Hold our beer... Could probably play a xenopobia card too, just to hammer it home. Fully agree with you however, its gathering so much pace now that before long, there will be a massive legal wrangle over it and it'll be (in current form) flushed like the turd than it is. It's anti competitive. It quite frankly astounds me that it's been able to be in place for so long, without levers with assurances for owners prepared to go that far.
I think the likelihood of Everton being charged again as the next in the line of charges, is much higher than Newcastle ever being charged at all.
Just bought my Cardiff away ticket. Hopefully the game isn't moved to Friday night as I'll be on a plane.
I see it as one of those ideas that is good in theory but fails to deliver in practice because it is applied so subjectively and inconsistently. Like VAR. Until one of the genuinely big boys in this country gets a proper FFP kick to the unmentionables, it won't be fit for purpose. Deducting 15 points from City and stripping them of multiple trophies would mean this will never happen again. But no one has the head or the legal team to do that to City.
When a club like yours can afford to build a billion pound stadium. you know something is wrong. Especially when you have to add players wages and transfers on to that bill. If you attack clubs like City, and that football bubble bursts, you'll be going out of business bro, so no one is going to be upsetting that apple cart, be funny if they did though. The fallout from it would be hilarious, and there'll be no Tory corrupt government to save you, like there was with Chelsea in recent times.
We have an annual revenue of £620m. Our wage bill is appx £150m pa and we spend appx £50-100m net on transfers, leaving circa £400m for other staff wages, costs etc. It can't be that hard to fathom how we can afford to build a new stadium, especially as the cost is spread across 20 years and locked in at very low interest rates thanks to our idiot government keeping rates close to 0% from 2008-2022. Spurs are actually probably the only big club in the world that operates within its financial means. We spend what we've earned. Levy has many faults and has made many mistakes, but he is probably the best in the game at the business side of things. If your point is that a billion pound stadium is indicative of how the game is now dominated by obscene money, I totally agree with you but that isn't what FFP was created to resolve.
There's winners and then there's those that dress themselves up in a nice gift wrap for a billion quid.... please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
Maybe. All I know is, if Spurs ever do win a major trophy in my lifetime, it will mean a lot more than when others have won it as we will have fully deserved it having mapped out a plan that started in 2001. The new stadium was first proposed in 2007. It took a decade to move the club to a place where it was financially strong enough to afford it. Don't begrudge the teams who are actually doing things the right way. There aren't many of us left at the top table.
I've not been that impressed with SKY of late, and am beginning to wonder if the armchair bubble is beginning to burst at the top. Especially them showing more of an interest in the EFL from next season. NOW TV which I watch SKY through are virtually giving away subscriptions now, well half price, and with more and more people using iptv to get around subscriptions, that deprives it of any chance of increased revenue - afterall everything comes at a price. You may think you are financially stable, but like when ITV Digital or whatever it was called went out of business, it nearly sent many a lower league club to the wall, such as my own, which it left with a £10 million pound debt back then, pocket money to you. Just hope you can keep up the loan payments on that nice shiney stadium of yours, if things were to change, covid being one example of how easily situations can change.
COVID didn't affect our payment schedule or debt load one iota, which is testament to how rigorous and methodical Levy is. I don't think the bubble has burst. It certainly has across the continent but the PL seems relatively unscathed. The bubble isn't a monopoly anymore and Sky have been very late in waking up to that fact. They'd be wise to start investing in other leagues, as the minute Amazon properly flex their muscle, Sky is dead in the water.
Funny you should mention Amazon, because they didn't buy any rights in the new contracts, so the bubble has certainly burst for them. Which is a shame really because I felt they were the best broadcasters of the big three.
Haven't Man Utd had to operate under the financial constraints of having their club leveraged in a purchase they didn't want? My, possibly incorrect, understanding is that not only do they operate within their means they are also paying off debts their owners saddled them with. The fact that they can still spend plenty is because they are footballing behemoth and the fact they've wasted most of it is kind of funny really. Also, don't Liverpool operate within their means?
