It just shows how remarkably his eyesight seems to have vastly improved with age! Although it seems to be at it’s sharpest when it concerns decisions he doesn’t agree with!
Ta daaaaa! Anyone who genuinely thinks they generate the money they spend, leaving a nice neat million profit, is living in cloud cuckoo land. Another planet. There is no way all this is wrapped up in a genuine yearly turn over. (I'm a construction project manager, I know fine ****ing well how it works, thanks) I've never said this is unfair by the way, not once. I'm merely pointing out that should City be allowed to continue in this vein noone else will get a look in. If we want a competitive league and competitive European competition then spending has to be managed. This applies to all clubs.
The amount isn’t off the scale, if you compare their commercial revenue with a club like Liverpool it’s about £50m per annum out of kilter, they could probably justify a large chunk of the incremental revenue as they’re an established CL club, so you’re maybe talking £20-30m a year.
I haven’t looked at the figures mate, but could not some of their commercial revenue be of possibly dubious origin too? Maybe a tad incestuous? As far as I can see, nobody actually owns up to being a City fan, so I’m wondering where all this commercial revenue comes from.
Yes, that’s the point mate. Their main sponsor is Etihad which is the state owned airline of Abu Dhabi However the counter argument is that they’re merely paying the going rate, I’d suggest that figure is only relatively lightly bloated. They’ve rapidly grown their genuinely competitive revenues in the last few years, they’re now one of the largest clubs in the world as a result.
I wouldn't be able to estimate an actual figure but I'd guess it's higher than that by quite a bit. They can massage it however they want as things stands as the notion of FFP is being ignored by everyone at the moment. Fair enough, if that's how it is then United will continue to spend stupid money and Chelsea will continue to spend stupid money and Liverpool have joined the party and, ultimately, football ****s itself in the arse. City are fine though, as Abu Dhabi is financing them. They can play against themselves and New York City ad infinitum. I don't think a spend and salary cap is an unreasonable suggestion.
My point exactiy, mate. It’s a blatantly incestuous relationship. One that I’ve no doubt by deint of what our American friends call, ‘creative accounting’ disguises a grossly inflated ‘sponsorship’ deal with Etihad.
Right chaps I'm going for Saints 1-2 palace Swans 0-4 spurs Wham 0-1 westbrom City 4-0 watford Easy wins for spurs and city
That’s simply not true though, FFP is still here, as are the PL STCC regulations. The stories of how it can be got around are overblown. Even PSG have orchestrated their spending to stay within the rules of FFP
PSG sell the most expensive hot dogs in world football ...€250 a time ... ...€300 if you have it with onions ...
It may well still be there in name but it's not really being enforced is it? Overblown or not, there are ways round it and the likes of City and PSG are doing exactly that. City could claim Etihad are sponsoring them to the tune of a billion a year. That's it done, within FFP.
I'm genuinely surprised you see City as a self sustaining football club. There's not a chance they are but what more can I say, there's no point?
Football isn't competitive for 90% of clubs anyway, this is only seen as a big issue now as it's City imo and they're able to blow United out of the water now. Laughable really. FFP is a bit of a joke top whixh both doesn't seem to get enforced any also prevents there ever being a change of the guard with regards to the top clubs. I would support a spend/wages cap but it would have to be worldwide and I don't ever see it happening. As for comments that if it carries on then football ****s itself in the arse, well that horse has long bolted imo.
They aren’t completely self sufficient, however the scale of their rule bending is at nowhere near the level it’s widely believed to be. Therefore the idea that they’re gate crashing the party by blatant rule breaking is bollocks.
Yep this I'd go further an introduce a transfer fee cap too, or have a system like the NFL where the bottom placed team gets the pick of the best players on the market. It would need a radical overhaul and a complete culture change. But it would certainly help to level the playing field.
Totally agree and for me it's laughable that Utd fans are getting upset about City's spending. Happy enough when they were spending big on players (for example Ferdinand for £30M in 2002, when the average transfer was £5-6M) and weighing out top of the line salaries (wasn't Rooney the first £250k / week player?). They have played as big a part, as any club, in the ridiculous spending in football.
