http://www.leadersinfootball.com/blog/news/leaders-debate-football-finance-at-chelsea-fc/ It has recently been advertised that things are about to change in football regarding finances of clubs and clubs will need to break even at least, this is stop the rich owners like those off Man. City and Chelsea doing what they have done. How will this affect us? There have been comments this morning on this board that the owners want top 4 in the prem! Without investing heavily in players this will take a long time? The Fifa/Uefa plans are that the grounds & academies are not included within the restrictions of breaking even and that owners can invest as much as they like in youth, how will this work? Arsenal youth set up is all about buying in African and French teenagers!
Well I wondered whether the King Power Stadium was part of a cunning plan to get around this. I don't see why astute owners would turn down such a lucrative revenue stream as ground sponsorship, especially when we have contacts with such big companies as Air Asia and Singha Beer. Why would King Power put yet more of their money into the club by sponsoring the ground when they could get a little help? Well...could it be that by sponsoring the ground, King Power can inject fresh capital into the club and make it look like a legitimate revenue stream? As they are buying a service from the club, there is no way the ground sponsorship money can be seen as a loan. This is good in two ways, one it means King Power are genuinely putting money in without the club owing King Power money, and two, it can be accounted as money earned through advertising. What do yous think?
I think that LCFC should sponsor local coaches to complete L1 & L2 coaching qualifications at as many clubs as possible, the Leicester mutual league is one of the best in the country IMO and can only get better, the standard that some of the 6,7 & 8 y/olds are at now is unbelievable in the top two divisions of these leagues, but some of the coacheds need to be helped to improve. If we can improve the coaching right through the leagues then King Power and LCFC will be onto a winner. This is where it all starts?
I think you're right Stourbridge, the new rules would have neen one of the first issues spoken about when they bought the club. The renaming of the stadium is the way around it, Man City have done the same. Makes sense.
Stourbridge; I assume that to be the case as well. The new financial rules will make it harder for owners to simply 'give' the money to the clubs, which means new tactics are needed. In theory, it is possible that King Power could sponsor our stadium for say £100m per year. That would be classed as revenue, and not a 'gift'. Same with the shirt sponsorship, it will be relevant revenue rather than simply the owners ploughing it in. There is also no reason why the KP owners couldn't charge themselves, or their business acquitances, £5m per season ticket - again, revenue. However, I have heard that UEFA may well look at potential sponsorship deals and ticket sale which look dodgy, such as a massively inflated price compared to the norm, so it might not be so straightforward.
I think the proposed changes have already shored up that advertising loophole. It was suggested that a club owner could simply buy a shirt from the club shop for £100million/whatever and it would appear as revenue. Obviously this makes a mockery of the system. I think advertisement is certainly not as brash but it may be leading down the same path
Well Etihad have just agreed a £150m sponsorship of Man City's stadium - I don't assume there is anything stopping KP doing the same with our ground if they wanted to invest that much? I'm more concerned about the wage cap tbh - it'll be hard to get wages to below 70%. I guess that's why they want the stadium to be used outside of match days, to get the revenue in.
Yeah, I think we might see a lot more of owners re-naming stadiums and shirt sponsors for the club as an obvious way to bypass these laws. I also read that UEFA might investigate these deliberately inflated prices but what can they do - after all something is only worth what someone is willing to pay. It's good anyway because I don't like these financial fair play rules because, on the face of it they seem like a good idea but it's just UEFA's way of making sure that the big clubs always qualify for the competitions and it just creates a hierachy in football that means clubs can't challenge those higher than them. These break even rules don't really come into force until 2015 as UEFA realised that many top clubs like Barcelona, Real and Chelsea wouldn't qualify if they implemented as planned in 2012. They've now changed it to allow £45 million losses the first two years and then £30 million the next to make sure the big clubs qualify. The idea itself isn't a bad one but the way UEFA are implementing it is a joke and it should be based on the debts accured by clubs as that is the real problem.
