Tony Montana wrote:

Tam wrote:

The background to Rangers story is quite a bit different to what happened at other clubs and has more to do with the actions of the owner than the policy of the club.

The owner is part of the club. If he messes up then he is to answer for. He has a responsibility.

The owner fucked off, Scot free with no repercussions from his year in charge. In actual fact he doubled his money, having bought Rangers for £1 and sold it for £2. Meanwhile the club got kicked out the league, plunged into administration, and due to the fucked up structure of Scottish football received numerous punishments. My point is that the owner took absolutely no responsibility for his actions during his time at the club, yet years after he has gone the club will still be suffering.

many things to sort out for ownerships of football teams.

They simply must be treated as social enterprises.

First thing I'd kick out are leveraged buyouts. What the Glazers are doing to MUFC is a disgrace.

Signings of Alba, Song & Modric were 48% of total La Liga transfer spend this summer. 14 of 20 clubs spent under €5m

La Liga is just spiralling so downwards its not even funny. Its only a matter of time the other clubs make a breakaway league

Doubt it. Logical first step would be to that all clubs in Spain, except for Real Madrid and Barcelona, will revolt at how TV money is distributed. That is pretty much a given.

That would be great if that happened, Rex.

Banduan, you'll never see a ban on LBOs.

Tam wrote:

Tony Montana wrote:

The owner is part of the club. If he messes up then he is to answer for. He has a responsibility.

The owner fucked off, Scot free with no repercussions from his year in charge. In actual fact he doubled his money, having bought Rangers for £1 and sold it for £2. Meanwhile the club got kicked out the league, plunged into administration, and due to the fucked up structure of Scottish football received numerous punishments. My point is that the owner took absolutely no responsibility for his actions during his time at the club, yet years after he has gone the club will still be suffering.

That is ridiculous from him.

But why were Rangers only worth £1?

The previous owner, David Murray, sold for £1 as Craig Whyte vowed to pay off the clubs remaining debt to Lloyds bank, or a large chunk of it. However he basically mortgaged the future season ticket income to ticketus and used the £24m they gave to pay the debt off and never put any of his own cash into the club. He also failed to stump up his own cash for signings etc that he had also promised.

This was all against the backdrop of the claim by HMRC over dual contracts and alleged illegal payments to former players through schemes to avoid tax. In his infinite wisdom, on taking control Whyte decided not to pass on to HMRC any tax or NI payments made by club employees, incurring a further claim and court action which ultimately pushed the club into administration and very near to liquidation. After his shocking year or so in charge Whyte was pretty much lucky to get out alive never mind with an extra quid in his pocket. That was just a token gesture by the new chairman to see Whyte on his way.

I've got into that a bit more than I intended to, I initially just wanted to point out the situation at Rangers was a bit different and then that it was a scenario where the owner obviously didn't have the clubs best intentions at heart.

Was HMRC's claim over dual contracts under Murray's or Whyte's watch? How was Whyte able to get away scot free?

Stretched back into Murray's reign. Whyte knew about the problem and appeared willing take it on when he gained control. Due to Rangers going into administration and the foundation of the new club, it never went to court and Rangers were never found guilty of any wrongdoing, although I suspect they would have been.

When Whyte sold the club he walked away from football. The football authorities could not impose any sanctions on him as an individual with no further involvement in football. And technically it was the club in breach of the rules, despite the warning signs about Whyte raised by club insiders who he forced out for challenging his decisions. He pulled the strings and marginalised those who sought to do the right thing by the club, but ultimately he did so in the name of the club.

There was talk at the time the club went into liquidation that Ticketus, the company which 'bought' the future season ticket revenue with which Whyte paid off the debt, would pursue a civil claim against him as he had apparently made personal guarantees over the deal. It's been a while since I've heard anything about that so I'm unsure if it went, or is currently going, ahead. I think that's pretty much the only way he could suffer, and I hope they can and do sue him. I'll need to have a look and see what's going on there.

kamikaze wrote:

That would be great if that happened, Rex.

Banduan, you'll never see a ban on LBOs.

probably true. But tragic.

What Gazza said the other day about the FFP. If you believe he lies about everything just because he can, then this will of course be pointless reading.

Most interesting points IMO;

"The FFP proposals were developed by Uefa in very close consultation with the ECA representing clubs all across Europe. An incredible amount of work went into those regulations."
"They were endorsed and supported by football clubs. They are not rules coming down on high, they are actually rules the clubs themselves developed in conjunction with Uefa and absolutely support.”
"Not only do we see that at the European level, but we are seeing support for this type of regulation in the Football League and we are seeing very serious discussions within the Premier League about introducing these regulations domestically."

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/gazidis-clubs-are-crying-out-for-stability

Interesting reading the Evening Standard yesterday too. Altough we're already 5th in the revenue league table we're far behind the top 4 (United, Real, Barcelona, Bayern), laging around 50m behind. Our new commercial deals are supposedly going to push us into the top level in terms of income. So if the FFP does actually work, we should in theory be able to compete fairly well with just about anyone.

I'm guessing that's the basket the board have placed all their eggs in.

Man U reportedly makes about £10m a year from Nike for their training kit! On top of that they make about £20m a year from AON to have their name on their shirts.

Liverpool claim they will earn £300m over 6 years from their deal with Warrior.

There is a lot of money to make here...

ManU reckon they will get sixty million per season when they next sign. I personally think that is pie in the sky (based around their doomed IPO) but we'll see; their deal with nike isn't just for kit provision.

The current biggest is France at somewhere in the late thirties and club wise Barca get around twenty seven.

Nothing new there really.

FFP is going to have an impact eventually if the will behind it persists. Regulations don't get ruined by loopholes provided there's a will and a process to find and close those loopholes over time.

I can't see the conflict of interest that would give the regulator, UEFA, the incentive not to do that.

Bumper Rex wrote:

Man U reportedly makes about £10m a year from Nike for their training kit! On top of that they make about £20m a year from AON to have their name on their shirts.

Liverpool claim they will earn £300m over 6 years from their deal with Warrior.

There is a lot of money to make here...

But you have to earn it, no one is going to pay that much to be associated with a bunch of losers like us.

Liverpool haven't won a title for a long time Biggus and yet their Standard Chartered front of shirt deal is one of the biggest sponsorship deals around.

Arsenal despite not having won anything for 7 years is a massive name globally. Brands would love to associate with us and pay us a lot of money. Viewership of Arsenal games is extremely high. We could obviously command more than what we will probably get had we been winning trophies over the last few years but even then it's not like we will suffer.

We are so far off some clubs on the commercial front, it is such a barrier.

Biggus wrote:

But you have to earn it, no one is going to pay that much to be associated with a bunch of losers like us.

you'd be suprised. but you're right, we need to win to get even bigger.