Bye Bye FFP?: Page 18 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Bye Bye FFP?

Burnwinter

Bosman was very significant, but the game still absorbed it fairly easily in terms of its effect on competitions.

Seems to me player-club dynamics don't affect the viability of a league as directly as club-club dynamics. That's why UEFA acted after a few years of major clubs being bought out by billionaires and going on to spend heavily and dominate their national competitions.

Burnwinter

Rex wrote:
I would be amazed if UEFA didn't construct the FFP along with some of the best EU law lawyers, and in constant contact with Brussels.

It's a matter of record that they did do that, not that it's any final guarantee.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
Bosman was very significant, but the game still absorbed it fairly easily in terms of its effect on competitions.

People also need to take into account that Bosman was always going to happen, one way or another. The old rules were illogical and outdated. Clubs like Ajax were fucked over by the sudden switch, but you could argue that they took advantage of the fact that football clubs tried to exist in their own little bubble removed from reality.

Ivansen

Burnwinter wrote:
Rex wrote:
I would be amazed if UEFA didn't construct the FFP along with some of the best EU law lawyers, and in constant contact with Brussels.

It's a matter of record that they did do that, not that it's any final guarantee.

Absolutely. The head of UEFA's legal department is an old competition lawyer, with plenty of ties to the Commission. But DG Comp is one thing, the ECJ quite another.

Biggus

Klaus wrote:
Burnwinter wrote:
Bosman was very significant, but the game still absorbed it fairly easily in terms of its effect on competitions.

People also need to take into account that Bosman was always going to happen, one way or another. The old rules were illogical and outdated. Clubs like Ajax were fucked over by the sudden switch, but you could argue that they took advantage of the fact that football clubs tried to exist in their own little bubble removed from reality.

Nothing "is always going to happen" Klaus, no power or legal privilege was ever ceded freely without pressure.
There are many examples of old rules which are illogical and outdated still being enforced in many spheres.

Klaus

What I mean is that the pressure was going to come from somewhere sooner or later, because there's more economic interest in free transfers and free movement of players than the opposite. Clubs who lost players at the time made a lot of noise but not a single one of them would go back to the old system today if you offered them. There was a threshold no one wanted to step over but it needed to be done.

Burnwinter

Klaus wrote:
People also need to take into account that Bosman was always going to happen, one way or another. The old rules were illogical and outdated. Clubs like Ajax were fucked over by the sudden switch, but you could argue that they took advantage of the fact that football clubs tried to exist in their own little bubble removed from reality.

I'm not quite the expert I sometimes pretend to be, but I guess the end result of Bosman was a sudden change in the amortisation of player contracts? So that would've hit club ledgers a bit, but not exactly wiped them off the table.

Klaus

Yeah, and it also banned restrictions on foreign players within European leagues.

Burnwinter

Yeah, which would've put a big dent in the value of existing players I suppose.

Still the clubs were hit more or less in line with their existing valuation, so it was a pretty smooth transition? Apart from the high profile transfers, I can't remember it causing a financial crisis at any clubs.

Rex

Quality of football at the top is better today, but competition within the game is way worse. Before Bosman and before free movement within EU, there were a lot more clubs truly competing for the biggest trophies. A club like Southampton, with the players they have brought through in the last 5 or 6 years, would most likely have been a strong candidate for winning the PL.

I would also think that most clubs would prefer to have the old transfer system back, although with the free movement of players; the Bosman ruling shifted the power from clubs to players, and I think it is a major reason why we have seen wages in the game absolutely explode since. A player like Sterling, for instance, wouldn't be able to hold Liverpool to ransom like he is now.

Ivansen

It gave significantly more power to players, but I think I support that. The alternative would be that more of the money in football would be at the hands of clubs. I choose to stick up for the little guy, Sterling being an apt example, litterally.

Rex

Yeah, but Klaus said that no CLUBS would want to go back, and I think that is wrong. The money going to players now, would have gone to club owners instead.

Ivansen

Rex wrote:
Yeah, but Klaus said that no CLUBS would want to go back, and I think that is wrong. The money going to players now, would have gone to club owners instead.

Absolutely, and I've posted so rarely lately that I've forgot to use quotes to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

I think the current system of max 5 years contracts with the possibility of Webstering is decently balanced. And I'd much prefer to see the players getting well paid over the owners and directors.

Rex

Personally, I think the pendulum has swung too far in favor of player power. At this point contracts hardly mean anything, and that deep connection to a single club is almost gone. I'd love for players like Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott and Gibbs to remain at Arsenal for their entire careers. In the current state of football that is almost impossible.

Ivansen

The European Court of Justice rejected the Striani case referral today, calling the referral from the Belgian court "manifestly inadmissable".

I can't say I know exactly how this pans out procedurally, whether the Belgian court will get a new chance to formulate the referral, but as it stands the ECJ won't take the case. So good news for UEFA, but UEFA are of course overemphasising this verdict. They are painting it as a full victory and as if the ECJ had found the FFP to be legal on the merits, which is just lying.

Biggus

Rex wrote:
Quality of football at the top is better today, but competition within the game is way worse. Before Bosman and before free movement within EU, there were a lot more clubs truly competing for the biggest trophies. A club like Southampton, with the players they have brought through in the last 5 or 6 years, would most likely have been a strong candidate for winning the PL.

Thats an astute observation Rex, in the 70's Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough were promoted won the football league and then the European cup in successive seasons, that can't happen now.

Mirth

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/football/article4522444.ece

'Premier league clubs operating a de facto salary cap?'

Rex

This info is about 18 months old to me. However, it is really interesting to read what the consequences have been so far.

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