. City have failed ffp once, the same as Liverpool (who btw would have failed it the following years as well but were somehow able to write off £50 million of expenditure on the building of a new stadium, a stadium that one not spade broke ground on)_Their owners are white though so it doesn't matter.
I am having doubts now that this will actually happen. Read an article that this Bin Zayed group haven't even put in a bid yet. Seems this guy is playing it out in the media. Don't know why people think this is a done deal. What better way to get season tickets than the fanfare of an arab taking over Newcastle United. How this is being played out is a bit strange to me.
He'd still be upset by City's spending if our owners were born and bred Mancunians. His problem is competition.
The fact that our owner is Emirati enables him to change the angle and pretend that his criticism of our spending is altruistic rather than self-interested.
that's right its means being creative with length of contracts and making use of loan players but no chance of spending 100m outside the top six anyway.
The reason you're in this state isn't City's money but simply your mismanagement. Spurs and Liverpool are a good example on dealing with it, they are in the CL final, not City, and they did quite well in the league while you finished 6th. No matter what you tell yourself, City aren't spending 300m a window every window to make it impossible for others to buy players and there's a limit of players City can buy or money we can spend. The way you are managed, the chances of you finishing in top 6 would just as much be in jeopardy in a European Super League without City as it is in a Premier League with one. Liverpool spending quite well in the past 2 years in building the best defence in Europe and easily dealing with Bayern and Barcelona on their way to CL final is a testament to the fact that clubs who are run well can compete City and other rich clubs and super clubs. It all comes down to management and how you use the money.
You don't duck out things that easily I'm afraid. It also comes down to how much money you have available to use. And in City's case huge chunks of money are unearned - simply gifted from your sugar-daddy.
Case in point: Spurs have funded their new stadium from their own pockets - which in large part is why our net spend on transfers over the last 10 years has been just £15m.
In contrast, City don't even own their stadium and have net-spent £563m on transfers in the last 5 years alone.
To put it another way, in the last 5 years City have net-spent on transfers more than 37 times what Spurs have spent in 10 years. And this doesn't include spending on wages.
Apparently terms have been agreed and now its a case of PL approval: https://www.skysports.com/football/...for-newcastle-takeover-sent-to-premier-league
Agree with all that
Spurs, the winner of net-spent trophy.
Betting you every Spurs, Arsenal or our own fans in this thread who have been shitting on Arab owners would be thrilled if their clubs were being taken over by similar owners intending to build the club up like City's did.
Its' the same with Newcastle fans. Seen some on Twitter who had a history of looking down on foreigners and foreign investments only to now be dreaming of buying Messi and Mbappe (figuratively!). Many fans are quite fickle.
Its' the same with Newcastle fans. Seen some on Twitter who had a history of looking down on foreigners and foreign investments only to now be dreaming of buying Messi and Mbappe (figuratively!). Many fans are quite fickle.
They shouldn’t even be considering it, just have the fat red rejected stamp ready.
I do not mind foreign investment on Newcastle or Leeds. The more competitive the league the better for the fans. Newcastle deserves a better owner.
I dont mind proper unbias investment, I don’t approve of members of the same family using probably the same pot of cash to run 2 clubs in the same league. The idea as absolutely ludicrous.
Nope. I’d rather have spend and wage caps to make for a more interesting and level playing field. If you think the monopoly is or has been bad so far, just think what it will be like in 5-10 years time.
Works out well for us though. I hope Leicester, Wolves and Everton get arab owners too. Then the Glazers will have no choice but to sell when they see they can't compete for even 6th without spending massively.
I don’t. It’s a very sad state of affairs for football when competitiveness is based on who the owner of the club is.
A salary cap similar to the NBA would be ideal. That would prevent all the star players in the same team. It is not good for the league for players like Mahrez and Sane not playing week in week out.
If the number of rich owners start increasing drastically, I reckon they would have no choice but to eventually implement it. I don't think even the FA/UEFA/FIFA are mad enough to let player prices eventually touch close to 1 billion dollars, which is where we are heading at this rate.
The players price probably hit the ceiling at 100m atm. Clubs just wait for players to run down their contracts. Neymar's effect on Coutinho, Dembele and Virgil van Dijk transfer fee is a one off thing.
We only made £8 million from the Premier League than Man City did winning it. Man United is a cash cow. I'm sure they wouldnt be bothered.
It’ll continue to rise. Pretty sure we said the same thing years ago when players started hitting £30m+, and probably many times before that.
Only if the clubs revenue increase. There will be more cut price Hazard, Ramsey, Rabiot, De Gea deal than 120M deal this summer. Pogba won't leave Man Utd till next summer for the same reason.
It's not about whether or not the sugar-daddies are Arabs: Abramovich is Russian/Israeli. It's about the destruction of fair competition via the increasing number of clubs who don't stand on their own two feet, but are simply gifted unearned income and thus cheat their way to success.
I can't speak for other Spurs fans, far less Arsenal or United fans, but I very much like the fact that Spurs remain an independent club who have progressed even in the face of so much cheating and financial doping.
I see nothing wrong with Chelsea's approach on initial heavy investment to be competitive, then layout a self sustained model down the road. It is what they are doing now. I think Abramovich even after all his investment he made good profit on his Chelsea investment based on the increase in value of the club. Without Abramovich we probably will see Man Utd dominate the EPL given the resource available to them and EPL becomes La Liga(only RM and Barca), Serie A (Juventus) or Budesliga (Bayern).
This would be a way to make for a more fair competition. It depends on how you run your club if you'll have sustained succes. Spend it all on Messi, you'll have lesser players around him for example. Look at the NFL; Tom Brady, arguably the best qb, isn't the best paid qb by far, he agreed to this to make sure the team has enough money to spend for the players around him to have a standard of quality. That's partly why they're so succesfull
The precedent has been set now though. Everyone knows what clubs are prepared to pay. Costs that are saved on transfer fees will simply pass over to player and agent sign on fees and wages.
No you haven't. Your stadium investment is being financed with a considerable chunk of debt. Presumably your owner, and the lenders, believe additional revenue derived from the new stadium will be sufficient to repay the debt. Once the debt is repaid, your owner may decide that the additional stadium revenues could be used to finance player acquisition and drive improved on-pitch performance, which would provide a return on investment to your owner through the increased value of the club. This is generally the argument made for stadium investment, although I note that Arsenal originally stated that this was going to be their approach, but they haven't actually implemented it yet.
City's investment, on the other hand, has been largely focused on player acquisition (although there was some stadium investment for the South Stand expansion) and has been financed by our owner's equity. Presumably our owner believed that player acquisition would drive improved on-pitch performance, which would provide a return on investment to our owner through the increased value of the club. Our owner has already been proven correct.
So if both Spurs' and City's strategies are based around improving on-pitch performance and increasing the value of our respective clubs, why is Spurs' strategy acceptable, but City's strategy not acceptable? I can think of a few potential answers:
1) If the issue is debt vs. equity, then presumably it would have been acceptable if our owner had loaded debt on to the club to finance player acquisition instead of providing equity? Your post suggests that you would consider this to be "out the club's own pockets." This would be strange to argue for though, as it would place the club at far greater risk of financial issues if the investment in player acquisition did not lead to improved on-pitch performance and increased revenues, as the club may struggle to repay debt to the owner and the owner wouldn't receive a return on investment through increased value of the club. Isn't FFP supposed to be all about protecting clubs from financial risks?
2) If the issue is the scale of financing, then the question is where do we draw the line? Spurs' debt investment of let's say £400m is fine, but City's equity investment of £1.3bn is not fine. So would you have been happy for City's owners to provide £400m equity investment for player acquisition then?
3) If the issue is investment in a stadium rather than players, then FFP would agree with you given that stadium investment is not included in FFP calculations. However, there's no logical need for City's owners to build a new stadium. It seems strange for football's governing bodies to effectively be telling owners where they can and cannot invest, particularly as for City's owner the return on investment would be potentially much higher for player acquisition than stadium development in terms of its impact on the value of the club.
4) If the issue is nothing to do with investment at all, but is actually City's owner, his position in the UAE government, and human rights issues in the UAE, then that's absolutely fine, everything above is irrelevant. But obviously there was nothing in the Fit and Proper Person regulations that prevented City's owner taking over, and there still isn't, which suggests that football's governing bodies have no issue with City's owner.
Or maybe it's a mix of all four. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with arguments against City's owner and City's investment strategy.
Yes, debt that we will pay off from our owned earned income. This means that in the end, all of the stadium costs will be paid for by the club ... and a considerable portion has already been paid for by the club.
Your argument is ridiculous.
The FA sees money and bends over for whoever is offering it. Fit and proper is a concept so watered down it's worse that Coors Lite. It's why FFP was invented but that was a classic case of bolting the stable door long after the horse had left. It's also why people like the Glazers, Abramovich, Sheik Mansour and the rest can do what they do.
Wow they really are taking control over more and more clubs arn't they? I would imagine in a couple years it's going to be even tougher to compete for the top 4 now.
Totally agree they are obsessed with their product and just want more cash to come in, instead of actually doing the job they should be doing.
It hasn't been paid from your own earned income yet. You are borrowing on the assumption of repayment through increased revenues. As I said, this is generally the argument for stadium investment, and assuming that is the case, presumably you'd say that was a strategy well executed by the owner/club.
Likewise, perhaps City's owners are investing their equity on the assumption of repayment through increased value of the club (when they sell), taking into account that the club's value is a function of its revenues. The value of the club has risen from £250m to over £2bn in 11 years so far. I'd say that's a strategy well executed by the owner/club so far. You might even call it ridiculous.
That doesn't make total sense because Fit and Proper Person test is totally different to FFP, with a different focus. The Fit and Proper Person test is mainly to do with a person's integrity/trustworthiness (corruption, criminal convictions, etc.) and I think there might be some element related to ability to finance the purchase of the club, although this seems to have been bent by some fairly unfit owners in the past. FFP is theoretically about clubs spending in a sustainable manner. I don't think either really relate to the issue of the potential Newcastle owner being related to the City owner though. Related Party Transactions under FFP might be relevant but only if either owner/club was literally funding/sponsoring the other?
I do completely agree that it wouldn't be acceptable to have two clubs effectively acting in cahoots in the same league, e.g. if transfer fees between clubs were getting fixed in some way, swapping players, etc. Isn't there already something in the PL regulations somewhere that covers and protects against this? I'm sure there's been previous conversations about RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg playing each other in Europe, and there was also a conversation about Girona potentially qualifying for the Europa League last season, which could have meant they had played City (CFG own/have a stake in both) but in the end it was irrelevant because Girona didn't qualify. If there isn't anything already in the PL regulations then there should be. But if this potential new owner passes the Fit and Proper Person test, and City/Newcastle do not act in cahoots in some way, then I don't really see the problem. Maybe the assumption is that they would act in cahoots, but yes there should definitely be PL regulations to prevent this.