Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » 2010 » June » 12
Cole unlike Ballack is fit at the moment, but injury prone in the last couple of years. Both have been looking for huge salaries in the region of £5 million a year which of course the Lords of Prefabricated Football can certainly afford.
The fact is then that Chelsea can indeed afford these guys, and can give them 20 year contracts if they want, but they have said no. There is only one explanation… it is the first sign that the new UEFA financial fair play rules are coming into focus.
For all the talk about the big clubs finding their way around the new rules, and there being delays in implementation, the reality is that Chelsea know that with their current wage bill they cannot buy a place in Europe, because they don’t break even. They have to do two things: stop having money put into the club by the owner, and stop paying wages that take them into loss.
Wages are what it is all about. For some clubs the wage bill can be 80% of the expenditure. (In the Championship it is 90% on average but they are just nutters). If you want to break even it is always the same thing: stop having money from the owner and stop paying huge wages.
Arsenal have no problem with this because their wage bill is under 50% of their expenditure and they make a profit.
Manchester IOU can’t get anywhere near the break even position because they have to spend money on wages and money on financing the Glazer debt. They can stop buying players, and cut the wage bill, but they can’t stop paying the interest on the loans.
Tottenham declare a profit – but we have yet to see the effect of Arry Otspur’s transfer activities. The fact that he appears to be thinking of taking Cole to Tottenham suggests that he isn’t thinking long term about cutting the costs at the club to secure further years in the Champs League.
Manchester City look to be wanting to go on buying and selling in order to replace Tottenham in the top four – and this might be the new strategy. Get into the top four first, then cut the wage bill in order to qualify for Europe. It looks a bit dopey but it is possible. “Let’s win things first, and worry about the rules the following season”. On the other hand there is talk of a mass clear out at Man Prefabricated, so maybe they are going to follow Chelsea and cut the costs.
Aston Villa, the other Euro hopeful are dependent on owner donations just to stay in business and are nowhere near breaking even, so don’t stand a chance of entry to the Champs League even if they got to fourth.
Thus for the moment our Champs League teams of the future are
- Arsenal
- Chelsea
- Tottenham H
and that’s it. No one else seems to have the ability to get to the top four, and qualify. And that is also a worry, because if we start putting only three teams in the Champs League then England will start losing places as our Euro coefficient is affected.
There’s more to these financial regs than first appeared.
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