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Financial Fair Play to be scrapped


ahemps

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FFP is to be scrapped to allow clubs more freedom to spend their money. Is this a good thing?

FFP didn't achieve it's objective of levelling the playing field as it allowed the already established big clubs to remain the established cubs. Does giving Man City and PSG more spending power though help in creating some sort of competitive balance?

https://www.football.london/premier-league/uefa-chelsea-arsenal-tottenham-transfers-20243182#comments-section

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I'm glad FFP is gone. I think a better way of promoting equality would be by FIFA taking a leaf from the NFL's book and introducing a maximum squad size. You're allowed x amount of players at each youth team group and x amount at a first team level. If you exceed that amount then the player isn't allowed to play any games whatsoever, not for the reserves, loans, anything. The only way they get game time is if they're sold or released. If you want to sign a player in January then you'll need to let someone else go. Stopping the likes of City and Chelsea hoarding hundreds of good players will level the playing field much more than giving them a spending cap. 

The Premier league already has a cap of 25 registered players. If this was changed to a squad cap of 30 then it would allow for 25 players to play and 5 to be loaned out, which I reckon is more than enough. 

Edited by Coooombe
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Guest TheJTS98

Hard to know which way to turn on this one.

1) FFP seems like the kind of thing we should all be for, but it's hard to shake the idea that it existed to protect the already big big clubs.

2) Rich clubs can afford the kind of accountants and lawyers who will drive a bus through the loopholes in this kind of thing. As I heard a few people commenting when the City case was up a few months ago, the best financial and legal minds are not employed by football associations or federations. They're always likely to be out-gunned.

3) It almost seems time to just surrender the top level of the sport. If you're interested in it, then fair play to you. But it's becoming a pretty gaudy spectacle which is so far away from the sport that I love as to be almost unrecognisable. If you don't like it, don't pay for the tv subs.

 

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Guest TheJTS98
4 hours ago, G51 said:

When the European Super League happens, there will be a salary cap.

Almost certainly. The whole idea is to make money for the owners in perpetuity like American sports.

With the FOMO removed, owners will be quick to put a limit on how much of the cash can go to the players. All in the name of competition, you see.

Although, I'd make that an 'If' rather than your 'When'. The more this rumbles on, the more I can see plenty of good reasons why it never happens.

Edited by TheJTS98
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11 hours ago, TheJTS98 said:

Although, I'd make that an 'If' rather than your 'When'. The more this rumbles on, the more I can see plenty of good reasons why it never happens.

15 hours ago, G51 said:

When the European Super League happens, there will be a salary cap.

Do you believe it is 'if'? 

I am convinced it is only a matter of time before the powerful so called elite clubs breakaway from UEFA.

The new swiss model for the champions league is going to give it a league type feeling so in a few years time it may feel to a lot of the teams their priority tournament which I believe to PSG, Bayern Real and Barca the CL already is. 

I think recently UEFA wanted to increase the solidarity payments to the clubs not playing in UEFA tournaments but it actually got reduced.

So many examples of things all going in one direction towards these so called elite.

I think UEFA are giving in inch by inch to the elite clubs and I think we already past the tipping point in terms of who holds the power and it is just a matter of time before they take the plunge and go it alone.

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Guest TheJTS98
18 hours ago, ahemps said:

Do you believe it is 'if'? 

I am convinced it is only a matter of time before the powerful so called elite clubs breakaway from UEFA.

The new swiss model for the champions league is going to give it a league type feeling so in a few years time it may feel to a lot of the teams their priority tournament which I believe to PSG, Bayern Real and Barca the CL already is. 

I think recently UEFA wanted to increase the solidarity payments to the clubs not playing in UEFA tournaments but it actually got reduced.

So many examples of things all going in one direction towards these so called elite.

I think UEFA are giving in inch by inch to the elite clubs and I think we already past the tipping point in terms of who holds the power and it is just a matter of time before they take the plunge and go it alone.

I change my mind on this every now and then, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the empty threat view.

I think that if you look at what the big clubs do it tells you a different story from what people say about the Super League.

For example, different national leagues keep signing new tv deals for their domestic competitions that overlap and leave no natural exit. If this was serious, I think the big clubs would have found a way of aligning the expiration of domestic tv deals to have, say, 2025 as a potential jumping off point. They've had about 30 years to do this, but they've never bothered even trying.

Further to this, Project Big Picture was something that had more actual bones to it than the European Super League ever has, and I think that shines a light on the true priorities of the big English clubs. They have the golden goose in the Premier League, and it seems that they want increased control of that plus guaranteed access to a reformed Champions League. I think they can and will ultimately achieve both of those things.

And from a brand perspective, the set-up of being in the Champions League is probably safer for the big clubs. The Champions League remaining a knockout event means the big clubs will mostly get a shot of winning it or getting to the final, plus still being able to win things to enhance prestige in the domestic competitions. If they join a Super League, they might end up finishing 10th every season and tanking the brand.

I understand why some people think it's coming inevitably - I've held that view myself at times - and they may end up being right. But from what we actually see happening, my hunch is the big clubs want a stranglehold on domestic leagues and to be more or less guaranteed access to a Champions League that they get an increasingly bigger slice of the cake from. There'll be changes like more weekend CL games, stuff like that. But I think the Champions League will remain.

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1 hour ago, TheJTS98 said:

I change my mind on this every now and then, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the empty threat view.

I think that if you look at what the big clubs do it tells you a different story from what people say about the Super League.

For example, different national leagues keep signing new tv deals for their domestic competitions that overlap and leave no natural exit. If this was serious, I think the big clubs would have found a way of aligning the expiration of domestic tv deals to have, say, 2025 as a potential jumping off point. They've had about 30 years to do this, but they've never bothered even trying.

Further to this, Project Big Picture was something that had more actual bones to it than the European Super League ever has, and I think that shines a light on the true priorities of the big English clubs. They have the golden goose in the Premier League, and it seems that they want increased control of that plus guaranteed access to a reformed Champions League. I think they can and will ultimately achieve both of those things.

And from a brand perspective, the set-up of being in the Champions League is probably safer for the big clubs. The Champions League remaining a knockout event means the big clubs will mostly get a shot of winning it or getting to the final, plus still being able to win things to enhance prestige in the domestic competitions. If they join a Super League, they might end up finishing 10th every season and tanking the brand.

I understand why some people think it's coming inevitably - I've held that view myself at times - and they may end up being right. But from what we actually see happening, my hunch is the big clubs want a stranglehold on domestic leagues and to be more or less guaranteed access to a Champions League that they get an increasingly bigger slice of the cake from. There'll be changes like more weekend CL games, stuff like that. But I think the Champions League will remain.

Some very good points, you've made me reconsider it's inevitability.

A few counters for the sake of discussion though. The English clubs are getting what they want but if they financially pull away from the Bayern's, Juventus', Barcelona's etc. then these clubs might still look to form a super league so as to not fall behind and then the English would be in a tough position to stay or go.

I am not sure about finishing 10th and the brand tanking in a super league though as we all expect salary caps and possibly other structures that won't allow an environment for 2-3 clubs to dominate so finishing 10th for a few seasons might not mean that team is destined for long term mediocrity. I think some of us expect a European super league to be a soccer version of the NFL. The Dallas Cowboys haven't won a superbowl since 1995 but have financially been the top ranked sports corporations in the world according to Forbes for the last 5 years.

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Guest TheJTS98
21 hours ago, ahemps said:

Some very good points, you've made me reconsider it's inevitability.

A few counters for the sake of discussion though. The English clubs are getting what they want but if they financially pull away from the Bayern's, Juventus', Barcelona's etc. then these clubs might still look to form a super league so as to not fall behind and then the English would be in a tough position to stay or go.

I am not sure about finishing 10th and the brand tanking in a super league though as we all expect salary caps and possibly other structures that won't allow an environment for 2-3 clubs to dominate so finishing 10th for a few seasons might not mean that team is destined for long term mediocrity. I think some of us expect a European super league to be a soccer version of the NFL. The Dallas Cowboys haven't won a superbowl since 1995 but have financially been the top ranked sports corporations in the world according to Forbes for the last 5 years.

Yeah, the highlighted part is the main wobble I have on this. Over time those clubs will be left behind, arguably it's already happening. The question is how do they convince the English clubs to give up a situation that suits them fine, and can the super league work without the English clubs? Two questions, I suppose.

I get the brand part with the NFL etc. I'm just not sure if the footballing public is as culturally prepared to accept long-term lack of success. An example of this would be that when I first moved to Asia about nine years ago, I used to see a lot of Arsenal shirts and meet a lot of Arsenal fans. That's over now. Replaced by Man City. I heard a podcast a while ago with someone mentioning that Spurs making the CL final in 2019 was a bit of a letdown for UEFA, since by the measures UEFA use for 'engagement', Spurs are a massive drag and UEFA's engagement levels for the 2019 final were way lower than normal. Spurs just don't have the profile people think they do, despite years now of being a top end of the Premier League side. In football, clubs need to be winning to be relevant.

Just two examples, but I'm not sure the culture of football can sustain a club not being successful in a tangible way in the superclub era. Especially since a lot of the publicity these days is celebrity driven. Arsenal have just vanished and Spurs have never really appeared. I'm not sure Dortmund, for example, gain much in terms of profile by consistently being 8-12 in a superleague. But then, I don't know how to market things, so who knows?

I'd also keep coming back to the issue of whether an audience exists for this. TV companies are quite coy about exact viewing figures for paywall football, which I think tells its own story. But 2m is a great audience for Sky for a Premier League game. We know that BT Sport's Champions League group games even involving English sides have been in the 200,000 - 400,000 ballpark relatively often. People don't watch paywall tv all that much. Not nearly as much as the hype suggests. So who pays to watch a league involving few actual rivalries, no relegation to battle against, and no Champions League to qualify for? Where is the evidence that people will pay to watch that? The vast majority of games will be completely pointless.

I've mentioned before, but I think if there was any market research indicating this audience existed, Real Madrid and Bayern would have had it in the news cycle years ago.

Edited by TheJTS98
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All FFP achieved was stopping other teams from challenging the top teams.

They only brought it in as teams like Manure, Liverpool and Arsenal were scared that there would be another Chelsea or Man City, taking their places in the Champions.

Ideally there would be a salary cap, but it will never happen.

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