Are Chelsea and City onfield success just side effects of a false economy?

Compared to the investment at City and Chelsea it was small.

We can go round and round in circles using inflationary figures, either to show that it doesn't take into account other factors and should be more, or to highlight that comparatively applied retrospectively it would show huge amounts that come nowhere near what has been invested at Arsenal compared to City.

I can only offer you a compromise, Arsenal have benefited from investment of course. But I firmly maintain that it is nowhere near the level both financially or contextually that has totally transformed City and Chelsea. You simply cannot compare the two.

 

No, I don't want "PURE" inflationary figures, because PURE inflationary figures can never account for the much-higher than inflation increases we've seen in football pretty much since it's inception. Transfer fees, wages (at least since the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961), and to a lesser extent ticket prices, have all risen at a much higher rate than inflation over the years.

Meaning that using the rate of inflation falls flat on it's backside when it comes to football.

For example, a £15m record transfer in 1996 (Shearer to Newcastle) doesn't equate in inflation terms to the £29m transfer of Ferdinand to United in 2002.

United's value of £20m in 1989 doesn't equate in inflation terms to their £2 billion value in April 2013.

Just as a £50m valuation in the early 90s doesn't equate to nigh on £90m today. Today, when a promoted club can spend £15m plus on a player only in the hope that they stay in the division, and back in the early 90s, Blackburn can spend £3.6m on a striker in the hope of winning the Premier League (which was what ultimately happened). When a top class striker would cost a few million, to today a top class striker costing 10 times that amount.

Do you see how £50m back in the early 90s was then a significant amount, just as £500m today is regarded to be?

That's my point. Inflation in its PUREST sense doesn't account for that. Simply because the value, the money in football has shot through the roof since then.

 

It's more detrimental to City and Chelsea than it will ever be to Arsenal. I would like to know how a club that runs losses year after year (while we actually spend the money we earn) can be to our detriment? Surely this is just another illogical point to make out Arsenal fans are in some way jealous of a the false economy that exists within Chelsea And City. With all due respect ripely you are clutching at some serious straws as are the Chelsea and City fans who are soaking up your gospel with open mouthed admiration.

When City and Chelsea pay off their debts they owe to Mansour and Roman then I'll say hey these guys deserve respect for their achievements. That day will not happen in my life time and I doubt it will ever happen.

It seems as if these fans actually believe the money invested in their clubs from these billionaire businessmen is free. It's a bit like the recording artist who spends a **** load on a really expensive video in the hope it will make a **** song a number one hit. Ok so the song gets to number one but the record company now want all the money back they invested in the artist. The problem for the artist is that they now owe the record company such a large amount that the previous number one means **** all. The record sales can't even subsidise the amount of money the artist spent to make that **** song a hit.

There is no business structure at Chelsea or City. They are too far in their respective financial holes already and their fans choose to ignore it than face up to reality. I guess it's easier than admitting your club is literally verging on financial free fall at any given moment.

 

The figures I was using were based on inflation, wage increases, cost of living etc, from the Bank of England, but I agree that Football is a financial landscape unto itself, largely skewed by City and Chelsea. That said, you simply cannot equate £50m in the 90s being worth £500m today, that is just pure speculative wishing based on very little evidence.

Even if that £50m were worth considerably more than its inflationary value of £90m it would wouldn't be worth anything like the 1bn pumped into City and Chelsea respectively. It's not even close and this is the point, your claim that there was 'no difference' is wrong.

Also when you take into consideration that Arsenal were at or near the top at the time of Fizman's investment and that they used the money to give better contracts to existing players and consolidate their position which was based on merit, you can again see the difference from what happened at City and Chelsea which took loss making mid table clubs and artificially propelled them to the top of the league.

 

This is a good analogy in as much that it's using money to artificially engineer a situation that otherwise wouldn't exist - i.e. without the money, Chelsea and City would not have had the success.

Where the analogy ends though is that unlike the recording artist, Chelsea and City are not required to pay the money back. It's a completely false economy and FPP has been brought in to try and counter it.

 

Your £90m valuation of Fizman's investment is ridiculous and you know it, P.

When the £50m investment was brokered in the mid 90s, Bergkamp was £7m, he would be £45m now.

And keane went for £3.75m. Andy Carroll went for £35m!!!

So Fizman's investment is worth a lot more than £90m.

Wages have gone up seven fold too. From keane and bergy on £20k a week to £150k or more a week

 

arsenals turnover was only £20m at the time which shows how farcical a picture piskie insists on portraying
hypocrisy,pure and simple

 

Our revenue was more than theirs in the 90s and 00s pre roman bar one season:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League

Conveniently forgotten by gunners

 

Wikipedia

 

I don't really see what this proves, other than it took a £2bn spend and £629.7m in losses (if this, also based on Deloitte figures is anything to go by) from Roman to stay ahead of Arsenal’s business income over that time period.

 

Not sure what you are saying here. I think Arsenal fans do forget that Arsenal were no bigger than 6 or 7 clubs pre-90s, and it was Wenger and the current (and previous) directors that have made us a "Big Club", but it hardly shows you are deserving of the obscene amounts of money that is spent buying the league by your billionaire owner.

The real problem is that your club makes football more expensive for everyone else, as the clubs without a massively rich owner have to put up prices, or fail to compete.

That Man City fans then complain about the price of a ticket at the Emirates, is just ignorant. Our own fans complaining is somewhat justified, but they shouldn't be complaining about our owners, they should be complaining to the Chelsea and City owners.

This is why people complain about the super-rich owner system, and say it is bad for football and fans. It really isn't just about the competition, there are a lot more negative impacts, than just skewing the odds of winning.

I really can't see why any lover of football would support Chelsea or Man City, they really are evil. I hate them far more than Manchester United or even Spurs. Just a bunch of plastic fans who want to say they support a winning team, no matter what the cost to English football, and everyone else.

Supporters of these clubs are prostitute fans bought by their owners. You are there to masturbate your owner's egos, just like the players.

 

And Arsenal fans are there to line their owners/shareholders pockets

 

Arsenal were regarded as one of the "big 5" pre the 1990's

 

No, not really, our shareholders reap the rewards of their shares going up, but they hardly take any money out. Certainly not enough to compensate them for they amount they would be earning on their money if it were invested somewhere else.

When is it your turn to give your rich owner his ****job? Better do it or he will take his money out!

You may not like it, but you will be on your knees in front of him, whores always eventually realize what they are, even if they live in denial for a while.

 

Yes, but the difference in the financial position was not significant back then. That group was decided more by history than financial muscle. Arsenal may have had an edge, but money was nowhere near as important to winning as it is today.

Edit: That is why we have the debate about whether clubs should be known as a "Big" club. The standard of how to decide has changed.

 

The Arsenal shareholders are paid no dividends so take nothing out of the club unlike certain club owners who milk the club to subsidise their other business interests

 

The club has passed the cost of your stadium on to yuppie fans with your outrageously priced Club tier tickets that cost silly money.
Unlike a well run like Bayern that developed its commercial wing and keeps ticket prices down.

The club have failed to keep pace with the commercial side of the game, that is why it is a joke when people say arsenal is the best run club in England. Chelsea Liverpool both make more commercially than arsenal.

Plus you have sold to your soul to the emirates for stadium rights too because you can't rip Tarquinius off any more for tickets

 

A chelsea fan talking about losing ones soul. Please dont project your issues upon us dear boy.

 

On the one hand you try to claim that Arsenal haven't developed their commercial revenue and in the same breath then try to slate us for developing a commercial deal with Emirates that boosts our revenue.

 

It is based on the Bank of England's figure for inflation, wage increases, cost of living. But I agree that Chelsea and City's behaviour has skewed the figures out of all proportion now days.

What you seem to conveniently forget though is that unlike you and city, we didn't spend ridiculous amounts of money for established players, we developed them, so your valulation for Bergkamp is based on what ? What he would be worth if we sold him today ? Because when we bought him and players like Henry and Vieira, they were not the household names we made them into and did not command huge transfer fees.

What you also seem to conveniently gloss over is the very reason that transfers and wages have gone through the roof is precisely because Chelsea and City have artificially skewed the market with obscene amounts of money.

So I repeat again, you cannot use the swollen figures of football finances of today and then try to retrospectively apply them to the mid nineties and somehow arbitrarily come up with an assumption that £50m then would have been like Fizman investing £500m today and try to claim that it gave us a huge advantage over other clubs.

It's a completely different set of parameters and an entirely different approach from the sugar daddy windfall that Chelsea and City have taken. We earned our success through a mixture of sound and affordable investment, buying little known players and developing them, developing our youth policy and having a manager who brought revolutionary tactics and style to the whole of the premier league.

You and City have simply bought your way to the top, because before the money you were both average clubs who were nowhere near the top. Your success is arbitrary, Roman Abramovich was considering buying Spurs before he got Chelsea and if they had benefited as you have, you'd and other Chelsea fans would be the first to point that the money got them to that position.