Re: O/T Financial Fair Play - Now Voted In By The Premier League
It's not quite as dramatic as that but, in broad terms, I pretty much agree with what that Bluemoon poster wrote.
I tend to look at these things from a very Tottenham-centric perspective. I recognize the arguments about this kind of regulation stifling investment, and preventing smaller clubs having a shot at the top, and cede that they're quite valid.
However, not enough thought is given to clubs like us; clubs that have tried to live within their means, and been effectively punished for it by having a super-injected petro-club blast past them without a second glance towards such things as 'financial stability' and 'prudence', among others. Everton, Arsenal, us. In our case, we've been fudged over not once, but twice, by this happening. With Chelsea in 2001 and City in 2008. We could, and arguably should, have been where Chelsea are now, had that investment not blown us out of the water. To compete with these super-charged clubs, we're having to painstakingly build a 56,000 seater stadium that is siphoning away a disproportionate amount of our finances and leaving us to hunt for bargains like Dempsey and Holtby.
all the good decisions Levy's made, all the wise strategies and careful investment, have only served to keep us on the fringes of the elite. Why is that the case? Well, in United and Arsenal's case, their commercial and matchday revenue dwarfs ours, but those are things that can be remedied by careful management and considered investment, two things we're very good at. But knowing that there is no way on Earth we can compete with the Sheikh and the oligarch,that every move we make, they can make with a tenth of the effort, thought and concern, that every good decision we have ever made can't compete with their endless petro-dollars.....that is more depressing than any thought of United or Arsenal using their earned revenues to generate success.
The Sheikh and Abramovich can fund new stadiums almost without thought. We have taken ten years to get around to even the preliminary work. The Sheikh and Abramovich can spend 30 million on transfer fees and 25 million on wages for just one player without blinking. We negotiated for weeks just to get Holtby in for 1.5 million quid, and refused to spend anything on just one striker on deadline day.
That is galling. So much more so than this scare-mongering about a La-Liga situation or United becoming Bayern. Clubs shouldn't have to dream of shady oil money, shouldn't have to rely on gargantuan investments by foreign owners to guarantee success, shouldn't effectively say 'fudge the rest of you' and spend their way to the very top.
Clubs should play by the same fudging rules. And if that means a duopoly at the very top, so be it, it'll make things more interesting below that and might bring some sanity back into a game that sorely needs it.
This isn't about City or Chelsea. Those two clubs have already established themselves at the top, for better or worse. For all my optimism, the Etihad deal probably has enough legal weight behind it to stand it court, if it comes to that. And the investments the Sheikh is making will pretty much guarantee City's revenues, for the medium term at least. So it's not about them. It's about giving prudent management a chance to gain success, and to prevent any more massive splurges that blast spending teams into contention and drop conservative clubs into oblivion.
Perhaps that's being naive, or perhaps the Liverpools, Uniteds and Arsenals of this world will then rule in perpetuity. But again, would fans rather see their team compete within their limits (but stand an even chance compared to the teams other than the ones above), or hope for an oligarch or Shiekh, but accept the inherent risk of another club winning the lottery and zooming cheerily into the distance while they wave their increasingly pathetic little flag, hoping for an angel investor to come save them?
