That Super League is dead in the water to be fair.
The clubs at the front of it are starting to lose the clout they have financially.
Problem I had with it was the ownership of it. It really only guaranteed us a seat at the table as long as Henry or whoever owned the seat at the table have two tits about us.
Perez wasn’t going walk from Madrid but the other owners you wouldn’t be sure.
Juve were only in it because they were bum skint mind.
Reckon if they formed a new league now with the caveat that man city, psg, Newcastle and Chelsea are permanently banned they’d jump at it.
Liverpool, utd and arsenal from here would carry enough weight to get it started from this side , with the explicit reason being we can’t be in a league where the governing bodies, government are fully aware of the one sided nature of it all and that they refuse to take any meaningful action.
Those 3 EPL teams made a joint statement , action would be taken tomorrow against the financial cheating…sure it’s the same if Milan teams Roma & juve etc did in their respective leagues.
Go the other way with it… let Chelsea, Newcastle and Man City go and play in some global Super League and we’ll crack on without them.
I think Chelsea represents a different kind of challenge than City/Newcastle. Clearlake will want a return, so it isn’t the worst case scenario for FSG. But it is entirely possible that Chelsea have found a weakness in the rules, and are exploiting it for short-term advantage. That is certainly not something that will be new to FSG as North American sports owners with a generation of observations of the various salary cap systems. But the unique problem is that if Chelsea is systematically weakening the cost containment structure, it opens up the field for other actors. Chelsea might reap the first-mover advantage, but over time that isn’t going to be that meaningful.
Perhaps they could just join hendos league ?
Get a free Rolex after each match.
Simon Jordan gave an explanation as to why he thinks Clearlake are financially on the right side of the rules. Not saying I agree with him, or even like him, but he has forthright and informed opinions as a businessman and former owner.
The part that Jordan didn’t touch on was the starting point for Clearlake, which was in having £1b+ of debt erased, as though it didn’t matter, by an enabling government (who surely appreciate Clearlake investment in Canary Wharf and elsewhere).
It’s impossible to know what’s what, without being on the inside, but what is happening at Chelsea looks very fishy indeed.
Beyond that, I agree that Man City is a different kettle of fish. They have already been caught bang to rights, 115 times over, in the limited time frame that was assessed. The issue now is will they wiggle out of it, or will meaningful punishment be meted out, as those transgressions are the basis on which everything they have done has been achieved, and it’s all rotten.
Newcastle will probably learn from Man City, and will likely sail close to the wind, but exploit the system a bit more carefully. Still rotten, mind.
FSG as owners have some issues. Not perfect, but still good, in my eyes. To the degree they are willing to be the voice that speaks out against corruption in the game, they should be lauded by all reds, and the wider footballing community.
If they try to fight for a rules based order and some reining in, but end up failing, we can be sure that they will sell up, and then at that point, all bets are off as to who will own us, and what the game will become.
Did chelsea get everything wrote off so they start from 0.They then spend the equivalent of what they can spend over 5 years in the space of 1 year with the idea of selling on players(hopefully for a big profit) enabling them to buy again every few years(rinse and repeat).
Chelsea as a club had a significant debt to Roman and so debt repayment, even at friendly terms, was presumed to be an ongoing expense that at some point had to bite. That was seemingly wiped in the buy out and removed, seemingly, an enormous liability from their books.
So it’s like the mobster who goes straight but used their illegally obtained money to set themselves up for a legitimate life. They can point to their current books being legitimate but it should not negate what the person did to set themselves up for that.
Some of the sales they have made, which has helped in the FFP calculations, that at present now weigh heavily in their favour - were obviously included in the £Billion write-off.
Talk about having your cake and getting to eat it as well…
So if we were to spend 1 billion on new players this month then sell next month,would this be wrote off.Is that essentially what they have done,just over a longer period.
No. The issue with Chelsea is the debt was owed to someone on the sanctions list so in the absence of being able to give Roman his money back the balance seemingly disappeared into thin air.
Again I say “seemingly” as the public details are oddly lacking, at least in the sports related reporting.
Trading 101: buy low, sell high.
However, Chelsea appear to be doing the opposite.
That is how to do it but they seem to have been given an unfair advantage as they look to have been able to buy expensive players,have that cost wrote off and then sell them on at a full profit.
Think of it more like ‘Growth investing’ - buying shares in young companies that may not be showing a profit right now but have a lot of opportunity for growth for the next decade or so.
They have just spent 115m on a 21 year old with one good year behind him. They have also offered him a wage packet believed to be in the region of 144m over the next 8 years.
Maybe the plan is that the Saudis will take him on in a couple of years at overinflated wages. But growth investing is buying lots of players around the 5m mark and then selling the stars on for 115m. Brighton’s model essentially.
Not necessarily.
Think about how the potential revenues to the club may increase over the next 6-8 years. Add in to that if Lavia develops along the way into a Bellingham level talent, which he has great chance to do and how his value may become substantially higher.
That really highlights the narrowing space in which FSG want to operate our transfer strategy - we don’t want to enter the market as low/early as Brighton is willing to, because we want players that are capable of competing in the Champions League. But we definitely don’t want to make a habit of breaking the English transfer record. That may now be a space as short as two windows (Summer 2022, January 2023)
No, not necessarily. But how many players have we seen touted as the “next Messi” who have managed to achieve the heights of “solid squad player”? If you are looking to develop players and sell them on then you have to accept that many will be going for a couple of million to a championship side.
But they may not be looking to sell. If the players do what they hope they will, keeping them will allow them to spend less in future seasons. If they do sell, then inflation may see the prices they get for them minimise losses/ make a nominal profit for the more expensive signings.
I’m sure they will have considered the risks of some flops amongst their signings, but most of the players being brought in are very young and talented. They also have a youth system feeding into this selling machine and a stock of players that were already at the club and could help them whittle down that spend/income gap over the next year or so.
It’s not a strategy I would necessarily support, but it’s how I think they are approaching it.
How? This has all the hallmarks of VC causing solid brands like Instapot and Pyrex to go bankrupt by spending massively to further improve revenues in a space that just doesnt have growth potential