UEFA to make major FFP announcement

[Locotoro]

How could a fine or a percentage of say 120 million spent on a single player "level the playing field"? if that club was fined 10 million which is divided by 17 other clubs?

A team like City would factor the fine into their transfer budget. This is not a deterrent but a way for very rich clubs to continue what they are already doing.

But if the fine is a percentage of overspend then a City overspending by 50million would have to pay a fine of £2 for every £1 (£100million) or have I misunderstood that

 

[Tucker]

I think PL clubs should introduce a voluntary code of financial conduct. Any clubs that fail to sign up or abide by the rules are simply voted out for the coming season.

I mean, that doesn’t sound very voluntary to me.

 

[JeremyPaxton]

Right, when PSG is unstoppable now and Citeh is close to signing Kane, they suddenly prevent any possible power-up of clubs. They should start investigating these two fucking corrupted clubs before telling other clubs what not to do.

The PL have been investigating City for a couple of years. Some of it recently came out in court. The gist of it is: if you have enough money to sign any player you want, you also have enough money to hire an army of lawyers to squeeze every loophole in the rules, and drag every disciplinary process out for years and years in court and arbitration until you claim it’s now been so long that you can’t be punished anymore.

 

[parj]

But if the fine is a percentage of overspend then a City overspending by 50million would have to pay a fine of £2 for every £1 (£100million) or have I misunderstood that

This is where I think it has impact. Signing Kane for £150m could actually cost £300m before wages. It might only be £7.5m per team when redistributed but Kane at £300m will cool the transfer market which could actually benefit us more given we will never spend £100m

 

[Jamturk]

Rotten to the core

Like most things these days

 

[newbie]

The PL have been investigating City for a couple of years. Some of it recently came out in court. The gist of it is: if you have enough money to sign any player you want, you also have enough money to hire an army of lawyers to squeeze every loophole in the rules, and drag every disciplinary process out for years and years in court and arbitration until you claim it’s now been so long that you can’t be punished anymore.

Exactly the problem is it’s dam expensive to win a lawsuit against city

 

[sebo_sek]

Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur are set to be affected by UEFA's proposal to replace Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules with a salary cap and luxury tax.

Under current FFP regulations, which were introduced 11 years ago, clubs competing in any European competition must balance the books over a three-year period.

But the continent's governing body is plotting a drastic change which will be announced next month and come into force next year.

That's according to The Times, who have reported all clubs participating in European competitions would see their spending on salaries limited to a fixed percentage of their revenue in the region of 70 per cent.

Furthermore, the report states that any clubs breaching the cap would then have to pay a Euro into a fund distributed to the other teams in that competition.

If the cap is breached the next year, the repeat offenders would pay €1.50 (£1.28) or €2 (£1.70) for every €1 (£0.85) they have gone over, depending on the scale of the breach.

Meanwhile, repeat offenders would also face possible sporting sanctions, up to the ultimate punishment of disqualification from European competition, as UEFA believes there still needs to be a strong deterrent to stop clubs from overspending.

There is also an idea of having one fixed salary cap at a very high level, for example €600 million (£509 million), alongside the percentage of revenue to stop the elite clubs inflating their income to ridiculous levels via related-party sponsorship deals.

The salary cap as a percentage of revenue would potentially have a similar effect as those clubs with the bigger revenues can spend more on wages, but it would be more flexible and would at least allow owners to breach the cap if they were prepared to pay for it.

If the change was to have taken place this year, Arsenal would not have been affected.

That is because the Gunners are not in any form of European competition in 2021/22 as a result of finishing eighth in the Premier League last season.

But if Mikel Arteta can lead his side back into the top-seven in the upcoming campaign then they will be affected by UEFA's proposal to replace FFP rules with a salary cap and luxury tax.

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So the bits in bold are the main rules that are being proposed.

I don't think they'd effect us currently; we have quite a health wages to revenue ratio.

Yeah I saw that but it in no way affects us. Our wage bill is at around 50%, isn't it?

 

[ItsBoris]

There should be rules against obvious financial fraud and cheating on the books obviously, but the idea that you can tell a business owner how much they can invest in their team is fraught with problems imo. Seems like a rule designed to calcify the current order.

For how reviled Man City are, their owners have increased the value of the club from $300 million to $3 billion in 10 years. That's how business works - you invest money to grow the value of the overall enterprise. I don't see any evidence that they aren't making prudent business decisions.

Maybe I'm missing something, idk. But who's going to buy a football club if you aren't allowed to invest money to turn it into what you envision it can be? It's almost worse to have an owner who simply sees the club as a cash-cow. Man City's fans are happier with their owners than basically any other club. I obviously don't like that they've jumped above us in their team quality, but you can't view these things through jealous lenses imo - you have to apply objective principles to the situation.

 

[Hotspurious]

The players association will obviously line up against this and under competition law principles, they will have a good argument. US law considers teams in a single league to be nearly partners in the same joint venture…thus, luxury taxes and salary caps are possible. That’s not the view in Europe and I’m skeptical UEFA could get away with this especially as this covers economic activity spanning multiple leagues.

 

[Spurbanite]

Most US sports use a salary cap system.
Some a soft cap, some a hard cap.

In the US, it does result in a more even chance of any team winning.
Currently in the PL, 6 clubs have the most money - and therefore are most likely to be Top of the Table.
In a salary cap system, money is equal, so team success depends on Smart player acquisition, Better Management/coaching, and player development.

The difference is that in US, the League calls the shots, and teams are considered Franchises.
The league gets the Rev. by selling TV rights,etc. . . . Then sets a team salary cap based on revenues, such as 55% of revenue for player salary.

Think of it like playing Fantasy Football. You have a limit of , say, £100,000m, You can spend £5m on 20 players - or - One player at £80m and the rest at £1m.

But I suspect the Big clubs will find Loopholes to beat the system.

 

[SpursTillIDie1882]

So UEFA have basically downed their pants, lubed up, bent over for the Oilers, State-Owners and the like .......

 

[SpursTillIDie1882]

The PL have been investigating City for a couple of years. Some of it recently came out in court. The gist of it is: if you have enough money to sign any player you want, you also have enough money to hire an army of lawyers to squeeze every loophole in the rules, and drag every disciplinary process out for years and years in court and arbitration until you claim it’s now been so long that you can’t be punished anymore.

Pretty much

 

[Rusta81]

Surely the only way forward is a salary cap of say 250,000 a week across the continent that then rises alongside inflation in each given country ( or something along those lines ) . If it’s based on revenue as someone pointed out the doped clubs can set up some dodgy 70 mill sock sponcership to bump up revenue and continue throwing cash

 

[Spurbanite]

Surely the only way forward is a salary cap of say 250,000 a week across the continent that then rises alongside inflation in each given country ( or something along those lines ) . If it’s based on revenue as someone pointed out the doped clubs can set up some dodgy 70 mill sock sponcership to bump up revenue and continue throwing cash

True, if the cap were based on an individual teams revenue.
But if the Champ League makes the revenue, then the Cap could be based on UCL revenue for all teams in the UCL. Similar for Europa. All UCL teams would have the same total Cap limit, if they want to participate in UCL - no matter how much an individual team makes.
If any team cooked-the-books, it would not change the Cap calculation.

 

[lis spur]

Interesting to know if we as club fanbase would accept the money as City fans etc seem happy enough to irrespective of the humanity issues in UAE and Qatar. Easy to say but I much prefer our system for all its flaws ,as far as I know ENIC don't flog and stone people for their sexual orientation etc....

 

[Neon_Knight_]

This sounds like it might be an improvement?

Fake sponsorship deals aren't allowed anyway and overpriced ones get clubs in trouble if there's any connection to the ownership or insider dealing (imo not enough trouble but that's another story). That isn't going to change with this new system.

Tax-based redistribution is a balsy idea though. Too radical to pass without being watered-down to uselessness, imo.

I recall Man City pretty much getting away with it.

 

[ExpatFan]

As long as UEFA and the EPL allow the likes of Abu Dhabi Wanderers and Chelski (bought with $5 billion stolen from the Russian people) to thrive, then the rest of us may as well tip our forelock and know our place.

 

[ExpatFan]

Interesting to know if we as club fanbase would accept the money as City fans etc seem happy enough to irrespective of the humanity issues in UAE and Qatar. Easy to say but I much prefer our system for all its flaws ,as far as I know ENIC don't flog and stone people for their sexual orientation etc....

As someone who has lived in both countries, I'd cancel my season ticket (had since 1980) if we supped with either of those devils.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

The more I watch the amounts of money changing hands on transfers, the more I see football sponsorship going the route of F1, where these unknown companies sponsor teams out of apparently nowhere, but if you follow the trail it's either a money laundering operation or a shell company to keep the actual money one step removed and inside the rules, of which there will suddenly be many.

All rather depressing really.