Yes, Iām aware of that, thanks. The point being, they got away with it. They didnāt cooperate and no one was able to make them comply.
Once the guardians of the game are unable to get the teams to comply with the rules, can we still say FFP is a meaningful thing, at least for teams like Man City?
For me, it isnāt. Not only did they get away with blatant cheating, but itās now worse than that, as the rules were relaxed in a covid environment, so I fully expect their purse strings to continue to be loosened, while everyone else tightens their belts.
They cheated. They werenāt meaningfully punished. The rules relaxed further. And next I fully expect their competitive advantage to grow due to relative financial unrestraint.
As I keep saying, FFP has plenty of life in it yet. It will remain an active concern for UEFA and for clubs, because clubs including City and PSG want and need it.
Contrary to popular opinion, Manchester City do not want a football Wild West, where everyone can spend whatever they want. Having blunderbussed their way to the top table, pre-FFP, the last thing they want is an another raft of oil money fuelled clubs challenging their near hegemony.
Man City and PSG are fully in favour of the drawbridge coming up - they just want to be on the right side of it when it does.
I very much doubt that the absence of shiteh would make the Premier League any less competitive or reduce its popularity.
With regards to making the league less competitive, I think the converse might be true as shiteh wouldnāt be around to distort the competition, buying their way to success every two years out of three.
And I very much doubt that their expulsion would have an adverse impact upon TV revenue. They are not a particularly well supported or liked club. As @aussielad has already pointed out they are neither famous nor important, so I doubt that many would cancel their slysports subscriptions if shiteh were no longer permitted to grace our screens.
Consequently, it is highly unlikely that the Premier Leagueās TV revenues would dip if it had the bottle to expel them.
That said, the likely legal costs, if shiteh were permitted to delay and filibuster, with interminable appeals through various courts / CAS, could be significant. This might be sufficient to deter the PL from taking firm action.
Whilst the Cheating of the classless club is running amok by walking the Premier League title in recent years (apart from the genius of Kloppo that is), surely, if there are any so-called giants of European clubs still remainingā¦ Barca, Real, Juventus, Bayern etc, it has certainly been a case of ānot in my backyardā so why worry about itā¦!!!
If, or when, the plastic sky blue Cheatin Bastards ever win the Champions League, maybe then, and probably only then, will these āso-calledā powerhouses of established clubs across Europe, bring pressure upon UEFA to finally act against the FFP abuseā¦!
It really has become a farce the way the governing bodies have become little more than āPaper Tigersāā¦!!
Itās the attractiveness of PL (brought about by Liverpool, United , Arsenal etc.) that lead Ruskies and Sheikhs to invest here. Why havenāt they invested in Italian or Spanish leagues and made them more attractive? Because their investments are the result of (PL) attractiveness, not the reason of attractiveness.
I think shiteh and psg still need financial doping to enable them to cover their costs. They are not the most popular clubs so neither their matchday revenues nor genuine commercial deals would be sufficient to fund their exorbitant outgoings. So they will continue to flout FFP, and UEFA will be powerless to stop them.
The biggest problem with enforcing FFP is the need for the participating clubs to make a full and frank disclosure of the ultimate source(s) of their funds, in particular with regards to commercial income.
However, if a club chooses not to do so, UEFA has nothing to act upon. In the case against shiteh, without the action of a whistle blower publishing confidential emails, their misdemeanours would never have come to light.
Nothing has subsequently happened to change this situation.
So, to all intents and purposes, if you are dishonest enough, and have enough money, FFP is dead.
Itās an interesting theory. I get it. Drawbridge theory. Cheat your way to the top, then pull up the drawbridge to both stop others doing the same thing, and also to claim that you belong at the top table.
It is very unsatisfactory, because their presence at the top table is on the basis of cheating that has largely gone unchecked.
I am not aware if the FFP rules have been strengthened either, but instead, they appear to have been relaxed, in an effort to weather the covid storm. It seems ripe for artificially inflated clubs to exploit their financial advantage further.
Also, City got away with it simply by not cooperating, and waiting for the necessary time to elapse. Have those rules been strengthened? Not just asking you, but anyone who might know?
Seems to me if you donāt cooperate with the authorities in a timely manner there should be a simple 3 point deduction, then as more time elapses, another, and anotherā¦ until you are booted out.
FFP might have life in it yet, but having watched obvious cheats prosper, and not be called to account, I remain in the doubtful camp!
I find it totally bizarre that UEFA have relaxed the FFP rules by merging multiple covid seasons as one and paper over the cracks of financial losses of clubs.FFP was brought in to stop clubs bankrupting themselves and going out of business.
This covid shit shook the whole football industry to its core,from grassroots to the top tier clubs,this should be the time to hit clubs massively spending on wages and transfer feeās and agents taking money out of the game,all itās done now is give these clubs a way of going back to spending silly money again and potentially jeopardising the financial futures of clubs,if this kinda thing happens again.
Fucking bindipper journalists making shit up again.
Isnāt it amazing how many journalists turn out to be reds, and his many of them are willing to put their football support over their professionalism and careers.