No I dont think we are operating within FFP, at least not fairly. I expect we will be selling some stadium naming rights in the near future for a ghastly sum. Even though we did raise over £250m in player sales in this window, I still think our spending in the last three windows (£860m or whatever tf it is now) has been ridiculous. Yeah its mainly the prefect thing of trying to dob us in I find funny. Like one of your fellow koppites said, you are better off just cracking on and working with the formula thats been working for you recently, you aint done too bad, last season aside. Our owner, if he has transgressed, will get whats coming to him, sooner or later. i wouldnt worry
Quite the opposite - we should put in a £200m bid so that Boehly goes higher. Even if FFP is now totally ****ed, Boehly isn't Abramovich - there must be a theoretical limit whereby even he can't perpetuate this spending. I think we should do deal with several other clubs to put in twice the amount for a player they want to shift, knowing that Chelsea will come in and trump it. Btw, in all seriousness and not (totally) sour grapes: how on earth did Chelsea get away with simply writing off the £1,5bn debt that they owed Abramovich for that loan? It included many, many player acquisitions bought in the era of FFP. How is that just written off?
Because the UK government cant allow a guy thats been sanctioned to call in loans owed to him. So they have to let us slide. The club was an asset and assets can be appriopriated. But I think the law is different when it comes to loans.
Two points - firstly, Liverpool shouldn't have to run to the authorities anyway: anyone spending this money in this fashion should automatically come under scrutiny anyway. Secondly - City have killed FFP anyway. The FA and UEFA are big hat and no cattle: clubs like City and PSG (and now Chelsea again) can afford top, top lawyers just as the Russian oligarchs did when they turned this country into The United Kingdom Of Kleptopia, and both organisations are inherently corrupt and prone to corruption and bribery. May as well accept it rather than keep humiliating ourselves by being the only twat in the ring boxing to the play by rules.
We don't even know whether it's true or not or what the specifics are. If there is any truth in it though, I hope John Henry is shining a light on the dodgy agent's practices and asking for that to be looked at and regulated by the PL. Other than that, I'm happy all the clowns are joining the circus.
All true, BUT that's not supposed to happen under FFP (or at least it's not the way the late Tobes and the late Astro, bless their souls, explained it to us all). It's still considered a debt unless it's paid off by revenue and/or player sales, otherwise you could just run up a £1bn debt buying players and putting them on unsustainable contracts, then sell the club for a billion more than you paid for it to one of your subsiduries , and those debts are written off. Hang on...
Thats the thing though, the club wasnt SOLD per se. It was appropriated. It was taken off of Abramovich by force by the UK government, and he didnt see a dime of the money Boehly and co paid for it. I don't think the government can appropriate a loan made to a sanctioned individual and force the entity to pay it. Who would they pay it to? It cant go to Roman. Like I said, the club can be seized because its a physical asset, but because the owner is sanctioned and therefore has no financial rights in the UK, he cannot call in a loan owed to him, so said loan is therefore written off.
The thing is FFP isn't being regulated. FSG see their asset being in efect devalued by the wild west show presently in play. I would expect them to query the situation with the local sherrif even though they probably know he doesn't give a t*ss.
Yes, but.... you miss my point (or I do, not for the first time). Whatever the mechanics, X amount of that 'loan' (And I heard rumours, albeit on Twitter, that it was @ £800m) was player-related). The only way to shift that, certainly as was explained to me, is by revenue and/or player sales. Therefore the debt should have gone forward onto Chelsea's FFP account, so to speak (or the player-related proportion of it anyway). From what I can see, it hasn't? Lot's of ifs and buts there, and Twitter speculation ('natch) , but something don't smell right at all about this. But, as you say, no point whining to the authorities about being bullied, especially when the authorities are scared of the bullies even more than we are. The FA are like one of those cowardly, drunken, frightened sheriffs in the Wild West who take the bandits bribes because they're petrified to do their job and nobody would stand with them if they did. And I can't see John Henry as Gary Cooper either!
If Chelsea dont get walloped with some kind of points deduction, then ffp might as well just be removed and hand City and Newcastle the league every year until its bought by the Saudi's
That's the sad reality of these two deals,and many others. Its all about ££££ rather than football,get rich as fast as you can and to hell with everything else.
Paul Joyce saying, contrary to earlier reports, we didn't have a bid accepted by Southampton. We clearly don't value Lavia as highly as his price tag suggests and never went back in.
Well, we could have had the deal wrapped long before chelsea got involved. Our recruitment, squad management, just general strategy, has gone down the toilet since we won the league ... which is when Klopp extended his contract and was given more power. Lessons are not being learnt. We are in dire need of a proper sporting director.
Perhaps rather than try and enforce FFP when clever lawyers can drag it out for years the Prem should limit the amount of players that a club can send on loan and have on loan. If Chelsea had to keep the majority of the players they have bought they would not be able to have them all in the squad and keep them happy. Also they would be stuck with the wage bill
