Another Club on the brink..........

[jts1882]

The club might as a business or company, the irresponsible owners certainly deserve it.

I don't think the fans deserve it though.

That's the problem. The concept of a club is rather confused now. We stopped being a club where members paid dues a long time ago (1898?) and unfortunately the fans and players are no longer the shareholders.

The fans don't deserve it (a few, yes, but not the majority) while the owners do deserve to lose out. On the other hand, some of the rescues just deprive the creditors like local retailers, St Johns Ambulance and HMRC while the owners with complex company ownership make millions though cosy relationships with administrators (Bates at Leeds, Green at Rangers, various at Portsmouth, etc).

 

[braineclipse]

Which is why football clubs shouldn't belong to individuals, but the fans. At least 51% like in Germany. Spending should be limited relative to a club's income and overspending should be penalised by point deductions. Here I'm talking about using loans to cover an overblown wage budget, not how to deal with sugar daddies.

I agree with all of your post.

The first part was actually discussed a bit on one of the guardian football podcasts, they said for clubs in Germany and Spain that are (part) fan owned that happened back when the clubs were worth a lot less than they are now. For most Premier League clubs it seems unlikely to ever happen with the amount of money in football at the moment.

The second part is where financial fair play comes in. I've said many times on this forum that I don't think the FFP regulations were put in place primarily to stop sugar daddies from injecting money into clubs, but rather to protect clubs from their owners and prevent situations like this one. There have been numbers floating around for a long time about the amount of clubs in massive debt spending way beyond their means around Europe (and the rest of the world).

Hopefully it will work, or at least have some positive effect.

 

[jts1882]

The second part is where financial fair play comes in. I've said many times on this forum that I don't think the FFP regulations were put in place primarily to stop sugar daddies from injecting money into clubs, but rather to protect clubs from their owners and prevent situations like this one. There have been numbers floating around for a long time about the amount of clubs in massive debt spending way beyond their means around Europe (and the rest of the world).

Surely the FFP rules do exactly the opposite of what you say. They prevent sugar-daddies injecting large amounts of cash into clubs by severely restricting what they can do. They do nothing to stop corporate leaches like Romn ... sorry wrong thread ... like the Gllazers or Hicks-Gillett loading up the clubs with debt to fund a takeover and putting their future at risk.

You have to ask why a football organisation would object to billions being put into football by Abramivoch, Mansoor etc, while approving of the half billion taken out of football and handed to banks as interest and fees. The billions injected get paid to football players, coaches and managers. The hundreds of millions taken away would have been largely paid to football players, coaches and managers.

I realise that there is a fair play aspect, but the established clubs often got their advantage from cash injects by previous owners. The rules seem more designed to maintain the status quo, prevent new competition, and protect the established clubs.

 

[Jordinho]

Surely the FFP rules do exactly the opposite of what you say. They prevent sugar-daddies injecting large amounts of cash into clubs by severely restricting what they can do. They do nothing to stop corporate leaches like Romn ... sorry wrong thread ... like the Gllazers or Hicks-Gillett loading up the clubs with debt to fund a takeover and putting their future at risk.

You have to ask why a football organisation would object to billions being put into football by Abramivoch, Mansoor etc, while approving of the half billion taken out of football and handed to banks as interest and fees. The billions injected get paid to football players, coaches and managers. The hundreds of millions taken away would have been largely paid to football players, coaches and managers.

I realise that there is a fair play aspect, but the established clubs often got their advantage from cash injects by previous owners. The rules seem more designed to maintain the status quo, prevent new competition, and protect the established clubs.

FFP doesn't seem to be about stopping owners injecting money or owners taking money out. The latter doesn't really help a club anyway, but it's something that needs to be covered in a proper "fit & proper" test. Whatever they do today is a joke. The biggest problem for clubs are owners using huge loans to run the club in hope of success. When it doesn't work out you get situations like Leeds, Portsmouth, Chelsea. For every club that wins a title there are hundreds that fail.

 

[braineclipse]

Surely the FFP rules do exactly the opposite of what you say. They prevent sugar-daddies injecting large amounts of cash into clubs by severely restricting what they can do. They do nothing to stop corporate leaches like Romn ... sorry wrong thread ... like the Gllazers or Hicks-Gillett loading up the clubs with debt to fund a takeover and putting their future at risk.

You have to ask why a football organisation would object to billions being put into football by Abramivoch, Mansoor etc, while approving of the half billion taken out of football and handed to banks as interest and fees. The billions injected get paid to football players, coaches and managers. The hundreds of millions taken away would have been largely paid to football players, coaches and managers.

I realise that there is a fair play aspect, but the established clubs often got their advantage from cash injects by previous owners. The rules seem more designed to maintain the status quo, prevent new competition, and protect the established clubs.

The rules also prevent large direct injections like with City and Chelsea, and I think that's part of it, but not the most important thing.

The rules do not prevent a rich owner from injecting money into clubs on the brink of bankruptcy, the only thing it would do is to then (possibly) prevent that club from competing in Europe for 3 years or so, surely a rather small concession for a club in that position anyway.

Loading clubs up with debt to fund a takeover is another way to put a club at risk, not something being stopped by FFP or as far as I know a problem with the clubs being discussed in threads like these or for most of the clubs that struggle around Europe. To say that FFP doesn't help clubs that are being poorly managed by their owners who are spending beyond the means of that club because it doesn't stop new owners from taking over (rich) clubs by loading them up with debts doesn't make any sense to me.

FFP regulations do seem to help big clubs retaining the status quo, again this doesn't really have much relevance for the issue I highlighted or the problems with the clubs being discussed in these threads. Discussion for another day and all that.

 

[milo]

Which is why football clubs shouldn't belong to individuals, but the fans. At least 51% like in Germany. Spending should be limited relative to a club's income and overspending should be penalised by point deductions. Here I'm talking about using loans to cover an overblown wage budget, not how to deal with sugar daddies.

I agree 100% but it is not going to change in England without the government passing a law.