The Metro this morning reported that Man City are offering RVP £250,000 per week, this equates to 12mill per year, if the tax and other sundries are added the cost could be 16mill per year. So I wonder where they will get the money from to pay 10 more players similar amounts. Their income from gate receipts can only be @35 Mill per year against our 60 mill per year, I know of course TV money marketing etc. has to be added on but they cannot have as much income as we do. With Man U, loaded with debt, Chelsea needing a new stadium, ditto Liverpool. We should be in pole position. All this is depending on FFP, however if FIFA/UEFA do implement it seriously, we should be the richest club in the Premiership, That should translate into the best squad, which should start the trophies rolling in. AS LONG AS WE SPEND THE MONEY, thats not shouting by the way just emphasizing the main point. Is this logical optimism, or am I being delusional?
What will happen is the FFP rules will be ignored and UEFA will collapse - more than likely bribed to keep quiet. This is why I have been so vocal that City do not win the league. I have warned that they will just pay every decent player £150k-£250k per week and crowd their squad with 100 players - keeping them from thier rivals and loaning them out strategically where it suits. They have already started this, and them winning the league will make it easier for players to make the decision to go there. There are too many people wishing City to beat Utd. You might just be sorry you ever thought that. City have the potential to completely ruin our game. i find it particularly disgusting that this story would break in the last week of the season just before we try and get a CL qualifying spot. I might be cynical, but it would certainly make City's chances of getting RVP easier if we missed out on CL football.
I think it will take a few years for FFP to bite, and even then I doubt it will be strict enough for us to dominate. I think we will spend the money on 4-5 solid players. I think our best 11 are very nearly good enough, but we don't have enough depth. If we can find one superstar (and that may be someone improving next year, not necessarily a new signing) then the rest of the job is padding out the team with players that can rotate in.
We have revenues of over £200 Mill a year, so of course we could compete financially but only if the Board members allow us to do so. Silent Stan needs to put his money where his mouth isn't or butt out and let Usamov do it. Will it happen? Not with Wenger as manager or the Board as it is.
Football will go the way of the banks only with football clubs governments won't be bailing them out. People talk of Arsenal ONLY spending £125m per year on wages and Spurs ONLY spending £88m on wages. Or spurs record transfer ONLY being £16m...the money spent by Liverpool on Carroll, Henderson and Downing comes to around £70m after spending £7.5m on sacking Hodgson, City have bought countless players for over £25m, Chelsea spend more on sacking managers than most clubs do on transfers. If Uefa were serious they's state that each club can spend a maximum of say £80m or £100m on player wages in total... that way If you have a player on £16m per year you'll be paying some one else a **** load less. They could do the same with transfers...your squad can have a maximum amount spent on transfers. But that'll never happen as some clubs have way too much influence and more importantly UEFA (and FIFA) are more money grabbing than anyone else in football and aren't likely to kill their cash cows.
Salary caps are a good idea. The PL have put thing like the 25 man sqaud rule in place, which is utterly pointless, but they fail consistently to address the key issue of wages and as Arsene says 'financial doping'.
The rules of FFP are that no club is allowed to loose more than 36mill over 2 years, there is no way in hell that Man City or Chelsea can ever hope to get anywhere near that. If they are allowed to count grossly inflated stadium naming rights in the equation, then football is completely f**cked, Scottish football is a prime example of what happens when 2 teams dominate. I see little point in a league in which only 2 teams can realistically win. English football used to have 7 or 8 teams that had realistic chances of picking up silverware every year, if that changes attendances will inevitably fall. Supporters will be less inclined to pay expensive Satellite channel subscriptions, and the only people interested will be foreign asset strippers.
I think you might be right Also - what ever happened to the investigation into the Etihad stadium naming rights deal ? That was a litmus test for FFP
You do have to admit, if you were in RVP's shoes such an offer is very tempting, all right he's not a money grubbing mercenary, but even having said that, 250k a week, 12 million a year, that's got to make you think about taking such an offer. And with Mancity most likely winning the league, and being in Europe next year, he can genuinely convince himself as a professional that he's joining a top quality team that is challenging for major success.
if you think about it - all it would take is a nice invite to UEFA officials onto the Sheikhs yacht and a promise of investment in football. Job done. Thats life.
Even with that stadium deal they are nowhere near meeting FFP, that deal is only worth about 40 million a season, last season they lost 180 million (or something around that) and will be more next year, even with the champions league money, as the last set of accounts did not include the 2011 summer transfers.
Depends how they account for the £400m - it may not be accounted for as £40m per year. I guess we'll find out soon enough
The problem you refer to already exists... Man Utd 11, Blackburn 1, Chelsea 3 and Arsenal 4 ... the list of champions in the last 19 seasons...just 4 teams Only Portsmouth and Everton have won the FA cup since 1992 otherwise it's been Liverpool, Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal or city that's 7 teams. Even the league cup...only spurs in the last 10 years have won it ... apart from chelsea, united and Liverpool...in total thats only 8 different teams. In between 1972 and 1992 Liverpool dominated the league, with Derby, Leeds, Forest, Villa, Arsenal and Everton also winning it...that's 7 teams In the same period West Ham, Southampton, Sunderland, Arsenal, Ipswich, Man Utd, Liverpool, Tottenham, Everton, Coventry, Wimbledon & Leeds which is 12 teams In the 10 years before the prem the league cup was won by Liverpool, Forest, Oxford, Arsenal, QPR, Wednesday and Villa ... in total that's 17 teams It already is a problem.
Completely disagree with the first part. There comes a point with some of these footballers where that extra money won't mean that much, however obscene an amount it is. RVP has probably earned enough at Arsenal to be able to buy anything his heart desires. Money talks for some players but I just don't see RVP as one of those people. Worryingly, I agree far more with your second point. City are the upcoming team, no matter how dirty a manner in which they are going about it. Robin would have 3 years or so at the very top realistically competing for all competitions. Our signing of Podolski and apparent interest in other top players should hopefully convince him that this season we finally mean to step it up a (long overdue) gear. I don't think his loyalty is in doubt but we have to show him and the rest of the footballing world that we are a top club.
I'm honestly not being funny but how the **** can anyone tell the difference between £100 THOUSAND PER WEEK and £200,000? I get that if you doubled or trebled most people's salaries that they'd take it but **** me...top players on £100,000 per week are getting £5m per year. It's like Modric...gets £60k per week (£3m per year) getting his head turned by offers of £160,000 per week...how much ****ing money do these players want? This ain't an anti RVP rant ... I just seriously don't get it.
