Just read the first article I've come across where the writer has begun to realise some of the potential at Southampton FC, and realised we may not be a flash in the pan. Apologies if posted before: http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/31792
Don't really know about all the FFP stuff, as I don't fully understand the issues, but in principle I find Cortese's stand hard to defend on that. But I do know I trust the guy as far as I'd trust any club chairman. The most important issue long term is that any investment in Saints' future has to be sustainable. In the short term, I shall continue to affect amused skepticism, somewhat levened by a growing sense that anything is possible.
The problem with FFP is that it will be overturned sooner or later, it's only a matter of time. Football is a business and you can't stifle company competition it's unfair and the European Union is setup to promote a competitive business market.
You say you can't "stifle competition" yet governments intervene in markets all the time. In the UK the Monopolies and Mergers Commission exists precisely to ensure open competition, and to prevent markets being dominated by one or two big players. FFP seems to me to be just that, an attempt to ensure greater competition on a more level playing field. I dare say it's flawed in practice if not in principle, but I'm not an adherent of the philosophy that says just let the market rip.
I don't understand how this FFP ruling is actually fair. (or anything about it really - please someone explain) As I understand it, no club is allowed to spend more than a certain percentage of it's earnings? Every club in the premiership earns the same from TV, each club earns a different amount from it's gate receipts and each club earns drastically different amounts from shirt sales etc and sponsors. Therefore all the big clubs with vast earnings from promotional sales and sponsors will still have all the money and still be able to buy all the best players? Smaller clubs like Southampton won't be allowed to invest to compete with the big clubs so won't win anything so won't get the sales in China or the sponsors. So everything stays the same. We can have the best academy and sell it's products to the big clubs and make some money but they end up with the best players again. Everything stays the same. Can we persuade all our talent to stay? Aren't the big clubs going to do the same but better as they have the cash and the prestige? Seems we need the Chinese to buy a million Southampton shirts and scarves a year for it to be fair. Should we follow Cardiff Citiy's lead and change our name to "Southampton's Chinese Dragons"? or is Nicola objecting to something else?
Nicola knows it favours the big clubs because of their higher sponsorship and sales earnings outside earnings from football. He says he hopes to increase our outside earnings by 70-100%, but the gap will still remain. As he intends to run the club correctly, I'm sure he sees no reason for us to be punished because others can't run a business.
It's mostly the PL's version that Cortese has a problem with. In Europe, if you boost your revenues your payroll can jump accordingly; with the pseudo-cap that the PL has created, it locks the big teams in at a much higher threshold (whatever they were paying at the time the regulation came into place, with annual increases), while the smaller teams are allowed only incremental jumps from the 52m initial cap no matter what happens with their finances. Thus, we could theoretically find ourselves making Champions League and yet restricted to spending a fraction of the money allowed for a traditional big club, even if they miss out on Europe entirely. It might not be a terribly likely scenario, but Cortese is right; UEFA's FFP is riddled with problems, but the general conceit -- that teams cannot spend more money than they have -- makes sense. The Premier League's does not...it codifies inequity irrespective of a team's earnings.
Interesting first sentence of that article. From what I read at the time the PL clubs had their vote on the FPP last season, it was Abramovich's last minute change of heart that saw it passed through in the first place. Had Roman voted against it like originally planned, as we did and Man City did (and a small handful of others, WBA and Fulham included I believe), then the proposals would not have received enough yes votes to pass.
Maybe he regrets his choice now, with the disaster of not being able to sell Stanford bridge to help build a new stadium.
