The Owners - FSG

[redfanman]

@Klopptimist

The thing I never understand about FFP is that surely a club can be sponsored by any company for any product. Liverpool’s approved deep fat fryer / airline / toilet cleaner etc for pretty much any price. Maybe market value can be enforced but who’s to define what the market value is of Liverpool’s link to the golfing fraternity for example?

Every future player has to have NIKE tattooed on their head (reductio ad absurdum) as an example. Hello infinite funds. Particularly if your owner’s brother owns Nike.

I think both City and PSG got took advantage of this through inflating sponsorship values. But I am sure the scenarios you are presenting may fall foul of the regs in some way - I think there have been several domestic clubs that have tried to get round FFP through sales/sponsorship of stadium rights and not got away with it.

[Kopstar]

Worth pointing out that City and PSG have both been sanctioned for inflating sponsorship deals so in principle the regulations do cover these issues. The main problems are whether they a) go far enough, b) the sanctions are sufficiently severe, and the biggest problem of all, c) does UEFA (or the relevant body) have sufficient powers of enquiry?

[Dutch]

Does UEFA don’t make its own rules? I mean if they do can’t they extend the powers of inquiry?

[redfanman]

@Dutch

Does UEFA don’t make its own rules? I mean if they do can’t they extend the powers of inquiry?

They probably can, but I presume it sits within a wider body of law that can and would be challenged?

[Iftikhar]

@Kopstar

c) does UEFA (or the relevant body) have sufficient hunger for enquiry?

There, FIFY

[Dutch]

Liverpool FC

[Iftikhar]

Where’s the Unisport money, John

[KeillRandor]

Oh it’s big announcment day today isn’t it? Was getting confused, thought it was Trump reinstatment day but that’s apparently tomorrow.

[mattyhurst]

That’s every day in his head

[Lowton_Red]

@Mascot

@Klopptimist

I would imagine there are almost limitless loopholes for sufficiently creative owners / management.

Not necessary. Just hide your accounts for five years and then lawyer the fuck out of UEFA.

But that’s just it. They didn’t hide their accounts.

You can go through their accounts until you are blue in the face, you won’t find related parties unless the directors choose to divulge them.

And Sheikh Mansour chose not to do so.

But for the leaked emails it would have been impossible to prove that the sponsorship moneys were being topped up by the Sheikh.

You might suspect it, but you can’t prove it.

@Klopptimist is right. If you are determined to flout FFP, and you are rich enough, and powerful enough, and have no scruples, there are numerous ways to do it.

Offshore companies, registered in any number of tax havens, all with relaxed reporting regimes, offer so many ways of injecting funds with little or no means of detection.

Let’s say we set up a company in the Cayman Islands. Sheikh Mansour bungs us £50 million. We use this money to buy all the most executive boxes at the emptihad stadium, including hospitality at a premium; vintage champagne doesn’t come cheap.

How do you set about proving that anything questionable has happened, or that this is funded with money coming from the Sheikh?

[KeillRandor]

Where are the fireworks John?

[Klopptimist]

Owner Y pays X famous singer £1bn to play one gig for Y. X then asks to perform for Liverpool (lifelong fan) and happy to pay £900m for the honour.

Crooked but illegal? Nah.

[anon59854308]

@Klopptimist

Owner Y pays X famous singer £1bn to play one gig for Y. X then asks to perform for Liverpool (lifelong fan) and happy to pay £900m for the honour.

Crooked but illegal? Nah.

Or in Man Cities case…

The Man City supporters club based in Milan,
Are given 1 billion by a mystery benefactor,

The Man Cities supporters club based in Milan,
Then spend £900 million to bunga party…

sorry I meant meet the their idols, the Man City players

Clever…

[Semmy]

@Limiescouse

My take on FSG’s interest in us has been that it is largely about a broadcasting play. They had preexisting interests in sports networks and experienced the efficiency of being the entity that owned the team who were selling them the broadcast rights.

their very small broadcast company NESN does not have broadcast rights. that’s laughable at best. their station is a Boston-based local channel that does Boston-based American sports teams. that interest of FSG doesn’t have any broadcast rights for the PL, and LFC is at the very bottom of their homepage just above some obscure WNBA team.

I think you’re just a little off on your assessment of their interest. they’re very savvy businessmen who love success and aren’t afraid to invest in success and heritage. you’ll probably never get to visit Fenway Park, but the parallels between the RedSox and LFC are quite apparent when it comes to prestige, history and love of the game. both clubs are icons of the sport.

If I ever see Lebron James wearing a Yankees hat again, I’m gonna lose my shit.

[Semmy]

@CymruRed

I think where they seem to be world leaders are in the fact that their products are partnered with over 100 companies like Spotify,Apple Siri,Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa,in the voice,wifi,smart speaker world

quantity over quality. I’ve heard them, they’re passable and have become a household name in a very short amount of time. probably because their ease of use as a wireless speaker system.

I was at a houseparty 2 years ago and was somewhat impressed by an outdoor Sonos setup until the neighbors got tired of the noise and hijacked the sound with a hardcore porn clip.

funny, but unimpressed.

[LondonRich]

I have a lot of Sonos. Love it. Not sure how it gets LFC. Do we get a red one?

[Mascot]

If anyone has a TAW sub, the Rory Smith chat was really interesting, on the subject of Barca… He said that partly the aim of PSG paying 200m for Neymar was to blow apart the transfer market and deliberately inflate prices knowing that clubs would either be unable to compete or would bankrupt themselves trying to keep up. Barca walked straight into the trap.

Really glad we have owners who refuse to play that game, but it would have been nice if all the clubs who aren’t bankrolled by a nation state could have collectively refused to the play the game on PSGs terms. I suppose that was never going to happen.

[AnfieldRdDreamer]

@Mascot

If anyone has a TAW sub, the Rory Smith chat was really interesting, on the subject of Barca… He said that partly the aim of PSG paying 200m for Neymar was to blow apart the transfer market and deliberately inflate prices knowing that clubs would either be unable to compete or would bankrupt themselves trying to keep up. Barca walked straight into the trap.

Really glad we have owners who refuse to play that game, but it would have been nice if all the clubs who aren’t bankrolled by a nation state could have collectively refused to the play the game on PSGs terms. I suppose that was never going to happen.

No offence but I think Rory is talking out his arse on this. The deal didn’t bankrupt Barca. Awful decision after God awful decision over and over did. If Barca had just sat down, planned out an intelligent, well-thought out plan on how to move forward tapping into the best from their academy adding bought players who fit their playing style and set up (and who wanted to he there so didn’t need extortionate wages) Barca would never have got into trouble. The £200m the received for Neymar wasn’t the issue the £350m spent on Dembele, Coutinho and Greizmann along with over £40m a year in wages when none of them played the right way for what Barca wanted/needed (which also kept changing as they have had 3 different managers with different tactical wants and set ups in that time) was a huge factor, but still not the only issue. None of that was controlled or could have been predicted by PSG. At most they were a kid dropping a rock down a well to see what would happen. But more likely they just wanted Neymar.

[Hope.in.your.heart]

@AnfieldRdDreamer

The deal didn’t bankrupt Barca. Awful decision after God awful decision over and over did. If Barca had just sat down, planned out an intelligent, well-thought out plan on how to move forward tapping into the best from their academy adding bought players who fit their playing style and set up (and who wanted to he there so didn’t need extortionate wages) Barca would never have got into trouble.

Agreed. Had they had the same politics as they had before, they’d have taken the 200m and invested it into their infrastructure. In older days, they took astronomical sums for the time when they sold Maradona, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one) and others, but it didn’t hinder them to continue with their original plan of having the best youth academy in Europe and forming their own players.

The smart game to play with dishonest idiots like Qatar and Abu Dhabi would be to take as much money from them, but then not to re-inject it into the players market, but to use it in order to guarantee the club’s long-term financial viability, or to invest it into an improvement (stadium modernization, a new training ground etc.)

[Lowton_Red]

@Klopptimist

Owner Y pays X famous singer £1bn to play one gig for Y. X then asks to perform for Liverpool (lifelong fan) and happy to pay £900m for the honour.

Crooked but illegal? Nah.

Worse than that, it would be highly tax inefficient.