FFP - City get off, is it now a dead duck?

So City get off with their 2 year ban. Predictably imo, but what does this mean for the entire premise of FFP in football?

Does it have a place and who does it supposedly protect?

Discuss.

 

@astro

 

My view is that the entire premise of FFP was brought in under a completely false premise.

They brought it in under the guise that it was to protect clubs from having owners who’s ‘ambition’ could bust clubs by accruing unsustainable debt.

Only this was never the true case imo. It was always an artificial glass ceiling created by those clubs who’s noses were firmly wedged in the CL TV cash & domestic success trough, and they wanted to protect their own interests by stopping another City type takeover from gate crashing the party.

Name another business, anywhere on the globe where it is somehow illegal for an owner to heavily invest in their business, in the hope of gaining a ROI at some point in the future? For me, as long as the investment is covered by the owner and the club isn’t accruing huge debts and risking its survival, then it’s simply no one else’s business. Therefore the entire premise of FFP is anti competitive. A premise that is yet to be fully tested in the civil courts, which is where I’m fairly certain City would have taken UEFA had they lost today.

 

Agree with you Tobes. Where does uefa go with it next? They clearly want to do psg and city, but can't touch them.

I like to think we operate in our own means, but what's the point, it is a disadvantage.

 

It's dead. For a second there we saw a flash of its potential, but money talks.

Where does it end now? Saudis about to buy a club, talks of Qatari interest in Leeds...

League is quickly becoming a farce, even billionaires look poor now.

 

The vast majority of clubs operate within their own means though. UEFA need to readdress the entire premise of FFP.

 

It's a ****ing sham of a rule that exists purely to protect the elite. About time it was binned off, or completely rewritten at least, and this could be the catalyst.

 

I'm sure I read they were scrapping it for the next season or two anyway because of Covid 19, and wanting to inject as much money as possible back in the system. Big question now is about UEFA - big hat and no cattle, or what? Literally the richest clubs tell them what to do, and not the other way around. European super league in 5 years now, wait and see. And it'll be like the NFL, with no automatic promotion or relegation, and you'll have to be elected in.

It will you know.

 

They haven’t scrapped it in the wake of COVID. What they did was to say that the coming years financial statements could be combined with last years, and any losses taken as one cumulative figure across the 24 months.

As for a European Super League, that is a closed shop, and would be a replacement for domestic competition for the clubs involved.....really? No.

 

good riddance to FFP

 

No surprise at the ruling. Citeh's lawyers were always going to get it overturned. The precedent set will now make it very difficult to ever invoke FFP sanctions as the very rich clubs will now simply mirror Citeh's 'sponsorship' deals... if they weren't doing it already.

 

I agree that FFP was brought in on a false guise, mainly to protect Real and Barca from clubs like City and PSG.
And I also some what agree with Tobes that it is the owners money to risk and spend.

However there is also a part that says without something there is a risk of losing real competition. As it is football is just about competitive now, due to a small spread of wealth but if the mega rich can just spend what they want, whats to stop them buying up the competitions best assets (Footballers are fickle they'll just ship for more money and a chance to win things) and it becoming a game dominated by two or three billionaire owned clubs.

Something is needed, but perhaps not ffp

 

Top level football really isn't all that competitive for the vast majority of clubs mate. You're about to win the league by a record margin for a start.

 

Only that’s exactly how it works now though. There’s always been a pyramid in football, with the likes of Barca and Madrid at the peak and the rest all falling into line behind them. So those towards the peak effectively have their pick of the best players on the planet, due to the size of their club and the money that generates organically, based on its previous and ongoing success and thus the fiscal benefits of the support and success payments that comes with it.

FFP tried to stop other clubs coming from nowhere and upsetting that status quo by them spending cash in order to try and create success on the pitch, in the hope that the initial investment eventually becomes self sustaining as the club grows.

 

Hopefully you're right.

Out of interest would you genuinely want that?

 

It is right to be binned off. The old elite clubs who have for twenty years+ talked about a possible European Super league and held it as a threat over the domestic leagues were the people who benefit most from the likes of FFP coming in to curb the spending on the new rich clubs. It's transparent and just a different version of the idea of "fair" as leaving it alone entirely.

I get the argument of bankrupting clubs but if an owner wants to use their own money and doesn't commit it to the club to cover the costs I don't see the issue. There should be regulations that if someone wants to ramp up the wage bill by £30m a year to fund a push then perhaps they need to put £60m to one side in the accounts to cover for the ongoing expenses of such so they can't just swan off and leave the club to go bust. But FFP wasn't preventing what it sought to do anyway.

 

Hope City go bust, the crooked ****s. Fifa and UEFA too.

Money corrupts everything.

 

Any domestic club that wants to go play in such a competition is no longer a domestic club tbh. If, for instance, Liverpool went off to do that then good luck to them and good riddance, they would no longer be of any interest to me as an English club. It would be just like the American leagues and hold precisely as much interest to me. Hell it may even let some of the actual English teams left win the league.

 

No, not Newcastle.