the difference is big. xavi gave an official interview to the Barcelona website and they published it - with incredibly obvious tapping up of another teams player. this is close to against the rules, but as it's a player and not a club representative, you can't report them. man city are also not playing by the rules. wenger was asked what he thought of it, and he didn't say "they're cheating," he said it would require investigation and perhaps Arsenal had undersold their naming rights. what you want him to have said, and what he actually said, are pretty different things.
Also, Arsenal's shareholders have been reinvesting the dividends back into the club to pay off the stadium debt. So that renders just about everything you've said as complete Bollocks
I can hardly believe what a ridiculous point of view this is. The teams that are playing fair and spending only the money they have are being penalised by Rich owners spending their own money and totally distorting the transfer market. Player wages would not be in excess 150K a week if it wasnt for City and Chelsea, other properly run teams would be able to afford good players and ticket prices would not be through the roof. Rich owners are causing this football inflation and ruining the game for teams and fans alike. Soon if you are not a City or Chelsea fan you can expect to never see your team have a chance of winning the league, forget it Villa, blackburn and Newcastle fans (all former recent winners or close to winners). At least if the league was governed by genuine football revenue only there are probably 10 teams that could realistically win the title.
The point is Topgun, every established Team, has spent big to a). Become Established and b). Stay there. Arsenal Fans would be forgiven for forgetting about the days of Henry Norris, Herbert Chapman et al, it was a long time ago, but it is far from irrelevant. Arsenal, having won bugger all for the best part of half a century, moved to a new location to attract more fans, and spent enormous amounts of money, breaking Transfer Records left right and centre, and paying Players crazy salaries through nefarious channels. And guess what, they started winning and grew the fanbase. Move it forward 70/80 years and Arsenal maintain their lofty position by outspending 85/90% of the Premier League, and virtually all of European Teams, with a Budget (combined Salary+Net Transfer Fees) that simply blows the wannabes away. Read up about AC Milan, without question one of Europes most glamorous and successful Clubs, and universally considered as one of the Elite, and where they were when Berlusconi arrived, they had only won one Scudetto in a generation, and were trailing behing their more illustrious neighbours Inter, he simply followed the pattern of Norris, and the rest is History. Old money, always started off, as nouveau riche
So are you trying to tell me that poor old City are a little club that has never generated enough money to compete! Don't talk nonsense they have been a huge English club for a very long time with a large fan base and large revenue / potential revenue. They have just been poorly run with a bad business model, and squandered their resources. Dont try and paint a poor little City couldn't compete picture. Also I take it you agree that City and Chelski have massively inflated wages and transfer fees?
You are totally changing your tact now, your viewpoint seems to have changed and evolved almost completely. I am in agreement with most of your latest post. I have no objections to clubs investing their own money back in to their club in an attempt to grow. That is exactly what Arsenal have been doing for many years, the prevous directors took no dividends from the club. I very much doubt that the money that "The Bank of England" Arsenal invested in the 30's came from private sources. The foundations of our sucess, came from the club, and good clever management and business, perhaps a little manouvering, which is the sketchy bit you are making reference to. Your previous posts seem to suggest its completely fine for the owners to pump in hundreds of millions from their own finances, which are completely unsustainable by the football club.
Sorry just noticed the latest post was jayram!! I dont agree with Schofield for the reasons I have stated!
PNEawf I have been saying this for yrs but the only way that that will happen is if each country that is a member of UEFA. agrees to it, and their will be people saying it will be against the rules of the European Community. So if bringing in a maximum wage acrooss Europe for football players is wrong then so must FFPR be wrong. They are just different sides of the same argument. If a club challenges UEFA and wins its case, because they will say it is a restraint of trade, and if we want to make either a huge profit or a loss surely that's a matter for the mangement of the club to decide and not UEFA to tell us what we can and cannot do as regards our club. How would you Arsenal fans feel if UEFA turned round and said that from next season you cannot go and bring and youngesters from abroad unless you provide their parents with jobs in your club. Arsene is costantly scouring the globe looking for children to bring to the club. So if Arsene finds 3 kids he then has to get the club, to not only provide the family with housing but also find jobs for the parents, and in this current climate that would be very difficult thing to do.
Topgun, Berlusconi and Norris spent money they could afford, their respective Clubs were on their proverbial arses.
you miss the point. the penalty for not obeying the rules is exclusion from champions league / uefa cup. these are INVITATION competitions. you have no right to take part in them. if uefa decides they don't want to invite you, they don't have to, and you have no comeback - courts or otherwise.
I have responded to two different points, but to be clear, I am saying that Owners should be able to spend their own money on whatever they like. And that Clubs who claim to be 'self-sufficient' have only got to that point by overspending in the first place.
There should be a wage cap introduced or some ruling along with the FFPR that clubs have to be self sufficient or can only spend a set percentage of their income on wages and transfers. Yes this may result in the bigger clubs having more clout but clubs like bolton stoke sunderland newcastle and everton will also become more competitive over time as they are also well followed clubs and will may be able to get players that maybe the bigger clubs cant fit into their already over stretched budgets. IMO this may make things a little fairer instead of clubs like city chelsea and to a certain degree united dominating the marketing like they have done who many years now! Clubs that are in breach of these UEFA rules (and they would have to be UEFA rules as ALL leagues would have to agree to them - which would be the difficult part) should be barred from european competition and even docked points as a further kick up the arse that these rules are serious! Thats just my opinion
They do it in other sports. F1 for example, the cars have to meet strict regulations about the equipment used to ensure that one team doesn't have a massive advantage. I think a wage cap would be a good idea in football, I'd also be a fan of seeing a transfer fee's being determined by another body other than the clubs/agents. That would ensure parity across the board and clubs like Chelsea and City couldn't just snaffle up players for £30m and on £200k per week, simply to prevent their rivals from buying them.
Agreed! Every other team sport has some sort of wage cap or restriction in place except football. Rugby Union, Rugby League, Cricket even big american sports like baseball, basketball and american football have some sort of cap system designed to stop teams getting an unfair advantage over another! Just another example of where football is being left behind!
I do not know about arsenal, but man united have always operated within their profit, we have never been gifted money for free, we spent what we earnt, like anyone does, all legitimate unlike city!!
Sorry all you Arsenal fans but Arsene Wenger has no right what so ever to question what gose on in another football club. he should worry about trying to keep his own house in order, and that includes himself. Arsene is starting to lose the plot and the season hasn't even started. Perhaps next time a commentator asks Arsene a question about a player he is persuing he should just keep his big mouth shut. After all he is now complaing that Roberto Mancini shouldn't reply to a question about Nasri, if he didn't reply the papers would just make up their own story. if thats the case that RM shouldn't talk about Nasri then Arsene shouldn't have mentioned City's deal with Etithad, with this in mind Pot, kettle and Black spring to mind. All that Arsene wants is that it is all right for him to talj about any other club but no other manager should talk about Arsenal, talk about being two faced. I can't decide at the moment, who of the managers Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson is thw biggest moaner and wingger in the prem, the way it is going Arsene is going to win it by a country mile.
can you not tell the difference between "we will sign this player by the end of the month" and "this should be investigated to ensure that it's all ok?" if city are found to have been honourable and sold their rights for a fair price, to a legitimate company, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about. surely you should want fair and proper practise within the sport? or do you just want to win everything all the time? what wenger said, has now been echoed by Liverpool, and i'm sure it is privately by many other clubs. because it seems dodgy. surely it's disrespectful if man city are setting up dodgy dealings just as much as it is to question if they are?
