Man City Suing Premier League

[Toffee1]

[Shogun]

Alright for those clubs, as recently as Newcastle, to be sponsored by their own companies for extortionate amounts though?

[Toffee1]

[Toffee1]

[CannockPricey]

I don't support what City are doing per se. I would have a salary cap, mandatory 50%+1 fan ownership and capped ticket prices but that is my ideal that I accept is never happening.

However, if the PL are going to approve Abramovich and then Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia as fit and proper owners then I just don't see how they can then bleat about them lashing mountains of cash at it. What did they think would happen and if you have allowed them to invest, in what sense is it fair?

How is the game improved by a mega rich owner being allowed to plough ten times more into Man United than if he had taken over Brentford? How is that levelling the playing field or protecting anyone?

There has been a dishonest attempt by the old money clubs to conflate FFP with a solution to prevent the horrors of Bury, Macclesfield etc. It's nonsense. They bear no relation to it.

I would change a million things about football but I just don't see the logic of FFP as anything other than protecting a cabal.

[Mouse]

Article in The Guardian which is pretty depressing, basically you reap what you sow. The hypocrisy on all sides (clubs, league, government) is jaw-dropping though.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/ar ... n-football

[Bluedylan1]

I don't support City argument in this situation whatsoever. Inflated sponsorships is totally wrong, and massively anti-competition. I agree with what Barney Ronay says in the Guardian article. I'm massively pro-regulation.

What I do find a little rich is clubs like Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool etc preaching and moralising about unfair advantages given to certain clubs when they are massive beneficiaries of the existing inequalities in the top flight in so many ways, and all of those clubs have actively tried to grow those inequalities in recent years.

These are clubs that get an extra £150m a year from Champions League participation, then they get bigger sponsorship deals as a result, they grow their fanbases globally as a result, they are on TV more because the fanbase is larger, they get more money as a result of all these things. They have massive advantages over everyone else in the Prem, and the gap grows and grows year upon year.

And yet that still wasn't enough for them. They still wanted to form the Super League, and guarantee another few hundred million of revenue every year forever.

So while I completely disagree with City and inflated sponsorships, it's basically one group of super rich, elite clubs arguing that an even richer club shouldn't bend the rules, while they all massively bend the rules in their own favour. Wild hypocrisy.

[Mouse]

So while I completely disagree with City and inflated sponsorships, it's basically one group of super rich, elite clubs arguing that an even richer club shouldn't bend the rules, while they all massively bend the rules in their own favour. Wild hypocrisy.

Exactly this, it is really difficult to have sympathy with anyone in this argument. Greedy fighting the greedy over whose greed is less immoral. Regulation is vital, the pity is it has come too late (or the will to apply it has) and that has allowed one group of elite teams to dominate to such an extent that others, like City and to a lesser extent ourselves, have tried to bend the rules to be competitive (we would have gone further with Usmanov but for Ukraine). Now City want to simply blow the fucking doors off and create an orgy of the super-rich.

[CannockPricey]

Regulation is vital but it needs to be far more draconian than anything that could ever get passed with the consent of the elite clubs.
The situation at the moment is farcical and the rules as they are are completely ridiculous. I know it's an example I've used before but Aston Villa managing to comply with the financial rules by selling Villa Park to themselves is just one example of the utter nonsense of it and I don't blame Villa. If the rules are that stupid, then exploit them.

The problem I think stems from the ownerships that are allowed. The fact dictatorships can own football clubs in the first place is a bigger problem in itself than how much money they spend.

[Shogun]

I just don't even see when or how the bubble can burst anymore. The top clubs have gained too much power to the extent that even if the super league happened again, the premier league would back down and allow them to compete in both. We desperately need a reset but I just don't see it happening.

[CannockPricey]

I just don't even see when or how the bubble can burst anymore. The top clubs have gained too much power to the extent that even if the super league happened again, the premier league would back down and allow them to compete in both. We desperately need a reset but I just don't see it happening.

Very sadly I have reached pretty much the same conclusion.

[Blueomar]

cheeky bastards.

[Cods]

Hope their legal costs put them over their PSR threshold.

[Free Agent]

Hope their legal costs put them over their PSR threshold.

They have that covered. They’d just sell hotels, aircraft, maybe their lawyers, to themselves.

[Cods]

They have that covered. They’d just sell hotels, aircraft, maybe their lawyers, to themselves.

Yes true, and not disagreeing with the premise, but generally aircraft are leased rather than owned, and even if recognised as a right of use asset and matching liability on a balance sheet, I'd think wouldn't be as easy to be bought/sold as, say, an asset that's owned outright. Hotels though, all the way!