I read that this morning and it seems a little bit hypocritical for Manchester United to be looking for it. I'm 100% convinced they are upset that they can no longer hoover up the best players unopposed. Even if the FFP rules come in, its going to make it a fairer fight. Chelsea and Manchester City may be limited in what they can spend, but they are forgetting about Liverpool and Arsenal. Arsenal are probably the only self sufficient club in the PL at the moment, and Liverpool are making great strides behind them cutting costs and improving the commercial port-folio by 300% in the last year. Even with the FFP rules Manchester United are still going to be hamstrung by their interest repayments. They will still be in debt.
It's the debt issues I think people dislike. Yes it is controllable debt, but still, can't be healthy to live in constant debt, that must be paid back one day. As for ffp, its all a joke, Arsenal and now Liverpool are the only mugs who think UEFA will actually do anything about it. Whilst Chelsea buy another 10 attacking midfielders, cutting off all hope of youth coming through and city paying everyone as much as they like to sit on the bench.
This. Rangers have already been booted out of Europe and dropped three divisions for poor financial management, Pompey booted out and dropped two divisions. I wonder, if you asked the Pompey fans, would they happily trade one FA Cup for what looks likely to be many years of financial problems and struggling to stay afloat? Also most people forget how uncompetitive the big spenders have made the league. Back in the 90s any number of clubs were able to compete at the top - Villa, Norwich, Blackburn, Newcastle, Leeds and Forest all finished top three or four, and you were never sure how the league would turn out until the season started. But since Abramovich came in it has been Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool in the top four almost every season until recently when City have replaced Liverpool. And no signs that is likely to change at any point in the near future. I can see the argument about FFP only serving to reinforce the hegemony of the top clubs with big revenues like Arsenal and Utd. But not having FFP doesn't address that issue at all, all it does is expand the big boys club to include the few clubs with mega rich owners, whilst at the same time pulling the ladder even further out of everyone else's reach.
The fact is though, although I appreciate a lot of football fans don't like it, is that most big clubs such as LFC and United are run as businesses now and most successful businesses do have debt ( about getting the gearing levels correct ). It will certainly be interesting to see if the FFP rules have any effect at all on what is currently happening.
When you say people dislike the debt, I assume you mean fans of Utd? Most fans of other clubs seem quite happy Utd are in debt, as it has stopped us running away with the league for pretty much all of the last six seasons. Look at how close the margins were in 09/10 and last season. Then imagine Utd had no debt and £50 million more to spend on players and wages... As for FFP being a joke, haven't a couple of Turkish clubs already been banned from Europe for their transfer dealings? Seems like it's already having an impact even tho' it's not fully in place yet.
Disliked by utd fans for reasons of being in debt and disliked by others for not being punished by it. I still think ffp should lean on clubs to promote from within a lot more. At least utd and Liverpool have something in common there.
Punished in what way? We are already spending around a seventh of our revenue on debt, which is more than we usually spend on transfers. Is that not punishment enough?
I agree with most of what you've said. However the FFP has to include all parts of the balance sheet. If a club has x interest repayments, it surely can't invest that amount as its gone. I made this point previously that if a club earns £220 million in revenue and pays out £200 million in overall expenses including interest repayments on loans taken out, then it should only have £20 million left to invest. There can be no ''We have a large interest repayment x but we've got operating profit of x''. Sorry thats a contradiction. Sorry interest repayments have to be included as expenditure right now.
That depends on what the debt is used for. Under FFP rules: "Finance costs such as interest payments are included, but not if they relate to borrowing taken on to construct "tangible fixed assets" such as stadia, training facilities etc." So on that basis Utd's debt would be included, Arsenal's mortgage on the Emirates would be excluded. It's a pretty moot point anyway. The only reason a club would take on debt would be if there's no owner to provide funds. In which case it would be impossible for the club to spend more than it earned, without going into administration. At which point they are out of Europe anyway, so there would be no need to worry about the FFP implications.
Show me why this is bollocks! Show me the books to confirm spending 20 odd mill on veron, stam, ferdinand and Gooney came from and how your books are balancing perfectly now! I'll sit and wait while you contact the OT accountants for access to the 'proof' that the moeny has always been there - Doubt you'll be bale to find any internet content or accounts to substantiate your claims - Now kindly jog on!
Thats correct. The Glazers didn't take out loans to provide funds though than thats whats upset many people, they took out a loan to purchase it in the first place. Everything they put in is borrowed. Rumour has it the PIK repayments was from borrowed cash. Therefore it has to be included, there is no hiding from that,
I'm not sure what part of FFP is currently going to be applied to the Premier League - I thought all of it but obviously not -but wages don't count until 2014, which is roughly when Fergie will supposedly retire. It seems wages are his biggest problem under the Glazers. With EUFA having a Champions League ban as their biggest sanction it seems the only teams affected are those likely to challenge for CL places. Of course Fergie's lapdogs at the LMA will all have a vote but they can't do anything about EUFA's regulations so it'll be small potatoes, really. And even if they decide to do something it won't be this season or next, which will take us up to 2014, by which time the Utd squad erosion may already have diminished their earnings and possibly seen them slip out of the top 4. No wonder Skidmark's ****ting himself. Again.
Chelsea have total wages in excess of £200m and city £300m a year, that is nowhere near sustainable.
http://production.investis.com/manutd/findata/reports/annrep04/annrep04.pdf Man Utd post tax profits in 2004 were £27.3 million, and in 2003 they were £39.3 million. Easily enough to fund up to £30 million of spending on players every season. Now what was it you were saying? Oh yes, you can kindly jog on! The PIKs were the Glazer's personal debt. Why should personal debt be included on the football club's balance sheet? That would be like saying "John Henry has a mortgage, this must be included on Liverpool's balance sheet" Where did you pluck that one from? Only wages of contracts signed before 2010 aren't included in the first monitoring period, cos the contracts were signed before FFP was implemented. Besides which this debate has nothing to do with applying UEFA's FFP to the PL, it's about the PL creating its own FFP proposals, which could be completely different from UEFA's. Try to keep up
Got me thinking then about who's made the top 4 since 1990: Club No. of top 4 finishes Manchester United 21 Arsenal 20 Liverpool 14 Chelsea 11 Newcastle United 5 Leeds United 5 Blackburn Rovers 3 Tottenham Hotspur 3 Aston Villa 3 Manchester City 2 Sheffield Wednesday 1 Crystal Palace 1 Everton 1 Norwich City 1 Nottingham Forest 1
In 2004 you spent Tevez-32 (million) Hargreaves18 Carrick-18 Nani-17 Anderson-17 Vidic-7 Evra-7 Rooney-27 Kindof equates to more than the £30 million you claim to have spent there Swarbs...You jogging yet son!!
To get an even fairer league they should reverse the prize money so that the teams who finish lower down the league can be more competitive the year after. This would never wash with the likes of Man Utd who are only interested in keeping other clubs small and non-competitive.
