We are all quite familiar with the pompey bashing on this subject, but what about Birmingham. While Carson is still drying out the bank notes, they can't submit their paperwork. Yet, the day before the deadline they bulk out their squad with a few loan players. Talk about playing the system. Rude.
What on earth are you on about, they aren't "getting away" with anything. Debt is a fact of life, it is servicing the debt that is the issue. There is nothing to stop clubs going into debt, provided you can service it and pay the taxman. They can, you couldn't....End of story. I couldn't afford a £300,000 house, so I took out a mortgage. I pay the Nationwide a portion of it, plus interest back each moth. If I fail to keep up with the payments, they reposses me. I cant go round crying about the guy up the road with the 400k mortgage and ask why they haven't repossed him yet. If the clubs you mention stop servicing their debt, or get a WUP from the HMRC, that they cant or dont want to pay, they will go into admin. Simple You're not Peter Storrie are you?
It's not so much that I think clubs who overspend shouldn't be punished - they should - or that I think points deduction doesn't serve some purpose in punishing those clubs - it does - its this sanctimonious attitude that emerges whenever points deductions occur that gets me going. When one club goes through major financial difficulty fans of other clubs swarm round it like vultures to say "you get what you deserve" and "that's what you get for overspending" as if that club alone in the history of football was the only one ever to overspend. You could go through the finances of every club in the Championship or Premier League and I bet you'd find most of them dont operate within their means but rely on rich benefactor to help them punch above their weight. Few people say a word against them, few say that its unfair to the fans of one clubs that another is overspending until that club collapses financially. In fact, most fans would welcome a rich owner because it would allow them to buy success, to improve the team and climb the leagues and they wouldn't spare a thought for how much debt was being amassed in the process. It seems hypocritical to me that fans swarm around to take shots at a club who suffer from overspending once their benefactors vanish and act so self-righteous when so many other clubs are doing exactly the same thing and they dont cry about that being unfair. In fact, most cases of club spending well beyond their mean in English football get completely overlooked and happen without one word said against it. Of course debt's a fact of life but nobody has any right to act as if point deductions is some kind of reparation to them because a rival club overspent when little to nothing was said about that overspending when it was happening and if it happened to their club then nine times out of ten they'd welcome it - the spending of X-millions of pounds that is, not the points deductions. As far as Pompey's situation is concerned I will refer you back to post #40 of this thread in which I said that Portsmouth's punishment is not unfair and nobody has said it is here.
There is no doubt many clubs who would stand to go bust if their owners demanded repayment of loans or refused to dip into their own pockets, but LDs point about the difference between having a debt and servicing it are fair. The main unfairness in the current arrangement in the fact that teams will play the same side at different points in the cycle and so, to give an example, Saints would feel more confident playing Pompey at Fratton Park this weekend than when they did play this fixture as they are without some players which they had then. But hang on a minute. We signed Billy Sharp from Doncaster in the window, which should make them a lot easier to beat, so how is that fair to the teams that played them before he moved? It may be that, to paraphrase Churchill, the points deduction is the worst system, apart from all the others.
