"teams buy trophies"

The argument that City are good for football is laughable. The only real beneficiaries are a select group of mercenary players and agents who receive greater sums than they are worth / deserve because of City's desperation to compete. The relative negative effects on the financial climate of player wages far outweigh anything positive

Crustanoid said:

The argument that City are good for football is laughable. The only real beneficiaries are a select group of mercenary players and agents who receive greater sums than they are worth / deserve because of City's desperation to compete. The relative negative effects on the financial climate of player wages far outweigh anything positive

Click to expand...

I agree with that. But City are not a cause of that, per se. They are a symptom. City haven't ruined football, they are just an asset that has been bought by rich people, another channel by which money has been pumped into football. We are also complicit. Our IPO, our global marketing, our part in negotiating TV deals, has all contributed too.

This is no longer about man city, it's all about Abu Dhabi FC., the Sheik has only bought them as a direct ticket into the english premiership for his team.
Lets be honest, world class footballers don't really want to play for man city when there are far more attractive clubs around, its purely the money involved - I'm sure they would rather win things with the likes of United, Arsenal, (even) Liverpool, clubs with a bit of heritage rather than a nouveau riche vulgarity.
Like Blackburn before them they'll fade away when the Sheik loses interest.

I have no problem in admitting that United have spent a lot of money down the years. I have no problem admitting that we have broken transfer records and signed players for big money on big contracts.

There's a fundamental difference though. It was money we made from organic growth of the football club. We have always spent within our means (ignore newtondave's bullshit figures). He lifted those from that steve_mcfc twat on twitter, who was trying to compare 3 years spending to 1 year's revenue. Utter stupidity and totally illogical. I believe FFP looks at clubs over a 3-5 year period, and the money United spent in that period would have been recouped.

Looking at our big transfers, they didn't come from a bottomless pit of money. When we went out and spent £28m on Veron and it didn't work out, we took a massive hit. When we bought Rooney for £30m, it was only on the back of selling Beckham for £25m the summer before to help fund it. When buying Ferdinand, Stam was sold. We bought big and sold big to off-set it. When it didn't work it, we had to take the hit and it affected our transfer strategy.

Our rivals know that if we make a bad choice in the transfer market it will severely affect our ability to compete, they know we are very fallible and rely on excellent management decisions. Everything has to be carefully judged and the club has to be run impeccably. At City, a £28m hit on someone like Veron would be forgotten about. Players are written off without a second thought and the club will go out and spend another £28m to get it right. There is no organic growth, it's just financial doping entirely dependent on one man.

It's all built on sand though, on the whim of one man. It's not a healthy situation to be in. A lot of City fans are bitter about FFP but in the longrun it will be a blessing for their club, as they're in a situation at the moment where the arse could fall out at any point and their club would cease to exist.

A lot of what you lot say on here about Man City is true but I just think its cringe worthy how many of us are crying about it and BEGGING for the ffp rules to help us out. Its like when someone gets nailed on Call of Duty and then plays the camper card. They've beaten us in the Fa cup and won that and now beaten us twice and won the title, they win, we lost so no point crying cheats as it just makes is look silly to everyone else.

Yes, yes, our success is eanrned and club built up by fans and key people but we spent more than all the other clubs mainly and now, for whatever reason some is spending more than us, getting the kind of big hype signings that we all dream of but probably never had. Time to lump it and rise to the challenge, yet another one.

Far too much talk about how City got their cash IMO and deep down we'd all love to be able to bid on whoever we wanted.

Simon Adebesi said:

I agree with that. But City are not a cause of that, per se. They are a symptom. City haven't ruined football, they are just an asset that has been bought by rich people, another channel by which money has been pumped into football. We are also complicit. Our IPO, our global marketing, our part in negotiating TV deals, has all contributed too.

Click to expand...

Ditto. Though the disgusting thing about City being purchased is you now have clubs willing to spend beyond their means in order to attract investment.

I'm probably an advocate of a club working within its means. Of course, City have an upper hand over the other clubs, but what they are doing is no means as worse as the oligarch at Chelsea. Clubs having a financial advantage is nothing new; didn't Henry Norris buy Arsenal the league in the 1930s? Sunderland in the 1950s spent a lot, as did Leeds and Chelsea post-war. Even Manchester United benefited from the Sky rush in the early 90s; through television rights.

I do worry about the game in a decade from now. FFP will do naff all and you will get a better indication about the health of English top-flight football when the Premier League renew their contracts with Sky, how United and Arsenal will cope when their respective managers leave and if Abramovich would still plough money into Chelsea.

Is it organic growth though Kraft? Or is it growth at the expense of others (I know these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive)?

We are all quite happy spewing the fact that we are all for the fair distribution of Premier League TV rights, in fact I have yet to see one person come out in favour of the Spanish system. However at the same time no-one has looked at how the Champions League money is doing exactly the same to the Premier League as the TV deals in Spain. The same could be said about Commercial revenues and high ticket prices... What is the difference between us using our Worldwide appeal to negotiate separate TV deals and us using our Worldwide appeal to earn £50-100m more than any other Premier League club via Commercial sales? The same applies with Arsenal being able to charge obscene ticket prices because of their location in London.

Surely you either split all this between clubs and have a totally level playing field, or allow clubs to do as they wish and negotiate everything separately?

I think you can only really hold two opinions: a) sugar daddy owners should be outlawed and we should split everything evenly between league teams, allowing everyone an equal chance at success; or b) you allow sugar daddy owners, because they are only providing the initial investment to attain the levels already achieved by other clubs.

In business it happens time and time again: a new company comes in with a wealthy backer and for the first few years it hemorrhages money after buying factories/machinery or whatever. This is a necessary evil in competing with the big players who already have the infrastructure in place.

For what it's worth I think City are doing as much good for the Premier League as they are doing harm. Clubs like Everton/West Ham/Middlesbrough/Blackburn/Arsenal/Villa are getting inflated fees for their players, which if reinvested wisely should strengthen their teams (as the £35m received for Carroll has improved Newcastle). However clubs like United probably miss out on a few players due to wage demands (Nasri).

I don't subscribe to the view that because City pay Tevez £250k a week this somehow means Carrick or Sagna are going to be knocking on their gaffers' doors asking for a pay rise.

I'd agree, but there needs to be an incentive for getting higher spots in the league/champions league spots, which enhances the competition.

Simon Adebesi said:

I agree with that. But City are not a cause of that, per se. They are a symptom. City haven't ruined football, they are just an asset that has been bought by rich people, another channel by which money has been pumped into football. We are also complicit. Our IPO, our global marketing, our part in negotiating TV deals, has all contributed too.

Click to expand...

Spot on - football is now a business and United were at the forefront of the marketing boom, and reaped rewards - we may generate huge sums of cash but where did the money come from to redevelop the ground, or develop the youth system?

RedRover said:

Spot on - football is now a business and United were at the forefront of the marketing boom, and reaped rewards - we may generate huge sums of cash but where did the money come from to redevelop the ground, or develop the youth system?

Click to expand...

There's nothing wrong with good business and commercial acumen. Uefa aren't clamping down on clubs that run themselves well and have a good commercial operation which makes them money. That is entirely healthy and welcome.

They're clamping down on clubs who are solely dependent on cash injections from one individual. It's not healthy, for the club in question or their competitors. It's built on sand.

Kraftwerker said:

There's nothing wrong with good business and commercial acumen. Uefa aren't clamping down on clubs that run themselves well and have a good commercial operation which makes them money. That is entirely healthy and welcome.

They're clamping down on clubs who are solely dependent on cash injections from one individual. It's not healthy, for the club in question or their competitors. It's built on sand.

Click to expand...

And a club being leveraged up to the eyeballs isn't? Horses for courses in my opinion.

Football has gone mad over the last ten to fifteen years, and frankly the whole thing is built on sand. There's an argument that at least clubs like City and Chelsea have owners whose wealth is so vast they're immune from turbulent markets and volatile economics - Liverpool (for example) weren't so lucky with the banks stepping in.

My view all in all is that any moaning about City or whomever else "buying trophies" is an irrelevance - football is what it is and you have to have money to compete, simple as that.

People focusing on what City are doing are ignoring what United are not doing in my opinion. I want us to compete with whoever is at the top in europe and the PL and sadly, and despite the huge sums generated from the pockets of fans, it looks like the club are trying to do it on a shoestring.

Kraftwerker said:

There's nothing wrong with good business and commercial acumen. Uefa aren't clamping down on clubs that run themselves well and have a good commercial operation which makes them money. That is entirely healthy and welcome.

They're clamping down on clubs who are solely dependent on cash injections from one individual. It's not healthy, for the club in question or their competitors. It's built on sand.

Click to expand...

Clubs built on Champions League income which can disappear for years and Commercial income, high ticket prices and TV money which could collapse in a depression aren't exactly built on the solid foundations you make out.

Like any company, investing for the future means big losses in the short term, which will be reduced as time goes by with a view to profit in the long term. Who's to say that Man City's owners don't see a profit in 10 years time? I certainly didn't see the Glazers' business model even close to working out in the short-medium term, but a combination of unbelievable Commercial and TV growth, combined with the best manager of all time has meant that most people were wrong.

Can you imagine in the business world if the Government prevented companies from trading if they made losses for 3-4 continual years, companies would never invest in anything and the market would be far less competitive.

RedRover said:

And a club being leveraged up to the eyeballs isn't? Horses for courses in my opinion.

Football has gone mad over the last ten to fifteen years, and frankly the whole thing is built on sand. There's an argument that at least clubs like City and Chelsea have owners whose wealth is so vast they're immune from turbulent markets and volatile economics - Liverpool (for example) weren't so lucky with the banks stepping in.

My view all in all is that any moaning about City or whomever else "buying trophies" is an irrelevance - football is what it is and you have to have money to compete, simple as that.

People focusing on what City are doing are ignoring what United are not doing in my opinion. I want us to compete with whoever is at the top in europe and the PL and sadly, and despite the huge sums generated from the pockets of fans, it looks like the club are trying to do it on a shoestring.

Click to expand...

Much less so.

United's owners could feck off tomorrow and the club would be ok due to the solid foundations it's built on.

City's owners could feck off tomorrow and their house of cards comes crashing down. Unable to pay contracts, unable to pay outstanding money on transfers, firesale of players.

To be so reliant on the whims of one ultra-rich benefactor is very unhealthy.