The Unintended (?) Consequences of Platini's FFP

[john@staustell]

Most people with any gumption realise that these rules were not dreamed up to stop City, Chelsea, United or anyone else, but to reduce the wages of the big boys all round. And also to preserve the status quo - the rich stay rich and the peasant clubs stay where they belong. Hopefully we have just sneaked through the right door now.

But there are 2 clear consequences so obvious that I can't believe Mr P hasn't seen them.

1) Firstly all clubs are being forced to max up revenues from ticket sales. This was always the case for mercenary leeches like the Glazers, but other clubs like City are being forced to screw the fans to maximise their income, rather than accepting another gift from the Sheik - or any other of the many rich owners. Thanks Platini, man of the people.

2) Secondly the big transfers that many clubs relied on traditionally to keep afloat will be reduced considerably, or dry up altogether. The money we paid for Dzeko filtered down to benefit 7 clubs throughout Europe in total. The money we paid Everton for Joleon Lescott kept them in business, and even so they are in dire straits again. The money for Milner kept Villa in business, although Randy later found some more. It's not just these bigger clubs, it's the little clubs in knock-on transfers. All will suffer and there will be a rash of clubs going under.


Maybe Platini and his cronies want this? Maybe they see a Utopian world of financially fit clubs?

But to me football clubs aren't here to make a profit or even to balance books. The traditional club, in Britain, Spain or Italy, at many levels, is a rich owner digging his hands deep into his pocket to build a stand, buy a player, pay the wages.

The situation in Spain and especially Italy is so dire that these rules, applied to the letter, could bring about some sort of Soccer Armageddon.

But as the gravy-trainers wont kill the geese that lay the golden eggs, they could just be shuffled away into obscurity, never to see the light of day again.

[Wooders]

Whilst I agreed with it in theory you are right about the consequences

Add to that in the rigg interview he admitted that now we look to sign players before they are even 17 years old rather than leaving them to develop at the club they are at, thus massively reducing the cost of the transfer and the revenue the club would have received from the sale

[Avalon]

As Wooders said above me, clubs have been poaching away starlets from smaller clubs for a while now and it will only get worse.
I know we, supposedly, signed some young kid from Feyenoord, who was impressive at the U17 world cup, which the Netherlands won. Rekik his name was, I believe.

Feyenoord themselves, although having had a poor season, are a big club in the Netherlands and have a renowned youth setup. As a matter of fact, the Netherlands on a whole has a great youth setup, proven by the many class players that are coming through.
Feyenoord is a victim of this, as they have lot 5-6 players under the age of 18 to bigger clubs in the past 2 years, or so.

The annoying factor is, if a player is at a club for 3 years, regardless of nationality, he's considered "home-grown", even though he was at the club for only three years and is foreign and thus clearly not "home-grown."
On top of that, according to the press, Feyenoord is in a lot of debt and these actions mean they lose out on, potentially, a lot of money, which is unfair. I'm sure there's other clubs that are in a similar position.

If this would happen to us, we'd get pissed off, so something needs to be done about bigger clubs poaching away kids from smaller clubs, as a matter of fact, I think UEFA should make a rule on this.

[ashton287]

Don't players here pay alot more tax then in the rest of europe?

I thought that we had to pay players pretty much twice what they earn in europe to keep the wages even after tax, kind of puts us at a dissadvantage if we have to balance te books with clubs who dont have to pay as much.

[Ted Hughes]

The main reason behind FFP is to stop the traditionally mid tier clubs (& countries) from challenging the usual elite clubs (& countries) by having an influx of money. Imagine if Villa & Everton or Leeds were taken over by Saudi's etc next week ? Rags & red scouse whole existence would be under threat with those two competing in addition to us. What about the big four!!?? We can't have that!! Not a problem anymore, they've taken up the drawbridge once we got in.

Also in other countries. The standard of football in Russia for instance, has been gradually increasing due to the oil millionaires paying good money for overseas players. These clubs could have regularly threatened the Chump's Lg progression of some cartel members such as Milan in the future. Not anymore.

One day though, they'll have to apply these sanctions to a substantial club. Let's see what happens when they do. The consequences of that, could be a shake up at UEFA.

[Guy Debord]

The FFP was not designed to maintain the status quo, it was designed to stop clubs going bust due to dodgy investors and the stupidity of boards (see Leeds). We as City fans are in clover now, but under Shinawatra we were walking the tightrope. It was the clubs themselves that asked for these rules (and not just the big clubs). If these rules were unwelcome the clubs would be protesting, as it is there's hardly a peep.

It's true that the fans will ultimately pay the price (it was ever thus) but at least they'll have clubs to support. The question know is how the clubs increase revenues with out fleecing the fans with shitty ideas like paying for loyalty points.

[bobby brows]

In my opinion the biggest part of financial fair play should be the prevention of owners removing the stadiums from the clubs for free and then having the clubs charged above market value in rent because the owner wants to build flats on the ground ala Wrexham, Mansfield, Bradford, Port Vale, and dozens of clubs up and down the country

regarding fans being charge the earth, isn't there some clause that prevents clubs charging above market rates! so surely that would apply to tickets?

Personally I just see the bigger clubs staying where they are because they generate more than everyone else

The lower clubs staying where they are because they don't earn huge revenues

and the middle clubs getting shafted cos they spend more to try and compete with the large teams.