14 Aug 2017 12:56:33
Hi eds and readers . Just reading posts bellow some regarding ffp and others regarding transfer windows. I saw bellow that the primary role off ffp was to stop clubs operating outside of there capacity or something like that as opposed to been 'fair play' to other clubs that don't have sugar daddies etc as to what I believe that is what the majority of football fans believe it was for. I'd seen ed02 do a great piece on the European pages I think that went into great detail as to the real ins and outs of ffp.
Now this is my opinion and don't have a great deal of how or if it could work . But I believe that there should be a spending cap in anyone year on transfer fees. For example 100m across Europe per year. And then the wages and other costs to fall in line with current ffp regulations. I believe this would encourage better use of the ability of scouts, managers and club officials etc and make it more about skill and knowledge and good business rather than financial might. I know that people and eds might pick holes in this but if so please do as I would love to know what people's ideas and opinions and how they would like to see this side of football addressed . As for when windows should open and close I don't really have a to great of opinion as league throughout Europe start and finish at different times.
Thoughts please.
14 Aug 2017 14:03:45
3 senior signings per season per club would do it, if you can't get all you need from those 3 you either have to sign under 18 year olds or use your own youth products until the next season. If like us next season you have lots of free agents leaving then you should have planned better.
It would make good planning and management as big as advantage as loads of cash to spend.
14 Aug 2017 15:17:22
Or do Away with transfer fees altogether, a player signs a 1 2 3 4 or 5 year deal then it's up to you to keep him happy enough to sign another one :-)
If you sign a player on a 5 year deal for 100k a week and he's rubbish it's your tough luck and if you sign a player on a 5 year deal on 10k a week and he's brilliant he either sees out his contact or extends for more money.
In Sanchez case he would have 1 season to go simple as.
14 Aug 2017 15:33:12
3 senior signings leaves the door open for some serious issues. Take Southampton a few seasons back and Monaco this season. Some clubs are more prone to losing players than others and no amount of forwarding planning can avert situations like this.
14 Aug 2017 15:51:18
Agree Sharpie, I guess what it is now is the best mess they can come up with but like I said below, teams go into the season not playing players for what, two or three weeks because they're going anywhere, that is crazy.
Sanogo from the outside ffp looks an absolute joke, I don't really know the financial situations of the two big Spanish clubs but Man United seem like the only club who actually have the big money they spend through all their vast revenue streams.
14 Aug 2017 16:41:10
If you plan well and make sure only 3 players per season go into the final 2 seasons of thier contract then there wouldn't be a problem boys, no player is going to want to sit on the bench for 2 seasons to get a move, 1 season out of the lime light puts their potenial future options in question 2 seasons out and few will even remember who you were.
This would certainly take away player power and 3 signings per season would limit the ability of a super billionaire to transform a club over night.
If everyone was limited to 3 players the market would go crazy on day 1 because people wouldn't want to miss out on their top targets plus City wouldn't have the option of Sanchez this summer as they would have used their 3 long ago.
City have had almost unlimited funds since 2008 and signed how many players in the last 9 seasons? Probably a 200 or more
Imagine if they had only signed 27 of them? I doubt Nasri Toure and Clichy would have been among those 27.
14 Aug 2017 17:58:27
G62, that's total fantasy. What about players who put in transfers or clubs that make an offer you can't turn away from. It's simply not possible to just allow 3 senior signings per window. You can try and pretty up the terms as much as you'd like but at the end of the day, someone is still going to be eating a s***e sandwich.
For me, the entire FFP thing is a joke. Do you see other industries placing caps on spending like this? If you can't balance the books as a club, then you deserve to go into administration, just like any other business.
14 Aug 2017 18:15:58
@stoner For the 2014/ 2015 season, across match day revenue, broadcasting revenue and commercial revenue, we were only bested by the Manchester clubs. Man U pulled in £359M, City pulled in £352M, and we pulled in £331M. Chelsea pulled £319M.
Man U I believe are heavily in debt to the tune of about £500M. That's more net debt than any other club in Europe. FFP was brought in to aid in this very thing and has largely worked with net debt across most clubs decreasing over the last five years. Man U though have managed to increase their debt quite steadily in direct contrast.
Is FFP working? I guess it is if the above is all you take into account. Man U however are in the enviable position of their debt only being roughly 80% of assets. Some clubs are still operating with debt at over 400% of their assets.
Additionally, revenues are not increasing in a similar way to player prices and wages. There's going to come a time when the only players mid table teams in Europe can attract are those from 2-3 divisions down. Then we'll simply be calling it FP (Financial Play) because it won't really be fair any more (if it ever was) .
14 Aug 2017 19:21:19
That's some serious debt, I just read it increased by £18 million in the last 12 months due to the strong dollar against the pound.
{Ed002's Note - Much of the purpose behind FFP was to stop the Parma, Portsmouth type implosions. It as designed to say spend as much as you can afford but don't take on debt to do more. Conceptually it has worked reasonably well but the bias gets twisted by things like the additional income the mainly English sides get from sponsorship and all of the English Prelier League sides get from the new media deal. It keeps getting discussed and on the 24th will be discussed again by a number of the so called "elite" European sides at a meeting in Monaco. As you know some folks are looking at a pan-European breakaway league which, rather ironically, might make FFP work very well for the remaining sides (as the media deals and massive sponsorship will have gone with the "elite".}
14 Aug 2017 20:03:58
Thanks for the insight Ed002. I can't see that being good for the teams not considered "elite". Major leagues as we know them will go the way of the Scottish league and I wouldn't be surprised if a few teams went under overnight as a consequence.
{Ed002's Note - Not quite, but it will need a long needed restructure and perhaps a "feeder" type approach which makes a great deal of sense. There are far too many pro clubs in England already. Some need to drop back to being community clubs. I hold a reasonably strong view in terms of the need to restructure football in Europe in any case. For me an eventual a breakaway pan-European league would force the restructuring of many of the national leagues, possibly resulting in a British league with perhaps only a couple of professional tiers and then regionalised amateur leagues below that. Financially I do not see that so many pro sides can be sustained within the sport which, like it or not, will see more and more money going in to the highest levels of the game. Governments will ensure that grassroot sports get funding but everything in the middle (Southern, Northern, Conference, Division 2, Scottish Divisions 1-3, League of Wales will not get the funding needed to continue on any sort of professional basis. For me, clubs should already recognise this and put their efforts in to getting there finances in order to see if they can make it to a British professional league that will need to flourish without perhaps six sides that have gone down the pan-European route - and have gone for good. Clubs like Accrington Stanley will need to carry on as ameteurs or face extinction (yet again).}
14 Aug 2017 20:14:08
Top post Ed.
14 Aug 2017 20:20:15
Thanks for that ed02, whilst you're about do you know much about the possible make up of this elite league, I'm guessing, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, France and maybe Portugal will be the basis.
Is there any indication of how many from each League and what criteria if any.
Sorry if you answered this elsewhere and thanks in advance.
{Ed002's Note - Right now there are sides from the leading European leagues involved - although there are occasionally changes that sees a side added or a side pulling out. They will form the initial basis of any breakaway. It remains very much an on-going issue with regular discussions on the matter between around 16 “elite†European clubs (including three from England) who meet to discuss a variety of issues a couple of times a year. Without going in to too much detail:
(a) A number of clubs take the opportunity to meet and discuss various issues including changes in rules, club versus country issues, television and other media rights, the power of UEFA, exploitation issues for new technology streams, etc.. The meetings were annually but now they happen two and sometimes three times a year. There was a meeting in December – where there was a discussion about the state of FIFA, the situation with UEFA and a so far unpublished claim from a retired referee that the result of a Champions League game was influenced by a third party. These discussions also always turn to the possibility and structure of a breakaway pan European league. Several are ex-G14 clubs, several are not, and some clubs decline involvement in such discussions.
(b) The plan is that at some point a number of clubs would break away from their national leagues and UEFA. They accept that they would be banned from all existing club competition and the players would initially be banned from all FIFA competitions as well, but know that FIFA would be looking to negotiate in any case. It would be the end of UEFA in all probability and UEFA are very aware of this. It would also result in a restructuring of many of the national leagues.
(c) The clubs would renegotiate their television and media rights, rights of distribution via other streams etc..
(d) It remains the greatest fear of UEFA and all major national authorities that one day this will happen – which has resulted in a counter-proposal being drafted by UEFA.
(e) Timing wise, two very prominent clubs want it to happen as soon as possible (2018 – not a chance) and they have the support of a third club - but most are looking at 2022 to 2015 being a good option. A few clubs are looking at 2025 to 2028 and I suspect that could end up as the reality.
There are two counter-proposals to the pan-European breakaway that have partially been backed by UEFA to try and save their own skin. The first proposal is to rename and change the format of the UEFA Champions League to make it an elite closed-shop pan-European league with a fixed number of teams – and these would be the same teams every year and be based on past winners of the Champions League and European Cup and a few (not specified) more. It would then require the restructuring of the Europa League and the possible introduction of a lower-tier European competition again. Although they have yet to flesh out the detail and there is now a major concern that the impetus for this is not coming from Europe, although one major Football Association has given their support and discussions have also been held with the leading clubs from England (Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal). The American backer, Stephen Ross of the Miami Dolphins, has on several occasions requested a meeting with an extant group of sides considering the pan-European breakaway to discuss his proposals. They have yet to respond but having identified the source of much of the funding (and that raising a concern) will wish to discuss it between themselves first. This has dragged on for a year and nothing has happened. However, UEFA are now considering yet another proposal that would see some places in the CL fixed (probably to previous winners) and then see it supplemented by Champions and second place sides each season. This complicates matters again as it means the re-introduction of a third competition or the significant restructuring of the EL. The plan being put to clubs is a summer/preseason tournament that will evolve in to a parallel league, and of course eventually in to a complete breakaway for these clubs. As a first step to all of this, UEFA have negotiated minor changes that will see the four entrants from England, Germany, Spain and Italy enter the existing Champions League group stages without any qualification beyond their National League position (so no entry to qualifying rounds). This has been agreed by the European Club Association but UEFA did not want to discuss it with the separate group of “elite†sides discussing the Pan European League (and that “elite†group includes three English sides) as they are aware they will get no more than a shrug and no long-term support. The second major counter proposal is a Chinese proposal from the Dalian Wanda Group proposes to open up the lucrative Chinese and Far Eastern media markets by extending the league to include Chinese and South American clubs. This has yet to be discussed by the "elite" sides as a group although the proposals have been presented to a number of them already on an individual basis. The proposals are very broad-based and lack detail - their selling point is significant additional income for the "elite".
If the proposal for a breakaway goes ahead, there is every likelihood that the big money from television, sponsorship etc. would go with a breakaway league. It would completely rupture the operations of UEFA and I would expect it would require national associations like the FA to restructure their leagues. Nobody wants this but it is the eventual consequence I would expect. Initially it could be that there is a single 16 team league with 2 or 3 EPL teams making the initial plunge. If I had to speculate, I would think (1) you might eventually see something like five or six EPL teams leave for two-tier pan European league - but it won't be based on the UEFA rankings; (2) the Premier League would be disbanded as an organisation; (3) the FA would restructure in to two 20 team divisions with lower leagues regionalised as they were many years ago; (4) FIFA would ban all players from the breakaway teams from International football - perhaps rescinding that position to stop FIFA breaking up as well - they don't want further issues but the troubles are not going to go away. I could also see many teams lose their professional status. I would think we are probably 10 years away from any significant move at this time.
14 Aug 2017 21:28:34
Hi Ed,
Thanks for this post, it's fascinating stuff. For all the moving parts, it seems like there is one rigidity, and that's in the number of teams involved in the break-away super leagues. If a foreign buyer comes in and buys Ajax, Leeds, Celtic or Marseille, presumably spending obscene amounts on squads, is there any possibility for access to the super league?
{Ed002's Note - No, that is not where it is coming from, but two of those sides are already involved.}
14 Aug 2017 21:36:34
Wow, thanks for that great reply ed02. ðŸ˜.
{Ed002's Note - You are welcome.}
15 Aug 2017 08:06:12
Brilliant post ed.
15 Aug 2017 09:45:16
Fascinating stuff.
15 Aug 2017 11:02:49
All the American sports leagues all have salary caps (and transfer cap) to even out the leagues and make it more interesting. Is this ever considered in European football? I know they have a different structure all together, but I think this could work in Europe as well. The owners like it because revenues are the same, salaries to the players and agents are less. The product is still good, because there is greater chance that smaller clubs could rise to the top with good management and scouting. Bigger clubs will still attract the best players due to tradition and fan base. And players tend to respect their contract more often.
{Ed002's Note - It can't work because you are looking at multiple nations with local laws and enormously different economies.}