soxfan121 said:
You are undoubtedly correct about the bolded - but the failures of teams like Leeds (and Portsmouth, etc.) are why FFP exists.
The more illustrative example is either Malaga or Anzhi. Both were financially inflated clubs that saw their first adversity and had the owner run away, forcing player sales and a tumble down the standings.
And yeah, it probably is unfair that Man City will get whacked harder than Chelsea simply because their transgressions are more recent. But let's not lose sight of the fact there are transgressions. Man City cannot hope to comply with FFP regulations without the owner's limitless pockets. Those are the rules and everyone knew them. Circumventing them with "sponsorships" that are thinly veiled cash injections from the owner is a violation of those rules. And if you break the rules, you're gonna get a penalty.
Nonsense. Man City CAN hope to comply without the owner's limitless pockets. They're likely to turn a profit next year. The Etihad deal is probably undervalued and complies with any definition of a "related party" that is used in actual accounting. Are we going to go after Liverpool and their Warrior deal next?
And are we trying to prevent Leeds or are we trying to stop people from buying a title? If UEFA implemented rules where clubs couldn't take out massive amounts of debt that threatened the very viability of the club, then FFP wouldn't be so stupid. Instead, it's trying to prevent rich people from deciding how they spend their money. MCFC was nearly bankrupt BEFORE the Sheikh took over. If he left tomorrow, the club would be far better off than they were beforehand. The club doesn't have debts and isn't one bad season away from all of its finances unraveling. If we want to implement rules that prevent teams from senselessly overleveraging themselves then I'm on board.
Malaga and Anzhi are in many ways closer to Leeds than anything else, the owners couldn't afford what they tried to do and the team suffered. At the same time, I don't know why we're trying to legislate against this particular form of poor management. Every year, clubs pay a heavy price for their owners acting like idiots and employing the wrong people, spending too much money on the wrong players ,etc. Most teams would really struggle if their owner decided to walk away. MCFC and PSG aren't two of them, for different reasons.
This is the way the sport is architected. You can be in Div 2 and you can go all the way to Europe. It'll take luck, money, and effort, but it's possible. Any team that achieved greatness essentially did all 3, and now those teams are trying to make it impossible for them to be replaced. In relative dollars, MUFC or Liverpool,outspent their rivals and won the league. Bayern outspent their rivals, as did Barcelona and Real Madrid. (In Italy, you apparently outspent your rivals on referees ). This has always been true to some extent, and occasionally a club brings through some youth that allows them to spend a bit less to stay at the top.
I mean, I get it. I don't expect people to like having City, Chelsea, PSG just show up and buy a bunch of players and crash the party. If it were more viable to have a salary cap, then that would obviously level the playing field quite a bit. But this system is just setup to ensure that the same teams compete every season. The days of teams supporting themselves on the backs of matchday revenue are pretty much over. All of the top teams rely on the TV Sponsorship and CL money to be able to afford the ridiculous wages and transfer fees that are at stake in world football. FFP practically guarantees this money to the established teams who need them to survive. It does nothing but exclude the others from ever hoping to get there. If you want an example, watch what happens at Southampton this summer. They just had a great season, and that team is going to get picked apart. If the ownership even wanted to try to build on what they've done, they'd have no shot of increasing their players wages to what they'd get elsewhere while buying a few more players to make a push. In many ways, as I said in another thread, this is what makes Atletico's run so interesting. They sold and sold and sold some more but managed to reinvest well to build over time a team that could challenge at the highest level, albeit surprisingly. The question is, will they be forced to sell again and can they reload well enough to keep it going?
