Man City - From another planet

It's good news that the footballing authorities, in this case UEFA, are taking real action against clubs who breach the FFP rules. It will hurt Man C where it hurts and who knows how the coach and the players will respond to not playing in the Champions League.

As much as I'd like to see it, I don't see this as precipitating the demise of the PL. The PL will certainly have to act against Man C and impose their own sanctions for breaching the PL's own FFP rules but I wouldn't see that as undermining PL football itself. It might however send a warning shot across the bows of other PL clubs to get their acts in order .. and maybe Championship clubs as well!

 

UEFA have previously investigated PSG for breaches of FFP. Unfortunately UEFA ballsed up their investigation and couldn't make the case despite all of the evidence they found during their investigation eg who really paid for Neymar? UEFA wanted to continue with their investigation. PSG appealed to CAS (the ultimate body in sporting issues) and CAS ruled that the previous UEFA investigation was now closed! Bizarre.

There is now talk that UEFA will open a new investigation into PSG now that they have concluded the Man C one.

I also want to see a level playing field at all levels of the football structure. The Man C investigation shows what can be done and now its up to UEFA to repeat what they've done with others and for the PL, La Liga etc to investigate their own clubs. And I should also include the EFL in that list!

 

The thing with City it’s not that they did it, UEFA knew they had inflated the Etihad deal with the owners own cash which is why they along with PSG got fined previously. It’s that both clubs were able to show that while those deals were inflated at the time of signing that they were inflated based on future growth and they had the figures to back it up. The problem is those figures were lies themselves, for example, they sold image rights to a 3rd party for a suspiciously large amount but if an independent party wants to overpay there is nothing wrong with that HOWEVER it turned out City’s owners paid those 3rd party the money for them to then overpay City. And that wasn’t the only case of something similar.

So they initially got a slap on the wrist because it was the first accounting period and they were able to show income that would put them within FFP and put the Etihad deal into context but they were lying to UEFA about the other income which is why the books been thrown at them. If everything else had been above board and hence they hadn't lied they would have got away with the punishment they already had

As for saying Chelsea were allowed to do it, it was largely Chelsea that caused it, not because what Abramovich did was necessarily wrong but the trend he started. We saw lots of clubs both in England and Abroad being bought by rich people thinking that they could just throw money at it for quick success. When that success wasn't basically instantaneous like it was at Chelsea they stop funding it and the club can't support the outgoings (See Portsmouth for example).

They haven't done anything wrong though. It wasn't a UEFA or FIFA ruling that made English football outlaw emergency loans, it was a choice English Football made (much like the stupid transfer window shutting before the first match idea that's now been undone). Spain never removed that option from its regulations.

I'm a United fan and should, in theory, hate the Glazers but so much of what's out there about them is mistruths. United have supporters group in MUST who crave power and have been putting out a misinformation campaign since day 1 (Alot of the United fans who owned shares had MUST act as their proxy as the idea was it gave fans a bigger say acting as a collective so MUST leadership didn't like losing that power). Their craving for power was highlighted by the Red Knights. The Red Knights were about 100 millionaire fans clubbing together to buy the club, their proposal though was troublesome. They were going to keep the Glazer debt, then add further debt to the club to fund the buyout and as these were simply millionaires so didn't have vast amounts of liquid cash were proposing paying dividends from day 1 to offset the income loss from assets they were going to have to liquidate (something the Glazers weren't doing at the time). MUST decided to back this plan, why you ask? Because in exchange for their support the RK's offered them a golden share (A golden share being one that doesn't have any day to day power but allows a veto on any future sale) That just sums MUST up, they are like a trade union in that its a good idea in principle but give the leaders a little bit of power and it becomes about trying to gain more not actually looking out for the people they are supposed to be.

Ultimately so much of the figures put out there come either directly from MUST or from people they pay and its misleading. They act like no-one made money out of the club before. The final year of the PLC for example united has 260million share issues and paid 2.64p per share as a dividend. That's £6.8mill in total. On top of that, they were paying a special dividend on top of that every year that was roughly equal to the standard dividend meaning in reality they paid out dividends close to £14mill in that final year of the PLC. Dividends had been increasing by around 6% a year so 15 years later the dividend payment would be around £32.5mill. Ofc that's ignoring how much revenue went up which would have almost certainly caused bigger dividend increases, the PLC liked selling United as a luxury brand so a lot of potential sponsorship was turned down for lower-paying but higher class sponsors (Which is something that in the famous 100 question letter put forward by John Magnier and JP McManus (united biggest shareholders) at AGM as part of their Feud with Fergie over a racehorse focused on. Its almost certainly a big part of what made the Glazers realise how much money was left on the table and how undervalued United as a business was. £32mill is actually MORE than the debt costs to service and the dividend the Glazers no pay themselves so if the growth in dividends had been more in line with the revenue it would be significantly less

They also forget things like Dividends get paid AFTER-tax but debt servicing is before so it actually provides a tax shield (The reason why for example Apple has $50bn in debt despite having around $250bn free cash) and that many of the figures they throw into the 'Cost of the Glazers' are non-cash deductions such as Goodwill that don't cost the club anything and actually again save money by providing a tax shield. They also like acting like the floating again on the stock market was stealing from the club when the owners are free to sell parts of their own how they wish and the club are due none of it. They forget that actually the Glazers gave around half of the money raised to the club.

The Glazers aren't perfect owners, there is certainly a valid discussion to be had about them but its something you really can't have as MUST has done a good job at painting the situation as the club having over a billion less to spend on players than they would have under the PLC. They have created a situation where its seen as anyone is better (I mean at one point they were using Randy Lerner as an example of a good owner and currently most fans seem to want the Saudis despite them only wanting the club to join in the middle eastern 'I can spend more money than you' competition and to help sport wash their human rights record ) especially if its someone they feel will want MUST onboard so will give them some power back.

I certainly prefer a club built on good business than on the back of a rich owner as you never know when that rich owner might stop funding things. The Glazers suddenly disappear off the face of the earth United continue along fine, Monsour and co do the same and City are bankrupt in a few years

 

Two wrongs don't make a right though. Hacking is a serious offence and much of the data that he had helped release has no valid reason for being public domain (exact breakdowns of a players contract for example, none of us would be happy having our contract terms and pay available for all to see)

Like lots of people who claim to be ethical hackers they struggle to understand where the line is between releasing information that is of public interest and what is just info to feed their own ego

 

See that's a charge you often see thrown at it by the likes of Man City fans but I don't agree with it. Nothing about it prevents clubs joining that 'power group' it just removes the shortcuts to do so overnight that have got so many clubs into trouble when their new owners try and follow Chelsea lead. Requiring clubs to build In the correct way where if for some reason the money from the owner dries up is how it should be done, it might take longer to find that success but at least the whole foundation of the club isn't built on quicksand. If City's owners pull the plug due to this and decide to focus elsewhere then City run a real risk of bankrupcy within 5 years and having to reform back in non-league and that's a real problem. Where as Chelsea who would have been in that boat pre FFP might drop back to a mid-table club but would survive (Although with the method he has funded them there is £1.2bn that he is owed by the club which may make things tricky) because they have put real focus in finding a way to being self-sustaining.

 

Yes. The CL and our own PL are very clear on what constitutes 'income' for the FPP rules. That's what the whole Man C/Mansour/Etihad debacle is about. The Mansours have been found out for effectively giving Man C money by inflating the Etihad sponsorship.

 

I agree. At the highest level, it's become a contest of who can piss the highest between a small group of incredibly wealthy and poiltically connected owners who use the sport for their ego and promotional reasons. And unfortunately that outlook has now moved down to our national game. What self-respecting billionaire doesn't want to own an English PL team? And that has now spread to our Championship.

I personally would like to see the FFP rules tightened within the English game but recent history within the EFL suggests I'll be waiting a long, long time for that to happen!