This article basically says what we all know. That Barca are just as guilty of greed and financial doping as Real, but manage to dupe the public into thinking they are something purer.
It's a pity the author left out specific financial details such as the fact that Barca have been making up to 19x what some of their La Liga competitors make on TV money.
Anyway, let rip on these cunts. Hopefully, our players ignore their dominance of La Liga and put them to sword.
Can't stand them and I can't stand Arsenalona supporters either, one of the reasons I left the other place.
As much as I'm convinced we won't have any success under Wenger I wud luv! it- LUV IT! if we beat them.
There weren't that many Arselona fans other than Outlaw surely?
I take it you know they're pining for you over there, Bigs? 
And I'm not joking. They've even taken to asking on different subjects; "what would Biggus say?".
I see Biggus has even removed his avatar over there.
joke of a league. i just worry about clubs finding lopholes around the new uefa financial regulations. eg, couldnt man city's owners just set up an entity and use it to buy a luxury box for a season at like, 80m, or however much they want to bequeath the club?
My vague recollection from previous discussion is that the FFP regulations were supposed to provide for audits of the sale of club services and assets to conflicted third parties (e.g. other companies owned by the club's owners) to ensure that fair market value had been paid.
There's already stuff along those lines in many other branches of law, esp. taxation so it's far from unprecedented.
I imagine it would be a long and difficult road to enforce a ruling along those lines, however, you would have to think it would be subject to appeal and argumentation.
When you consider that clubs already accept very large payments for services of completely indefinite value (e.g. shirt sponsorship) the waters get very, very muddy. Basically the FFP rules might be able to mitigate againste bankrolling, but you can't see how they will be able to completely prevent it.
Platini talking tough about the rules:
This is aimed squarely at English clubs, Platini is a plonker who's been ignoring the biggest "financial dopers" Barcelona & Real Madrid for years.
Well he says it'll apply to everyone.
It's good news for us certainly.
If Platini really cared about football, he would have weighed in on the negotation of the Spanish TV contract. It's criminal really. The TV stations have their prerogative in how they attribute different clubs' values to a TV contract, but UEFA should have gently advised La Liga on a fairer distribution in the interests of fair play. Now this shit spills out into the rest of Europe. Barca and Real not only have zero competition at home, but they have 50 million pounds more TV money than anyone else in the Champions League. In order to compete with them, the Inters and Chelseas of this world also have to resort to financial doping.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9358589.stm
Clubs are told to emulate us.
I can't believe we made less money than Chelsea ten years ago. Is that actually true?
You know, it's nice to hear the guys at UEFA recognize what we are doing.
It's hard for fans to see us living modestly, and not winning, but at least our way is recognized as the model for all to follow. Makes me proud of what the guys (Wenger, Gazidis, Edelman etc) are doing and have done.
Now if they can attend to that Denilson issue...
Zico wrote:It's hard for fans to see us making lots of money yet living modestly, and not winning
Fixed. 
Lol, Biggus.
I'm glad I watched tonight's game in the office while working. This means i can just work tonight and not bother going home early to have a shit evening like I did when we farked around against Braga.
burnwinter, it's certainly a relief to see that they're serious about these regulations and not just half-assing it. we'll see how they're enforced, though.
definitely agree about the spanish tv contracts. frankly, all the other spanish teams should simply boycott real madrid and barcelona. they hardly see any money from them, anyway - the top two have a lot more to lose. make them realise that they are nothing without the rest of the league. do what's fair and share the tv money roughly equally, like they do in the premier league.
Given the debt some of the other "top" Spanish clubs are in, it's frankly amazing they're not closer to the brink of outright revolución. I mean, why aren't Valencia kicking up about it? They're on the brink of insolvency last I heard.
I think the other teams are so busy trying to make ends meet now that they don't feel they have the capacity to threaten a disruption in league games. All of these teams are knee deep in debt. Some are struggling to pay players. That's why Drenthe quit Hercules even though fans made hiim out to be a troublemaker for standing up for himself. They need the games just to pay some portion of their running costs.
It's an issue that UEFA should be far more vocal about. If the FFP rules are needed because financial asymmetry is devaluing competitions, the same should apply to absurdly inequitable TV rights deals negotiated with the assistance of compliant government and media outlets.
UEFA will find it hard to intervene. On the one hand, they are telling Barca and Real to make ends meet if they want to stay in the Champions League.
It would be hard for them to tell the same two teams to reduce their revenues to make distribution of TV monies more equitable. Real and Barca would ask just how they are supposed to cut costs and still make enough money to meet their obscene salary bills
