- Apr 1, 2005
- 41,363
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What if North Korea nuke North America, that's ManU and us fucked.
Courts freezing assets could happen to the Glazers or Joe Lewis or Ivan Gazedis or Usmanov or the Everton Owners etc etc. Chelsea can sell players and the land they own is far more valuable than the industrial estate Old Trafford sits on. And for what it's worth, I would imagine Abramovic's assets would be well protected from freezing orders.
I am not arguing against all of FFP. Much of it makes a lot of sense (and the blog piece says so). And I'm not arguing against all forms of fiscal prudence, far from it. But if an owner wishes "gift" a club he owns money (directly or through sponsorship etc), then I do not believe that this should be legislated against. It poses no real risk to the existence of that club, and is no different to that club making revenue in any other way - no revenue in football is guaranteed year on year.
The owners can gift money to the club under ffp up to £50m but that has to be converted into equity. Joe lewis did so the other year to clear our debt so that we could secure funding for the new stadium. As you say that is no real risk to the club. What is a risk is if the club relies on the owner gifting them money to keep them afloat.