Financial Fair Play

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yes said:
Not sure why we're waiting for all of City's charges to be processed in one go. If it's too time consuming and complex to do in one hit, go through the list of charges, pick a few that are straight forward to evidence and punish them now. As it is, they're looking at a good few seasons without punishment due to the complexities of going through such a large case. That just isn't fair.

Start docking them 10 points here, fine there, transfer ban here. Don't let the cunts have another 3 years of a free run at silverware due the foundation their cheating has given them.
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It's because most of their charges are the same related thing happening in repeated seasons - it's like catching a serial burglar........you wouldn't just charge them for one offence as that by itself would seem much more minor
 
ILSpur said:
So, clubs agreed to the rules, actually put a process in place that finally enforced some amount of control, and now some of them are panicking because they actually have some teeth. What a joke.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-SxAlq6LtA
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Sky seemed weirdly committed to the Abramovich model when a. the scale of investment needed is crazy. Luton would need to spend 3 or 4 billion to compete with City. b. Football is chronically financially chaotic and controls are needed. c. the benefactor model invites in states (who can't be disciplined without a diplomatic incident) and people who have to make quick exits (Abramovich/Shinawatra) when the landscape changes. d. Allowing the benefactor model means that all clubs are destabilised.

This seems to be based on the belief that we all want the Saudis to buy Newcastle 10 titles. But personally I don't see much evidence that City aren't slowly killing the Premier League.
 
A Tuba said:
Sky seemed weirdly committed to the Abramovich model when a. the scale of investment needed is crazy. Luton would need to spend 3 or 4 billion to compete with City. b. Football is chronically financially chaotic and controls are needed. c. the benefactor model invites in states (who can't be disciplined without a diplomatic incident) and people who have to make quick exits (Abramovich/Shinawatra) when the landscape changes. d. Allowing the benefactor model means that all clubs are destabilised.

This seems to be based on the belief that we all want the Saudis to buy Newcastle 10 titles. But personally I don't see much evidence that City aren't slowly killing the Premier League.
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I think they are hooked on the transfer news and rumours - sustainable spending 90% kills that
 
Raiders said:
City have denied wrongdoing. I presume that Forest have presented accurate accounts showing a breach like Everton. In addition Citeh's charges are much much more serious. They are essentially accused of deliberately misleading the Premier League over many years. So if found guilty they will face unprecedented sanctions. I would expect a 100 point deduction at the very least.

The problem is that Citeh can go through the PL's disciplinary process, then go to arbitration then go to the High Court. I have maintained over the years that Citeh have committed fraud, false accounting and at the very least a conspiracy to defraud (so the government should get involved). From what I understand there was a criminal investigation (may be still is) but mum's the word on that.
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The additional problem is whether many of those charges are repeat charges. The 'prosecution' will need to weigh each charge up and, if they're looking to prosecute to the highest degree, see which of them is the worst and carries the highest penalty. Also, how many of the same breach happen in the same accounting period.

As I understand it, if you've been prosecuted for a breach, you can't prosecute for the same type of breach in the same accounting period. I may not have this right though, so those better versed in this can maybe put me right.

I suspect that there will be quite a few that aren't followed up on because of a lack of evidence, so we may see those 116 charges whittled down somewhat.

Now I don't know the score with Football, but arbitration in Construction isn't a hugely drawn out process and, once an arbitrator has made a decision, it's extremely difficult to take it any further, particularly if 2 independent bodies have arrived at the same conclusion. If City were to take it to high court, it's highly likely that the court will throw it out as a waste of taxpayers money. I'm not 100% sure though, as Football isn't necessarily the same as Construction when it comes to legal proceedings.
 
Cranston said:
Most likely, yes.

And I expect the Government to lobby on their behalf.

That said, all relegation actually represents is perhaps a three or four year moratorium on their dominance. It’s hardly a death sentence.
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It will make it enormously hard for them to maintain any semblance of PSR compliance though. They will lose PL revenue, they won't be able to 'justify' any ridiculously high sponsorship deals, as they'll have a massively reduced exposure. They lose CL revenue, they'll lose much of the foreign fan income as they jump ship to the next 'guarantee of glory' team.

All this whilst paying squillions in wages to their players.

It might not be a death sentence, but they could well be on life support for longer than the moratorium timeframe you think it will be.

You also need to factor in the rest of the PL suing them for lost income, that will be enormous. Everton are looking at what, £300M in lawsuits from relegated clubs. City could be looking at far more than that from those clubs who missed out on CL. £100M a pop for each club for just qualifying isn't it? Then however many millions for lower placing in the PL, the list could go on and on.

A lot will depend on just what level of punishment City receive. If they're only relegated to the Championship, then it might just be a hiatus, though I think they'll still get sued regardless. However, if they're kicked down to league 2 or lower, it could very well destroy them.

How can you possibly justify a £20M+ sponsorship deal if you're down in the Vanarama?
 
Brian Fantana said:
The UEFA ones are tougher than the PL rules, I'm sure of it. It is why, if Chelsea were in Europe, they'd be buggered with their losses.
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Yeah, but the PL doesn't have a time bar for their investigations on the other hand unlike UEFA. Which is why the PL's investigation seems more scary for City.
 
Art Vandelay said:
One flaw of the premier league version of FFP is that it doesn't take into account past actions prior to the 3 year window it monitors at any given time.

Example:

Y1: +40m
Y2: +40m
Y3: +40m
Y4: +40m
Y5: +40m

Club saves 200m over 5 years and has the cash sitting in the bank.

Y6: -40m
Y7: -40m
Y8: -40m

By the end of Year 8 there would be an FFP breach for exceeding 105m in losses over the rolling 3 year period. Despite still having 80m in the bank.

This does nothing more than encourage clubs to spend that extra cash needlessly because in 3 years time they cannot spend it at all. This to me acts contrary to the intention of FFP, rather than protect clubs against reckless transfer behaviour it acts to encourage irresponsible spending.
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If you have £80M in the bank, why on earth would you be recording £40M losses per year over the next 3 year period?
 
Blanchflower said:
Surely those limits are more stringent, at the moment you can spend more than 100% of turnover on player costs.
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Possibly, but the reality is that any team that plays in Europe would be subject to the same UEFA FFP rules, so the 100% would only apply to a team that had no real hopes of playing in one of those competitions. What this would do is effectively eliminate (or significantly alter) the profit and sustainability rules on the top clubs, so its effectively one less financial constraint on the highest spending clubs already.

You could argue that the P&S rules in effect act on PL clubs in a similar way as the FFP rules as the larger the turnover of the club the more they have available to spend, but getting rid of P&S rules would free up potential new owners to spend massively on transfer and agents fees.
 
ILSpur said:
Possibly, but the reality is that any team that plays in Europe would be subject to the same UEFA FFP rules, so the 100% would only apply to a team that had no real hopes of playing in one of those competitions. What this would do is effectively eliminate (or significantly alter) the profit and sustainability rules on the top clubs, so its effectively one less financial constraint on the highest spending clubs already.

You could argue that the P&S rules in effect act on PL clubs in a similar way as the FFP rules as the larger the turnover of the club the more they have available to spend, but getting rid of P&S rules would free up potential new owners to spend massively on transfer and agents fees.
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But it'd be ridiculous to have a scenario where a PL club spends 120% turnover in one season, qualifies for the Europa Conference (which gets you about £5m in prize money in total) and then has to reduce their spending to 70% of turnover.

The PL has to mirror the Uefa rules in some way - we can get c. 9 teams qualifying each season.
 
I actually still believe that FFP was just something put in place so that the dominance of the richest clubs would be protected.

I know it's partly the amount of charges, but how quick the PL & UEFA went after Everton & Forest compared to Man City and the Chavs really says it all IMO.
 
Blanchflower said:
But it'd be ridiculous to have a scenario where a PL club spends 120% turnover in one season, qualifies for the Europa Conference (which gets you about £5m in prize money in total) and then has to reduce their spending to 70% of turnover.

The PL has to mirror the Uefa rules in some way - we can get c. 9 teams qualifying each season.
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Sure, but my guess is that the P&S rules would also help to prevent that 120% of turnover as well as it would add significantly to their losses for that period. I don't see why there can't be both to some degree. The big clubs are already doing it, so I'm not sure there is a great reason why it can't be applied to the whole league.
 
Ionman34 said:
The additional problem is whether many of those charges are repeat charges. The 'prosecution' will need to weigh each charge up and, if they're looking to prosecute to the highest degree, see which of them is the worst and carries the highest penalty. Also, how many of the same breach happen in the same accounting period.

As I understand it, if you've been prosecuted for a breach, you can't prosecute for the same type of breach in the same accounting period. I may not have this right though, so those better versed in this can maybe put me right.

I suspect that there will be quite a few that aren't followed up on because of a lack of evidence, so we may see those 116 charges whittled down somewhat.

Now I don't know the score with Football, but arbitration in Construction isn't a hugely drawn out process and, once an arbitrator has made a decision, it's extremely difficult to take it any further, particularly if 2 independent bodies have arrived at the same conclusion. If City were to take it to high court, it's highly likely that the court will throw it out as a waste of taxpayers money. I'm not 100% sure though, as Football isn't necessarily the same as Construction when it comes to legal proceedings.
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The government will intervene to appease their Arab paymasters
 
Spurs_1987 said:
I actually still believe that FFP was just something put in place so that the dominance of the richest clubs would be protected.

I know it's partly the amount of charges, but how quick the PL & UEFA went after Everton & Forest compared to Man City and the Chavs really says it all IMO.
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I disagree - but those clubs will have had a say so both are likely to be factors. Authorities wanted sustainability, clubs saw an opportunity to protect themselves
 
Spurs_1987 said:
I actually still believe that FFP was just something put in place so that the dominance of the richest clubs would be protected.

I know it's partly the amount of charges, but how quick the PL & UEFA went after Everton & Forest compared to Man City and the Chavs really says it all IMO.
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FFP itself wasn’t originally designed, just for the big clubs, it , as 90% plus of football clubs across Europe were running a loss, transfer instalments were being missed, players weren’t getting paid on time because of poor fiscal, governance, etc

… but, the piece of legislation that was a late addition that was put in to prevent new money clubs from posing a threat to the old money. Uber clubs was at the behest of the G14 Uber clubs group, using the threat of breakaway super league as leverage against UEFA.
 
Zomb said:
The government will intervene to appease their Arab paymasters
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I won't argue with you, I fully suspect that myself. Having said that though, we may well have a different government by then. Also, if there's a big enough body of evidence against City, the government may just want to distance themselves from the whole thing. It's one thing to 'help out' when there's enough smoke & mirrors to do so. It's another thing to open yourself up to accusations of blatant corruption. You can be sure that any opposition party would be over that like a cheap suit.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see really, but Football is our national obsession. Start messing with it too much and, whilst us British are, in the main, apathetic, you can only push us to a point before we say enough is enough and push back en masse. If the government fuck with Football, that could really be the tipping point for all of us.
 
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Ionman34 said:
I won't argue with you, I fully suspect that myself. Having said that though, we may well have a different government by then. Also, if there's a big enough body of evidence against City, the government may just want to distance themselves from the whole thing. It's one thing to 'help out' when there's enough smoke & mirrors to do so. It's another thing to open yourself up to accusations of blatant corruption. You can be sure that any opposition party would be over that like a cheap suit.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see really, but Football is our national obsession. Start messing with it too much and, whilst us British are, in the main, apathetic, you can only push us to a point before we say enough is enough and push back enough masse. If the government fuck with Football, that could really be the tipping point for all of us.
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I think the government will quietly intervene in the background to influence the PL. Arabs will have leverage to force the gov to act (whichever party is in power).
 
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