City isn't considered small but small time
Bluemoon goes into Meltdown
- Thread starter Logan!
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Right, so United, as the biggest powerhouse in football, get to outspend any other team in English football for the next millennia?
Where's the sport and competition in that?
It's been well established that this has never, and is not likely to in the forseeable future, been the case
Well that's bollocks, just look at what we were doing in the first half of the 2000s.
Dave, I'm still waiting for your reply. How is it possible that a "huge" club like ManCity with an all star cast of players gives away cup tickets basically for free and still barely draws 20.000 fans.
I'm far from expecting us to dominate English football when Fergie has gone! Living within your means results in not having situations that have happened at clubs like Leeds, Portsmouth and Rangers. For every seemingly responsible owner like City's you get 3 or 4 bad ones. The collective debt of English football clubs currently stands at 3.5bn. There are dozens of clubs just keep their heads above water. That is not a sustainable model.
Well that's what we were doing until Chelsea showed up. I like the increased competition, the sport becomes a joke if there is far and away a best team in the league. I appreciate your point on the debt - spending like that shouldn't be saddled on the club - but short of salary caps, I see no alternative and fact don't mind if teams need to outspend themselves to catch up. It's not fair on those who get left behind, but at least some are allowed to compete with the established clubs.
So four transfers (I guess you are referring to RVN, Veron, Rio and Rooney) within the space of a couple of years, two of which have given us nearly ten years top-class performance in their positions, equates to outspending every other club by miles for a millennium?
Arsenal had won two of the three league titles before Mourinho changed things at Chelsea. Manchester United didn't vastly outspend the rest very often. They were just better at it.
If you want to talk about that what about the sustainability of a club carrying the level of debt United currently carry? Not the club, nor the fans fault - but extremely dangerous nontheless.
As for the second comment I don't see why - you ask anyany non United fan why they hate United and ist clear why - success, but most people I know who hate United consider them privileged and generally, before the advent of Chelsea and City as spending sums on players that they could only dream of.
Seems no United fans bemoaning the "madness" and "unsustainability" in football when United spent £31 million on Rio Ferdinand (still a record for an English Defender) or £28 million on Veron (sold for less than a third a couple of years later).
People can justify their upset with the "self earned" argument but I think its arbitrary - I don't see that there's a moral difference when the top clubs (united inlcuded) have made football what it is today.
We did tend to sign more one off big signings but plenty of others matched our overall spend. One of the big reasons for this was we produce so many homegorwn players.
Correct. That's a bit of a myth being peddled by Chelsea/City fans (and RedRover) trying to make themselves feel better about winning trophies as a direct result of spending stupendous sums of money on signing new players.
First of all, United never spent anything like the sort of money the above two clubs have spent under their current owners. Not even close. Second, the gap in spending between United and the rest of the clubs in the league was nowhere near the gap between City/Chelsea and the rest of the PL.
In fact, I remember decorativeed posting some interesting facts and figures about relative spend over the history of the PL and we were very much on a par with most of our closest rivals.
We did. Essentially our success came from being better than the rest. Surely that couldn't be sporting.
What was unsustainable about a club spending within their means? Also, is it difficult to do a little research on your own club. Rio Ferdinand did not cost £31m and £14/15m is not a third of £28m never mind less.
All clubs had/have the opportunity to do what Utd have done. Not all clubs, Utd included, can spend money that far outstrips their revenue.
I think its because we broke the transfer record a few times. But for example when we broke the transfer record to sign Roy Keane City out spent us that season.
Alan Kernaghan Middlesbro £1,600,000
Carl Griffiths Shrewsbury £500,000
David Rocastle Leeds £2,000,000
Uwe Rosler Dyn Dresden £750,000
Paul Walsh Portsmouth £750,000
Peter Beagrie Everton £1,100,000
Nicky Summerbee Swindon £1,500,000
Total: £8,200,000
Even when Fergie done all the "heavy lifting" in around 88-92 in terms of rebuilding City more or less matched us in spending.
http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=1718&comp_id=1&teamTabs=transfers
They had plenty of big signings such as
Tony Coton 1m
Mark Ward 1.1m
Clive Allen 1.1m
Keith Curle 2.5m
Steve Mcmahon 0.9m
Terry Phelan 2.5m
If fact if you dont count Mark Hughes cost(united bought him back and made a profit) I would think city spend around the same as United.
And there you have it.
Of course, people rarely let stuff like actual facts and figures get in the way of ill-informed accusations about how "United bought the league, just like City"
Much like Liverpool often outspent us. I don't see what is unfair about Utd not wasting their money but some seem to be working toward an agenda. Even making stuff up to try and prove their 'point'.
Dangerous to who though? The only entity being affected here is the club itself (and by proxy the fans), not the rest of football
Again, this has been addressed above. United spent marginally more than some of the other 'top' English clubs before the advent of oligarch-doping, and actually less than some of the others. However, what was spent was in keeping with our success on the pitch. The main argument against the methods being employed by City / Chelsea is that this is not the case - they haven't played their way into this position, not even remotely.
I think there were many people talking about the sums, but as a general trend in transfers, not something we initiated individually.
Is it just the clubs or has the popularity, increase in media coverage, TV deals etc played a significant role? Of course football has evolved, but if your looking at a tipping point, City and Chelsea came along and turned it all on its side.
For the first seven seasons of the premier league Manchester United spent less than nothing, if you follow my meaning. I keep meaning to make a big chart showing the net spending of the dozen or so leading clubs over the PL era, it would shock a lot of people. Most amusingly, until they were relegated, City consistently outspent us in the 90s.
Yes, they would.
I recall those figures, perhaps they are incorrect - where are your figures from? I'd be interested to know. The £31 million at the time was well reported.
As to whether it was sustainable, perhaps it was at the time - but the point I was making is that any suggestion that City and the like are ruining football is, to my mind, severely hypocritcal. As I said - City are the symtpom, not the cause.
Its arguable that Citys spending is "sustainable" in that their owner has billions upon billions of pounds and once he makes them a force whose to say they wont generate millions of pounds as a business? It seems he has very big plans, and also seems to be pretty shrewd.
Its clear football is an arms race of sorts, clubs raising the bar constantly results in ridiculous sums being spent.
Those transfers were massive then, and are still large sum now a decade later. Yet some United fans a quick to criticise city for paying such huge sums for players. That's what I don't get.
For the record I think the way football is going is absolute madness, and I think that there has to be some kind of reckoning. Clubs consistently spend more than they have and despite plenty of clubs almost going to the wall, nobody seems to change.
I don't think many United fans level that accusation at them. Either that or you're missing the point being made. What differentiates City/Chelsea's spending from whatever has gone before is not the size of the fee paid for individual players it's the accumulated spending over time. Which is completely unprecedented. That and the stratospheric increase in the wages they offer. Both of which are making the league a lot less competitive as well as drastically inflating costs for other clubs at a time when football clubs - like all other businesses - should be tightening their belts.
Absolutely none of the above applies to Manchester United, at any time in our history.
My understanding was Rio was £29.1m. He couldn't have been £31m given Berbatov at £30.75m is our record signing. Also, how much do you think we sold Veron for? Is it a coincidence you're spinning it in the worst possible light to back your argument?
So it was sustainable? Utd have spent big in relative isolation, of course they have. City have dwarfed that spending though and you trying to compare the two is disingenuous.
City's is sustainable while one wealthy man is willing to bankroll them and UEFA allow it. If they are serious about FFP then it is not. Utd's spending would be. So again, you are not comparing like for like.
Yep, everyone (non United fans particularly) loves to bring up the Ferdinand and Rooney transfers, Veron and Berbatov's too while no one ever mentions that we didn't sign these players all at once.
It's nothing more than a cheap dig at United, with no credibility whatsoever.
It's nothing more than a cheap dig at United, with no credibility whatsoever.
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2005/07/291m-for-rio-ferdinand-surely.php
From the first google search. There are more to. What's your source for your price on Rio Ferdinand and selling Veron for less than a third of what we spent on him?
From the first google search. There are more to. What's your source for your price on Rio Ferdinand and selling Veron for less than a third of what we spent on him?
People have alredy mentioned the fact you got the Ferdinand fee wrong, but surely you can see that there is a difference between a club on the back of unprecedented success spending a large fee on one player and a club on the back of three decades of failure spending multiple large fees on multiple players in the same year (and repeating it for four years) in order to achieve success?
For the record, the year we bought Ferdinand (the only other player we paid a fee for that season was Ricardo at £1.5m), we were outspent by newly promoted... Manchester City.
In 2010/11 City spent a net £125m on players. How you can compare that to any season at United (or any other English club with the exception of Chelsea in 2003/04) is beyond me.
I just had a look at the relative values of the squads United and City started the Premier League era with:
United:
Schmeichel: £0.5m
Parker: £2m
Bruce: £0.8m
Pallister: £2.3m
Irwin: £0.6m
Sharpe: £0.2m
Ince: £1m
Robson: £1.5m
Giggs: £0
Hughes: Sold for £2.3m, bought back for £1.8m - profit of £0.5m
Cantona: £1.2m
Total: £11.9m (if you think the buying/selling of Hughes is irrelevant) / £9.6m (if you think he should be considered a net gain)
City:
Coton: £1m
Brightwell: £0m
Phelan: £2.5m
McMahon: £0.9m
Curle: £2.5m
Hill: £0.2m
Vonk: £0.5m
Sheron: £0
Quinn: £0.8m
Simpson: £0.5m
Holden: £0.9m
Total: £9.8m
Hardly anything in it value wise. Should United be thought at an advantage financially at the start of the Prem? The capacity of Maine Road at the time was not too dissimilar to Old Trafford - about 40,000.
And don't forget City had finished above us in quite a few of the seasons leading up to the PL. Their bleating about fairness is useless.
I'd say the situation is dangerous for football as a whole - the club currently looks in good financial health but as is the case in business things can change rapidly. United are one of the biggest clubs in the world, if they fell it'd be a dark day.
In terms of money spent you can argue that with "net" spending the club hasn't spent more than others. It ignores the point that I was making in that those sums spent on individuals were huge, even by today's standards - and its clear that its contributed heaviliy to the bar being raised in general. Its clear other clubs couldn't spend similar sums or anywhere near - even the top sides.
It was also the case that we had a lot of talented youngsters coming through - fantastic for the club of course, but had said players come through the systems of other rivals the club would have no doubt gone hell for leather to aquire such talented players - fact is that at that time nobody in the UK could compete with United in terms of transfer fees. It was the same with Liverpool in the 80's - had a good squad so could pick off the best player available from british clubs and spend big on one or two - the other teams were largely left with the scraps.
With your last comment you seem to suggest that football was in rude health before the Chelsea's and the Cities of this world came along - I strongly disagree. Leeds are the best example of that - the game has been heading down this path for years - driven by TV and commercial revenue - with United the club at the forefront of that development. I don't criticie the club for its success, but its a fact that they've done more than any club to develop the PL as a brand, shipping it off to far flug places - and that's why every tom dick and harry with a few billion wants in.
The big question for me within all of this is whether United fans moaning about City's riches actually want parity in football? Do they want an NFL or Rugby Union style system with a salary cap? Or every club to have the same transfer budget?
I'd suggest in the vast majority of cases not - what most seem to want is a return to pre-Chelsea/City - where United can comforttably outspend their rivals and therefore face less competition at the top.
Seems like its fine for us to spend £30 million on a player but if City spend £40 million that's a disgrace and football suffers. I don't see the difference.
Of course people dress it up as if they're "concerned for the future of the game etc etc" but nobody seemed to care when we were smashing transfer records left right and centre over the 90's and early 2000's.
This is a red-herring Rover. None of us wanted United to be the subject of a massively leveraged buy-out but the organizations tasked with 'the good of the game' haven't passed any rules or laws to prevent it. In fact the Labour government actively caused this once they blocked the (British-owned, fully-funded) BSkyB takeover.
The large sums United can spend on individual players is a result of United making a profit. If the profit isn't spent on wages/transfers it goes into the owners pockets (and out of the game). The Glazers currently take it out of their pockets and hand it over in interest or to increase equity.
Again, these were purchases with profit. Nothing wrong with spending 30-odd million if you turn a profit of 60-million. Some of the different valuations on Ferdinand will differ since we paid off the last installment early at Leeds request. It was when they were desperate for cash to hand the banks so we paid a few million less than the original agreement. Veron was sold on for about 50% (15 mill) paid when Kenyon moved to Chelsea.
Over the past 2 years City have lost:
2009-2010 - 121 million
2010-2011 - 195 million
Total = 316 million
Thats about what FSG paid for Liverpool. Ok those are accounting numbers and not cash but it lends some scale to the massive amounts City are throwing around. You can't flush that much cash in a system over so short a period and not see inflation as a result.
Remember its only 'buying the league' when your owner has to write a big cheque.
I see a difference - but I don't see that its a difference that anyone other than United fans seem to be concerned with. My pointing that out was in response to suggestions that City and Chelsea are ruining football with their spending - to which I disagree, my point being that United have contributed to the current state of PL, and world football as much as any other top side.
Clearly Manchester United's directors had great business accumen and the club benefitted hugely from that - and that's fine, but the point has been raised that the PL top 4 had become such a closed shop that any club wanting to get into it has had to spent ludicous amounts of money.
I for one have no issue with newly rich clubs. I'd of couse like football to be sustainable, but thats clearly not going to happen - so I'd rather see money being pumped into football than sucked out of the fans pockets.
Some people raise good points as to the relative moral arguments as to what's going on at City - but a lot of others seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. I suspect had we won the title there'd have been less moaning about City's mega millions - instead it gives fans who can't accept that we lost the league in such circumstances an excuse to raise.
In my view you can't have it all ways - either you want a level playing field in football or you don't - and if so the relative wealth of United and the other top four clubs should be curbed in general, to allow smaller clubs with just a passionate support a bit at the cherry.
The period I presume RedRover is referring to is 98-03 where over 5 seasons we spent around 75% net profit on net transfer fees. In today's market this would be equivalent to us spending around £75-80m net for 5 seasons (or as a troll comparison - almost exactly what City have spent).
Can they not afford that though? A drop in the ocean for the owner? And what if he devlopes the club as a business and makes money in the long run? A lot of businesses operate at a loss for years before they turn a profit? Indeed the owner has plans to develop the local area and expand the brand worldwide.
To me the fact that a huge club like United carries hundreds of millions in debt is more dangerous for football.
In terms of what United have spent it was self generated, and fair enough - but it still created massive inequality in the game. My bottom line is that I don't see that any moral argument between that and City's luck in getting a rich backer carries any weight to anyone other than United fans. Others clearly disagree.
Again, valid points raised - and it depends where you sit in terms of your views. For me, as stated above, I'd rather see money pumped in that sucked out and so far all City's spending has done has made the league more entertaining for the paying fan.
Surely you can see the key difference is where the money comes from?
I'm no economist or finance expert, but what value did we get from:
Rooney (c.28 mil, 365 apps, 181 goals),
Ferdinand (c.30 mil, 398 apps, 7 goals, countless defensive benefits),
RVN (c. 19 mil, 219 apps, 150 goals)....
....even Veron who cost c. 28mil got us a c.15 mil re sale fee and we won a title with him in the team.
Whereas you compare that to Jo (c.18 mil, figure comparable to Ruud), Robinho (c. 32 mil, figure comparable to Rio), Adebayor (c. 27 mil, figure comparable to Rooney - they've been letting him play for Spurs whilst paying his wages ffs!) - and there are plenty more....Santa Cruz (17 mil, what the feck has he done for them?), Tevez (47 mil, treats them like a piece of shit and can't even be arsed to play for them for 6 months), Bellamy (14 mil), Lescott and Milner at massively overpriced fees, c.25 mil fees for squad players like Dzeko and Nasri....
There is no comparison really...and I haven't even started on wages
Rooney (c.28 mil, 365 apps, 181 goals),
Ferdinand (c.30 mil, 398 apps, 7 goals, countless defensive benefits),
RVN (c. 19 mil, 219 apps, 150 goals)....
....even Veron who cost c. 28mil got us a c.15 mil re sale fee and we won a title with him in the team.
Whereas you compare that to Jo (c.18 mil, figure comparable to Ruud), Robinho (c. 32 mil, figure comparable to Rio), Adebayor (c. 27 mil, figure comparable to Rooney - they've been letting him play for Spurs whilst paying his wages ffs!) - and there are plenty more....Santa Cruz (17 mil, what the feck has he done for them?), Tevez (47 mil, treats them like a piece of shit and can't even be arsed to play for them for 6 months), Bellamy (14 mil), Lescott and Milner at massively overpriced fees, c.25 mil fees for squad players like Dzeko and Nasri....
There is no comparison really...and I haven't even started on wages
Red Rover's argument lacks credibility when he can't even get simple figures correct. Something he is ignoring.
For now they have helped make it more entertaining. Thanks largely to the brilliance of Alex Ferguson keeping us close. What people have said could ruin the game is if they continue to stockpile all the best players and turn the league into an extremely uncompetitive one then that will cease to be the case. Before you respond with a ludicrous comparison to Utd, try and think of a time where we could afford to loan a player worth £25m to a top four side meaning he could play against our rivals but not us.
To give you an idea of the scale of City's spending compared to ours. Courtesy of http://transferleague.co.uk/
It seems that simply because I don't jump on the "anti-city" bandwagon my argument counts for nothing.
My argument isn't based on figures, of which anyone can trawl the internet and find. My point is simple - specifically that United were the flagship club in the PL and helped create a monster - City are a symptom of "modern" football - because rightly or wrongly, clubs couldn't compete with the established top 4 without spending enormous sums as the rich clubs were simply getting richer. That's a point consistently ignored.
Put simply, they did what they had to - I therefore don't feel the need to bitch and moan about City just because they are now competative and a thorn in United's side.
Again - I ask the question whether anyone moaning on here actually wants a "level playing field" in football at all, or simply "new money" clubs out of the way so United can continue to be succesful without any credible and regular challenge.
I think you are blaming United for UEFA's sins, RedRover. It was UEFA who created the top 4 nonsense by needlessly expanding the Champions League.