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.