RustyLouis

One thing is clear -- City's propaganda and puppet reporters like Martin Samuel have been very successful Many believe the sentiment expressed below. If nation states owning football clubs were allowed to spend without limits -- it would give Everton a greater chance to win titles. The Red Cartel have rigged football. But what is this really all about? Is there a red cartel? Is FFP a sham? Everything explained -- correctly (perhaps for the first time). Background The EU smashed the entire European football structure in the mid 90s with a sledgehammer. Before the Bosman ruling (1996), a player that was out of contract was not allowed to leave his club if the club didn't sell him. This of course gave clubs enormous leverage in salary negotiations which kept wages down. The Bosman ruling also resulted in another very big change -- UEFA removed its cap on max 3 foreign players per team in UEFA tournaments. Many leagues still kept a cap on max number of non-EU players for some time. For obvious reasons -- this made it easier to 'buy success', which of course drove spending at all clubs. Either you matched the top spending clubs or you fell behind. The FFP rules -- is their purpose to secure that top clubs never are challenged? The new football world resulted in extremely strained finances at many clubs. You either gave up on being competitive or you matched the investments of clubs funded by rich owners. All FFP rules are per definition illegal under EU competition law and free market rules. The UEFA went hat in hand to the EU, backed up with significant data, and asked for a exemption. Normally, it is only possible to get an exemption if motivated due to public health concerns (like restrictions on nicotine) or national security (the UK government can order a UK shipbuilder to deliver a war ship to its navy before it delivers one to France, or whatever). But the EU gave in and basically told UEFA -- If you can convince the EU Commission that you have a set of rules that absolutely do not go further than what is strictly necessary to save football, we might think about it. Months of hard negotiations between the UEFA and the Commission followed, and the result was UEFA's Football Earnings Rule ("FER") adopted in 2010. I was studying law at this time and followed these negotiations closely. And I can tell you that convincing the Commission on that exemptions to rules restricting competition is not easy. This established -- through UEFA -- FFP rules for 7 of 20 clubs in the Premier League. Under the FER -- football clubs could lose a total of €30m over 3 years. But it is important to underline that many costs were excluded. Any money spent on a stadium or other facilities, the youth academy and the women's team was excluded. No 'Red Cartel' was involved in this process. German football was the biggest driver and other smaller nations. Five years later, the PL implemented PSR ahead of the 15/16 season. PSR was a copy and paste of UEFA's FER -- but with the difference that it allowed clubs to lose £105m over 3 years, instead of €30m. For the 7 PL clubs competing in Europe every season this rule never had any effect. Effectively, it impacted no club that had ambitions to play in Europe at any point in the future in the form of a 3 year window. They always had to plan to comply with UEFA's FER. United, Arsenal and Liverpool -- were next to other clubs forming a 2/3 majority -- behind this proposal. All rules ever implemented in the PL have always been supported by at least 14 clubs (or 13 if 1 club abstained). So any claim that the FFP rules in football came from the red cartel or that the rules are structured to combat teams from challenging a Red Cartel or top clubs is simply not correct. It is simply not even close to being true. But the rules have this effect -- and big clubs in the background ensured it and protects them Many expert claim that it is obvious that the rules are not fit for purpose and only are kept because they are supported by the big clubs. Do these experts wear tin-foil hats? No, they make very strong arguments. They argue that the rules prevents owners who are among the richest entities in the world from spending. How could it be "financially unsustainable" if the UAE or Saudi sovereign wealth funds spent a few billions on a football team? And even if they allow for the possibility of circumstances changing -- they claim that these entities could cover the cost of buying players and future wage obligation by putting in 10 bn. But strong counter arguments can also be made. (a) Circumstances change: Roman Abramovich had unlimited cash. 20ish billion pounds or whatever. Why prevent him from spending it on football if he wanted to? But he is a perfect example of why the rules exists. Because over night, he was sanctioned by the US and the EU and all his assets were frozen. At that point, Chelsea had a debt of £1.6bn (to Abramovich). Abramovich waived his right to that money and Chelsea could be sold. Had the debt instead been £5bn and Abramovich would have had creditors and couldn't waive the loan -- Chelsea FC not exist today. It simply cannot be ruled out that either of UAE or Saudi Arabia or Qatar always will be allowed to spend its people's money on football clubs in England. There can be changes of power. They are involved in proxy wars. Global politics could have an impact. Scandals (like City). The FFP rules allow clubs to spend -- a lot -- more money than it can generates. But there is an max limit. You can circumvent it. Pull levers. But not for 3bn. The reason for this is because 'circumstances changes'. Owners lose interest. Dies. Are sanctioned. Goes to jail. Whatever. (b) Securing future payment obligations is extremely complex: But come on Swedish, this is BS and you know it -- PIF or the Abu Dhabi investment fund could literary put in 10 bn -- and still not be allowed to spend 500m more on players. But it is not as simple as that. This is the problem with one sided debates, nobody ever defend "FFP". I've never really heard anyone comment on this, that really have thought it through. Its not the coolest thing you can do, defend FFP. Higher hipfactor in joining Greenpeace. But an owner that puts in 10bn into a club can withdraw 10bn within 5 minutes. If an owner for whatever reason abandon a football club -- there is all the reason in the world to not expect him/her/it to leave 10bn left on an account. But come on Rumble -- you know as well as me that someone can make a guarantee to cover costs! The thing is -- such a guarantee from Roman Abramovich through some intricate corporate structure back and forth between Malta, various channel islands and the Caymans is worth nothing more than a pinky promise. Could Boehly underwrite to cover Chelsea's costs for the coming 5-10 years even after selling the club? It is very complex. But sure -- you could definitely obtain sufficient security from the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund or the PIF. They have so much resources in Europe on their own books, that it would be enforceable. But that is basically what it boils down to. There are a few sovereign wealth funds in the world so big and with so many assets all over the globe -- that it ought to be able to get some type of parent company guarantee, that could be trusted. Or that could get a bank to put out a bank guarantee for a few billions. But it is very very easy to underestimate how complex this is legally, how much work have to be done on the PL side to ensure that it is water tight -- and I really doubt that many owners would be willing to place a couple of billion sterling on an account where they would sit idle year after year. So what is the proposal -- to add another chapter to the FFP rules that stipulates that countries bankrolling clubs can spend beyond what is sustainable if they provide parent company guarantees applying for a minimum of 10 years after they have sold the club? I don't think it is odd that the FFP rules do not have those rules. They would be quite perverse to be honest. (c) Everyone -- as I understand it -- agrees that FFP have had a very positive effect. Much fewer clubs fold nowadays compared to 20 years ago. So United, Liverpool and Arsenal will now win every single title, and its nothing that can be done about it -- FFP rules that prevents anyone from ever challenging them must exist? As a United fan, allow me doubt that we all of a sudden will start winning titles. But to some extent -- this is also European football. Nothing has changed from before FFP to after FFP -- in almost all leagues for all of time, the biggest clubs of the biggest cities tend to dominate football. Can owners with unlimited funds do nothing? This is definitely not the case. Newcastle is a club that has done an OK job lately. Some great signings and some terrible signings the last years. Their wage bill is up 140% the last 4 years (last report for 24/25) due to the support from PIF. Villa’s up 99% during the same period. United’s wage bill during the same period is down 3%. Brighton is a club that has done a great job. From 09/10 Brighton’s wage bill is up 2,800%. United’s wage bill during the same period is up 230%. The Premier League is — by far — the most “fair” football league in the world. 60-70% of ALL revenue is divided equally between all teams. This gives a ratio of 2.1 between what the top club earns from the PL and what the 20th ranked club earns from the PL. The same ratio in the other top 5 leagues is 4-5.