Saturday, September 1st, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month

You wouldn’t know it from the behaviour of the last couple of days, but there is a new rule in football.  A new rule that says that clubs must not lose more than €45m between 2011 to 2013 (which is about £46m at current exchange rates).   So when Chelsea toddle off and spend around £80m in one transfer window on Hazard, Oscar, Marin, Azpilicueta and Moses you know that someone is not taking the matter seriously.

Man C were much the same buying Rodwell, Richard Wright (remember him?), Maicon, Sinclair.  Did they buy Javi García as well?  I lost track in the end.

Interestingly both clubs are saying that they are supporting the new financial arrangements, but clearly they are not, any more than is PSG (having bought Ibrahimovic, Silva, Moura and Lavezziis) are looking set to obey the rules.

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And rather interestingly the big expenditure this season by Man U on Van Persie, Kagawa and Buttner now makes it look like they might be making enough loss (given the way the Glazers rape the club of money each year) not to fit in with the FFP plans.   Man U may of course have pulled off a coup by issuing worthless shares in New York and getting people to pay for them, but it is highly unlikely that such a trick will work a second time.

So where does Uefa stand in the face of this total rejection of the financial regulations?  None of us really knows, although Platini said just yesterday of his FFP plans , “We wanted to revolutionise European football when we first introduced this idea.  We are never going back on this.”

One interesting point is that Man City actually claim that they are not spending too much, since they are “sponsored” by their owners.  Chelsea claim that they are ok because their owner actually lobbied Uefa to set up the new regs.  Neither argument is holding any water at all; both clubs will fail to meet the FFP regs next year, unless they have a wholesale fire sale, and as Man C found in trying to do some Pest Control and get rid of Adebayor, it is not that easy to move pesky players on.

In all the debates on TV yesterday, as the transfer window ended, no one incidentally was talking much of Málaga, Rangers and Portsmouth, except Platini.   But what he said was worth hearing, for in talking of such clubs Platini said financial disaster can follow massive spending in any club.

” I’ve spoken to Manchester City’s owners in Abu Dhabi, and everybody has given their commitment to this plan. Some aren’t necessarily showing it, but we have been very clear with them. We have put the structure in place to implement these rules. If clubs do not respect the rules, they will get into difficulty, whether they are from France, from Italy, from England, from Georgia …”

So will Uefa really deal with the big boys?  One new rule (the overdue payment rule) is already in place and AEK Athens and Besiktas are already banned.  Portsmouth were banned after winning the FA Cup, and Rangers are banned too.  27 other clubs are under investigation and also look like being banned.   Real Madrid and Barcelona have both fallen foul of this in the past, although before there were banning orders associated with failing to pay football debts on time.

Platini’s speech and the record so far of dealing with clubs does indeed suggest that he is not willing to be seen as a man who will back off when faced by the might of the Billionaire Clubs, in Russia, along with Man City, Chelsea, PSG, and now perhaps Man U.

What seems to have happened is that it does look as if the Billionaire clubs really were banking on the fact that either they could set up a youth system to rival Arsenal very quickly (turns out they can’t) or by being able to make one big splash to bring in a top team, and then settle down to profit (again in the Arsenal style).

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But just as the instant youth system failed, most notably at Chelsea, so did the settling down.   Chelsea and Man City got their trophies last season, but they neither felt secure that they could repeat job – hence the mega spending this summer.

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So they may have been relying on a third strategy of having half a dozen Billionaire Clubs all breaking the rules, believing that this would force Uefa to blink first.  Platini is saying, no, we won’t blink.

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Thus there will warnings and reprimands followed by points deductions, all before the ejections, and slowly the screw will tighten.  During that process it seems that they will be looking at each other to see who does pull out first.

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The one thing Platini can’t allow to happen is for Man City, Chelsea, PSG and the Russians to form their own group playing in their own Euro league.  For a while it was thought that maybe those clubs could go it alone, because they would be joined by Barca, Real Mad, AC Milan, Inter and Juve now it seems less likely.  Real Mad is regularly in profit, Barca is desperately trying to get its debt down, the Milan clubs are in real financial difficulties and Juventus are once again tied up in scandal (although to be fair not of their own making, despite the fact that their manager is now banned).

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I genuinely believe no one quite knows where this is going.  What I do know is that such complex debate is not popular and that the media are much happier with the simplistic sound bites that AST give regularly about Arsenal falling behind, not spending enough etc etc.

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The model developed by Chelsea and copied by other clubs is not sustainable, because if the owner is arrested or shot, or if he loses his money, or just loses interest (as with Malaga) or indeed if the money runs out, or if some wrong doing is found (as in the Rangers and approach) then the whole club crashes to the ground.

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But the billionaire model could win through if Uefa doesn’t act strongly.  Then we would see clubs rising and falling, week by week, month by month.  What, for example, would happen if there were a coup in a country that owned a club (as is the case with PSG?)

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Interesting times.