Same reason most fans of every team believe their is some sort of agenda against their club by the referees/football league. People only focus on what affects their team - I'm sure PSG fans feel FFP was designed to stop them as well.
Could Manchester City "disappear" in few years?
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Same reason most fans of every team believe their is some sort of agenda against their club by the referees/football league. People only focus on what affects their team - I'm sure PSG fans feel FFP was designed to stop them as well.
Financial doping is cheating, end of story.
Yes I get that - this place isn't immune form it! It's just amusing when you hear it.
Indeed. Our blue friends do like to think that there is something marvellously romantic about all of this - a heroic assault by a "working class club" on the dastardly footballing "elite" no less. I'm welling up as I type this.
Arrogance and a sense of entitlement seeps out of that club now. An expected by product of finally winning but oh what irony.
In answer to the OP - they aint going anywhere but I'm sure we will rise to the challenge.
It must be bloody annoying. Oh well, never mind.
@Nanook: Remember I am talking about the current years figures, 2014-2015.
United will come in around £390m because they have said so. It's not my wild guess. So if City's current year revenues are more than about £50m higher than last year's, then we will overtake you. Whether you claw that back any time soon will very much depend on whether you get back into the CL, I would imagine.
We're saying the same thing - that City need to grow by about £50m in 2015. Given that the TV money won't increase much as per my last post (it was a step change to prem revenues), gates barely move it has to all come from commercial in 2015. And City have NEVER grown Commercial revenues by £50m in a year - even during their uber-expansion. In fact, your commercial revenues only went up about £22m last year.
So it is possible, but I don't see it as likely.
Probably is annoying ...unless you're a United fan of course. Then it's nothing but a minor itch from the latest cheap imitation.
Over a billion quid plus one and a half titles later and yet still struggling away under that big old shadow.
One and a half titles
It's always the posters who try and make out they aren't bothered by City in the slightest that are clearly the most bitter.
More chance of us disappearing in the near future than City. If we don't manage top 4, our reputation amongst the elite in European football will weaken further like both Milan clubs.
I am not normally one to laugh at such things, but mate, that comment is fecking hilarious, it really is.
Just have a quick think about where United are right now, where City are right now, and have a laugh at yourself for posting that.
Fair enough mate you may be right who knows, i had the adidas deal in my head then realised it doesn't kick in until next year i believe.
Into thin air, probably.
So... Dody Al'Fayed, Thaksin, and whoever bought Blackburn in 94 are ok, because it's not much. The Sheikh and Abramovich are not OK because they spend much more? It's like saying stealing bread is ok, but stealing cars is not ok.
The thing with sugar daddy is that you can't simply says you can't inject your own cash into the business, it'll be catastrophic in the long run if there's no money injection into the footballing cash flow as a whole. They have done nothing wrong in economical and business perspective, investment is good and beneficial for the society as a whole (although too much at one time can drive prices up), bottom line is that it's not a gray and white problems and you have to be meticuluous in designing the rules and regulations not to destroy football but allowing some leeway for investment.
IMO FFP is doing a great job, it may took some time, but the restrictions have started to restrict Chelsea and City to a certain extent, so I guess it's working and not simply a showcase by the UEFA, let's give it a few more years and see where we're heading.
The thing with sugar daddy is that you can't simply says you can't inject your own cash into the business, it'll be catastrophic in the long run if there's no money injection into the footballing cash flow as a whole. They have done nothing wrong in economical and business perspective, investment is good and beneficial for the society as a whole (although too much at one time can drive prices up), bottom line is that it's not a gray and white problems and you have to be meticuluous in designing the rules and regulations not to destroy football but allowing some leeway for investment.
IMO FFP is doing a great job, it may took some time, but the restrictions have started to restrict Chelsea and City to a certain extent, so I guess it's working and not simply a showcase by the UEFA, let's give it a few more years and see where we're heading.
FFP is not a worldwide thing. It's a UEFA thing, and it only really applies to clubs trying to get into European competition (although i think the FA/PL is introducing there own version)
It's a strong message - if you ignore the fact that they had repeatedly inferred that they would stop teams playing in the CL, or at least propogated that line in the media without any correction. The fact that we all expected less, doesn't mean the punishment is enough of a deterrent.
Whether its fantasy or not to expet UEFA to kick teams out - they've said they will and and had a chance to do it and really set a marker down. They didn't, in my opinion because they're frightened of the consequences.
I see no reason to suspect UEFA will follow through on their threats. Its all to chummy, with clubs negotiating after breaches, getting their hand slapped and being told not to do it again. They're hoping that clubs will comply by buddying up to them, instead of setting rules down and simply applying them.
As I said above I dont think UEFA will ever have the bottle to really enforce these rules.
Very true. Chelsea are now pretty sustainable, helped in the last few seasons by around £150m in sales of relatively fringe player's (at the time of sale). Going forward I don't think they'll be competing for the most expensive player's in the world (£60m+ and £250k a week) that the likes of United, Madrid, Barcelona and potentially Bayern will be looking at, but with Mourinho in charge trophies will be pretty regular and they'll always break even without any dodgy deals. They can comfortably spend £40-50m net every season on player's and can sustain a wage bill of around £200m.
This is why I argue that outside investment is good. Ten years later we now have a completely sustainable team in England that are one of the best in the world and fully sustainable going forward. It's great for the League and great for the Country.
But it was first year of FFP and to fine City with a big fine plus reduce the number of players they can register for Champions League was a heavy punishment IMO. They never said they'd remove teams from European competition from the beginning, it would have been absurd to do it in the first year because FFP was all about controlling clubs and prompting them to change.
Then several clubs have cheated over the course of history. Several European clubs have a history of inorganic cash injection via their owner or some investor.
United would have ceased to exist a century ago if it wasn't for financial doping.
Exactly.
It need also to be reminded, that without the outside investment, United would have won the title like 7-10 times in a row. Which frankly speaking, would have been a very bad thing for the league and in time, Premier League would have lost it's appeal. And when that would have happened, the money wouldn't have been there. EPL is completely depended on being a big money league considering that English players are pretty useless nowadays.
Without EPL being so competitive, the league wouldn't have the biggest sport deal. Without City and Chelsea, EPL wouldn't be near as competitive. In fact, without Chelsea, maybe even United wouldn't have been as good in 2007-2009 (at-least that is what SAF said which I completely agree).
So, in all, Chelsea and City have done far more good than harm. Yes, it is frustrating that some clubs whose history doesn't go past yesterday win titles instead of us, but it would have been very boring (especially from a neutral perspective) is only a club wins the title. We would have been pretty much in the position when Bayern is now in the league. A few years like that and the interest for the league would have decreased, and so the money.
Which wouldn't have benefited the English football and the country.
If you mean will they ever ban clubs from playing, then I would suggest that everyone is hoping they never will do that. Banning clubs should not be perceived as a "good thing", but rather that the effort made by FFP to bring clubs into line have failed. No-one wants the rules to fail (other than those who don't believe in them at all and who would not want their club banned anyway).
You might wish to reflect on the fact that UEFA published a scale of penalties ranging on the severity of the infringement, the most penal of which is exclusion. What are the other penalties to be used for if any transgression warrants exclusion?
In City's case, the club worked very hard to try to get into line and comply (You might take issue with how they tried to do this and perhaps you believe that the revenues were artificially inflated, but that's a completely seperate issue.) With the revenue figures UEFA agreed with, the club thought it had met the FFP break-even requirement. They failed because of a difference of opinion with UEFA on the interpretation of the rules regarding historical (pre FFP) player costs and what exactly could and could not be excluded. City had one view, UEFA another. Had City been allowed to exclude these costs as it had expected, they would have passed.
In these circumstances, to issue a outright ban straight off, would have been excessive. A ban must surely be for clubs who have made no effort and perhaps for repeated non-compliance?
So long as they are not in Manchester? (Serious question)
More seriously still, are you saying the investment in City is also a good thing, or are there other factors in your mind that mean Chelsea good, City bad?
They allowed it to be put out there that they were going to impose serious sanctions. I don't consider the sanctions imposed to be that and I suspect a lot of others don't either. As it is the process allowed the clubs involved to negotiate on their punishment - which I find bizarre.
All I am saying is that I doubt whether UEFA have the inclination, or the stomach to impose serious sanctions. PSG were sanctioned then spent a fortune on David Luiz. City will spend if the need to. Clubs will not be put off by fines or limits on players in my opinion and the real test of these rules will be when someone hasn't complied for the third or fourth year and UEFA are faced with a problem.
At some stage another rich owner is likely to come along over and above these clubs and test them out. I see nothing to suggest that UEFA will be strong enough to actually act. Its easier for clubs to gradually comply when they have had years of spending behind them to get to a level where they can compete with the top clubs. The next club who does this will need to spend big, quickly and repeatedly and that's when we'll see whether UEFA are serious.
They need the clubs as much as the clubs need UEFA, and for me that's why they will never enfroce these sactions to their full effect.
I think its fair to consider that clubs had a significant amount of time to comply - so the argument that stopping teams from playing in European competition is excessive I don't neccessarily agree with.
At the end of the day I dont want to see clubs kicked out, and frankly I'm not even that bothered whether these sanctions are imposed or not. I have misgivings about UEFA artifically trying to stop investment in football clubs, which are owned privately and ran as businesses. I think its potentially anti-competative. But that's a discussion for another day.
My responses above were in regard to the suggestion that UEFA have acted strongly here and will do so in the future. I disagree with that. Fining clubs with limitless wealth isnt a major deterrant. There is nothing here to suggest that UEFA will ever take sanctions to the next level.
You should perhaps note that neither City nor PSG said "we aren't bothering with FFP". Both clubs submitted returns that demonstrated compliance, although PSG's effort was somewhat less believable and hung enormously on the rather incredible Qatar tourism deal.
But the point is, the rules have been drawn up and clubs are trying to operate within them, using whatever techniques and approaches they can think of. It's not like the clubs are saying "we don't respect these rules and we will ignore them".
I think people should consider what penalties are for. They are to encourage compliance, they are not a goal in themselves. A successful result is when everyone plays by the rules and no penalties are necessary. Not "fantastic, we've banned some clubs".
That would be a reasonable view if complying was a trivial doddle. City already had a huge cost base and was making big losses. Remember FFP was not even a rumour when Sheikh Mansour invested, it was drawn up afterwards. The club was desperately trying to get to the top table and become as competitive as it possibly could. Flying close to the wire with respect to the rules - trying to comply but only just - was always going to be the best that could be done, without just throwing in the towel and giving up on the whole investment.
That the club felt it had complied and then to be told you haven't because UEFA changed the guildance notes mid-flight (not the rules, but the notes giving guidance as to how the rules should be interpreted) was a slap in the face. The club was incandescent with rage about it but decided to accept the slap in the face, in the broader interest of avoiding a court case and all the disruption that would have caused.
In that context, I think the penalties have been severe. You might note the signings made this season and see where the big money has been spent. It's not at City is it. In fact if you look at City's spending over the past 3 years whilst trying to comply with FFP, it's been fairly modest by top club standards.
You can say with some confidence that City's spending has been significantly curtailed by FFP and were the rules not there, it's hard to imagine a club with effectively limitless wealth would not have bought some other headline players.
Both are good.
That's nonsense. They had to pay what, a €60m fine? That's the sort of money that could buy you one of the best players in the world. On top of that they could only register 21 players in CL which seriously weakens them plus they have to be careful about their money now because future sanctions will be heavier. Y
But City and PSG have already shown that they are careful about FFP limits. That's why PSG could only sign Luiz and had to give up on Di Maria because they'd have to sell their players to fund his signing. City spent little in the Summer and agreed to sell Negredo to be able to sign Bony. It's not like they don't care.
Each to their own but they have already punished City and PSG which sort of makes it pointless for a billionaire to come and risk spending €400m on his team when they can be sure that they will be hit with at least an equal punishment and in all likelihood a heavier one. From what I've witnessed clubs are serious about keeping up with FFP regulations which points to me to the fact that they are really worried about it. You won't see City spending €60m on players anymore which would have definitely happened without FFP.
UEFA don't need City or PSG. They need Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Juventus, Milan etc., clubs that have worldwide following and are in a way legendary. That's why they've brought FFP, to protect these clubs from potential billionaires coming and buying their way into elite. 10-15 years from now and these will be the only competitive clubs in Europe IMO with the odd addition of a well run club like Dortmund and Atletico we have seen in recent years.
Agree with all of that.
I think it's all about protecting the interests of the top clubs. That said, it's not only because of who's mates with who (but that's surely part of it), it's about EUFA trying to ensure that the CL remains a global money-making spectacle with 2 billion viewers tuning in to watch Bayern vs Real in the CL final. Not Trabzonspor vs Astra because they both have uber-billionaire owners, and the corresponding drop in viewing figures.
That said, I think they have been incredibly short-sighted. A change is as good as a rest, as they say, and the likelihood of someone wanting to throw a billion or so at Trabzonspor, is pretty low isn't it.
The competition is stale and has become boring. New teams adding a different element is a good thing. And as the worldwide fanbase of those new teams grows, that's a good thing for the competition too. Trying to stop them by limiting outside investment was a really daft idea. Bad for the game as a whole and ultimately bad for UEFA as well.
Small chance of that happening now but they should and reevaluate the sponsorship deals to how big a name City actually is in terms of advertising. My guess is the £166m would be halved if not more.
Didn't he lose a large chunk of his once 8 billion fortune? that plus building hundreds of million worth of boats every now and then and the economy fecked in Russia would be the reasons I'm guessing.
They'd have to make wholesale changes to the rules to do that, so you can rule it out completely.
EDIT: That's if I agreed with your figures, which I don't.
Thanks for that - I had (wrongly) thought you were of a different opinion.
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Your global reach is about on par with Spurs and I doubt they even make half the £166m.
Their fine was £16.3m and the rest was suspended.
They have shown that they won't obnoxiously flaunt their financial investments in the face of Uefa, but nothing else. Both clubs still spend over £40m on defenders and City have just bought Bony at £30m also. This is whilst both squads are already completely loaded with World Class player's so don't need to spend £150m per window. The real test will be when they go through a bad period and need to spend big money to get back on top (as we have the past 2 seasons), my suspicion is they'll be back to spending £100m a window.
Future billionaires will just use their other businesses to sponsor the teams immediately as City have now done. They'll create 20-30 different Commercial deals all for £5-10m which will inflate their revenue by around £200m. This will immediately allow them to inflate revenue at the same rate that they purchase player's.
City will definitely be in the market for the likes of Pogba when Toure retires, but they don't need to spend big for the next couple of seasons because of previous spending.
They don't need new wealthy clubs, but they aren't going to create unnecessary problems for themselves by implementing their rules stringently. If City and PSG curb their spending slightly and artificially increase their revenues so that it appears that they are breaking even through deals that aren't fair market value; Uefa are happy because their rules have "worked" and the clubs are happy because they can continue to compete at the top level. Instead of expensive legal battles it's a simple negotiation whereby Uefa give a lot and the clubs compromise a little in return.
It basically means only very, very wealthy people who have the resources to create these false revenues can take over clubs. The likes of Randy Lerner for instance wouldn't have the resources to do all this, even if he wanted to spend £300m on Villa and get them into the Champions League. These are the type of clubs Uefa would target, as it would be relatively simple and not very costly to exclude them.
Of course they should if they really want people to take their rules seriously, but they wouldn't have the finances to investigate and fight these definitions through the court system. City would just argue that if United can have a training ground deal worth £20m per year, why can't City? The fact that a none Abu Dhabi company wouldn't sponsor City's training ground for more than £1m would be academic.
I believe outside investment is fantastic and think City and Chelsea have been great for the Premier League, stopping United winning the League 10 times in a row and the League becoming a cross between Portugal and Germany.
I just think that it's obvious that City's revenue is hugely inflated because they are predominantly sponsored by companies that are cosy with the owner (I know you said this isn't the case, but in terms of their £166m commercial income it really is) . If Mansour pulled out tomorrow City's Commercial revenue would drop by around £100m within 3 years, which would mean their wages would have to drop by a similar amount, which would likely mean they'd fall out of the Champions League places, which would result in a revenue drop of £40m, which would lead to a further wage cut and would culminate in City being similar to Spurs.
As I said previously City's kit deal and match day revenues are the only thing that can't be artificially inflated, because Mansour doesn't own a clothing brand and can't pay for every ticket himself without it being obvious. These two revenue streams put City at £12m per season, which is similar to Spurs, half of Liverpool and 15% of United. Likewise match day revenue is £47.5m, which is similar to Spurs. The likes of Liverpool are also similar, but that's due to capacity restrictions rather than a lack of club appeal.
Not that this is an issue. You don't spend £1b on a club and invest hugely in their infrastructure if you don't have a long term plan. I just think it must be annoying for City's owners as much as anything, having to engineer all these cross company payments and agreements just to satisfy a completely bullshit policy that is relatively simple for a multi billionaire to sidestep with some creative accountancy.
You will never get a Champions League that could be won by any team. In fact I'd say current level of competition is one of the highest ever, people only believe otherwise because they have fond memories of CL 10-15 years ago without realizing that it was even more dominated by big clubs than it is now. When you look at CL around 1995-2005 you had only a handful of teams realistically capable of going far in the competition and it was during the time when there were very few standout teams at time (for example between 2002 and 2005 or 2006 there was no top class team in Europe IMO), now you have clubs like Bayern, Real Madrid and Barcelona who will always go far, as well as clubs like Dortmund, Atletico, PSG, Chelsea, Arsenal or possibly Juventus who could challenge anyone on their day.
I don't like the concept of FFP that much though because it prevents mid-table clubs from becoming anything else and in the long run they will all become feeder clubs for the big guns. You could see Atletico being stripped off of their best players after an excellent season last year, Dortmund had to give up on three of their biggest talents in decades. The disparity in profit will only strengthen with FFP in place.
What is stale and boring is a bloated competition that already has too many teams and too many matches being played. New teams/more teams certainly isn't whats needed but rather a return nearer to a model of competition that was originally confined to a real elite playing each other in winner takes all knockout matches and not these seamingly endless group stages. A return to a truely knockout competition won't happen but thats when you'll get the likes of Real or Bayern getting turned over in a one off.
A recurrent theme this amongst certain blues with City's ambitions being amusingly dressed up as something altruistic. This constant refrain from some City fans that their club and it's bankrolled ascent is somehow a badly needed change to a preserved order is shared pretty much solely amongst, er, themselves and well nobody else really. There's a sense of arrogance in their too ie this idea that they are welcomed somehow. New City are good for the game (they cry) yet rock up to The Etihad any time soon and you'll find an uncomfortable amount of empty blue seats and an atmosphere that makes OT sound like a bearpit. Whats going wrong when even people in Manchester aren't buying into this particular new order and much long term and loyal City support has drifted away as the disconnect grows wider? Yes this has happened at United too but you can stop this charade that City are leading some heroic and wholesome purge of a self interested elitist footballing culture because it doesn't wash outside of Blue Moon.
Funnily enough I think there's more non-City fans on here who have argued it's good for the game, than actual City fans.
And from my perspective, I didn't say City were good for the CL per se. What I said was it was blinkered and wrong of UEFA to believe that our arrival and that of other clubs would be detrimental, and wrong to invent rules to prevent it. Which is far from the same thing.
And just how many titles do they hold right now?
Do you think United supporters in Thailand are supporters because they love Manchester, or like red? Of course not. It's because you were on TV, winning things. Like we are and Spurs are not.
To suggest that the appeal today in some foreign land, of supporting City or Spurs is the same and that the clubs should by rights attract similar sponsorship revenues is plainly potty. We are talking about the reigning and two time recent champions of the most widely viewed league in the world, vs a club that has not won it in 53 years.
And this doesn't take any account of the competence or otherwise of the management. City have prioritised growth of commercial revenues as their route to quickly growing the business. We are not a London based club who can reap huge matchday revenues for example so we had to take another route.
That's been a tremendous success and with the idea of a global footballing network with the City Group idea, for example, we've done innovative things that Spurs have not.
It's not even remotely unreasonable that our commercial revenues should be MUCH bigger than their's, in fact it would be bizarre if it wasn't. We are a more attractive investment proposition and we've worked harder to go and get the investments.
A refusal to grasp this portrays a bitterness and resentment of the fact that City have done some things extremely well.
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