Interesting read on PL FFP

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2261817/Arsenal-Manchester-United-financial-fair-play-plot-ruin-Premier-League--Martin-Samuel.html


Thoughts?

Well, the argument is that extortionate player (and manager) wages can't be paid unless foreign owners invest silly money or the fans get ripped off. There is a really easy solution: Don't offer silly wages anymore and curb the money going to agents and transfer fees.

For example, if the coaches of QPR or Sunderland get 3.6 mio Euros / year and a coach like Jürgen Klopp of Dortmund gets 2.1 mio Euros (and even then he rules out a possible move to Real where a Mourinho gets 10 mio / year) or an Antonio Conte of Juve gets 1.6 mio / year, then something doesn't sound right IMO.

Stupid article from front to end, it relays on the average fan not knowing much about football finances, the conspiracy tone was ridiculous.

rwo power wrote:Well, the argument is that extortionate player (and manager) wages can't be paid unless foreign owners invest silly money or the fans get ripped off. There is a really easy solution: Don't offer silly wages anymore and curb the money going to agents and transfer fees.

For example, if the coaches of QPR or Sunderland get 3.6 mio Euros / year and a coach like Jürgen Klopp of Dortmund gets 2.1 mio Euros (and even then he rules out a possible move to Real where a Mourinho gets 10 mio / year) or an Antonio Conte of Juve gets 1.6 mio / year, then something doesn't sound right IMO.

Nobody is ripping anybody off, if you don't like the prices nobody is forcing anyone to pay up anyways. Even though tickets are sky high at Arsenal, there is still a waiting list to try and get inside the Emirates. The Premier League is very very full inside the stadiums.

And it isn't easy at all to curb expenditure, especially in wages, there's a reason it got to this point after all. You either need a wage cap or a system like FFP, i like FFP more because it gives you financial freedom to either get more money or slash expenses, plus it leaves you more freedom to allocate your wage bill as you deem it necessary.

And i don't have much sympathy for coaches. The European Union allows them to freely move inside Europe to work in any club that might employ them. If Conte and Klopp feel like they are being undervalued then they might wise up, get a better agent, sharpen their English and PR skills and then maybe they too can live their dreams of managing Reading and Norwich.

LOL, I think you misunderstood something there - Kloppo does have more lucrative offers, but he decided that the whole package at Dortmund is much more worth than simple money and so he even extended his contract to 2016 there not too long ago. My point was more that obviously paying average players etc ridiculous wages would skew the whole prices totally.

And thank you, I do not have to pay ridiculous ticket prices anyway as the Bundesliga asks sensible prices in the first place. If a club here would try to rip the fans off, they would simply boycott it. Been done before, been successful before. ^^

rwo power wrote:Well, the argument is that extortionate player (and manager) wages can't be paid unless foreign owners invest silly money or the fans get ripped off. There is a really easy solution: Don't offer silly wages anymore and curb the money going to agents and transfer fees.

You have to offer, that's the rule of the marketplace. That's competition. As long as there's money, it will be spent. In this case on wages and fees to be more competitive at your thing.

chinomaster182 wrote:
Nobody is ripping anybody off, if you don't like the prices nobody is forcing anyone to pay up anyways. Even though tickets are sky high at Arsenal, there is still a waiting list to try and get inside the Emirates. The Premier League is very very full inside the stadiums.

You are wrong, the fans are being ripped off for their loyalty, imo. Manchester City just returned 1/3 of their allocation to the Arsenal game, tickets costing a whopping £62, and that has caused a lot of ticket price discussion in England over the weekend. Sure the stadia are still mostly full, but the fans aren't happy about the prices and I am sure there are a number of fans who would like to go to games to watch their team more often but simply cannot afford to do that. In short, ticket prices in the Premier League are a minor problem which could escalate to a larger one - and in some cases already has, like those £62 tickets for City fans to go to the Emirates.




My thoughts on the article and its topic of setting spending limits on PL clubs:
Mostly a good thing.

The new TV deals will bring even more revenue for the league while players are already earning silly sums of money. Something has to absolutely be done to prevent this cash from flowing straight through to players' wages. It makes no sense that the richest league in the world would spend all that money on player wages and inflated transfer fees while most of its clubs keep on posting losses and fans having to pay through the nose to attend matches. This should be just a common sense thing, an obvious thing, but in football finances it is not. I hope they get it right.

So is the negative side that clubs with rich owners - or debt financing strategies - will no longer be able to invest in their club and bring forth glory that otherwise would not be achievable? Maybe, depends how you look at it. There would not be a new Chelsea or a new Manchester City - but there would not be a new Portsmouth, either.

However, I would not call anyone stupid for opposing this spending limits plan just because it doesn't feel right. Because owners spending their own money - or sometimes the club taking big risks by financing through loans - to lift the football club to new heights has been part and parcel of (English) football for so long. Some excitement would definitely be removed if you even in theory cannot any more do a new Blackburn, Leicester, Fulham, Aston Villa, Manchester City... The fear is that football's status quo would be set in place for ever.

Bundesliga is perhaps the best-run league in the world. There clubs cannot spend beyond their means. It is also a fairly unpredictable league, Dortmund, Werder Bremen, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg are among the champions since the turn of the millenium. On the other hand Bayern Munich have still won as many titles since the year 2000 as other clubs combined (6). They're running away with it this season and of course it correlates with money; Munich's net transfer spend over the last 3 years has been about €120m while the next biggest number belongs to Wolfsburg at €35m-ish and the rest are below €20m. On paper you would predict Bayern Munich to dominate the Bundesliga for years to come because their income is so much greater than anyone else's and there won't be a City or a Chelsea to rival them. There is the risk of the title race becoming boring in too many seasons.

Back to the Premier League: Perhaps there should be different rules for clubs in different financial positions. So that no club can risk their existence and long-term health by financing through bank loans. But if the owner wants to spend his own money to bankroll the club, he would be allowed to do so to a certain extent. What does a "certain extent" mean, I don't know, but something that limits your spending on player wages. If you spend "free money" you can only offer player a contract that would raise his previous wages by, say, 25% ? Because the bottom line in all this is what I wrote above: It is insane if the Premier League's huge revenues are allowed to simply go and increase the already sky-high wages and transfer fees while fans are facing ever-growing ticket prices and the clubs themselves left posting losses.

So, yes, please, bring in some financial regulations, Premier League.

I am not sure i understand what the problem is with high ticket prices if people are willing to buy them and the stadiums are full every game.

As far as i know, Arsenal's season ticket applications outnumber the available ones. Surely, fans are not so loyal they would spend a significant part of their income on the games while ignoring the rest of their needs and necessities.

kiranr wrote:I am not sure i understand what the problem is with high ticket prices if people are willing to buy them and the stadiums are full every game.

The point is that less fans visit the matches and more foreign visitors and business people, thus it having a severe impact on the support.

Art Morte wrote:You have to offer, that's the rule of the marketplace. That's competition. As long as there's money, it will be spent. In this case on wages and fees to be more competitive at your thing.

Well, the question is - if you pay mediocre players silly wages, does that really make you more competitive?

Art Morte wrote:Bundesliga is perhaps the best-run league in the world. There clubs cannot spend beyond their means. It is also a fairly unpredictable league, Dortmund, Werder Bremen, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg are among the champions since the turn of the millenium.

One interesting fact: Wolfsburg are currently the second biggest BL spenders and they float around the relegation places right now.

Art Morte wrote:On the other hand Bayern Munich have still won as many titles since the year 2000 as other clubs combined (6). They're running away with it this season and of course it correlates with money; Munich's net transfer spend over the last 3 years has been about €120m while the next biggest number belongs to Wolfsburg at €35m-ish and the rest are below €20m. On paper you would predict Bayern Munich to dominate the Bundesliga for years to come because their income is so much greater than anyone else's and there won't be a City or a Chelsea to rival them. There is the risk of the title race becoming boring in too many seasons.

Interestingly, it still hasn't happened even though Bayern has had more spending power than the rest for a long time now. The reason for this is probably that in the Bundesliga even the minnows refuse to simply roll ovber when big names show up and take points off them more often than not. (That, unfortunately, is currently the problem of Borussia Dortmund, too - if the German Champion shows up, every BL team tries their very best to get that precious scalp and it works probably a bit too good at the moment.)

Art Morte wrote:Back to the Premier League: Perhaps there should be different rules for clubs in different financial positions. So that no club can risk their existence and long-term health by financing through bank loans. But if the owner wants to spend his own money to bankroll the club, he would be allowed to do so to a certain extent. What does a "certain extent" mean, I don't know, but something that limits your spending on player wages.

I think I remember that ManCity recently spent around 114% money for the wages vs. their revenue. That's something that probably should be taken care off as it defies all sustainability.

Art Morte wrote:If you spend "free money" you can only offer player a contract that would raise his previous wages by, say, 25% ? Because the bottom line in all this is what I wrote above: It is insane if the Premier League's huge revenues are allowed to simply go and increase the already sky-high wages and transfer fees while fans are facing ever-growing ticket prices and the clubs themselves left posting losses.

Moreover, often the sky-high wages are paid for young players who were only hailed as prospects and suddenly and they are paid way more than they probably deserve. The problem with that is that then the rest of the players want more, too, and the spiral is going up and up.

rwo power wrote:

kiranr wrote:I am not sure i understand what the problem is with high ticket prices if people are willing to buy them and the stadiums are full every game.

The point is that less fans visit the matches and more foreign visitors and business people, thus it having a severe impact on the support.

Surely foreign visitors and business people cannot fill the stadium to capacity every game, right?

kiranr wrote:Surely foreign visitors and business people cannot fill the stadium to capacity every game, right?

Well, they are the ones left if the old fans are priced out of attenting the matches. If you follow the posts of formerly long-year fans on other forums or blogs, you will read that more and more of these fans had to give up going to the matches because they simply can't afford it anymore.

This reminds me of my Political Science lectures - it's just plain interesting, and a bit funny, how most in the forum don't question the free market doctrine at all, harping on about how anything is worth whatever the mosts ridiculous person is willing to pay for it, while RWO and I are just utterly shocked by the idea that the average Joe couldn't afford season tickets anymore

I don't think we'll see eye to eye either, you guys think the free market is a value in of itself, RWO and I happen to think humans matter more, it's not like we'll agree any time soon with that disparity.

I'm just glad I live in a country where the fans have the power to curb-stomp any attempt to raise the prices to bigwig-only levels. Really don't want to have to "enjoy" the athmosphere of 40.000 seated bankers enjoying their chai latte while watching "the football".

@Viva

Must be those "socialist" ideas that pervade Germany

@chinomaster182

I would consider it alarming that for many English people it is cheaper to get a flight to Germany and a BL ticket to attend a live football match than to buy a single ticket for some EPL match.

And mind you, the German BL tickets additionally include free rides with public transport.

Wait, is 62 GBP considered exorbitant to go to a game??

Try going to an nfl game in the states, I spend more than that on beer...

We get charged £59 for a chelsea away game but we never complained...

Man city are paying the wages for a player who plays for tottenham, i am sure they can subsidise the tickets if they are too bothered by it. Afterall they are one of the reason why the market is so inflated in England.

My bigger concern is the 13 quid fish n chips they charge at the Emirates

RG what has rich owners got to do with inflated ticket prices?

You can't be blaming City for this

Anyway that article makes it sound like the CL clubs will get better and smaller clubs will get worse.

Aka La Liga mk 2.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:RG what has rich owners got to do with inflated ticket prices?

You can't be blaming City for this

Anyway that article makes it sound like the CL clubs will get better and smaller clubs will get worse.

Aka La Liga mk 2.

City pay astronomical wages ----> Our players ask for the similar wages ( see Theo ) ----> We increase their wages ----> we increase the ticket prices to afford their wages.

You have had ridiculous ticket prices long before City was offering 250k a week to Yaya Toure and the likes....

Shifting the blame

Wasn't Newcastle the first with astronomical wages? (Owen) :p

Before 2010 ? We charged standard rates. 40% less than what it is now. We filled out the stadium every week. No one ever complained

Arsenal have always been ripping their fans off. RG

How many cost Arsenal cheapest ticket price ?

daneq wrote:Wait, is 62 GBP considered exorbitant to go to a game??

Try going to an nfl game in the states, I spend more than that on beer...

Yes. That's ridiculous. A proper football match costs 20 to 30 Euros, and the train ride to, and from, the stadium is included.

Messiah "Aggerswagger" wrote:Arsenal have always been ripping their fans off. RG

Not till 2010

How many cost Arsenal cheapest ticket price ?

Cheapest ? You can get a ticket for £34

VivaStPauli wrote:

daneq wrote:Wait, is 62 GBP considered exorbitant to go to a game??

Try going to an nfl game in the states, I spend more than that on beer...

Yes. That's ridiculous. A proper football match costs 20 to 30 Euros, and the train ride to, and from, the stadium is included.

30 euros for an average place. A very good place can cost up to 50 , depending on the quality of the opponent.

In Ligue 1, the cheapest seats are at 10€ typically, in the teams of small cities who are never more than half filled.

rwo power wrote:

Art Morte wrote:You have to offer, that's the rule of the marketplace. That's competition. As long as there's money, it will be spent. In this case on wages and fees to be more competitive at your thing.

Well, the question is - if you pay mediocre players silly wages, does that really make you more competitive?

No, that wouldn't make you more competitive. But the situation you describe rarely happens in football, especially over the long term. There is hard data to prove that the football market in wages is highly efficient, much more so than other professional markets such as banking, its so efficient in fact that wages determine 91% of a clubs final league position in English football. That means that it is extremely likely that you are paid in accordance on how good you are. Even the youngsters you mention operate by the same rules, if they're good they get a bit paycheck to keep them in the club, if they're bad they are quickly thrown away. If you're interested in the topic you should read Soccernomics (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soccernomics-Simon-Kuper/dp/0007457847) which has a simple explanation for this or you could read this excellent piece by Simon Kuper (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f340caae-47cd-11e1-b646-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2HylAxrtD) which goes over similar things.

As far as the debate on what football fans "should" pay i don't think i have a concrete opinion. I just still don't understand what it is about football that has everyone getting their inner Marxist outside. I think the majority of us live in capitalist societies where not only do we expect to purchase goods based on a free market, we actually believe it is the best solution. If say, we like a restaurant, we go to it and pay for the service. Maybe the restaurant wants to cash in on their success and increase prices, and that might drive away some customers. Again, why should football be different?