So for their losses being too large they make them err, £50m larger. Great logic UEFA, great logic.
Clubs like them will never be removed from the Champions League, I guess the only deterrent would be transfer embargos (and a fine). Again, that won't happen.
In a couple of years everyone will realise what a waste of time FFP is and something worthwhile may be implemented. Once more, unlikely. The more things change they more they stay the same.
I don't get FFP for teams like them, what's to stop them spending 500m on players one season, taking a 100m fine and a transfer embargo for a season, but having a wonder squad for 5 seasons from it?
Well overdue. The horse has well and truly bolted in terms of having any kind of financial fairness in football, at least not in the way many other sports have salary caps and stricter financial criteria in terms of profits and losses, but at least some action is now being taken.
The financial fine isn't the punishment as City can easily brush it off - but if the fine helps pay for UEFA's operations in terms of identifying those breaching FFP, then I'm all for it.
The real punishment will be how Man City will be restricted as a football club - a smaller squad is on the cards, although not sure what transfer restrictions will be placed on them.
Champions League expulsion IMHO should only be for the most extreme breaches of rules. Man City never get anywhere in the competition anyway and it would leave their squad better placed to win the 3 domestic competitions without those extra European games and the travelling that goes with them. Any TV rights or gate receipts ought to be subject to confiscation in relation to European competition, depending on the level of breach.
At the end of the day, the main advantages financial strength gives a club is through wages, squad size and transfer fees, so the punishment ought to fit the crime - the maximum squad size should be restricted, a wage cap ought to be levied and there should be a transfer embargo, with the severity of each punishment depending on the magnitude of the breach. I would only like to see competition-based penalties (such as points deductions and expulsion from cups or mandatory relegation) if the breaches were fraudulent or illegal in nature or if any kind of cover-up or criminal activity or cooking the books/not complying with investigators had taken place, as then clearly they have acted wrongfully to the detriment of other clubs. As it stands, Man City haven't done anything morally wrong, they have just failed to comply with the regulations concering club finances, which is more down to poor accounting and business management than moral or legal failure.
They Should collect all the fines together in the UK, then any club not fined enters a football club lottery, like the way they draw the FA cup with the balls.
Could you imagine Mansfield suddenly winning the 50M lottery.
Their reputation off the pitch also suffered a hit recently in the media when it was “revealed” that these great teams were built on a mountain of debt (€590 million at Real Madrid and €578 million at Barcelona), raising questions as to whether this was, to coin a phrase, “financial fair play.”
Shows what City think of FFP. They are to be fined £50 million and on the same day as this alledged punishment is in the press they are linked with a £148 million bid for Messi!
They obviously dont think that FFP applies to them and if the only sanction is a fine to a company making £100 mill a day it is pointless and they will carry on with a complete disregard for the rules.
Unless they are hit with a proper punishment such as a European ban they they will carry on as they are. I just think that they and others such as PSG are deemed too powerful to upset by the authorities.
Shows what City think of FFP. They are to be fined £50 million and on the same day as this alledged punishment is in the press they are linked with a £148 million bid for Messi!
They obviously dont think that FFP applies to them and if the only sanction is a fine to a company making £100 mill a day it is pointless and they will carry on with a complete disregard for the rules.
Unless they are hit with a proper punishment such as a European ban they they will carry on as they are. I just think that they and others such as PSG are deemed too powerful to upset by the authorities.
Realistically rules don't apply to those with this sort of financial muscle. They just can't be punished. Even if they do ban them from a competition they will take the organisation to court and that would cost them so much money that they can't afford to defend themselves. The super rich will always be able to negotiate a fine as they can't be thrown out of the CL and fined £50m so UEFA have to, effectively, pay £50m to ban them and then millions more defending their decision, all the while they would have to be allowed into the competition until the case is finished in court, and if Man City take it high enough it could take decades for a resolution - all the while the world, literally, laughs at UEFA!
It is, normally (if not always), best not to pick a fight with someone very, very rich!
Like the championship version.of FFP it will be interesting to see how this plays out. In my mind it it is good that UEFA are looking at so called sponsorship deals and stating quite clearly that they perceive these as gifts. But it transpires that most clubs only use 21 of their 25 man champions league squad. So this is a slap on the wrist this time. But where does this go? More importantly for CAFC we need to see where FFP is going as this may have an impact on player fees and wages.
Manchester City aren't doing anything different to what the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool did 20-30 years ago.
I thought FFP was to stop another Portsmouth/Leeds type of situation, so why have they been fined £50 million? Surely a points deduction/ban would be more appropriate for failing FFP - but that doesn't line UEFA's pockets.
I don't understand why Man City's owner has to pay £50 million of his own money to UEFA, but isn't allowed to invest that into his own football club.
This fine, for the owner spending his own money on the football club which he bought, is the same value as 2500 racist abuse fines from UEFA.
Maybe it's just me who doesn't quite understand how a team spending its owner's own money isn't financial fair play, but a team in £600 million debt is financial fair play.
The point is that UEFA have made it clear that the £50m fine is a ;get out of jail free card' and an alternative to really punishing them. If they appeal a fine that won't make any difference to the owner, at all, they will increase the punishment. Basically they are demanding £50m over three years for qualification for the Champions League, which is, ironically, only a fraction of what they have paid to get into it already.
Chances are they would have several takers if they offered Man City's place in the Champions League for £16.66m a season.
It is corrupt, it is trading justice (wrong word, I know but close enough) for money. It reminds me of the train fare dodger that was invited to pay several thousands to avoid court and possibly prison time. I have a feeling that the same will come to pass in FFP in the football league, meaning that the super rich will be able to cheat the system, and it will cost them less as those following the rules will reduce pressure on players wages, Thus it will cost only a fraction of what it used to do to buy all the best players.
It's not as though this in not how the whole world works though is it?
I'm afraid King hill addick that FFP in the championship already allows clubs to overspend their way to promotion and then pay a penalty. Let us see what happens to clubs who overspend and fail to get promoted - will they really be excluded from the January 2015 window?
On Man City I think it is to be applauded that UEFA accountants have declined to allow the gifts dressed up as sponsorship made out to Man City and PSG. Shrinking the Champions League squad does not appear to make much difference as most clubs only use 21 or 22 players. Perhaps repeating the offence leads to more fines and a further reduction?
Sure, these penalties are against clubs who can afford the fines but their continuous acquisition of players at £30M a time on contracts of £3-5M per year is inflating the market for all clubs and therefore threatening the financial stability of the game overall.
Manchester City aren't doing anything different to what the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool did 20-30 years ago.
I thought FFP was to stop another Portsmouth/Leeds type of situation, so why have they been fined £50 million? Surely a points deduction/ban would be more appropriate for failing FFP - but that doesn't line UEFA's pockets.
I don't understand why Man City's owner has to pay £50 million of his own money to UEFA, but isn't allowed to invest that into his own football club.
This fine, for the owner spending his own money on the football club which he bought, is the same value as 2500 racist abuse fines from UEFA.
Maybe it's just me who doesn't quite understand how a team spending its owner's own money isn't financial fair play, but a team in £600 million debt is financial fair play.
Manchester City are debt free.
You make a good point. City are spending what they can afford yet get punished, but a side like Real who are in hundreds of millions of debt, go unpunished despite spending 85m on one player.
I'm all for the idea of FFP but it needs looking at. Perhaps they should look at a clubs overall debt levels as well, and not just current spending.
I like the idea of reducing the CL squad size, and there has to be a monetary fine along with whatever else (although I think the money should be put back into grass roots in whichever country the offending club is from).
I think another sanction should be that they are shifted to the qualifiers and seeded lowest to ensure they get a hard group.
Additionally, the punishments should double for multi-year offenders. This would mean City could only have a squad of, say 18 players for CL (still 8 homegrown), 100m fine (again to a good cause within the game) and potentially a points deduction if the same were to happen 2 years in a row.
Financial fair play would be a salary or transfer fee cap IMO. Financial fair play should make it even (which I would be in favour of), not biased like the current scheme.
The likes of Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea are in the Champion's League earning £50 million each per season. How are the other teams able to compete with that? To get into the Champion's league, the likes of Everton and Southampton would have to spend money, but they're not allowed with these new rules. In other words, they have no chance. The same clubs will be in the Champion's League every year, getting richer and richer leaving the other teams further and further behind.
It confuses me that a club like ourselves support it. It basically means we have no chance of ever really being successful.
We support the championship version simply because in theory it should limit the wage competition or as @Mundell Fleming calls it "the arms race". Bournemouth lost £15M last season and have committed to paying a 34 year old injury prone striker a lot of money in two seasons time. If they are not promoted then they will have to cut back or face a freeze on player registrations. This should level the competition and bring down the market for older players depending upon how it is implemented.
What you say about the Champions League is very true and even more of a concern when one considers what might happen in the future with TV rights. A salary cap or a debt cap are alternative ways to improve both sustainability and competition without locking down the current pecking order but can you see the top European clubs voting for that?
Don't be fooled, it's just another money-making scheme from those crooks at UEFA. Clubs are now run by billionaires pumping silly money into them so they can compete in, stay in and win UEFA's competitions. How can UEFA make money from this? Fine them silly money of course! Don't get your hopes on Platini. He's no better than Blatter. Why fine them? Why not impose other sanctions that would hit them harder such as exclusion from European competitions, loss of TV money, salary caps, transfer bans, squad reductions etc.
Financial fair play would be a salary or transfer fee cap IMO. Financial fair play should make it even (which I would be in favour of), not biased like the current scheme.
The likes of Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea are in the Champion's League earning £50 million each per season. How are the other teams able to compete with that? To get into the Champion's league, the likes of Everton and Southampton would have to spend money, but they're not allowed with these new rules. In other words, they have no chance. The same clubs will be in the Champion's League every year, getting richer and richer leaving the other teams further and further behind.
It confuses me that a club like ourselves support it. It basically means we have no chance of ever really being successful.
This, so much, FFP is one step but if football really wants to take the high ground over finances, then in my opinion, it should have a system where every club in the same league has exactly the same budget, then league standings could actually be decided by the skill of the manager/head coach rather then the cheque book of the person who hired the manager.
Financial fair play would be a salary or transfer fee cap IMO. Financial fair play should make it even (which I would be in favour of), not biased like the current scheme.
The likes of Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea are in the Champion's League earning £50 million each per season. How are the other teams able to compete with that? To get into the Champion's league, the likes of Everton and Southampton would have to spend money, but they're not allowed with these new rules. In other words, they have no chance. The same clubs will be in the Champion's League every year, getting richer and richer leaving the other teams further and further behind.
It confuses me that a club like ourselves support it. It basically means we have no chance of ever really being successful.
You are looking up at those that we can't afford to out spend. I suspect that the reason we have agreed to this is that we are looking down, at those clubs that will not be able to catch up to us with their limited budgets.
Either way football cannot carry on paying third division footballers more that the Prime Minister with incomes less than the average corner shop.
The current level of debt (that is rising) would, if not stopped, make almost all football clubs fail the 'going concern' rule and we could end up with many of these community clubs disappearing while the average footballer retires worth more than the club that employed him. That is just not sustainable.
I fear that football is now broken beyond repair. Let the big boys cosy up to UEFA and their commercial partners, they can then form their own self-perpetuating, relegation-free Super League and play each other to their hearts content. That will leave the rest of the game to recover from the present fever, adopt some sensible, practical sporting rules and get on with our own humble existences. Actually, big undoubtedly though the big boys are, the rest of us still outnumber them. If only UEFA were a democracy ....
Comments
Clubs like them will never be removed from the Champions League, I guess the only deterrent would be transfer embargos (and a fine). Again, that won't happen.
In a couple of years everyone will realise what a waste of time FFP is and something worthwhile may be implemented. Once more, unlikely. The more things change they more they stay the same.
It has to be a points deduction.
It would hurt the prestige of the tournament to leave out some of the best clubs.
The financial fine isn't the punishment as City can easily brush it off - but if the fine helps pay for UEFA's operations in terms of identifying those breaching FFP, then I'm all for it.
The real punishment will be how Man City will be restricted as a football club - a smaller squad is on the cards, although not sure what transfer restrictions will be placed on them.
Champions League expulsion IMHO should only be for the most extreme breaches of rules. Man City never get anywhere in the competition anyway and it would leave their squad better placed to win the 3 domestic competitions without those extra European games and the travelling that goes with them. Any TV rights or gate receipts ought to be subject to confiscation in relation to European competition, depending on the level of breach.
At the end of the day, the main advantages financial strength gives a club is through wages, squad size and transfer fees, so the punishment ought to fit the crime - the maximum squad size should be restricted, a wage cap ought to be levied and there should be a transfer embargo, with the severity of each punishment depending on the magnitude of the breach. I would only like to see competition-based penalties (such as points deductions and expulsion from cups or mandatory relegation) if the breaches were fraudulent or illegal in nature or if any kind of cover-up or criminal activity or cooking the books/not complying with investigators had taken place, as then clearly they have acted wrongfully to the detriment of other clubs. As it stands, Man City haven't done anything morally wrong, they have just failed to comply with the regulations concering club finances, which is more down to poor accounting and business management than moral or legal failure.
Could you imagine Mansfield suddenly winning the 50M lottery.
Would add a bit of excitement! Lol
Their reputation off the pitch also suffered a hit recently in the media when it was “revealed” that these great teams were built on a mountain of debt (€590 million at Real Madrid and €578 million at Barcelona), raising questions as to whether this was, to coin a phrase, “financial fair play.”
They obviously dont think that FFP applies to them and if the only sanction is a fine to a company making £100 mill a day it is pointless and they will carry on with a complete disregard for the rules.
Unless they are hit with a proper punishment such as a European ban they they will carry on as they are. I just think that they and others such as PSG are deemed too powerful to upset by the authorities.
It is, normally (if not always), best not to pick a fight with someone very, very rich!
More importantly for CAFC we need to see where FFP is going as this may have an impact on player fees and wages.
I thought FFP was to stop another Portsmouth/Leeds type of situation, so why have they been fined £50 million? Surely a points deduction/ban would be more appropriate for failing FFP - but that doesn't line UEFA's pockets.
I don't understand why Man City's owner has to pay £50 million of his own money to UEFA, but isn't allowed to invest that into his own football club.
This fine, for the owner spending his own money on the football club which he bought, is the same value as 2500 racist abuse fines from UEFA.
Maybe it's just me who doesn't quite understand how a team spending its owner's own money isn't financial fair play, but a team in £600 million debt is financial fair play.
Manchester City are debt free.
Chances are they would have several takers if they offered Man City's place in the Champions League for £16.66m a season.
It is corrupt, it is trading justice (wrong word, I know but close enough) for money. It reminds me of the train fare dodger that was invited to pay several thousands to avoid court and possibly prison time. I have a feeling that the same will come to pass in FFP in the football league, meaning that the super rich will be able to cheat the system, and it will cost them less as those following the rules will reduce pressure on players wages, Thus it will cost only a fraction of what it used to do to buy all the best players.
It's not as though this in not how the whole world works though is it?
On Man City I think it is to be applauded that UEFA accountants have declined to allow the gifts dressed up as sponsorship made out to Man City and PSG. Shrinking the Champions League squad does not appear to make much difference as most clubs only use 21 or 22 players. Perhaps repeating the offence leads to more fines and a further reduction?
Sure, these penalties are against clubs who can afford the fines but their continuous acquisition of players at £30M a time on contracts of £3-5M per year is inflating the market for all clubs and therefore threatening the financial stability of the game overall.
You make a good point. City are spending what they can afford yet get punished, but a side like Real who are in hundreds of millions of debt, go unpunished despite spending 85m on one player.
I'm all for the idea of FFP but it needs looking at. Perhaps they should look at a clubs overall debt levels as well, and not just current spending.
I think another sanction should be that they are shifted to the qualifiers and seeded lowest to ensure they get a hard group.
Additionally, the punishments should double for multi-year offenders. This would mean City could only have a squad of, say 18 players for CL (still 8 homegrown), 100m fine (again to a good cause within the game) and potentially a points deduction if the same were to happen 2 years in a row.
It's a scheme to keep the top clubs at the top.
Financial fair play would be a salary or transfer fee cap IMO. Financial fair play should make it even (which I would be in favour of), not biased like the current scheme.
The likes of Arsenal, Man City and Chelsea are in the Champion's League earning £50 million each per season. How are the other teams able to compete with that? To get into the Champion's league, the likes of Everton and Southampton would have to spend money, but they're not allowed with these new rules. In other words, they have no chance. The same clubs will be in the Champion's League every year, getting richer and richer leaving the other teams further and further behind.
It confuses me that a club like ourselves support it. It basically means we have no chance of ever really being successful.
What you say about the Champions League is very true and even more of a concern when one considers what might happen in the future with TV rights. A salary cap or a debt cap are alternative ways to improve both sustainability and competition without locking down the current pecking order but can you see the top European clubs voting for that?
Either way football cannot carry on paying third division footballers more that the Prime Minister with incomes less than the average corner shop.
The current level of debt (that is rising) would, if not stopped, make almost all football clubs fail the 'going concern' rule and we could end up with many of these community clubs disappearing while the average footballer retires worth more than the club that employed him. That is just not sustainable.
49m fine (32m suspended) and a reduced CL squad... harsh or not enough?
I fear that football is now broken beyond repair. Let the big boys cosy up to UEFA and their commercial partners, they can then form their own self-perpetuating, relegation-free Super League and play each other to their hearts content. That will leave the rest of the game to recover from the present fever, adopt some sensible, practical sporting rules and get on with our own humble existences. Actually, big undoubtedly though the big boys are, the rest of us still outnumber them. If only UEFA were a democracy ....