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

moodyred

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They will use oil to drown out these investigations. I would really like to see if UEFA really can do anything to them.
 

lysglimt

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PSG is a top 5 shirt seller, just signed a top 3 shirt sponsorship with Accor starting next year and has the most expensive stadium seats in the world, always full. There's still a bit from Qatar but the club is increasingly self sufficient.

Also despite recruiting Neymar and Mbappé PSG has only spent €500m while selling for €250m over the last two years, which isn't that bad.

Yes, you are self-sufficient NOW, you weren't 6 years ago when you signed a bunch of superstars the club didn't have the finances to pay for

I 2011/2012 - the average attendance for PSG was about 30.000 (2/3s full) - and without looking into it - I assume the ticket prices were probably a lot cheaper than they are today

The shirt sponsorhip with Accor you talk about - start next year. I am pretty certain it was pretty small and not very profitable in 2011

It was simply impossible for PSG 5-6 years ago to sign the players they did without violating the FFP

Today - it might be possible
 

Shipperley

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Oh wow, City have tried to curry favour with the press by indulging them in some fine dining :lol: what an unforgivable and heinous act, and surely we must have been the only club to have ever attempted to influence the press.

I have no problem with FFP in principle. It is sound and makes sense and has some commendable objectives. However, it has to have enough elasticity to allow for owners who want to invest in a business such as City's owners are doing. City are in a far healthier position financially now than we were prior to the Abu Dhabi takeover. Is that not a good thing? We have just been able to secure one of the biggest kit deals in the world with Puma. Our growth has been immense. The investment has been hugely beneficial for City and Manchester as a whole. If UEFA want to stop similar clubs enjoying what City fans have because the status quo started throwing their toys out of the pram, then yes I object to that. The majority of the United fans in here I doubt would be in favour of a far more egalitarian distribution of revenue throughout the leagues in Europe. Instead, the main and often only grievance is that they have been dethroned. It's the hollow moral posturing that irks me.
As a supporter of a ‘small club’ I think this is fair. We all aspire to push our clubs on but the current rules make it very hard to do so. FFP, STCC and the EPPP are all overwhelmingly in favour of the established status quo and means there will always be a glass ceiling to what can be achieved by everyone else.

For me, aside from all the men in suits, football is ultimately for the fans and I hope that is always the case. Four generations of CPFC fans in my family have never seen us win a trophy. We’ve come close a couple of times but Utd have beaten us in finals on both occasions, the last of which you sacked your manager the very next day just to add insult to injury. I could not tell you all what winning that FA cup would have meant to my family as I sat there with my brother and old man, and to my club in general. I bet you guys don’t even give it a thought anymore.

With that in mind I couldn’t care less how City or anyone else win their trophies to be honest because no fans have more of a right to enjoy those moments than any other set of fans. I understand the reasons for FFP etc but some elasticity to support investors with the right means and motives gives everyone else a fighting chance of enjoying the same memories that you do as Utd fans at some stage in their lives. I understand the protectionism but stop being so entitled and let someone else have some joy as well.
 

Verminator

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As a supporter of a ‘small club’ I think this is fair. We all aspire to push our clubs on but the current rules make it very hard to do so. FFP, STCC and the EPPP are all overwhelmingly in favour of the established status quo and means there will always be a glass ceiling to what can be achieved by everyone else.

For me, aside from all the men in suits, football is ultimately for the fans and I hope that is always the case. Four generations of CPFC fans in my family have never seen us win a trophy. We’ve come close a couple of times but Utd have beaten us in finals on both occasions, the last of which you sacked your manager the very next day just to add insult to injury. I could not tell you all what winning that FA cup would have meant to my family as I sat there with my brother and old man, and to my club in general. I bet you guys don’t even give it a thought anymore.

With that in mind I couldn’t care less how City or anyone else win their trophies to be honest because no fans have more of a right to enjoy those moments than any other set of fans. I understand the reasons for FFP etc but some elasticity to support investors with the right means and motives gives everyone else a fighting chance of enjoying the same memories that you do as Utd fans at some stage in their lives. I understand the protectionism but stop being so entitled and let someone else have some joy as well.
Sorry you couldn't beat us and still cry over it, but how does City being all powerful, mega-spenders make any difference to your club, unless you were going to be bought by an oil state, and need the same opportunity to splash the cash?
It's just one more barrier in your quest for a trophy.
 

finneh

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good post. what do you think was different about the game post 1992 though when the old European cup had winners from Yugoslavia and Romania and even teams like Goteborg, Celtic, etc were quite good. It seems as though top level European football is a lot less 'fluid' than it was in the 70s and 80s, where it does indeed seem like some teams are too big to fail. As much as we have struggled after Fergie retired for e.g no one is really going to bet on us becoming a club who are lost in the wilderness and just bouncing in and out of the top 4 while failing to compete for any of the titles. We haven't technically done THAT badly since 2013 either if you were to honestly examine our fortunes since then.
The money involved has exploded to such an extent that football clubs have become huge corporations in their own right and just like the Amazon's of this world, you get to a point whereby you're too big to fail.

Competition law applies to ensure that consumers aren't ripped off as a result of companies like Amazon monopolising sectors. Although often these independent bodies don't have the teeth to deal with the issues satisfactorily. Football is the same. United could not possibly have been run worse over the last 5 years. We've wasted literally hundreds of millions making bad decisions. The kind of bad decisions we've made in the last 5 years were the same bad decisions that Liverpool made in the 80's, causing them decades in the wilderness.

Nowadays however the gap between the likes of United, Bayern, Real & Barcelona compared with for example Ajax is stratospheric. It now takes an investment of literally a billion pounds along with subsidies into the hundreds of millions per annum (hence this thread) to compete.

The only positive thing if you're a fan of FFP (im not) is that almost no one can now afford to make a team successful. The era of someone like Abramovich whose worth under £10b coming in and transforming a team with £250m in a couple of years is over. Nowadays you need to be one of the richest 100 people on the planet.
 

Shipperley

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I think ‘still cry over it’ is a bit strong but never mind. STCC prevents clubs from being able to increase their wage bill by more than £7m annually unless that money is generated organically through match day revenues, commercial income or player sales. That rule pretty much prevents clubs below the top 6 from ever being able to challenge them as their commercial income and match day revenues will always be significantly less than the top six clubs, making it a closed shop. That is anti-competition in my book and is a clear stop for any club that does have the resources to compete for a spot at the top of the game. If owners (like City’s) are committed to the club and have the resources then why should commercial income and match day revenues matter? I don’t care how many official windscreen wiper or tyre partners a club has.
 
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Josh 76

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Is it true if City are found guilty, they would be kicked out of this seasons champions league?
 

Judas

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Nothing will happen to them this season, no points deduction, or being kicked out of any competitions. It'll be next season and/or beyond if they're actually punished.
 

beedoubleyou

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There will always be an asterisk next to everything Man City win. That's why we'd much prefer them to win over Liverpool. City fans know this as much as we do.

As for PSG. Whatever, the only thing they've achieved is the total destruction of French league football. Enjoy your six month close season boys.
 

Adisa

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Has he cried at the press conference? :lol:
I have a lot of respect for Baldy and actually think the work City have done is fantastic. However, this is nonsense. They have been cheating. What does he expect, a pat on the back?
 

VJ1762

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Saw this comment on the guardian. Reckon he posts on bluemoon?

It doesn't matter now does it?

English football is dead. You killed it with your greed. After years of innuendo and constant sniping you make a coordinated move against your opponent who you couldn't beat on the football pitch.

If Liverpool win the league this season it will have no credibility whatsoever. You will make all the claims in the world that we brought it on ourselves but deep down you know this is underhand and it's cheating.

I've been a season ticket holder all my adult life. I supported my club in Division Two at its lowest ebb. I was there when Stockport triumphed against us. I cried as a schoolboy when my team got beat. For 30 years City my once proud club were humiliated week by week, but we refused to give up, and then one day we were taken over and everything changed. City rose like a phoenix. It's a fantastic uplifting story but you have denigrated it at every turn.

I know what it coming now. I've paid for my games so I'll see this season out, but that's it for me now. I know what's coming and it's sickening.

Is this how you wanted to beat City? Shame on you. And shame on the Premier League for caving in.

Of course you will blame it on City, but City are like any other club. You've just targeted us for years and eventually you've got your way. This is a sad day for every football fan, not just Manchester City fans because it means your achievements in football mean nothing. You've taken the best team in the race and taken them out. You'll say they were doped, well it's never ever been a level playing field. That is capitalism. Up until now there was an uneasy relationship between football and capitalism but it survived and football remained a beguling beautiful game at its heart, which continued to amaze and surprise even to this week, but clubs like Liverpool, United and Arsenal who I assume are behind this could not wait. THey've moved against City now. It will be a non-stop barrage of articles and innuendo from mobilised supporters. City have no chance now. The game is up.

You've destroyed my memories of the game the most precious thins I had like Aguero's goal and Joe Hart wheeling in ecstasy around the stadium arms outreached to us.

You'll never have those feelings because you got there through cheating.

Football belongs on the pitch. The minute you take your rivalries to court and use your political power to beat your opponent it's over.

I could say a lot more. I've written this from the heart in 5 minutes but for me 40 years of football have just vanished and gone. Is this what you wanted and how you wanted to do it?
 

Kylar Stern

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Can the PL pull their finger out and instigate a ‘Fair and proper person’ hearing over the summer now then? The fallout would be glorious.
 

VJ1762

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I don't even know why people are so hung up about city breaching FFP rules or whatever. Financial doping was clear to even us mere fans when they went from legends like Shaun Goater to buying the likes of Robinho, Tevez etc. We also know that their club was only bought because they had the name of Manchester. So why are we having a thread seven or eight pages long? I say we start making smart moves beginning with this season. I mean they are not going to go away anyway. They have bought clubs all around the world( the latest is they are going to buy a club in Mumbai after completing the purchase of a club in China). We may not ever be as dominant as we were under Sir Alex at any point in the future, but if we sort things out this summer, we can be challenging for the title next season. Our board has to get this summer correct.

I mean La Liga won't ever allow any club in Spain to be brought by the sheikhs. Bundesliga is protected by the 50+1 rule. Juventus reign supreme in Italy. Pretty sure there are rules in all these leagues to protect the establishment.

As someone said, football clubs like us have become too big to fail. Maybe having a monster like city in our backyard will force our club to improve. City have shown that if we have to beat them, we have to be on our toes from the minute the season starts. No room for complacency. In my mind, the next Premier League title will be that much sweeter.
 

Trizy

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Point deduction on all their seasons would be a funny thing for United fans. United win 2 more titles but Liverpool also get 2. Rock and a hard place. :confused:


What happens if they finish 1st/2nd but are banned from the CL? 5th place gets their spot?
 

Cassidy

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Platini's numerous quotes on this topic (some posted by Bobby Manc earlier) directly contradict this. Prior to its first implementation the design of FFP evolved once the G14 got involved. And FFP wouldn't have prevented Portsmouth going bankrupt.

Agree with your last paragraph though. I think Infantino's quotes show that both sides probably had a mutual interest in not taking things too far when we were initially punished -- City/PSG happy to take a small hit, UEFA happy to design a hit that shows they did something, but not significant enough that City/PSG decided to go for a legal challenge. And yes, in 2019 FFP protects City from its owners and protects City's competitive position. It helps us now, but doesn't mean I still don't disagree with its design.

If owners have the money, I don't really see too much of a problem with them investing it as they wish. I'm not that fussed about Bournemouth or Wolves taking the piss out of FFP (Wolves lost a million a week last season) to reach the PL, and no-one on this forum seems particularly fussed either. I think the difference is the scale of City's investment challenges the elite. Wolves and Bournemouth don't.
Wolves lost a million a week and came up. As far as I know if they were to go back down they would be in breach? I think the same happend with Brighton?

The difference isnt the scale of Citys investment. In this case its that City are blatantly making up false sponsors and breaking the rules further after already being punished.
 

FujiVice

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Point deduction on all their seasons would be a funny thing for United fans. United win 2 more titles but Liverpool also get 2. Rock and a hard place. :confused:


What happens if they finish 1st/2nd but are banned from the CL? 5th place gets their spot?
We lost those titles as far as I'm concerned. I'd take no joy in having them given to us, regardless of the unfair way they won them. We all knew City were playing with an rigged deck of cards at the time anyway.
 

Johan07

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Wolves lost a million a week and came up. As far as I know if they were to go back down they would be in breach? I think the same happend with Brighton?

The difference isnt the scale of Citys investment. In this case its that City are blatantly making up false sponsors and breaking the rules further after already being punished.
This.
One can have different views on FFP and if the current version is the best one or even should be in place going forward.
But the blatant ignorance, cheating, and circumvention of rules (whatever you might think of them), which coincides with the corruption at both UEFA and especially FIFA; clubs found guilty of what City obviously have been doing should be punished hard. Its disrespectful to the sport as such and much worse than Neymar diving in some CL-game.
Anything else would mean that we have learned nothing from whats been going on at the regulatory level in European and world football historically.
 

OverratedOpinion

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Oh wow, City have tried to curry favour with the press by indulging them in some fine dining :lol: what an unforgivable and heinous act, and surely we must have been the only club to have ever attempted to influence the press.

I have no problem with FFP in principle. It is sound and makes sense and has some commendable objectives. However, it has to have enough elasticity to allow for owners who want to invest in a business such as City's owners are doing. City are in a far healthier position financially now than we were prior to the Abu Dhabi takeover. Is that not a good thing? We have just been able to secure one of the biggest kit deals in the world with Puma. Our growth has been immense. The investment has been hugely beneficial for City and Manchester as a whole. If UEFA want to stop similar clubs enjoying what City fans have because the status quo started throwing their toys out of the pram, then yes I object to that. The majority of the United fans in here I doubt would be in favour of a far more egalitarian distribution of revenue throughout the leagues in Europe. Instead, the main and often only grievance is that they have been dethroned. It's the hollow moral posturing that irks me.
For Man City it is, for football as a whole it can be very unhealthy. When you have the level of investment that you do it means that other clubs who do not have such outside backing need to try and keep up. It's creating a bubble that very few can realistically afford to breath in.
 

BobbyManc

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For Man City it is, for football as a whole it can be very unhealthy. When you have the level of investment that you do it means that other clubs who do not have such outside backing need to try and keep up. It's creating a bubble that very few can realistically afford to breath in.
And how is this any different from when teams like Madrid and United used to be able to outspend their rivals and cherry pick the country's best talent? Bayern Munich can still do this and have essentially made the Bundesliga redundant as far as the title goes in the past few years. In La Liga there's still a woeful inequality between the revenues of the top two teams and the rest of the league. This is unhealthy, and as much as City's external investment is, yet it doesn't attract anywhere near the same level of comment because people have some strange view that these are the 'elite' clubs who have some sort of divine right to forever sit at the top of the table.
 

Fluctuation0161

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The whataboutery from City fans is a joke. I sometimes wonder if these are truly held beliefs or just a method of deflection.
 
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acnumber9

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And how is this any different from when teams like Madrid and United used to be able to outspend their rivals and cherry pick the country's best talent? Bayern Munich can still do this and have essentially made the Bundesliga redundant as far as the title goes in the past few years. In La Liga there's still a woeful inequality between the revenues of the top two teams and the rest of the league. This is unhealthy, and as much as City's external investment is, yet it doesn't attract anywhere near the same level of comment because people have some strange view that these are the 'elite' clubs who have some sort of divine right to forever sit at the top of the table.
When did United consistently outspend their rivals and cheery pick all the best talent?
 

breakout67

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The whataboutery from City fans is a joke. I sometimes wonder if these a truly held beliefs or just a method of deflection.
It's cognitive dissonance of football fans so yes it's a truly held belief. Similar to Untied fans that think United are a bigger club than Madrid. We've won 3 European cup trophies in our history, while Madrid have recently won 3 on the bounce.
 

OverratedOpinion

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And how is this any different from when teams like Madrid and United used to be able to outspend their rivals and cherry pick the country's best talent? Bayern Munich can still do this and have essentially made the Bundesliga redundant as far as the title goes in the past few years. In La Liga there's still a woeful inequality between the revenues of the top two teams and the rest of the league. This is unhealthy, and as much as City's external investment is, yet it doesn't attract anywhere near the same level of comment because people have some strange view that these are the 'elite' clubs who have some sort of divine right to forever sit at the top of the table.
Well the obvious answer is that United's financial muscle was achieved through football meaning it is possible for other clubs to achieve. Oil is a far larger business than football, as such there would never be anyway for any football club to compete interdependently against Oil money.

The inequality in TV revenues in Germany and Spain are also a problem. The two are not mutually exclusive, infinite amounts of foreign investment just doesn't happen to be the answer to fix it. I am not sure what your suggestion would be as I am not sure how your owners billions help Newcastle, Gatafe or Mainz. All it has done is create a couple of new super clubs who are pumping ridiculous figures in and it is even more egregious for fans of smaller clubs since you didn't have to work for it.

One actual solution might be a spending cap. I wish certain City fans would just come out and admit "I don't care about any of this because our team is better than yours now and we like that." Everything else is just posturing.
 

Verminator

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And how is this any different from when teams like Madrid and United used to be able to outspend their rivals and cherry pick the country's best talent? Bayern Munich can still do this and have essentially made the Bundesliga redundant as far as the title goes in the past few years. In La Liga there's still a woeful inequality between the revenues of the top two teams and the rest of the league. This is unhealthy, and as much as City's external investment is, yet it doesn't attract anywhere near the same level of comment because people have some strange view that these are the 'elite' clubs who have some sort of divine right to forever sit at the top of the table.
The difference is, it is a level playing field, in respect of revenue streams. The clubs you mention are limited to TV revenue, commercial, prize money and gate receipts. If they make a bad decision on an expensive signing, they're then going to struggle rectifying it, rather than e.g. "Here's £100 million. Go and buy a couple of more full backs."
Whatever you think, they have to balance the books.

Don't forget, United were the biggest earners through 26 years of league title drought, when many teams (+LFC) won leagues. Only when they got their act together did we start winning, and were often challenged. Since SAF retired we struggled.

City, unrestricted can just buy and buy to put things right. That is the difference.

I'm actually getting fed up of City fans spouting about 'the entrenched elite' and 'teams needing to do it this way to break into them', when all they're doing is using state funding to become the former and blocking ordinary clubs from doing the latter.
 

JPRouve

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Yes, you are self-sufficient NOW, you weren't 6 years ago when you signed a bunch of superstars the club didn't have the finances to pay for

I 2011/2012 - the average attendance for PSG was about 30.000 (2/3s full) - and without looking into it - I assume the ticket prices were probably a lot cheaper than they are today

The shirt sponsorhip with Accor you talk about - start next year. I am pretty certain it was pretty small and not very profitable in 2011

It was simply impossible for PSG 5-6 years ago to sign the players they did without violating the FFP

Today - it might be possible
You are right the contract with Fly Emirates was ridiculously small and it's one of the things that demonstrates why Colony Capital were among the worst owners in Football. At the time from a commercial standpoint, PSG were comparable to Atletico Madrid.
If the Qatari were patient and methodical, they wouldn't need to break FFP, PSG is by far the biggest club in +10m area that is full of a great amateur clubs that produce the best kids in the country, the City is a marketing tool by itself and the club wasn't commercialized. I don't even think that it's too late to do things in an healthier way.
 

stevoc

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When did United consistently outspend their rivals and cheery pick all the best talent?
Its one of those football myths that just won't seem to die. There was a thread on it a few months back, in all the years since the formation of the Premier League if i remember correctly we were only the biggest spenders in 2-3 seasons. And it wasn't until Keanes new contract in 2001 that we could even compete with the wages on offer at other clubs due to the wage structure. And even that only lasted 3 years until Roman bought Chelsea.
 

andyox

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Wolves lost a million a week and came up. As far as I know if they were to go back down they would be in breach? I think the same happend with Brighton?

The difference isnt the scale of Citys investment. In this case its that City are blatantly making up false sponsors and breaking the rules further after already being punished.
This.
One can have different views on FFP and if the current version is the best one or even should be in place going forward.
But the blatant ignorance, cheating, and circumvention of rules (whatever you might think of them), which coincides with the corruption at both UEFA and especially FIFA; clubs found guilty of what City obviously have been doing should be punished hard. Its disrespectful to the sport as such and much worse than Neymar diving in some CL-game.
Anything else would mean that we have learned nothing from whats been going on at the regulatory level in European and world football historically.
Yes I 100% agree with both of you. City should've challenged the legal basis of FFP at the time, rather than cheating to try to beat it. It would've been close to impossible for us to meet FFP that first year anyway due to the big contracts we'd signed with various players prior to FFP coming in (unless we'd had a fire sale to meet FFP), so I don't know why City didn't just go after FFP legally. I'm guessing they thought it was safer to just try to maintain a good relationship with UEFA rather than totally upset the apple cart.

On the Wolves/Bournemouth issue. Bournemouth agreed a fine with the FL for breaking FFP, guessing Wolves will do the same -- fairly small fry given the massive additional revenue they now earn in the PL. They successfully speculated to accumulate so I suppose they beat the system in their own way.
 

andyox

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The difference is, it is a level playing field, in respect of revenue streams. The clubs you mention are limited to TV revenue, commercial, prize money and gate receipts. If they make a bad decision on an expensive signing, they're then going to struggle rectifying it, rather than e.g. "Here's £100 million. Go and buy a couple of more full backs."
Whatever you think, they have to balance the books.

Don't forget, United were the biggest earners through 26 years of league title drought, when many teams (+LFC) won leagues. Only when they got their act together did we start winning, and were often challenged. Since SAF retired we struggled.

City, unrestricted can just buy and buy to put things right. That is the difference.

I'm actually getting fed up of City fans spouting about 'the entrenched elite' and 'teams needing to do it this way to break into them', when all they're doing is using state funding to become the former and blocking ordinary clubs from doing the latter.
Yes it's a level playing field in terms of the rules if everyone is restricted to just spending their revenue (basically FFP). But you must admit, it's not exactly a level playing field in terms of competition when the revenue of the league's richest club is five times higher than the club with the lowest revenue? That is quite an entrenched position for e.g. Huddersfield to overcome, even if obviously United have earnt their revenue organically and deservedly so through their success.

City (and Chelsea) have made the situation worse, I agree, because there's now two more clubs for other clubs to get past. But ban us for life and you'll still have that issue of the gap between richest and poorest (and that gap is only getting bigger).
 

AfroBuffalo

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A 2 transfer window ban (which they’ll probably get) is 5 months tops; Rio got 8 months for accidentally missing a drugs test which he took the following day and passed.

I want justice! #Justice4Rio
 

Can23

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Yes it's a level playing field in terms of the rules if everyone is restricted to just spending their revenue (basically FFP). But you must admit, it's not exactly a level playing field in terms of competition when the revenue of the league's richest club is five times higher than the club with the lowest revenue? That is quite an entrenched position for e.g. Huddersfield to overcome, even if obviously United have earnt their revenue organically and deservedly so through their success.

City (and Chelsea) have made the situation worse, I agree, because there's now two more clubs for other clubs to get past. But ban us for life and you'll still have that issue of the gap between richest and poorest (and that gap is only getting bigger).
I agree there's no way for a Huddersfield to compete with the Top 6 in England except for a massive cash injection, to grow organically to that size would be impossible.

There needs to be a system whereby lower performing teams are allowed to spend more and the more successful teams need to have spending restricted which would hopefully level the playing field eventually but i have on idea how such an idea would be implemented.
 

rollingstoned1

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The money involved has exploded to such an extent that football clubs have become huge corporations in their own right and just like the Amazon's of this world, you get to a point whereby you're too big to fail.

Competition law applies to ensure that consumers aren't ripped off as a result of companies like Amazon monopolising sectors. Although often these independent bodies don't have the teeth to deal with the issues satisfactorily. Football is the same. United could not possibly have been run worse over the last 5 years. We've wasted literally hundreds of millions making bad decisions. The kind of bad decisions we've made in the last 5 years were the same bad decisions that Liverpool made in the 80's, causing them decades in the wilderness.

Nowadays however the gap between the likes of United, Bayern, Real & Barcelona compared with for example Ajax is stratospheric. It now takes an investment of literally a billion pounds along with subsidies into the hundreds of millions per annum (hence this thread) to compete.

The only positive thing if you're a fan of FFP (im not) is that almost no one can now afford to make a team successful. The era of someone like Abramovich whose worth under £10b coming in and transforming a team with £250m in a couple of years is over. Nowadays you need to be one of the richest 100 people on the planet.
i see, the line that football didn't start in 92 does hold some water then. haha. It seems to me then that the only way to ensure competitiveness is to adopt a system like American sports with drafts and caps where pretty much any team has the chance to achieve glory at the end of the season. I remember on another forum someone remarked ironically that it's strange indeed that American society is so capitalistic in general while their sport is so socialistic while it is the opposite in Europe's case.
 

lysglimt

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Its one of those football myths that just won't seem to die. There was a thread on it a few months back, in all the years since the formation of the Premier League if i remember correctly we were only the biggest spenders in 2-3 seasons. And it wasn't until Keanes new contract in 2001 that we could even compete with the wages on offer at other clubs due to the wage structure. And even that only lasted 3 years until Roman bought Chelsea.
I would say there have been 2 short periods in time where we used our money to outspend our opponents - the first started in the summer of 1989, where Ferguson signed 5 players (Webb, Phelan, Wallace, Ince and Pallister) - and we had a netspend of close to £6 million - which in 1989 was a lot. But then we didn't spend much money until we signed Keane 4 years later and Cole some 18 months after that. By then however, Jack Walker had arrived at Blackburn and they were outspending us.

The next period lasted slightly longer, it started the summer of 1998 with Yorke, Stam and Blomqvist, Before we had a net spend of close to £30 million the summer of 2001 with Nistelrooy and Veron, and then spent big the next season with Ferdinand. But then Chelsea arrived and we have been outspent ever since.

So you are correct - it is a myth.
 

lysglimt

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And how is this any different from when teams like Madrid and United used to be able to outspend their rivals and cherry pick the country's best talent? Bayern Munich can still do this and have essentially made the Bundesliga redundant as far as the title goes in the past few years. In La Liga there's still a woeful inequality between the revenues of the top two teams and the rest of the league. This is unhealthy, and as much as City's external investment is, yet it doesn't attract anywhere near the same level of comment because people have some strange view that these are the 'elite' clubs who have some sort of divine right to forever sit at the top of the table.
As I stated in another post - United outspending their rivals happened in 2 short periods of time over the last 30 years.

But - don't you understand that there is a big difference between what City (if for sake of argument we agree that the allegations are correct) have been doing and what everyone has been doing ? Bayern in my opinion have done nothing wrong - they have spent their money wisely - and their netspend in all honesty is fairly low over the last 10 seasons (about £250 million). I do agree that the tv-rights system in Spain is wrong - absolutely, but it's not illegal.

But City (if these allegations are correct) first break the rules which exist - and then create false documents to make everything appear legitimate. This is so bad, it can not go unpunished. We can't have anarchy - and City chose to try to cheat the footballing authorities - it must have consequences.

Do I think City should have their trophies taken away from them ? No - that punishment is too hard. But a fair punishment might be something like:

a) 1 Year ban from C.L
b) 2 transfer windows without signing players
c) 4 additional transfer windows where the net spend is limited.
d) Starting the next season with -10 Points

Which in fairness is actually a mild punishment compared to what City have done.
 

BobbyManc

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Do I think City should have their trophies taken away from them ? No - that punishment is too hard. But a fair punishment might be something like:

a) 1 Year ban from C.L
b) 2 transfer windows without signing players
c) 4 additional transfer windows where the net spend is limited.
d) Starting the next season with -10 Points

Which in fairness is actually a mild punishment compared to what City have done.
It remains to be seen what rules City have actually broken in regards to FFP. Let's wait and see what any investigation actually uncovers before we start deciding what is a 'fair' punishment or not. Even if it was ADUG providing the money for the sponsorships, that is in itself not an offence. It's only an offence if UEFA can prove the money came from a company that is a RPT, and then if it is not deemed to be at fair market value. The figures mentioned were not obscene amounts so plausibly they could represent fair market value, although I've not looked into this so that may well not be the case. There's also probably going to be some legal complexities over City's ownership and who was actually providing the money for these sponsorships. Morally, yeah, City have undeniably transgressed the spirit of the law, but whether or not any actual offences have been committed we'll have to wait and see.
 

stevoc

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I would say there have been 2 short periods in time where we used our money to outspend our opponents - the first started in the summer of 1989, where Ferguson signed 5 players (Webb, Phelan, Wallace, Ince and Pallister) - and we had a netspend of close to £6 million - which in 1989 was a lot. But then we didn't spend much money until we signed Keane 4 years later and Cole some 18 months after that. By then however, Jack Walker had arrived at Blackburn and they were outspending us.

The next period lasted slightly longer, it started the summer of 1998 with Yorke, Stam and Blomqvist, Before we had a net spend of close to £30 million the summer of 2001 with Nistelrooy and Veron, and then spent big the next season with Ferdinand. But then Chelsea arrived and we have been outspent ever since.

So you are correct - it is a myth.
Yeah 98-99 was one of the 3 years we were the biggest spenders in the PL under Fergie along with 2001-02 and 2002-03 unsurprisingly as that was after the wage structure was broken and Martin Edwards stepped aside. In between those years though in 99-00 and 00-01 we spent pretty conservatively only spending £17-18m over 4 windows.

https://www.football365.com/news/the-biggest-spender-in-every-pl-season-and-how-they-fared

Total myth usually spouted to diminish United's achievements under SAF and sadly sometimes naively regurgitated by United's fans too. To only outspend his rivals 3 times in 21 years and yet win 13 titles, the man was a fecking genius.