Football Leaks: Manchester City accused of using shadow firms to flout rules

[Infra-red]

Poor European greats

My heart breaks for them.

It's not so much them, as what's replacing them.

Also, they won't be the last to fall. COVID has accelerated, rather than created these trends - even when(/if) the pandemic ends, these clubs will not bounce back. I wasn't in favour of the European Superleague (quite the contrary) but Perez, Agnelli, Laporta and the rest weren't joking when they said that the project was "absolutely necessary" to ensure their clubs' continued survival.

City and PSG (plus a massive dollop of financial incompetence) are going to lay waste to the whole lot of them. I'm not sure that the game is going to be better for it!

 

[GifLord]

What everyone feared would happen, is slowly happening. Former European greats Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan & Juventus are financial basket cases while the oil/oligarch funded clubs Chelsea, City and PSG have won 14 of the last 18 domestic league titles in their countries and look like adding Grealish, Kane, Lukaku, Messi, Ramos, Hakimi and Donnarumma (no doubt many more TBC) to their ranks in a single summer, in a pandemic.

Those 2 clubs started this shit. Both being backed by their sugar daddy owners. Look at how many transfer records Milan broke in the late 80s early 90s(Donadoni, Lentini, Papin). Inter spent 350m € on players in the 90s - 35m per season.
Without Berlusconi Milan would be nothing more than a midtable club which they were before he bought them and pumped money in.

 

[RoyH1]

It's not so much them, as what's replacing them.

Also, they won't be the last to fall. COVID has accelerated, rather than created these trends - even when(/if) the pandemic ends, these clubs will not bounce back. I wasn't in favour of the European Superleague (quite the contrary) but Perez, Agnelli, Laporta and the rest weren't joking when they said that the project was "absolutely necessary" to ensure their clubs' continued survival.

City and PSG (plus a massive dollop of financial incompetence) are going to lay waste to the whole lot of them. I'm not sure that the game is going to be better for it!

My fear as well. Nation states buying into the real big football clubs for PR and marketing reasons might become the norm

 

[nuanced]

It's not so much them, as what's replacing them.

Also, they won't be the last to fall. COVID has accelerated, rather than created these trends - even when(/if) the pandemic ends, these clubs will not bounce back. I wasn't in favour of the European Superleague (quite the contrary) but Perez, Agnelli, Laporta and the rest weren't joking when they said that the project was "absolutely necessary" to ensure their clubs' continued survival.

City and PSG (plus a massive dollop of financial incompetence) are going to lay waste to the whole lot of them. I'm not sure that the game is going to be better for it!

How are these clubs going to survive now that they can't hoard all of the top talent. City and PSG have a squad limit of 25 players each, a majority of which is taken up by homegrown players (who are generally academy grads). If you're being generous and want to include all of the young talents which they might have out on loan, you'd still struggle to reach 100 players. There are thousands of players playing in the top flight in the top 5 leagues of Europe. If the European greats are so dependent on the top 100 players (assuming City and PSG scoop all of them) for their survival, then they shouldn't be in this business. The argument that buying the top players equals guaranteed success is even more funny, when Pool challenged City neck-to-neck for two years, Lille beat PSG to the league and both City and PSG have reach exactly one CL (if I'm not wrong).
As GifLord pointed it out, clubs like Milan, Inter, Juve, Real, etc were miniature versions of these 'Nation state clubs'. I love the irony of Real crying about PSG's finances, when they've done the same to the other clubs for decades.

 

[stevoc]

What everyone feared would happen, is slowly happening. Former European greats Real Madrid, Barcelona, Inter Milan, AC Milan & Juventus are financial basket cases while the oil/oligarch funded clubs Chelsea, City and PSG have won 14 of the last 18 domestic league titles in their countries and look like adding Grealish, Kane, Lukaku, Messi, Ramos, Hakimi and Donnarumma (no doubt many more TBC) to their ranks in a single summer, in a pandemic.

No Sir what you are saying here can't be true. Because I keep reading on here that the financially doped clubs have been good for competition. And they haven't artificially inflated transfer fees/wages to unsustainable levels that leads to legitimately ran clubs getting into trouble trying to compete.

 

[GifLord]

It was the Spanish giants who started it in the 60s and kept it going until the 80s. Milan had already won the European cup twice and the league a dozen times even before Berlusconi's arrival but they were destined to shine again with a number of quality homegrown talents they had(Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Galli, Tassotti, Albertini) etc. Half of the team were already there before Berlusconi so Milan just needed a competent owner willing to spend to put them back on track and where they belong.

Yeah but all those things happened in the late 60s.
Milan were in a horrible state before Berlusconi bought them. Twice relegated in the 80s - first for the Totonero scandal in 1979/1980 they finished 3rd but relegated and later for being just shit in the league when they finished 14th in season 1981/1982.
Then their team standings were
1983/1984 - 8th
1984/1985 - 6th
1985/1986 - 7th
These positions look decent but at that time there were only 16 teams in the league
Then Berlusconi buys Milan in February of 1986
1986/1987 - 6th Broke transfer record for Donadoni 8m€ also bought Borgonovo for 2m€ and a few others for an undisclosed fee - Massaro, Galli, Bonetti...
1987/1988 - 1st Bought Gullit for almost 7m€ and van Basten for 1.15m€ and a few others AGAIN for an undisclosed fee - Ancelotti, Bianchi, Colombo...
...
Milan just in the 90s spent over 200m on new players or around 130 netspend
Inter's spending was even more absurd with 350mil€ on new players. Overall Serie A in the 90s was spending way too much money on players and then you got clubs that got fecked due to finances - Parma, Lazio, Fiorentina...

 

[Sassy Colin]

Poor European greats

My heart breaks for them.

Says Arse supporter

Where do you think it leaves your lot?