Outside of the name change fiasco, the withholding of the ASI money pissed me off more than anything else. I could live with the lies, the insults, even the Airco debacle, but I found the misuse of that money a thoroughly shameful act.
You could say he stole twice, as the improvements to the away fans concourse should have been paid for by the SMC.
Really? When was the last time we took over 2,500 fans to a league match in the south? I thought that was a tremendous testament to City fans' loyalty and the value of reasonable ticket prices.
You see, rather than reading the first table as saying that in 13/14 clubs who'd just been relegated received the Year 1 figure, clubs who'd been relegated the summer before the Y2 figure, and so on, I would read that table as saying that if a club got relegated in 13/14 then in the next 4 years they would receive the figures given in the first table, and if they got relegated later they would receive the payments in the other table for the 3 years following that. That's how it has worked in the past, and before Ehab said anything there'd been no mention that this pattern was going to change. You don't receive solidarity payments if you're receiving parachute payments. The figures in that table show that relegated clubs have an amount deducted from their parachute payment for the solidarity payments, ie clubs receiving parachute payments are contributing to the amount received by the other clubs.
That's just comparing a team spending 1 year in the PL with one spending more than 1 season, both receiving parachute payments under the new deal. Us/Burnley/QPR are mentioned because our 4 years worth of payments are due to be £64M, which happens to work out as the same as the predicted amounts. It's basically just to say that if a team goes up and straight back down they won't benefit from the new deal being bigger (as all clubs previously got the same amount), but a club that's been there longer will benefit from the bigger deal if they get relegated as they'll receive an extra payment. He specifically gives our figure in the 2nd paragraph but says all the "new deal" figures are estimates, which again would suggest there's not been anything done that says the process has changed.
Ric, I really am not trying to justify what Ehab has said. I have said I accept that he may have got it wrong.
The average price of an away ticket is about £30, the idea was to ignore anything around that price and use the money to reduce the overpriced tickets to the same level (ie making £40 tickets £30), it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Whose idea? The stuff I saw from the Prem said it didn't want it just to be a reduction in ticket prices, as they were hoping for something with more imagination.
The FWG's idea, it's what people requested, was it not? If people came up with more imaginative ways to use it, then fine, but in the absence of any such idea being put forward, not giving us any benefit from it was a thoroughly ****e option.
I was thinking you were referring to the Prem that created the ASI fund. They are the ones I meant when I said they had explicitly said that reduced ticket prices wasn't what they were after.
The rules were very vague, but all nineteen of the other clubs spent it either on reduced ticket costs or reduced travel costs. Not spending any of it one the fans it's supposed benefit certainly was imaginative. As was the Brinks Mat robbery.
