fair enough swarbs, you make a good argument until chelsea came in there was no fixed 3rd and 4th place clubs, as you said it was competed by teams like chelsea without money, leeds, liverpool, spurs etc. if the arabs didnt take over city, chelsea and man united would continue to finish 1st and 2nd, mainly because they have far more money than anyone else. that would suit your club down to the ground, and you cant deny this. now man city have emerged as rivals to the title - to knock you off your perch to use your own managers words, and i'm not surprised that man u fans are now defending their position by stating that city are using money that they havnt generated themselves. however, whats the point of man city existing if they cant embrace the extra money that has come their way. you would embrace it if city were united and united were city 5 years ago, because without this investment there is not a cats chance that city would ever be able to break into the monopoly. one unwanted side effect of city and chelsea is wage inflation, and they have played a massive part in this, but so have man united. as i said paying ferdinand £115k a week about 5- 6 years ago is equivalent to around £180-£200k nowadays, which is what many of city's top paid mercenaries are on. £30m on veron 10 or so years ago, again, you can double that to be about £30m nowadays. its a very difficult question to answer, how do you make the league more competitive? you cant really, the premierleague TV money is split equally, which means that teams like wigan can dream of mid table football instead of instant relegation, however it costs absolutely massive money to go from 10th to 4th, and then 4th to 1st as city have showed. i wonder, as a man united fan, what is your real motive for despising the money city have come across? is it fear of the reprucussions to football as a whole, in terms of unsustainable spending an so on, or fear that a rival will potentially overtake you and the bragging rights etc? is that the best you can do? you ******ed, ignorant, probably racist troll.. ever wondered why no-one likes you?
The Swansea Ruffian from Eccles you mean? When will you blinkered idiots realise that where one lives is not necessarily where one is from. So yes, Spanish prick is just fine in reply to Welsh rag. Understand? Or do you thick ****s need me to spell it out even further? I would only ever use a City shirt to wipe my arse on or burn.
Other clubs in the past have benefited from significant investment. Clubs such as United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, Sunderland, Wolves, Blackburn, Chelsea, Villa, Derby to name but a few (prominent examples). It's something that's happened more than many people probably realise. United themselves were saved from administration because a wealthy benefactor came in and rescued the club, and the investment continued for United resulting in their first title success in 1908. J H Davies also heavily financed United's move to Old Trafford. Should we therefore not respect United's early successes (in fact even respect the fact that United are even in existence today) because it was as a result of investment (and not money earned), just as many of you are proposing that any success City have will not be respected? Whenever I've raised this point, people have responded by saying one of three things 1) It isn't relevant because it happened so long ago. A response which is nothing but ignorant of something we never should be - that being the history of the clubs we support. And if it doesn't matter, then quite simply the number 19 has no significance for United, for the early success that United enjoyed has been rendered meaningless. 2) The amounts invested can in no way be compared to the amounts invested into City. By the very same token, the amounts clubs could earn in revenue can also not be compared to the amounts clubs earn today. The point is to compare the amounts invested with the earning potential of clubs at each respective time. For only that will provide a more realistic (and relative) picture when it comes to how significant/substantial investment in the past has been. 3) The historical examples of investment are examples in which the money invested into the club has since been repaid. Well then by that very same token, at the very least the same should be afforded towards what is happening at City today. And to those who think that there is no way that City's owners will ever make a return on such substantial investment - to put this into context, 20 years ago United pulled in around £10m in total revenue. How much will clubs be pulling in in total revenue 10, 20 years from now? If you think you know the answer, then think again. I certainly don't. And if City's owners do make a return on their investment by the time 2018 comes along (the culmination of the original 10 year plan put in place by the owners when they arrived in 2008), then what is not to be respected about that? I, for one, can not think of any reason why it shouldn't be. In the same way that I don't regard any success that United, or Arsenal, or Everton, or Sunderland etc achieved at specific periods in the past as something that shouldn't be respected.
Good to see that whilst I was at the cinema the whole thing has descended into a slanging match There weren't really fixed first and second placed clubs either - Utd and Arsenal had the majority but Liverpool had 2nd in 2002 and Newcastle in 1997. So the Utd-Arsenal monopoly only lasted four seasons,only one season longer than Liverpool and Everton in the 80s. It was only Chelsea's external money that really fixed the top four, which is why I reckon in the long run City's money will only make the problem worse - probably a fixed top three of Utd, Chelsea and City. Actually, personally I don't begrudge City some success, however they get it. I was at school with a few City fans back in '96 and '98 when they were relegated and they stayed true. Any club that can attract close to 30,000 fans in the third tier deserves a break. My concern is more with the way they've gone about it - the whole rush for immediate success, shuffling out quality and long serving players like Dunne and Ireland in favour of expensive, and at the time no better, imported players and so on. I can't see it in any way being good for the game. I'd say that's a pretty narrow attitude - so what's the point of Reading, Cardiff, Swansea, Bolton, Oxford Utd and all those other clubs existing if they don't have the extra money? It's not all about breaking the monopoly for me, it's more about having an identity and a history, experiencing the ups and downs and the passion for the game. It seems to me like City has maybe lost a bit of that. But I'm sure their fans probably disagree, and I guess my view will always be coloured by the fact I'm a supporter of one of the monopoly clubs Well, back when Ferdinand was on £115k a week he was by far and away the highest earner at Utd. And he's only on £120k a week now, so the wage inflation hasn't been all that severe. Whereas City have put even some of their fringe players on six figures. It's gotten to the stage where Kompany has rejected £80k a week, which is what Vidic is on at Utd! And Vidic is our third or fourth highest paid player, Kompany is about City's twelfth! Wage inflation was always a problem for the very best players, but City and Chelsea have spread out to relatively middle quality players which means clubs like Everton and Blackburn can no longer afford to cover the wages of mid table squads. I dunno about massive money - Redknapp took Spurs from the bottom to the CL with only around £50 million, and a total wage bill of half that of the "Big 4". Not tiny money, but over three years it's hardly huge any more. There's never going to be an instant solution - club profiles and attendances and commercial power will cause a divide. But I think you can address the problem to some extent. Personally, I would have written the FFP rules differently, with a cap and a balancing charge. The cap would be the total expenditure of the biggest spending club that is funded purely by revenue, and the balancing charge would be to a central fund that is distributed to the lower clubs. Using the current PL as an example, Utd are the biggest self funded spenders with opex of £220 million last year. So I would say clubs like City can be funded by external funders up to that amount, so roughly an additional £85 million on top of their revenue of about £135 million. However, the external funders also have to make the same contributions to a central fund that will be distributed amongst the clubs with the lowest budgets (obviously that rule wouldn't apply for small contributions of up to £15 million needed to keep lower table clubs in the black). That way City can still compete at the top and crack the monopoly, but without the unlimited spending they currently have, and the lower clubs also benefit from higher budgets thus making the whole league more competitive. I don't really despise it - I'm happy to have City as a competitor again like it was back in the mid 80s when I first started supporting. I'm more worried about how the unconstrained spending will affect the game in the long run. It's simple monetarist economics - the greater the increase in the supply of money, the higher inflation becomes. So if the owners of City, Chelsea, Malaga, PSG and so on keep pumping external money into the game inflation is going to keep going until clubs start going bust. Actually the benefactors only paid off the club's debt. The real reason for the 1908 title was, ironically enough, City being forced to release most of their best players who promptly turned around and signed for Utd! I don't think we paid a fee for any of them. The OT move was financed, but in the form of an interest free loan. And as I said above, I'm not concerned about owners investing in infrastructure, stadia etc - that all goes into the general economy. It's the huge amounts of money going into the transfer and wage market that creates the in game inflation problem. To be honest, I will respect City's achievement whether they make a return on investment or not. Success is success - even with the most expensive team in the world it's never just given to you (just ask Real Madrid! ). Although I'd be worried if the owners plan to make a direct return on investment from the club - having spent almost a billion quid already that would imply they're expecting to make the best part of £140 million a year over the next seven years and then sell for a billion just to cover the cost of capital! That'd bleed any club dry! More likely they're hoping for an indirect return in the form of reflected glory on Etihad, Abu Dhabi and all the other UAE based companies that have partnered with City. If they can get Etihad alone up to the level of revenue, profitability and profile as Emirates then they'll have effectively more than doubled their money. Tho' if they do achieve that goal then their reason to invest in City goes away, which could pose a problem for the club if they are still dependent on subsidies by then.
