“The world has turned and left me here” - music, film & sports fan from Cornwall, living in Bedfordshire.
Shefford, England
Joined July 2009
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Romesh must have a spectacular agent. Whatever he pays them is not enough. #traitors
In the three years prior to the financial doping, Manchester City had an average points haul of
47. Once the money started flowing, average points rose to 79.
-32 points for the next 9 years seems a fair sanction to me.
When it rains, it pours. #avfc
nytimes.com/athletic/7468281…
Yet another feeble exit. We invited that result from the moment we scored. There was no outlet and we sat back for the remainder of the half. When changes did come, they were negative ones. Pathetic. #england
Very well reasoned. Unfortunately there are a lot of also rans in the league who are happy to vote for current rules as it helps them to maintain their advantage over promoted teams.
PSR was anti-competitive. SCR is arguably worse. Here's why the Premier League's financial rules don't protect competition — they protect the established order. 🧵👇 (all in one post)
SCR lets every club spend 85% of football revenue on their squad. Sounds fair, right? Same percentage for everyone.
Except 85% of £700m is £595m. 85% of £300m is £255m. The rule doesn't level the playing field — it takes the existing revenue gap and writes it into law. The clubs who built their revenue advantage decades ago (much of it in the pre-regulation era) get to spend from a permanently bigger pot.
And here's the part nobody talks about enough: revenue in football follows success. You grow commercial income by winning things and playing in Europe. But to win things you need to spend, and you're only allowed to spend what your current revenue permits. It's a closed loop. The Big Six's moat isn't talent or ideas — it's regulation.
Now look at what happens when a club actually breaks through:
🔴⚪ Newcastle. Ended a 70-year domestic trophy drought, qualified for the Champions League — and their "reward" was selling academy graduates before a June 30 accounting deadline to stay PSR compliant. Pure profit on homegrown players sold not for football reasons, but for spreadsheet reasons.
🟣 Aston Villa. Champions League quarter-finalists. Their prize? Forced player sales every June and UEFA fines, because European qualification drops your squad cost ceiling from 85% to UEFA's 70%. Read that again: succeeding LOWERS your spending headroom relative to your domestic rivals who didn't qualify.
That's the glass ceiling. Win a trophy, reach the CL, do everything right — and the rules snap you back to your "correct" place in the hierarchy.
The league had one genuine chance to fix this: Top-to-Bottom Anchoring, which would have capped everyone's spending at a multiple of the bottom club's TV money. An actual competitive-balance mechanism. The clubs voted it down.
So we're left with a system that calls itself "sustainability" but functions as protectionism. Owners with capital ready to invest are barred from doing so. Challengers are forced to sell their best young players to fund ambition. And the same handful of clubs get regulatory cover to stay on top forever.
Competition law exists to stop incumbents rigging markets against new entrants. English football has done exactly that — and called it fair play.
Thomas Emery retweeted
I was just reading about this. To me, it makes matters considerably worse.
The issue is no longer simply whether the original red card was justified. It is whether FIFA has undermined the integrity of the World Cup, and its own authority as the global regulator of football, by appearing either to invent a procedure or, at the very least, to apply its rules in a wholly unprecedented way, against a backdrop of acknowledged political pressure, while refusing to give reasons and seemingly leaving the decision with no meaningful avenue of challenge.
As someone committed to sporting integrity, transparency, fairness and the rule of law in sport, if the reports of what has happened are accurate, I find this deeply troubling.
For years I have represented players and others facing lengthy bans for betting offences where there has been no suggestion whatsoever of match manipulation, because the governing bodies, including FIFA, have consistently argued that preserving confidence in the integrity of the sport requires robust and uncompromising enforcement.
If that is the standard expected of participants, the regulator itself must be held to at least the same standard. If the reports are accurate, this decision, and the consequences for FIFA, could prove to be truly seismic, eclipsing the controversy about the red card itself.
#sportslaw #sports #fifa #balogun
🚨 BREAKING: RBFA issues a new statement accusing FIFA of making their appeal "inadmissible" adding they have no choice but to "challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match".
"After learning through media reports of FIFA’s decision to lift the automatic suspension of player Balogun, the RBFA sent a letter to FIFA requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations.
"As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.
"For an appeal to be admissible, FIFA’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, FIFA itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible.
"All of this occurred while FIFA simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests.
"Furthermore, during the match coordination meeting, FIFA deliberately removed the section concerning the automatic suspension of players from its presentation. This topic had nonetheless been part of all such meetings before each of the previous four matches. The RBFA questioned FIFA, both orally and in writing, about the reasons for this change, yet once again received no response.
"To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from FIFA regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match.
"Regardless of the sporting outcome of this match, the RBFA is deeply saddened by the course of events and will continue to fight in the coming hours, days and months in defence of the fundamental principles of ethics, fair competition, and the interests of football as a whole."
Thomas Emery retweeted
if you try to compete in the PL - meaning qualify for Europe through league position - and are not part of the commercial six, you are going to get fined by UEFA
that simple. That is how the system is set up. Newcastle, Villa, Forest this time
Probably Bournemouth next summer
Aston Villa have been fined €22.5m for breaching UEFA’s Squad Cost Rules (SCR) — but will only pay €7.5m with the rest only payable if their compliance with the regulations takes a downturn.
Full story from @J_Tanswell ⬇️
bit.ly/4woRf5n
Thomas Emery retweeted
Win a pair of hospitality tickets to Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa🎟️
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To Enter:
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#AVFC
Craig Pawson completely lost control of that game. Not blowing or giving cautions where appropriate has meant that players were put at risk. #BBCFootball
Isn’t the Forest player who “dummies” interfering with play? His movement towards the ball forces Lindelof to follow him prior to Gibbs White running onto it. #BBCFootball #avfc #nffc
Why can’t VAR check for the correct award of Free Kicks and Corners that lead to goals? #bbcfootball #avfc #pgmol
Further proof that the Villa Park ban is not anti semitic. bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art…
Rogers gets studs to the side of the knee, nothing given. 30s later, Spurs get a free kick. Make it make sense! #bbcfootball
In taking off both Watkins and Malen, Unai has taken away our out ball and invited Burnley pressure #avfc #BBCFootball
Something needs to be done about the prevalence of @youfibre spam. I just cannot get away from mailshots, cold callers and online advertising.