Financial Fair Play

[JPG_357]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Hi Mr Green, I think world football is bigger than all American sports (I ssume this means USA/North America as you mention NBA ), by a massive amount too, not even on the same block

the prem alone is the biggest sporting league in the world IIRC, add in la liga, serie A, the world cup, CL, South American leagues and fanaticism, etc no USA sport is anywhere near that level

 

[Mr. Green]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Hi Mr Green, I think world football is bigger than all American sports (I ssume this means USA/North America as you mention NBA ), by a massive amount too, not even on the same block

the prem alone is the biggest sporting league in the world IIRC, add in la liga, serie A, the world cup, CL, South American leagues and fanaticism, etc no USA sport is anywhere near that level

My point was made in reference to City's "progress" in meeting FFP.

I might not make myself clear earlier, but I think:
- City claimed a huge stadium naming right contract that helps them to "achieve" a smaller loss financially on paper. Yeah, I do acknowledge the world football is a bigger fish to American major leagues, but this doesn't mean in an open market, they can such a contract, their attractiveness both as a club and Manchester is not as commercially valuable as New York, LA, London etc, hence it's ridiculous for anyone to think the contract City got is commercially comparable to Citi Field (Mets), MetLife (Giants and Jets) or Farmers Field (for a NFL team in LA).

- FFP is a joke as it involves more than one country (even within EU, where most of the top teams competing the major European trophies, the level of leagues and commercial models are different too).

- The focus of FFP on sustaining income should be on controlling expenses instead.

In fact, I personally would rather not have FFP. Though money could buy the "wealthier" clubs success, but football is a funny game, out-of-requirement Santa Cruz could score twice to beat Madrid. City who have many more expensive new toys still could not beat Ajax.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

EXCLUSIVE: Martin Samuel reveals Arsenal's big idea to hand the title to Manchester United and cream off the profits in a plot which could destroy English football

All you need to know about the latest proposal for financial fair play in the Premier League is that, if the rules were passed, Venky’s catastrophic takeover of Blackburn Rovers would still be permitted. Jack Walker’s title win, however, would not.

Yes, he could have bought the club just the same, but Walker would not have been allowed to do much of worth with it. He would not have been able to invest at a level that could bring quick success; he would not have been able to challenge the established elite effectively.

So no Alan Shearer, no Chris Sutton, probably no Kenny Dalglish either, because what would be the point? And no league title. Manchester United would have won the championship in 1995, as they did in 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997 and the modern era’s greatest achievement would never have happened.

Walker could still have purchased Blackburn, the club he loved, but only to manage their mediocrity, perhaps with small incremental improvements each year. The revolution, the great leap forward, the dream of every supporter across the land, would have been thwarted by supposed fair play.

Venky’s plans, meanwhile, would pass on the nod. There are to be no restrictions on those who want to buy a club and ruin it. Sell their best player, under-invest, bring in a cabal of clowns to run the show, get relegated. The elite are more than happy for the new money men to do that.

It is Walker, and those like him, that have them running scared. They fear competition, not tame bottom feeders. Manchester United are fine with Blackburn selling them Phil Jones; they just don’t like being taken on over Shearer or Carlos Tevez.

On Tuesday, December 18, when Premier League chairmen met to discuss the latest financial fair play proposals, four elite clubs attempted a coup. Until that moment, the general consensus had been that regulation was required to prevent another Portsmouth, but not another Emirates Marketing Project, which seems reasonable.

There is a significant difference between owner investment and owner loans. There can be no repeat of the chaos at Pompey, but this can be achieved without restriction on fresh funds coming into English football to make the league more competitive.

And then the game changed.

On Arsenal headed notepaper, a letter was handed out, signed by four clubs — Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur — stating the existing FFP proposals did not go far enough and that greater limitations should be placed on owner investment.

David Gill, the chief executive of Manchester United, rose to speak. He questioned why the Premier League had to serve the needs of oligarchs and oil-rich Sheiks. Manchester United were focused on the health of the competition, he said — at this point it would have taken a heart of stone not to laugh — and he would go a stage further. The league should consider implementing UEFA financial fair play proposals to the letter, even getting UEFA in to regulate and ensure their strict application.

The rest of the clubs are thinking over this proposal before their next meeting. Some may even be stupid enough to consider it seriously.

Effectively, what Gill wants is for a man like Bill Kenwright, chairman of Everton and the leading theatrical impresario in the world, to check his business dealings with Jean-Luc Dehaene, the former chairman of the bank that could yet do for the European economy what Lehman Brothers did for the fiscal stability of the United States.

Dehaene is the figure Michel Platini, UEFA president, has made chief investigator and chairman of the Investigatory Chamber of the Club Financial Control Body and, therefore, one presumes, the man Gill would have rooting through the finances of Premier League football clubs, too.

He would certainly have more time to concentrate on the project, having resigned as chairman of Dexia Bank on July 1, 2012. You may recall that Dehaene was due to speak on financial propriety at a Leaders In Football conference in London in 2011 but couldn’t make it because his bank had gone skint requiring a £3.45billion bail-out from the Belgian government. This in addition to the £5.18bn it had received to stay afloat in 2008, when Dehaene took over.

Dexia Holdings confirmed a loss of £9.73bn for 2011 and was subsequently embroiled in a scandal after the revelation that, between 2006 and 2008, Dexia Bank Belgium had loaned £1.3bn to two of their largest institutional shareholders to buy shares in other arms of the company to keep their stock price afloat.

Since resigning from Dexia, where a further £70.2bn is to be spent to allow what is termed the ‘orderly resolution’ of their financial problems, Dehaene has been taking his rather personal interpretation of financial fair play to new levels.

Now a member of the European Parliament, he was forced to issue a revised declaration of interests after failing to detail £4.41million of share options in a Belgium-Brazilian beer conglomerate AB InBev.

This is the man Gill would place in charge of the financial policing of the English game.

So what is in it for Manchester United and friends? Money, obviously.

If clubs like United and Arsenal, with the biggest grounds and revenue streams, can limit spending to percentage of turnover, they will always have the biggest transfer pot and therefore the greatest chance of success. That is why owner investment terrifies them. Forget this guff about the health of the league. If they wanted that, the elite would be advocating some of the wealth redistribution initiatives that exist in American sport.

Profits from a Manchester United shirt sold beyond their catchment area — in the West Country, for instance — would be split throughout the 20 Premier League clubs, as happens to New York Yankees merchandise sold outside club shops or the New York metropolitan area.

Not going to happen here, is it?

Gill will not be giving too many speeches in favour of that one.

This is about exclusion, not fairness, and the established elite do not like the idea of another Sheik Mansour coming along. They don’t like Roman Abramovich buying the best players, either.

And, if they can rope in enough dopes who see the plan simply as a way of saving money and cutting expenditure, this naked self-interest may carry the day. So far, only Chelsea, Emirates Marketing Project, Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa are against it and 14 votes are needed to alter the rulebook.

Once secured, forget the dream of your very own Jack Walker. All any new owner will be able to do is maintain the status quo.

As for Gill, his plan to deliver English football to Europe’s governing body, not so much wrapped in a bow as trussed like a turkey, coincides a little too neatly with his campaign to get elected to UEFA’s executive committee at the next UEFA Congress in May. Call it his dowry.

Ivan Gazidis, the man whose vision has helped make Arsenal the club they are today, is another with serious political ambitions.

He has already wormed his way on to the executive board of the European Clubs Association, as their representative on UEFA’s Professional Strategy Council, as well as holding a position on the ECA Legal Advisory Panel.

In addition, there is his slot on the FA’s Professional Game Board, the FA Council, FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber and the Premier League’s Working Group for Elite Player Performance. Quite the busy boy, considering he joined Arsenal as chief executive only in 2009. A cynic would think he had an agenda: or a plan.

A better plan than selling the best player to Manchester United and ramping up the ticket prices, one hopes. No wonder Gazidis wants his Premier League rivals bound in financial red tape. How else are his club to get back in the game?

It has been another illuminating week at Arsenal with the admission that manager Arsene Wenger knew selling Robin van Persie to Manchester United would take the title to Old Trafford, proof if any were needed that he no longer regards Arsenal as title contenders.

‘It is painful to see United so far in front of us,’ Wenger said. ‘You know when you sell Van Persie to United that this will be the case.’

Yet, if Wenger thought Arsenal could win the league, surely he would not have agreed the transfer that took this hope away.

All about the money? Robin van Persie's sale betrays Arsenal's supposed ambitions

One can only presume from his analysis, therefore, that he did not see Manchester United as rivals even before the season began. Then followed Wenger’s justification of Arsenal’s extortionate ticket prices, with Emirates Marketing Project returning 900 seats for yesterday’s game after fans balked at the £62 cost.

‘The only way we can pay the wages and compete without any external help is through ticket prices,’ Wenger insisted.

And don’t say you were not warned. The fans will be the collateral damage of financial fair play. There is a going rate for player wages and it cannot fall without triggering free contract clauses. So, if the owners pass a mess of rules that stop them paying the bill, who do you think is going to get stuck with it?

Not Stan Kroenke. Not Gazidis, either. His big idea involves handing the title to Manchester United, creaming off the profits while trying to negotiate Chelsea and Emirates Marketing Project out of contention with politics, lawyers and sneaky little closed-door carve-ups. Until that works, you pick up the tab.

Liverpool and Tottenham are clearly vying to gobble the meagre crumbs from Arsenal and United’s table, but why any of the other clubs are supportive, who knows?

West Ham United could soon move to the Olympic Stadium, with a genuine chance for expansion.

Why would they vote to limit their possibilities simply to ensure the success of an established few? Why would any club with potential, from Aston Villa, to Sunderland or Southampton? Maybe it’s the Arsenal-headed paper reeling them in.

It always stood for something in the days when the club were the province of tradition, old Etonians and old money. Arsenal had class.

Arsenal had never been relegated. The chairman was posh and his name was hyphenated. When he talked, football listened.

This missive, however, is the work of an absentee American chairman and a chief executive whose grand plan would as good as hand the title to United each year, with his team coming an expensive second. Expensive for those watching, that is.

And who will preside over this, the world’s dullest league: why our old mate from Bank de Potless in Belgium. Thirty five quid a month on Sky, if you’re interested.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2261817/Arsenal-Manchester-United-financial-fair-play-plot-ruin-Premier-League--Martin-Samuel.html

This steaming pile of crap article has made me angry. :evil:

 

[Mulletperm]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

At work, could you summarise please mate.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

At work, could you summarise please mate.

Martin Samuel claiming that a joint proposal from United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs to ban sugar daddies from the English game would kill English football.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

You would now only be allowed to build your club organically, incrementally and not suddenly gazump everyone with your winning lottery ticket. Does he really believe that the only thing that keeps fans of the lesser clubs going is the hope that someone might come along and buy them a title?

BTW, is Samuel a Wham fan? Would explain the part about why they should even bother with a new stadium.

Also, Blackburn's title win is the modern era's greatest achievement? :ross:

 

[Danners9]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Martin Samuel claiming that a joint proposal from United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs to ban sugar daddies from the English game would kill English football.

You would now only be allowed to build your club organically, incrementally and not suddenly gazump everyone with your winning lottery ticket. Does he really believe that the only thing that keeps fans of the lesser clubs going is the hope that someone might come along and buy them a title?

BTW, is Samuel a Wham fan? Would explain the part about why they should even bother with a new stadium.

Also, Blackburn's title win is the modern era's greatest achievement? :ross:

He's chosen the wrong horse for this race! The ideas put forth by those clubs is the right way forward. Otherwise it becomes Rollerball rather than Moneyball. Corporate clubs, playthings for the rich industrialists with no long term plan to become self-sustaining. How boring. Football Manager with the unlimited money cheat on.

Teams being taken over by sugar daddies has had a far worse effect on the game than teams trying to built their teams within a budget. Portsmouth several times, Villa I suppose, Man Utd's debt (manageable as it is), Liverpool's first takeover, Emirates Marketing Project's Thai owner being in court for Human Rights violations. It's not like the budget is 5 quid a week, is it?!

I'm sure there is a middle ground. Proportional growth, an upper limit, having to break even sounds like a good start. Posting losses and writing them off wouldn't be acceptable in many other industries. Just because the pockets are deeper doesn't mean it should be overlooked.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

So, let me get this straight.

Chelsea Football Club getting bought by a fraudulent, corrupt Russian oligarch with a questionable legal background, who then spends billions jumping the queue, buying everyone else's best players(mostly foreign), firing countless managers, and splashing 70 million pounds on Torres and Luiz in one window because he was scared that sensibly-run Spurs would finish above his plaything = fair, righteous and a beautiful thing for the English game.

Manchester United using their revenues, accrued through years of masterful marketing, successful on-pitch management, careful spending and the occasional lucky break, to buy players that would help them win the title in a league without reckless over-spending = horrific, and the carving up of English football by those nasty big clubs and their UEFA cohorts, desperate to ensure that the G14 club remains unmolested forever more.

West Ham using Gold and Sullivan's money to fund grandiose expenditures like the Olympic Stadium bid, thus elbowing little Leyton Orient out of the way without so much as a second look while slandering their chairman and claim to the site = fair, wholesome and good for the English game.

Spurs trying to get a system implemented that would reward them for their prudence and careful management while West Ham floundered in financial trouble as a result of overspending on wages and transfer fees = Unfair, how dare they try to 'lap up the crumbs from Arsenal and United's table'?!?

Arsenal's history of using their influence in the game for less than savoury purposes (Norris' bribery preventing Spurs from a First Divison place, Dein's shenanigans on the morning of Pastagate, 2006, and several other misdemeanours) = traditional, solid, old Etonians, old money, 'class'

New American owner trying to bring in a version of Fair Play without resorting to bribery (as Norris did), being up front about their intentions = terrible, clueless, malevolent, handing the title to United on a plate.

Just so we know where we stand. Thank you, Martin.

There are a lot of things wrong with these proposals. But having a condescending **** like Samuel trying to proclaim one set of sporting excesses 'traditional, right and fair' while branding the more reasonable (albeit far from perfect) proposals as 'the death of the English game' will not help bring the flaws of this plan to light any more than listening to Hitler's 'Untermensch' speeches would give you an accurate knowledge of the flaws of human evolution.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Haven't got time to read the whole article now but, if I've understood the gist correctly, I have to say that I broadly agree with Martin Samuel on this.

FFP is as much about the self interest of the established elite as it is about the more proper desire to prevent some clubs from getting themselves into severe financial difficulty.

The only way that there could ever be true financial fairness is if revenues were shared among the clubs. But that's never going to happen. Consequently, Man Utd will enjoy a massive financial advantage over every other club in England in perpetuity. As a greater variety of commercial deals are signed, that gap will only grow. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Utd are also eyeing the possibility of a move to individual TV rights deals. If and when that happens, we will have a situation every bit as bad as they have in Spain.

So I hope that this proposal fails to secure the necessary majority. At the very least, I hope that it only succeeds on condition that the agreement will be considered broken if ever Utd, Arsenal, Lverpool etc. decide to opt out of signing a collective Premier League broadcasting rights deal.

 

[DubaiSpur]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Haven't got time to read the whole article now but, if I've understood the gist correctly, I have to say that I broadly agree with Martin Samuel on this.

FFP is as much about the self interest of the established elite as it is about the more proper desire to prevent some clubs from getting themselves into severe financial difficulty.

The only way that there could ever be true financial fairness is if revenues were shared among the clubs. But that's never going to happen. Consequently, Man Utd will enjoy a massive financial advantage over every other club in England in perpetuity. As a greater variety of commercial deals are signed, that gap will only grow. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Utd are also eyeing the possibility of a move to individual TV rights deals. If and when that happens, we will have a situation every bit as bad as they have in Spain.

So I hope that this proposal fails to secure the necessary majority. At the very least, I hope that it only succeeds on condition that the agreement will be considered broken if ever Utd, Arsenal, Lverpool etc. decide to opt out of signing a collective Premier League broadcasting rights deal.

Like I said, there's a lot wrong with these proposals. United in particular stand to gain the most, and may come to exert a Bayern-style dominance over the league should this come to pass. But Samuel's assertions that somehow the wholesale financial doping of hitherto uncompetitive clubs by oligarchs and human rights abusers (step up, Sheikh Mansour!) is good, proper, and what every fan aspires to..... that is absolute horse brick. And, speaking as a Hammer with a vested interest (namely defending Gold and Sullivan's pumping of money into West Ham), Samuel comes across as a fervent admirer of any club that wins the lottery and shoots to the top.

In his entire diatribe, nowhere does he acknowledge that well-run, stable clubs are deserving of success in their own right, and deserve at the least a playing field with as few inherent disadvantages afforded to them as possible. And while the Premier League's FFP doesn't exactly remove those disadvantages, it nullifies those that annoy fans the most, i.e the quick fix billionaires pupming money into unsustainable ego-pits. And the fact that he conveniently ignores this forces me to repeat that he is a condescending ****.

 

[Modric THFC]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Haven't got time to read the whole article now but, if I've understood the gist correctly, I have to say that I broadly agree with Martin Samuel on this.

FFP is as much about the self interest of the established elite as it is about the more proper desire to prevent some clubs from getting themselves into severe financial difficulty.

The only way that there could ever be true financial fairness is if revenues were shared among the clubs. But that's never going to happen. Consequently, Man Utd will enjoy a massive financial advantage over every other club in England in perpetuity. As a greater variety of commercial deals are signed, that gap will only grow. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Utd are also eyeing the possibility of a move to individual TV rights deals. If and when that happens, we will have a situation every bit as bad as they have in Spain.

So I hope that this proposal fails to secure the necessary majority. At the very least, I hope that it only succeeds on condition that the agreement will be considered broken if ever Utd, Arsenal, Lverpool etc. decide to opt out of signing a collective Premier League broadcasting rights deal.

I can't see how each club wont have their own online channel showing all their games live within 10 years.
I've never subscribed to Sky but would subscribe to a reliable official channel that just showed Spurs live online.

This will end up being bigger than TV.

 

[braineclipse]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Yes FFP regulations will most likely solidify the top clubs in their position.

Walker couldn't have done what he did with Blackburn now regardless of FFP, not unless he was willing to spend a lot more money. A hell of a lot more.

From Wikipedia:

He took full control of the club in January 1991, having backed the club on a regular basis for five years previously, and within the first three years he spent £25 million on new players, twice breaking the British record for the most expensive transfer of a football player, signing Alan Shearer from Southampton for £3.3million in 1992 and Chris Sutton from Norwich for £5million in 1994.

[...]

The Ewood Park ground was reconstructed at a cost of more than £20 million to give it a capacity of just over 30,000, with a new Jack Walker Stand providing a lasting tribute.

I have seen estimates that the Mansour family have spent over a billion pounds at City. So far to win the league once. The situations can be compared, but only just. The kind of money Walker spent on Blackburn might have gotten them into the Europa League from a mid table position.

I don't think FFP was put in place primarily to stop these kinds of money injections into football, and it certainly wasn't put in place to level the playing field or secure more mobility for clubs below the top. I think these rules were put in place because chairmen gambled with the future of their clubs by spending money neither they or the club actually had.

 

[jimmyb]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

I can't see how each club wont have their own online channel showing all their games live within 10 years.
I've never subscribed to Sky but would subscribe to a reliable official channel that just showed Spurs live online.

This will end up being bigger than TV.

It might well happen.

But it would be the final nail in the coffin of the Premier League.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Online streaming will and must come, but it should be run by the PL and profits shared equally.

 

[Crawley]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

I've rarely agreed with anything Samuel writes.

Now, I'm spitting feathers.

That piece is written from the standpoint of a bitter twisted West Ham fan, who thinks that the proposed move to the OS will bring his pathetic little club wealth and success beyond their wildest dreams. With the hoped for assistance of an oil baron, obviously, who sees the move into such a stadium as a major publicity coup.

Utter vitriol from the king of it.

Jealous that his little club are not part of the bigger picture.

 

[jts1882]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

It's not often you see the Daily Mail advocating a European solution, although at least they are being consistent in their use of reason.

Samuels is of course right that the FFP rules are being brought in to protect the european football elite and that those clubs have little interest in fair play. They don't want a level playing field and that quite like the existing slope. However, his polemic goes off on a few tangents and is largely irrelevant.

One, what has Dehaene got to do with the argument? OK, he is Belgian and a banker, enough to raise the blood pressure of Mail readers, but the ability of a Belgian banker to run a bank is not really relevant to whether the PL implements FFP rules. This is a bit like arguing that EU bendy banana regulations are a threat to our national security so we should leave the EU (not sure if the Mail has had an editorial on this).

Two, he ignores the fact that owners are allowed to invest in infrastructure. So Walker could have paid to rebuild Ewood Park. West Ham's owners would be allowed to pay for the Olympic Stadium, if it was not being gifted to them. A new rich owner would be able to build a new WHL or Anfield and that would immediately boost the prospects of the clubs.

Three, the stuff about Gazidis masterminding Arsenal's vision is simply irrelevant. Gazidis joined Arsenal in 2009 so was neither part of the stadium development or the architect of their trophy-less ambition. He has just continued to implement the owners plans, although the list of players he has sold is impressive. This line of argument is nothing more than an excuse to criticise foreigners in our game.

However, it's not really necessary for the PL to implement the European FFP rules. As the letter points out, there are usually seven PL clubs competing in Europe and they will have to comply with the rules anyway. A rich owner is hardly going to invest hundreds of millions and opt out of European competition. The only difference the PL rules would make would be preventing owners from leapfrogging their clubs into the European mix. Once there they would have to follow UEFA rules so it wouldn't make much difference for title ambitions.

What would be useful is for the PL to come up with rules to prevent the fiasco's at Portsmouth and Blackburn and to prevent leveraged buyouts. The latter nearly brought down the most successful club in the land and is a much bigger threat to a club like Spurs than anything else.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Four of the leading top-flight clubs have put into writing their demand for Uefa's full financial fair play rules to be brought in to the Premier League.

A letter from Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Liverpool to the league chief executive Richard Scudamore calls for full spending controls – where clubs must break even – without wealthy owners being allowed to cover clubs' losses.

Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea are opposing any spending controls being brought in but it is likely the 20 clubs will agree on a compromise at their meeting in February, which will allow a fixed amount of losses to be covered by owners.

The letter from the four clubs states: "Thank you for your continued work on the vital subject of Financial Regulation for the Premier League.

"However, we do not feel that the latest proposals go far enough to curb the inflationary spending which is putting so much pressure on clubs across the entire League.

"We continue to believe that to be successful and have the best chance of gaining at least the 14 votes necessary, any proposals for Financial Regulation must include meaningful measures to restrict the owner funding of operating losses."

West Brom and Fulham also oppose any spending controls, while the remaining 12 favour some form of compromise solution.

www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jan/14/leading-clubs-financial-regulations-premier-league

 

[Rorschach]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

In principle I agree with the general premise of FFP in that a clubs size is effectively determined by the size of it's support. This on the surface seems reasonable and it is then up to each club to run itself properly and grow it's support over time. However this approach unaltered will perpetuate the status quo. This to me it is the lesser of two evils, but it's far from perfect.

Football must be competitive or it becomes pointless. Countries whose leagues are dominated by one or two clubs indefinitely are not attractive to the viewing public, so the FFP should aim to promote competitiveness at it's core. You could argue that City and Chelsea's wealth has made the top of the league more competitive but they have trampled roughshod over any notion of fair play to get there. They have injected themselves into the mix at the expense of other clubs whose long path to the top has seen them endure years of developmental growth only to be beaten to the prize by the vanity of some rich prick who should be using his money for something far more worthwhile.

So I agree to an extent with FFP as sugar daddy phenomenon will ultimately destroy the game. But equally there must be some push to make the league more open for those teams outside of the CL places. There has to be a chance, however small, that a team can come from nowhere to win it. That will never happen while money holds such a sway over this sport.

 

[Spursalot]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Online streaming will and must come, but it should be run by the PL and profits shared equally.

In part it has come, albeit a little lacking. With channels like sky go, itv player etc.


The problem is i am not sure the PL can run it, they sell the distribution rights to different companies and if the PL started running online streaming the amount of money the tv deals are worth would go through the floor. It would be a very precarious situation.

 

[Danners9]

Re: O/T Financial Fair Play

Football must be competitive or it becomes pointless. Countries whose leagues are dominated by one or two clubs indefinitely are not attractive to the viewing public, so the FFP should aim to promote competitiveness at it's core. You could argue that City and Chelsea's wealth has made the top of the league more competitive but they have trampled roughshod over any notion of fair play to get there. They have injected themselves into the mix at the expense of other clubs whose long path to the top has seen them endure years of developmental growth only to be beaten to the prize by the vanity of some rich prick who should be using his money for something far more worthwhile.

Sorry for cutting your post to bits, this paragraph is important.

Chelsea were on the curve towards the top, City were not as far along that line. Still they are not as dominant as Chelsea under Mourinho in the early-Roman Empire. They are just not as good, yet. Despite the signings.

What has happened in the Russian league is forewarning to all leagues about the impact of sugar daddies. It is a league where every club is run by a very very rich businessman. So much so that the winners go through cycles of dominance before the next big spender comes along, and some teams have been closed as a result of their backer disappearing.

CSKA lead this season. Zenit won it last season and the one before. Rubin Kazan before that for 2 years. Zenit. CSKA. Lokomotiv.

In the cup, Terek Grozny won and then started well in the league then fell right away. Saturn have closed entirely, dissolved in 2011. The league is not interesting at all. Managers sacked if they lose 2 in a row. The rich guys take turns in besting each other until their interest dries up.