Financial Fair Play

beachryan

beachryan

Golden Boot Winner
4 July 2003
Bermuda
Now that Zenit have splashed 90m Euros on Hulk and Witsel, in the FFP period, combined with the fact that Gazprom are a big time UEFA sponsor - can we all agree that Platini et all are full of sh*t?

That ignores PSG's ridiculous spend too, no way would they meet the defined requirements. And rumour is that Platini's son is now employed at PSG.

Saddens me. No idea how clubs without sugar daddies are going to compete in the next decade. The only way to get marquee signings is to run at an operating loss - which is only sustainable for clubs that have some random person willing to give them money without any expectation of ever getting it back.
 
Zenit several windows Transfers nobody bought, and now for the prize of the Champions League, he can afford to buy two players.
 
This FFP thing were brought in to prevent clubs from spending more than they earn right? Basically they have to generate their own money in order to spend. Sorry but I can't see that happening when clubs like City, Zenit and PSG throw shitloads of money out the window.
 
The_Special_One said:
This FFP thing were brought in to prevent clubs from spending more than they earn right? Basically they have to generate their own money in order to spend. Sorry but I can't see that happening when clubs like City, Zenit and PSG throw shitloads of money out the window.
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Especially when said clubs do stuff like Buying the stadium rights to boost revenue, they can just fill their boots by using and abusing different Sponsorship routes etc.
 
The_Special_One said:
This FFP thing were brought in to prevent clubs from spending more than they earn right? Basically they have to generate their own money in order to spend. Sorry but I can't see that happening when clubs like City, Zenit and PSG throw shitloads of money out the window.
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City sold stadium naming rights and shirt sponsorship to Etihad, owned by the family of club's owner. As Taylor said, it surely exist a way to elude the FFP.

Enzo said:
2 years 100mil, thats 25 mil per window.. thats not much.. so don't include Zenit unless we pay 50 mil next summer.
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I think FFP is 'restored' every season so older seasons don't count, don't they?
 
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FFP : Their only means are not to allocate funds to Clubs .So, No 16m,20m , 25m and so on. Sugar daddy clubs wont be stop.
 
Well, in theory the rules are very complex and might be able to have an impact, but it won't be fully enabled until 2017 I think.
 
UEFA's Executive Committee unanimously approved a financial fair play concept for the game's well-being in September 2009. The concept has also been supported by the entire football family, with its principal objectives being:

• to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances;
• to decrease pressure on salaries and transfer fees and limit inflationary effect;
• to encourage clubs to compete with(in) their revenues;
• to encourage long-term investments in the youth sector and infrastructure;
• to protect the long-term viability of European club football;
• to ensure clubs settle their liabilities on a timely basis.
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http://www.uefa.com/uefa/footballfirst/protectingthegame/financialfairplay/index.html

The ultimate penalty is disqualification from European competitions. Other possible penalties originally included fines, the withholding of prize money, and transfer bans.[4] As of early 2012, however, UEFA has had to shelve plans to ban player transfers following legal advice, and it remains to be seen if other threatened sanctions will be taken in practice.
 
My problem with what happened today is that Russian and French teams can just buy star players from other teams in the Champions League, and those teams can't buy new players to replace them because the market is closed everywhere else.

That's some bullshit right there.
 
Chris00 said:
Well, in theory the rules are very complex and might be able to have an impact, but it won't be fully enabled until 2017 I think.
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No, this is the first season that starts to count (12/13). It's something like you can't have combined losses in the first two seasons of > 50m euros.

But, the urge to get money into football/UEFA's pockets >>> the urge to ensure clubs don't do a Leeds when a sugar daddy gets bored.

So yeah. Until one of these big ones (I guess Malaga isn't big enough) fails, it'll go on.
 
It's far too early to judge FFP.
I agree with airjorca on the the end of the transfer window. Porto and Benfica both lost important players and never could replace them. This is not fair.

All the talk about a biased Platini is bullshit IMO.

Take a look at the fans who are complaining about FFP: they are all fans of huge clubs. The biggest injustice is not the difference between clubs like Cheslea, Man City, PSG and clubs like Man Utd, Barcelona and Inter (just some examples). The biggest injustice is the difference between big clubs (like all those mentioned) and the other clubs.

The biggest injustice is the way the television money is divided. The traditional big clubs (the G14, and they are more than 14 clubs now) have started some sort of cartel that created a glass ceiling that can only be broken by clubs financed by sugar daddies. IMO those clubs and the conditions they created with their power are the reason sugar daddies emerged.

Look at Spain and Malaga.

How on earth is it possible to be compete with Real and Barcelona in a fair way? Clubs like Valencia, Sevilla and Atletico Madrid are midgets compared to Barcelona and Real Madrid. The way the money is divided they can compete one or two seasons and then it's over (look at Deportivo La Coruna and now Malaga). As long as there is no fair competition, it will be an illusion to have real FFP. Malaga wanted to compete with the giants and the only hope they had was by having some money from a sugar daddy. Are Malaga to blame, or is the system to blame? Of course the system is to blame. The very essence of sport is fair competition. The attraction of football is the fact that football is the sport (or i should say the game) where the underdog is most likely to have a chance to beat the favourite. This scarcely happens in other more athletic sports like cyclism (and that is the reason why athletes take drugs). By creating this glass ceiling the G14 have dameged the very essence of football.

Oh and the outrage is very very selective. Now that Zenith has bought Hulk and Witsel, people start a thread about financial fair-play. Nobody complained when Benfica bought Witsel from Standard. A couple of years ago Standard had a team with Fellaini, Defour, Witsel, Dante (now Bayern Munchen) Onyewu, Jovanovic, Carcela and Mbokani. A fantastic young team that could have gone far (even in Europe) if they could have build upon that team. Of course you can't blame the players, but it's strange that nobody thinks that is unfair too...Would there have been a thread about financial fair-play if Hulk had gone to Real and Witsel to Barcelona? No.

As long as there is no real competitive fair-play, i don't care about FFP. As a matter of fact, i want as much sugar daddies as possible (the more sugar daddies, the better, if every club has a sugar daddy, it all evens out), because i constantly want to see new and other big clubs. I don't like the fact that only 5 or 6 clubs can win the CL...

There will only be fiar competition if you take the financial means of a club into the football equation on the pitch.
I would never play prolongations in the CL, never have penalty shoot outs. If the richer club can't win over two matches, the "poor" club is qualified. That would be a fair adjustment.

Anderlecht -Real Madrid 1-1
Real Madrid - Anderlecht 0-0

Anderlecht is qualified because they have the lowest budget.

Anderlecht - Differdange 0-0
Differdange - Anderlecht 1-1

Differdange is qualified for the same reasons.

That would be really fair.

But who wants this in this thread? Nobody.

So with all respect, stop moaning, it's all a litle bit hypocrite. I'm glad Zenith bought Hulk and Witsel... i hope Zenith wins the CL, but they won't...they are midgets compared to Real Madrid, Barcelona and Man Utd.

I'm sorry for this long rant, it's not the first time i've been saying this, but it is what i honestly believe.
 
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Gerd - I know we've had this discussion elsewhere so I'll keep it brief. On the face of it, I agree with you - any league that claims to be 'sporting and fair' should have teams that could at some stage all win it. Like most N. American sports (not all, obviously). So I wholeheartedly support a progressive system of 'wealth' redistribution - in the form of tv rights - within a league. So the winning team gets the least, the 20th place team gets the most.

That would work within a league, and solve many problems overnight.

However, it's just not feasible across all of football. It's too widespread, diverse and just different. So it could work in each of the top 4 'big' European Leagues, but you couldn't extend it out. Leagues should be self contained. Maybe the CL money could be used all on grassroots or something, rather than paid to the teams in the tournament.

Anyway, you're right I'm a Man Utd fan and I support at least the principles of FFP, but for one reason:

Someday soon one of these uber-wealthy individuals is going to have a change of heart or fortune. And they will stop paying. And then whatever club is literally only operating because of its dependance on the sugar daddy will die. There'll be a fire sale, sure, but it won't be enough.

Any serious fan with an IQ above 10 knows that Chelsea, PSG, Manchester City - these are not 'investments'. As I've tried to show in other threads, even if any of them started turning the profit of a United or Madrid - it will still be 15-20 seasons before oil-baron X would break even. They will never be sustainable by themselves. There just isn't this huge untapped revenue source that is going to cover the spiralling wages.

I want FFP because one day these clubs are going to fail without it.
 
beachryan said:
Someday soon one of these uber-wealthy individuals is going to have a change of heart or fortune. And they will stop paying. And then whatever club is literally only operating because of its dependance on the sugar daddy will die. There'll be a fire sale, sure, but it won't be enough.

Any serious fan with an IQ above 10 knows that Chelsea, PSG, Manchester City - these are not 'investments'. As I've tried to show in other threads, even if any of them started turning the profit of a United or Madrid - it will still be 15-20 seasons before oil-baron X would break even. They will never be sustainable by themselves. There just isn't this huge untapped revenue source that is going to cover the spiralling wages.

I want FFP because one day these clubs are going to fail without it.
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I totally agree with that part.
And to be fair and totally clear: i don't like sugar daddies either. But i want a league where every club can win. The only way to do it nowadays is with a sugar daddy. So my heart (as a football fan who likes competitive leagues and cups) doesn't mind sugar daddies, but my head says that they are not good for those clubs and for football in general.

What enrages me (a litle bit) is that quite a few people ignore the reason why clubs need sugar daddies.

We agree much more on this that it would seem.

By the way: i wish you a good season for United, they've had some splendid signings...
 
Great thoughts Gerd!

About Zenit, don't get upset guys we aren't making big splashes for another couple of windows. Our last big purchase was Bruno Alves for around 18mil. Besides you all know that we have to pay way too much for star players...
 
whats wrong with the Premijer League getting stronger?....Zenit just gave a lot of money to Benfica and to Porto they can buy 4 players from that money or 1 and use the rest for the youth academy or whatsoever



and there were "sugar daddies" before aswell....they were Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, MAnchester...and other big clubs it was the same situation only the ratio of the money and the number of suggar daddies changed and ofcourse the order between them, problem? no, jealousy? maybe
 
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I also agree with Gerd.
I for one have no problem with Zenit buying Hulk and Witsel, I was initially shocked when I saw that Hulk had signed for Zenit when a lot of big clubs were chasing him but he decided to take a footballing downgrade and a financial upgrade. And then I realized that I was glad that Zenit got much stronger and that will raise the quality of Champions league and probably in the future we won't have to see some boring knockout phase matches such as Barcelona vs Bayer Leverkusen for instance.

Porto and Benfica probably got weaker but they have the money now and some great academy players, just like Ajax in Holland, they don't really mind selling their best players. It's a win-win situation for all the parties involved.

Contrary to Gerd, I would actually mind if every club had their sugar daddies. I wanna watch a football match not a battle of billionaires.
There are teams like Everton who manage to beat teams like Man U and City with some small investments. They've been doing this for years and it always worked, but I guess it's all about trophies nowadays.

Nevertheless, ffp will take time to be fully enabled, it cannot have an immediate impact because it would mean that some of the big guns will be kicked out of CL and who would want to see a CL without the top teams especially if it meant that Barca wouldn't play, Platini would just put it off :P .
 
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besarti said:
Porto and Benfica probably got weaker but they have the money now and some great academy players, just like Ajax in Holland, they don't really mind selling their best players. It's a win-win situation for all the parties involved.
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To be precise, it's not about academy, in fact Sporting produces more talents than Porto and Benfica, the key fact is these teams invest money buying promising players from all over the world, giving them no pressure and a future spot as starters in Liga and European competitions and then (thanks to players' agents) they sell them. It happened with Hulk, Falcao, Pereira, Bruno Alves, Javi Garcia, Coentrao, Witsel, David Luiz and so on, and in future it will happens with James, Iturbe, Gaitan, Bruno Cesar, etc.
Also Valencia, Arsenal and Udinese do the same thing every year.
Sporting is trying to have the same philosophy but in last few years they had less success than FCP and SLB in discovering outstanding youngs.
 
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So what happens when UEFA starts penalising or banning the sugar daddies or financially unhealthy teams? They'll just team up and fight UEFA back with financial and legal muscle. They'll find a way.

Like Wenger said last year:

'In other countries, you have as well Paris St Germain, Malaga. Once they represent a force together, it will be difficult to fight against.'
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I tend to agree - I fear the only answer in the long term is for the sugar daddy clubs and maybe a handful of others leave to form their own league.

It's one thing as a United fan, or a Bayern to moan that our massive revenues aren't enabling us to compete at the very highest level, but for a successful, well run club like an Everton or a Newcastle (currently) - they will simply never get close to the City's/PSGs and so forth.

Maybe that's the answer, a 'G14' or whatever you want to call it league where operating at a loss is perfectly acceptable.

Man I'd love to watch a premier league without City, Chelsea and United. Arsenal, Tottenham, Newcastle possibly even Liverpool or Everton could all win it.
 
besarti said:
I also agree with Gerd.
I for one have no problem with Zenit buying Hulk and Witsel, I was initially shocked when I saw that Hulk had signed for Zenit when a lot of big clubs were chasing him but he decided to take a footballing downgrade and a financial upgrade. And then I realized that I was glad that Zenit got much stronger and that will raise the quality of Champions league and probably in the future we won't have to see some boring knockout phase matches such as Barcelona vs Bayer Leverkusen for instance.
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A downgrade? Seriously? With all due respect, mate, have you ever watched any RPL game to make that conclusion? I do watch both leagues, as well as top-5 ones and I'd say Russian PL is much closer to those 5 then Liga Sagres, in terms of competitiveness and average team level. And this season it is much more enjoyable to watch than French Ligue 1 (of which I'm a huge fan btw), so that means something, I guess.

P.S. sorry for an OT. Not here to start a fight or anything, just felt I'd need to answer to Besarti's comment.
 
i hope its not gonna happen...like those rules 10 yrs before in the Formula 1...where 1st they decided that everyone should use 1 engine per week then etc, etc other serious bullshits came in to make the teams closer to each other , killing the spirit of the F1 for me, FORCING them to do this and that just to make sure not only the Ferrari and the McLaren would win races and championships.....still how mad i am if i think about this.... 2003 or 2004 was the last season for me but i had to stop watching it even though i fellt in love with it right away

i hope the same will not gonna happen with football in any ways



btw rather they should lower the salary of the players wich is way too high and every club should give a given percent of the income to the goverment so they could use it for the better wealth of the citizens or whatsoever...in a nutshell pay a given percentage of the income as a new tax
 
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beachryan said:
I tend to agree - I fear the only answer in the long term is for the sugar daddy clubs and maybe a handful of others leave to form their own league.

It's one thing as a United fan, or a Bayern to moan that our massive revenues aren't enabling us to compete at the very highest level, but for a successful, well run club like an Everton or a Newcastle (currently) - they will simply never get close to the City's/PSGs and so forth.

Maybe that's the answer, a 'G14' or whatever you want to call it league where operating at a loss is perfectly acceptable.

Man I'd love to watch a premier league without City, Chelsea and United. Arsenal, Tottenham, Newcastle possibly even Liverpool or Everton could all win it.
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FFP makes it even harder for them. They won't be able to speculate in order to accumulate (gain success)

FFP is like most government regulations. Sold as being good for the less well off but in reality it's just an extra barrier to entry and competition.

FFP will work in our (City's) favour and I think it's wrong that it should.
 
Godotelli said:
FFP makes it even harder for them. They won't be able to speculate in order to accumulate (gain success)

FFP is like most government regulations. Sold as being good for the less well off but in reality it's just an extra barrier to entry and competition.

FFP will work in our (City's) favour and I think it's wrong that it should.
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Things like this concept work incredibly well in NFL and NHL and even MLS.
 
I've always said that football can learn a lot from theway American sports are organized.
What happened is that the G14 united itself to earn money (which in a way i can understand), then they formed this sort of kartel, made the glass ceiling and opposed to every possible change because they knew that if nothing changed they were gonna fight all the silverware among themselves. I can understand this from the really big clubs like Real, Barca, Man United, Milan. I don't understand clubs like Lyon, Liverpool, Arsenal. I think those clubs made a serious mistake. They should have realized that in the long term they could never win against the Man Utds' and the Reals and on top of that thhey helped to create the sugar daddies clubs.

When all this started Arsenal was the second English club, competing for the first place. Now they are the fourth club (because Chelsea's last year result was a one-off) and fighting to keep clubs like Spurs and Newcastle off. Liverpool have suffered even more. Those clubs should have opposed the G14 instead of joining them. IMO they (certainly Arsenal and Liverpool) made terrible mistakes.
 
Re-arranged said:
A downgrade? Seriously? With all due respect, mate, have you ever watched any RPL game to make that conclusion? I do watch both leagues, as well as top-5 ones and I'd say Russian PL is much closer to those 5 then Liga Sagres, in terms of competitiveness and average team level. And this season it is much more enjoyable to watch than French Ligue 1 (of which I'm a huge fan btw), so that means something, I guess.

P.S. sorry for an OT. Not here to start a fight or anything, just felt I'd need to answer to Besarti's comment.
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You have a point here because I haven't really been watching the Russian Premier League that much(I'll be watching them this season) but I can say that Portuguese clubs have shown great results in European Competitions for years unlike Russian teams and it's fair to say that both Porto and Benifica are better than any RPL team(probably Zenit could make an exception since they have a much better squad now).

However, I know that Liga Sagres is a very average league and in terms of competitiveness I tend to agree that Russian league is better but I'll have to watch it more this season.
 
Godotelli said:
They won't be able to speculate in order to accumulate (gain success)
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That term is supposed to refer to positive economic gains. Not buying something. That's like saying I'm speculating to accumulate when I go to the store with a quid to buy a Twix.
 
Somewhat a propos, copy of a letter I've just sent to F365 (so sorry about the format) but the point remains. The premier league is becoming more and more unequal with each passing year:

As someone that deals with numbers for a living, I thought it would help to do some very quick analysis into Premier League finances, just to show what a dire situation this 'league' is turning into. I use the term lightly because a sporting league should really only exist between relatively competitive teams, and the following will show that's hardly the case. The argument from fans of the sugar daddy clubs tends to be 'well it's always been that way' - but looking at the numbers, that's just not true. The league is less equal than it was 10 years ago, and is getting worse.

Using the Telegraph's analysis (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...pending-from-the-200001-season-to-201112.html), we can compare the wages of the top 3 teams to the bottom 3 teams (where available). So in 2000/01 that was United, Liverpool and Arsenal vs. Bradford, Coventry and Man City. The top 3 spent 2.7 times as much as the bottom 3. That number was similar in 2001/02.

Fast forward to the latest available year, and comparing the top 3 in 2010/11 with the bottom 3 available (No Birmingham data, so replaced with Wolves) - that figure has jumped to 4.8. It's a way of measuring the 'league inequality' - and it's jumped in the last decade.

Another way of looking at it - in 2000/01 the highest spending team (Chelsea?!) spent 3 times as much as the lowest spending team not relegated. In 2010/11 the highest spending team (still Chelsea) spent 13 times as much as the lowest not relegated (Blackburn).

So before all the City and Chelsea fans come out crying that they only did what the system would allow, I'd encourage them to pause and think what impact it's having on the league itself. Not on the Uniteds, or Liverpools of the world who will be fine. Chelsea and City's ability to operate at massive financial losses each year has distorted the league more than it has ever been in the prem era, probably more than ever in history of British football.
 
besarti said:
You have a point here because I haven't really been watching the Russian Premier League that much(I'll be watching them this season) but I can say that Portuguese clubs have shown great results in European Competitions for years unlike Russian teams and it's fair to say that both Porto and Benifica are better than any RPL team(probably Zenit could make an exception since they have a much better squad now).

However, I know that Liga Sagres is a very average league and in terms of competitiveness I tend to agree that Russian league is better but I'll have to watch it more this season.
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I would've agreed about that bold part a couple of years ago, but nowdays it seems like top clubs are getting very close to each other in terms of quality, look at Zenit in last season's ECL, they got 4 points from Porto in the group stage and were very close with Benfica in 1/8 final encounter losing 3-4 on aggregate. Look at Anzhi, who are just scary with all those transfers and how they've been walking past their opponents in Europa League this year (6-0 to AZ the last result). Of course there is CSKA, who are usually good and got really strong squad with Dzagoev, Doumbia, Akinfeev, Honda etc. Spartak is looking like they are finally getting a grip too, playing against Benfica in ECL group stage soon.

I'd really recommend everyone watching the league, as I've been really enjoying it so far this season.
 
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