http://www.twtd.co.uk/news.php?storyid=20142&title=jewell:_football_must_learn_to_cut_its_cloth Interesting article on the introduction of next years "Financial Fair Play" rules and how it will effect Town and all similar Championship clubs. We can only spend what we generate which is fair enough but then surely an arguement can be made for all relegated clubs from the Premier League NOT recieving parachute payments and definately not for 4 years! Why should the bigger clubs get away with claiming even more money when clubs like us will have to work within strict financial criteria? I do not advocate us throwing money around but the fact is that we need to compete for the best players and how will we do this if we under strict financial rules? We will end up with the same clubs at the bottom of the PL being replaced by the same clubs at the top of the Championship. It seems to me that the Premier League is fast becoming a closed shop by design and all that will end up happening is the big clubs with big financial turnovers will be the only ones left in the PL or challenging for the PL. Can you imagine the Man Utd's, Liverpool's and Chelsea's being affected by this new ruling! They are in debts up to their eyeballs and yet they can spend with freedom. Competitive football is fast going down the tubes and clubs like us will suffer the most!
IF and it is a bif IF, the powers that be actually do the job properly and dont let the big boys get away with stuff then I have no problem. They reckon promotion is worth £60m so it allows considerable scope for the newly promoted teams to play with. It also means the teams already there cant suddenly invest new wealth to ensure they stay up. The parachute payments should have made the job of getting promoted impossible already so I have no real issues about the difficulty of getting up to the top league being made worse than is currently the case. The biggest problem really is the Sky/ TV money. The amount they invest in the premier league means revenue streams are really skewed. You look at the amount they can add onto the income of a club and it can equate to a very large amount of money. Clubs can sort their own sponsorship/ kit deals/ stadium naming etc and so the income streams are under their own control (ie they get the best THEY can) but then we are all forced to accept a tv package which is all aimed at supporting the big guys.
How will this affect the big benefactors like our Marcus Evans? IF our attendances continue to drop and we are not generating sufficient cash, will ME still be allowed to fund the shortfall? This is a recipe for disaster! Seems to me that under these rules there will be no allowances for rich benefactors to pump in their cash to keep clubs afloat. Worrying times if you are a supporter of a club that has to rely on the financial muscle of a rich benefactor!
I'm with you, I don't condone million/billion-aires pumping money into clubs to gain an unfair advantage but surely they can get around these regulations by sponsoring their own club, much like we and Man City are doing now. Just sponsor the club with your other business (ME or Etihad) for a ridiculous amount to increase the clubs revenue and come into line with the regulations
It was said at the time that it was announced that owner related sponsors would have to pay a realistic rate. I would imagine in Man Cities case they would have a deal that would be in line with the top clubs around Europe. At our level I'm not so sure. I imagine we could be seen in many different ways depending on how size is gauged. JWM. I think the whole point of the legislation was so that clubs had to operate as true businesses and not as rich mens toys. It means all clubs have to be sustainable and although I think it is trying to get rid of the 'millionaires' that put clubs like Pompey, Notts County and Rangers at threat it will also impact on the more sensible owners like ME and the gent from Notts Forest.
UEFA are looking at tightening up the rules to prevent the Man City/Leicester City type stadium sponsorship deals, which are quite obvious attempts to circumvent the new rules. I don't think the Premier League will become any more of a closed shop than it is already, three teams will go up, three teams will come down. The teams that come down often do really badly, the teams that go up normally have a job staying in the race, but clubs seem to be finding their feet and certainly this season the promoted teams are playing pretty well. If anything, I think things have improved recently and if these new rules stop situations like the fiasco that is Pompey, then they can only be a good thing.
Isnt FFP just to get into Europe, you overspend you cant get in Europe, very little chance of a Championship club getting into Europe anyway (yes cup competitions I know, but it still wont stop you signing Championship-Lower League players) The Owners can pump in as much as they can afford, and just hope you dont get Europe within 3 years, or you get into the PL, get that 60 million and that will offset the layout that the owner done the previous year-3 years..
The FA are implementing the same fair play rules in the league, as EUFA are implementing in Europe, so it will apply to everyone.
Well thats news to me, last year it didnt effect the league at all, so that means teams can get thrown out the league then, cant see how that will work at all tbh.
OLM Sorry but I totally disagree - this could be the death knell for smaller clubs who dont have the power to generate major resources just solely from their income.
WCP I dont think that would be a problem. I think that for once UEFA, FIFA and the FA have actually come up with a fairly sensible idea. It should safegaurd a clubs future if another portsmouth/ Rangers come along no matter how dodgy the owner, the club can still exist if the owner disappears. The major downside is that anybody who is truly interested in taking the club onto the next level is going to have to do so without purely chucky money at it. We may welcome the ME cash but if he walked away tomorrow chances are we would be straight into administration as we are losing £10m a season in round figures. I dont see how anybody can be unhappy about a plan that should safegaurd the club and their creditors long term as long as all clubs have to abide by the same set of regulations.
Could ME buy a player and pay his wages and then loan said player to ipswich who do not pay him or own him.
Arent 3rd party ownerships banned in the UK. Wasnt that part of the whole Tevez problem originally. I reckon there will be ways around it but in general it will just seem similar to the 80's/ 90's before the rich sugar daddy era took off whereby clubs will have to sell players to balance books etc. I doubt it will afect that many clubs really. The obvious ones outside the big boys are us, leicester and Crawley. I would hope that sensible bank arrangements are allowed and that cash can be generated outside of football terms as long as it is done by the football club. The use of grounds for concerts and conferences etc should be allowed to continue and help to top up revenue.
Simple solution, don't pay players ridiculous amounts of money That's what you feel FIFA are trying to get away from. Salary caps were obviously harder to implement than the financial fair play regulations. Given time I expect and hope that we will see an end to players earning hundreds of thousands a week and instead players will play for the love of the game. If that does happen I think football will be a more enjoyable sport for all involved.
Personally, I think the new rules on compensation for nicking academy players, that the Premier League have forced through, will have a far bigger impact on finances of smaller clubs than the fair play rules will ever have. Clubs like Blackpool have got to the Premier League on a shoestring, while clubs like Leicester have spent loads and still done ****, I don't think the fair play rules will have that much impact on the Championship clubs trying to get into the Premier League. I see the ability of the Premier League clubs to nick promising youngsters from, them for a couple of a hundred grand, to be a far bigger issue.
Good point about the academy compensation rules Both combined will certainly have an adverse affect on football league clubs thats for sure.
Agree 100% - the new compensation rules are going to have a huge impact. The amount we paid Tranmere for compensation for Cresswell is probably about 10 times more than under the new rules and we still got a bargain but it probably helped pay Tranmere's wages for a couple of months. Why is there a need to change this system? On the fair play also agree - We are the prime example of spunking loads of money on continuing to be useless. The one thing it may actually do is bring real managers to the fore. No longer will a Keane/ Sven like character be able to just chuck money at improving a squad. For every Newcastle that goes up there is normally a blackpool there or there abouts.
