Man U and Liverpool prepare to out-manoeuvre Chelsea and Man C in a dramatic rule change « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

By Tony Attwood

Manchester United and Liverpool make an unlikely pairing in any sense, and the animosity felt between them is huge and long-term.

But today they are indeed linked together in a new campaign to persuade the Board of the Premier League to introduce new rules that would control the finances of Premier League clubs.

From the start of our publishing venture on Untold we have argued that the Billionaire model of ownership adopted initially by Chelsea, but then copied by Manchester City, PSG and clubs across Russia was not sustainable, in that these clubs potentially could turn every league into replicas of the two team leagues that we have seen in Scotland (until this year) and Spain.

It is perhaps difficult for younger supporters to recognise that it was not so long ago that big clubs could tumble, because although they had more money than others they did not have so much that they could ultimately buy anyone – and indeed buy players whom they hardly wanted at all, but would like to keep away from a rival.  Likewise even the smallest of the small could rise.

Indeed many younger supporters seem to think it natural that today’s big teams have always been the big teams at the top, and will always be so, forgetting perhaps that Manchester City were relegated in 2001, that Wimbledon were a Premier League club until 2000, that while we were winning the league in 1991 Notts County were getting promoted to the top division, or indeed that Chelsea were a second division club in 1989.

The further back the more odd it looks to today’s eyes.   Luton (now in the Conference) in the top division in 1982, Tottenham getting relegated after coming bottom of the league in 1977, Manchester United being relegated in 1974…

That is how it used to be.  Arsenal, in fact, were the only team safe, having been in the top league in 1919.  But now the big boys are buying their way to success that will last as long as the rich man is a) alive and b) interested, and such a limitation on who can actually succeed is not good for the game.

It is of course ironic that the move for change in the Premier League should come from Man U (owned by billionaires who have fallen on hard times, and who regularly remove vast chunks of money from the club every year) and Liverpool (who were raped by their previous owners and now can’t find a way out of the muck).  But sometimes we can’t choose our allies, and if an alliance with those two is what it takes to bring financial sanity and competition back to the league, then so be it.  It is what Untold has been hammering on about all this time.

Discussions began earlier this year, and have involved a wide number of clubs, and indeed the range of clubs that are supporting the move is interesting – from the aforementioned Man U through to Wigan Athletic whose chairman identified Man U as the particular mover of the proposal this time around.

To be fair to Manchester United, David Gill has been as strong a proponent of financial fair play as anyone at Arsenal (and of course such a move would be good for Arsenal because the club is regularly in profit.)  Gill has talked before about taking the FFP rules of Uefa and putting them into the Premier League, and it seems he’s now looking to gather allies.

Today it appears that the clubs in favour of some sort of restriction (and that means just about everyone except Chelsea and Manchester City) are not so much debating if they should have a financial rule in the Premier League but whether they should just take the FFP rules, or use something more hard edged, so that dubious deals such as the sponsorship of a club by an organisation owned by the chairman of the club is clearly ruled out of order.

Liverpool desperately need such a change since they have been in a hole ever since the government owned Royal Bank of Scotland took them over and ultimately sold the club to  John W Henry.  Henry is very strong on the need for restrictions, and very anxious not only to have rules in the Premier League but also to ensure that Uefa really make the FFP rules hurt the loss making clubs.

As matters stand in Europe clubs need to limit their losses to €45m over three seasons from last season to avoid being refused entry into the Champions League or the Europa. (Incidentally it is not a simple matter to translate that sum into pounds at the current exchange rate because there is a clause in FFP that says that currency fluctuations will be taken into account.  I am not sure how, but the clause is there.)

Henry said in one statement that, “We believe the league itself may have to adopt its own rules, given that clubs seem to be ignoring Uefa’s rules, which may be porous enough to enable clubs to say that the trend of huge losses is positive and therefore be exempt from any meaningful sanctions.”

The problem is that over half of the 20 Premier League clubs last season ended up making a loss, so getting everyone onside is going to be tough.   But the fact that Liverpool, making a loss of £49m in the year ending 2011 are so strong on the move may help get things going.

But Liverpool are helped by the fact that a lot of their losses to 2011 were due to exceptional items, and they are looking to return to profit soon, so that might explain their position.

The Premier League has already had one little go at trying to make the playing field more even – the “25″  player rule, with the extra “home grown” sub-clause.   That may now be seen as a trial run for the much bigger challenge of pushing this regulation through.

Certainly it is this approach to finances that should be remembered when looking at the comments by Arsenal’s board that the club could not compete in the transfer market with Chelsea and Man City.   The statement was at one level stating the obvious (although the AAA seized on it as they do on anything to bash Arsenal with) but was also a preparation for today’s developments.

It would be ludicrous to say that the constant attempt by this blog to highlight the insanity of the way in which the transfer market and wage structure has gone in recent years has influenced the clubs – a blind man in a dark tunnel at midnight with his eyes closed could see the mess the Premier League is in.   But it is nice to know that maybe at last something might be done.

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