No, it really isn't. UEFA can kick anyone they want out of their competition tomorrow and there's nothing anyone else can do about it; it's not a legal issue. Sure, someone can then attempt to take UEFA to court on an 'unrelated' issue, but it won't change anything.
Bye Bye FFP?
There are also plenty of exceptions specifically for football and sport in EU law.
Thats for the courts to decide.
You're talking as if an FA has never applied financially damaging sanctions to a club before, but it's actually a regular occurrence.
The competitions have more clout than the clubs, there's a general will to make FFP work, and UEFA has the relevant powers.
Look fellas I'm not just playing devils advocate here, you're all aware how things work in the real world and how money talks.......
One goal is to get the likes of City and Chelsea to change their behaviour and stop injecting cash freely into the transfer market and making huge losses.
So far they've already changed their behaviour by trying to conceal a proportion of their cash windfalls in faux sponsorship deals.
Take City's 400m Etihad deal which is exactly one of the deals set to fall under considerable scrutiny (to which this UEFA threat refers):
"In order to avoid improper transactions of this kind, Uefa should prohibit clubs from sponsoring themselves or using associated bodies to do so. There is also a need to monitor the 'purchases' of sponsors, who should not overpay for the rights they acquire."
If a rule of that nature is needed, it can be implemented and enforced even if it doesn't end up applied retroactively (although according to what I know about FFP, it already has been implemented, and can be enforced now).
And if UEFA's auditors decide that the real value of the deal is 200m (and let's say the real, real value is 150) then City will be forced to give up 200m and the current situation in football as a whole gets somewhat less insane.
There is plenty of legal precedent for reviews of whether sale value matches real value. Occurs all the time in insurance, property settlements, M&A etc. There are whole branches of industry devoted to the problem of valuation.
The other goal of FFP is to stop financially weak clubs from scuttling themselves with outlandish spending they can't afford. That ought to work very effectively if similar rules are implemented at domestic level.
Football is big money but it's nothing compared to, say, BHP bidding on Potash. No matter how much money is involved, there's an army of lawyers, accountants and assessors on hand to help police it.
Yes but at the end of the day we're talking about a sports association where membership is voluntary, and the law of the land (or several lands) where membership is compulsory and everyone is subject to.
However having said that there is a storm brewing over this betting scandal, so there is every chance that FIFA and UEFA will have their activities put under the spotlight.
As long as the traditional big clubs are behind FFP there's a chance it'll work, or at least have an impact. Uefa's power base comes from clubs like Utd, Madrid, Bayern etc, cos they have the fans to fill out stadiums and sell tv contracts.
As has been mentioned, Fifa and Uefa excel at 'Sabre-rattling', so i would be surprised if they actually did anything.
#Timmeh wrote:As long as the traditional big clubs are behind FFP there's a chance it'll work, or at least have an impact. Uefa's power base comes from clubs like Utd, Madrid, Bayern etc, cos they have the fans to fill out stadiums and sell tv contracts.
Exactly. I very much doubt City, Chelsea and PSG have enough clout to influence UEFA.
Eh? Barcelona and Real are addicts they've been financially doped for decades with cheap loans that are rarely repaid.
Like Tim said at the end of the day it's the big clubs who will decide not the politburo members at UEFA, and I can't see the turkeys voting for Christmas.
The big clubs benefit the most because they've got the most legitimate revenue Biggs - of course they support it.
Biggus wrote:Eh? Barcelona and Real are addicts they've been financially doped for decades with cheap loans that are rarely repaid.
Like Tim said at the end of the day it's the big clubs who will decide not the politburo members at UEFA, and I can't see the turkeys voting for Christmas.
Real make more money than any other team on the planet, if all clubs are forced to spend within their means, I'm sure they'll survive.
As they haven't done it yet I'm sure they'd prefer no to spend within their means.
I'm sure they would happily make that sacrifice if it stops the possibility of more competition.
I have no doubt the rise of clubs like City and PSG and, to a lesser extent, Chelsea have made the bigger clubs uncomfortable.
Speaking of: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21374699
So you people support the status quo, the"old money" exclusive club- No riff raff allowed.
Nope, but there's pretty much literally nothing anyone here can do about it. It's a closed shop.
Personally, I am against FFP and couldn't give two shits if clubs want to go bust chasing a dream or a billionaire wants to poor money down the drain. That's their choice.
Exactly, fools and their money are easily parted the market will sort it out, no need for for Platini and his Eurocrats to help poor old Real and Barcelona and Man Utd.
Biggus wrote:So you people support the status quo, the"old money" exclusive club- No riff raff allowed.
Only because it'll help us, better the devil you know and all that. Let's face it, if more owners come in with the kind of money that City and PSG are capable of spending, we're the ones who'll disappear off the map faster than Madrid or United will.
Unless they buy us, in which case I'm totally cool with that and I look forward to them building a theme park ride through Islington.
I'd rather Mickey Mouse was our owner than Kroenke.
You say that now, but...
He could do the pre match talk.
Similar measures to FFP coming along quite rapidly at Premier League level:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1331080/scudamore:-clubs-could-face-points-deduction
In actual fact, the vote for the financial regulations could hardly have been closer - as six were against with Reading abstaining. It meant that the 'yes' vote only narrowly achieved the necessary two-thirds majority of the 19 votes cast.
Clubs sources say Fulham, West Brom, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Swansea and Southampton all voted against. Chelsea, who had initially been viewed as opponents of financial fair play regulations, voted in favour.
Firstly, they committed to cutting players' wage bills from next season, while also agreeing to restrict the amount of losses clubs can make to £105 million over three years.
Clubs whose total wage bill is more than £52m will only be allowed to increase their wages by £4m per season for the next three years, though that cap does not cover extra money coming in from increases in commercial or matchday income.
Any club breaching the rules will face tough sanctions and Scudamore told reporters that he would be pushing for points deduction.
"As all things in our rulebook you will subject to a disciplinary commission," he said. "The clubs understand that if people break the £105m we will looking for the top-end ultimate sanction range - points deduction.
Scudamore also confirmed there would be an "absolute prohibition" on losses of more than £105m over the next three years - only seen so far by Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool according to the latest accounts - with the first sanctions possible in 2016.
Firstly, they committed to cutting players' wage bills from next season,
Okay children, can you spell- players strike 
Given that many clubs are already backs to the wall with the wages they pay at the moment, I don't think there's much potential or incentive for collective action from the players' associations.
On the other hand, if they do cap wage increases for a few years and the owners start making plenty of money, there will be.
Wow do you really think that owners would use tighter financial regulation as an excuse to lower wages?
My faith in humanity is shattered.......
Lowering or capping wages is the whole point of it mate. There aren't any other costs in the game that are growing at such a ludicrous rate.
It can only be done collectively because otherwise the financial discipline of one club allows another to gamble on poaching a player or two on higher wages.
If you're looking for problems afflicting the game, player greed >> owner greed for the foreseeable future.
Yep people are greedy, there ought to be some sort of regulations to change that.
5 months later
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/7687
Decent survey of the state of FFP.
FFP was always going to be a slow burn. The key element is the "break-even rule." Clubs that fail to break even can be excluded from UEFA competitions (the Champions League or Europa League) or penalized in other ways (e.g., having prize money withheld), but the measurement of break-even is complicated. The break-even calculation is based on audited accounting data that clubs must supply to UEFA, to which additions and subtractions are then made (for example, spending on improving your stadium is excluded, but direct subsidies by the owner do not count as income).
The calculation is then based on a three-year average in order to iron out random fluctuations -- hence the wait. Only later this year will UEFA have the three years of data and so be able to decide who is in breach, and what the punishment will be. Decisions are expected to be announced in May 2014, and expect the rest of that summer to be taken up with appeals and legal wranglings.
The outcome of this process is still anybody's guess. Given the extent to which UEFA has invested in checking the numbers, one might think that it will be fairly easy just to exclude those who are in breach. The problem is that if too many clubs are excluded, the credibility of the competitions could be compromised. Consider the following -- each year there are about 80 clubs participating in the final stages of the two competitions. For the past three years UEFA has carried out a simulation exercise to see how many clubs would have been in breach of the rules had they applied in that season. In each of the first two years there were five clubs that failed to meet the break-even rule; last year there were 13.
Excluding 13 clubs would be difficult. Applying penalties to some and not others could risk damaging litigation, while letting them all off would kill FFP. Moreover, simply knowing that UEFA faces this dilemma undermines the credibility of the rules in the eyes of the clubs, and some might be tempted to ignore FFP in belief that enforcement is not likely.
Sounds like we might have a bit more to talk about next summer, anyway.
http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/
Useful resource for FFP related stuff.
6 days later
^^ Thanks Pep.
I was going to post this reply to Claudius in the Suarez thread, but it fits this one better.
Claudius wrote:In previous summers, we have blamed Chelsea and Citeh for destroying our transfer plans. This year, the French clubs have taken things to another level, to the extent that even clubs like Real probably cannot compete with them.
What it means for us is we're further down the pecking order and have even less of a choice when it comes to the truly big players. If we have a chance with someone of Suarez's quality, we have to take it. We cannot afford to turn up our noses. We might never get a chance like this again. FFP is clearly a pipe dream: we will never see the day where we are allowed to outspend Monaco and PSG due to our better revenue streams.
There is no way under the rules introduced that FFP sanctions could have been applied before now, so the fact they haven't been yet is hardly surprising.
It seems ropey with these other new financially doped clubs entering the market, but I still believe FFP is going to have an effect. It just won't be pretty.
We have to bear in mind that these remaining, lesser clubs which have become the pet projects of cash-happy billionaires simply could not compete on the European stage—which in football terms is where the prizes worth winning are, for a Ligue 1 club—without a massive financial injection.
The fact that they also can't compete if FFP is applied to ban them is therefore not conclusive: FFP and a lack of cash are two hurdles they absolutely have to get over to win the CL, even if the resolution of the latter means exacerbating the former.
My guess is that they plan to push the limits of FFP, see how things pan out, taking whatever medicine is meted out before seeking a more financially stable regime (as Chelsea are now doing). They may be excluded from European competition for one or more seasons, but without the money, they have no chance of winning anyway. They may not care about being excluded, if it means they get a profile boost by becoming enviably infamous for their wealth.
And there always remains the possibility that Platini and company won't have the resolve to enforce their own rules.
At the same time, PSG and Monaco spraying cash without rhyme or reason is no doubt already a concern to the existing doped clubs that have established a form of incumbency, including City, Chelsea and the twin TV rights giants of La Liga. This will actually reinforce the collective momentum of FFP.
FFP is designed in a way that will protect clubs with strong revenue. PSG and Monaco are late to the party, but may just be brute-forcing their way into a stronger brand and revenue position (following the fair-weather friends principle—how many French fans won't soon have a "preferred" club out of their two clubs with a shot at the big time?), because FFP means that they have to do that, at this point, if they want to compete over the longer term.
In a counterintuitive way, FFP actually increases the incentive for immediate, aggressive financial doping by raising greater future barriers to market entry than it does in the present.
The slow-changing system of CL qualification by UEFA coefficients also explains why Ligue 1 clubs have most recently been chosen for this strategy despite the deficit of revenue in that league. In that league, it was still easily possible for a doped club to establish a relative stranglehold on one of three precious CL qualifying places—not so easy in any of Europe's top leagues especially with other ownership shenanigans getting started.
By this logic, now that Ligue 1 is partly colonised by this sort of investor (with Lyon's and Marseilles' position interesting), the next cab off the rank for doping could definitely be one of Portugal's historic clubs. Or maybe Italy, but Serie A could present a fresh set of problems for an enterprising quasi-criminal group of investors, considering AC Milan's intimacy with Berlusconi's spent political force, and the degree of endemic corruption.
Couple this with some of the hypothesised strategic motives of billionaires when they invest in major football clubs, that we recently discussed regarding Abramovich—profile (based on competing in the Champions League), potential political protection based on the internationalised pain of dislodging them, and the habit of acceptance borne of familiarity.
If these motives apply, they help to explain some otherwise inexplicable behaviours prior to FFP's arrival, like spending £50m on Torres. For a club owned by a person whose brand is "owns Chelsea, is stupidly rich, spends stupid amounts of money on football, doesn't brook failure", spending any amount of money to secure a target is an act with perfect brand alignment, regardless of how it works out on the pitch.
In fact, the alignment with Abramovich's brand actually improves the worse that Torres does up to a point, because that £50m looks ever more arbitrary and therefore impressive. Another counterintuitive moment. On the other hand, FFP will prevent him from making these gestures so often.
With all of these conjectures, you have a relatively complete picture of why an economic powerhouse in a position of non-negligible geopolitical risk, like Sheikh Hamad, Sheikh Mansour, or Dmitry Rybolovlev might want to do what they're doing for an apparently stupid outlay of around £1-2bn which, while enormous, is still only comparable to their overall present and future wealth.
At some point, however, the supply of people who are rich enough (£10bn+) and sufficiently geopolitically embattled, and the supply of fallow football clubs with brand potential capable of being brute force cash-formed for Champions League qualification starts to become a problem. Muddying the water are the slow-moving genuine sports investors (Kroenke, the Glazers, etc) and the clubs that are established financial giants without this sort of doping (Bayern, Madrid, Barcelona, etc).
And at the same time, the value of being just one "nutcase" tycoon owner among many attenuates, diminishing the alleged motive for investment. In the 90s, everyone knew Al Fayed's name and that he was the Harrods guy. Everyone knows Abramovich's name. Some people know Mansour's name. Very few people know Hamad's, or Rybolovlev's names. And so on.
So at some point the domino effect of clubs falling to exotic investors will start to slow down. When new competitors do arrive, their cash will be met by an equal and opposite force, leading to the type of mutually assured destruction scenario that motivated FFP in the first place. In the meantime, this dynamic will continue spreading vast amounts of cash throughout football, and absent an artificial cash injection of our own, we can only focus on our revenue (Puma deal: check), our profile, and our results.
Kroenke must also be overjoyed to have invested in a commercial entity whose value, if he plays his cards right, will be significantly buoyed by all this cash entering its market niche for ulterior reasons.
Burnwinter wrote:In a counterintuitive way, FFP actually increases the incentive for immediate, aggressive financial doping by raising greater future barriers to market entry than it does in the present.
Like the 6 O clock swill you mean?
And like all other forms of attempt at artificially controlling behaviour it will fail.
Burnwinter wrote:Kroenke must also be overjoyed to have invested in a commercial entity whose value, if he plays his cards right, will be significantly buoyed by all this cash entering its market niche for ulterior reasons.
But should we be overjoyed for him?
At best he's been an irrelevant entity and at worse a stultifying static impediment to our progress.
Two good points to pull out.
On the first point, yeah, a bit like that. Of course it's obvious that "artificial" (hello, false binary) attempts to control things do work all the time. On the other hand, from an Arsenal point of view the possibility that new mega-spenders might be being drawn in to compete with us doesn't really mean FFP is a bad thing for us per se - it might be better for that to happen now, than later.
On the second point, of course not. I don't like Kroenke to be honest, he strikes me as the kind of guy you might want to punch over the dinner table, though I think the conjecture about the possible motives of "sugar daddy" owners (as highlighted by that interesting Matthew Syed thing not long ago) casts some fresh light by which to compare him to Usmanov.
WALL OF TEXT DOES 9100 DAMAGE
I yield! You're absolutely right Burnsy!
I knew I'd get a few comments like that for such a long-winded and speculative post. I've been being TL;DRed all my life, at 34 I'm too damn old and cranky to change now. 
I guess I've just been having a few Thoughts about that Matthew Syed intervention on SSN is all.
I don't think the ulterior motive he talks about covers all the bases, but it does provide an apparent explanation for some weird things that doesn't require people like Abramovich to be implausibly pig-headed spendthrifts.
You're 34 Burnsy?
Thats a sad age, as you realise that you'll never have a career as a successful player.
Was never in the running mate. My only athletic attributes are height and endurance.
Well Stoke need players too.......