“The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb – The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
EPISTEMOLOGY. Not a theory of skiing, annoying someone or drinking too much, but the study of knowledge, writes DAVID PHILLIPS. More specifically, it concerns questions of how we know, what we know, what can we know, and what are the limits to that knowledge. Moreover, are some things unknowable? Do we not know as much as we actually think we do? Hosts of post-match football phone-in shows, people with a substantial number of Twitter followers, and moderators of below the line comments on websites are probably among the most keen to answer that last question in the affirmative.
In responding to the earlier post on TAW by the Manchester City supporter who considers that his club possesses the best owners and best executives in European football, and the overall idea that Liverpool FC should consider adopting the financial methods utilised at the Etihad, think firstly of Donald Rumsfeld’s otherwise evasive rejoinder to a question asking for evidence tying Saddam Hussein’s government and weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups:
“… there are known knowns. There are things we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are things that we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know”.
Rumsfeld, surprisingly epistemological in response, provides a useful tool in discussing those football fans who take issue with Uefa’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play (FFP) criteria and sanctions (things we know), why sanctions were imposed (things we do not — fully — know), and events and outliers which may affect FFP as we currently know it (the things we don’t know we don’t know).
While acknowledging from the outset that there are certain things we don’t know we don’t know, the history of Manchester City and FFP, and the behaviour of its owners and executives towards Uefa’s regulations, afford some insight as to whether their model is a useful one and if their staff can really be regarded as the best in the game.
Deloitte, and particularly its Sports Business Group, played a fundamental role in creating Uefa’s FFP regulations. Alex Byars and Martyn Hawkins, then Senior Consultants with the Sports Business Group, were seconded to Uefa for 18 months to work on financial projects, including FFP implementation, and were subsequently hired by Manchester City, starting work for the club in January 2012. Hawkins is now the organisation’s Financial Controller, while Byars became Everton’s Director of Strategic Projects at the beginning of 2015. Byars, in a page now scrubbed from its website but helpfully still available on the Blue Moon forums, was described by Deloitte as:
“… a leading expert on sports finance and worked on Uefa Club Licensing, where he helped develop the revised financial criteria for their club licensing system. [His] work involved technical advice with particular emphasis on international financing reporting and auditing standards, issue resolution, drafting regulations and providing football business expertise.”
While perfectly legal, and what would then have been assumed to be the kind of clever hire that would leave other football clubs asking themselves why they didn’t take the same approach, it isn’t too dissimilar to those working in government leaving for a private company position directly related to their previous role. This so-called “revolving doors” practice is one with which the public is uncomfortable, and in general terms raises questions of possible conflicts of interest. Nevertheless, despite Manchester City hiring two Deloitte staffers who would have been wholly familiar with the system and its mechanics, who collectively spent three years at Uefa and are senior audit professionals, one of whom was directly involved in drafting regulations and well versed in its intricacies, together with Paris Saint-Germain it suffered among the most severe sanctions imposed by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) on any football club to date for breaches of its Club Licensing and FFP Regulations.
PwC conducted the FFP audit, Uefa having appointed two independent firms including Deloitte to verify compliance, with PwC’s allocation to the Etihad likely the result of Uefa being mindful to avoid any suggestion of a conflict of interest. Moreover, after the club was given multiple extensions to an original deadline for agreeing a deal, those sanctions were contained within a settlement agreement, one that enabled the club to negotiate for a reduction to a prospective penalty and effectively put the club on probation to put its finances in order. This settlement also ended the possibility of further action on Manchester City’s part at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and in so doing also ensured the possibility of revelations of the true extent of the club’s non-compliance were contained. Any appeal created a higher risk of the club’s exclusion from the Champions League.
What is a “known unknown” in this regard is the fullest extent of Manchester City’s non-compliance in monetary terms, and whether Everton and/or Arsenal, as “directly affected parties” sought advice to challenge the settlement, and if so, whether such advice was acted on to any degree. However, it is likely reasonable to conclude that the settlement itself only narrowly precluded expulsion, given the several sanctions imposed in combination still comprised the strictest available to the CFCB listed in Article 29 of Uefa’s Procedural Rules, including as it did a fine (c), withholding of revenues from a Uefa competition (e), a limitation in the number of new players it could register in Uefa competitions (f), and a restriction on the number of players that a club may register in Uefa competitions and a financial limit on employee benefit costs (g). Only sanction (h) (disqualification or exclusion) remained of the most severe restrictions available to Uefa given Manchester City’s lack of success in the competition (i). Indeed, the Field Fisher Waterhouse & BDO guide to Financial Fair Play in Football suggests that a club merely €200,000 outside the break-even Acceptable Deviation could be excluded from the competition, and given that Uefa excluded from its calculations revenues from the sale of assets within its group structure, and related-party commercial deals were also judged to have contravened the regulations, it is probable that Manchester City significantly exceeded that figure.
It is also known that in 2010, the European Club Association — the body created in 2008 to replace the disbanded G-14 group — succeeded in delaying the full implementation of FFP regulations until 2015, an extension of three years from the originally proposed 2012. Further, as Michel Platini, Uefa President and perhaps best described as the moral conscience of FFP said in 2009 when the regulations were first signed off:
“The owners are asking for rules because they can’t implement them themselves, many of them have had it with shovelling money into clubs and the more money you put into clubs, the harder it is to sell at a profit … They asked me to do something — Roman Abramovich asked me, the owner of Manchester City agreed — and I think it’s very moral. And it’s not just the biggest clubs — it’s all the clubs”.
Accordingly, what makes Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s complaint regarding Uefa’s sanctions and that “history will judge what was right for football” little more than ill-judged sanctimony is that not only did Manchester City’s executives willingly accept the regulations when initially agreed, but they gained an additional three years to comply in full — with two people on its staff who were among the most educated on the topic — yet remarkably still failed to do so.
FFP issues aside, we also know of the bemusing tale of Frank Lampard’s non-transfer to New York City FC, with the club’s website proudly announcing that he had signed a two-year contract commencing 1 August 2014, only for it to later transpire that no such agreement had been concluded, with repeated statements and subsequent clarifications only serving to confuse the matter further.
Already distrustful NYCFC supporters were further angered by the decision to extend his stay in Manchester, and Lampard only this month began training for his new side in the United States. There is also the creative approach to staffing, removing 135 employees from Manchester City’s books, only for most to appear elsewhere in its group structure, with the staff at Eastlands suggesting that the most logical explanation for a number of accounting errors was that they were simple mistakes. For a club sanctioned for breaches of FFP it is somewhat surprising that accounting errors continue to be made.
As Hovemann and Lammert identified, fans typically strongly support the objectives of the FFP concept, but it is unsurprising that such support can vary relative to a club’s position, success and model. Manchester City’s fans are particularly opposed to the regulations, many of whom are doubtless influenced by the vast sums being injected into the club in a short period of time and that they subsequently fell foul of FFP criteria.
Ironically, despite football’s propensity for remembering, romanticising and eulogising times past, fans can nonetheless be affected by a collective amnesia regarding a club’s changing position in the hierarchy. While FFP was described in the piece as a “quagmire of bullshit”, it’s not unreasonable to be suspicious of such a view, and thinking it principally, if not wholly, being held due to Manchester City’s place in the current order, and if circumstances differed, to suggest that the view would differ also.
If, for example, Manchester City were the financially troubled organisation of 2008, especially one without a new stadium effectively being gifted to the club — an outlay of just £20m being required for the conversion to a football arena, together with ticketing and naming rights deal payments to the city council now totalling roughly £4m per year, with the naming rights payments themselves enabling the £350m Etihad deal to be sealed — it’s almost certain that substantial investment would be needed in the playing squad, and given the very limited footprint at Maine Road and the difficulties of expansion, bound as it was by residential streets on all sides of the ground, a costly, entirely new arena would likely be required.
Furthermore, unlike Arsenal’s former ground, Maine Road’s location would have curtailed the possibility of property sales providing a substantial proportion of any funding, the difference in price in a three-bedroom property at London’s “Highbury Stadium Square” and Manchester’s “The Maine Place” being as much as £751,000. As such, the club would have been a significantly less attractive purchase proposition, with its financial status and league position affected accordingly.
Would Manchester City fans really be so discontent with FFP with the club in such a position, or as is most likely, would they at the very least be more neutral on the proposition given one of the aims of FFP was to ensure clubs were run on a stable footing, an objective which the regulations have gone a long way to achieving? For example, in 2011 losses of top-division clubs in Europe totalled €1.7bn, whereas by June 2015 they had been reduced by over 75 per cent, and yet there is still much to be done — a Uefa report in 2014 revealed auditors at approximately one in seven European clubs expressed uncertainty about the financial future of those clubs.
As has been discussed at great length excellently here and elsewhere, FSG certainly has a great deal of work to do if it is to match the ambitions of fans, the singular mission of whom is for the club to be restored to its position as the leading club in England and Europe — Liverpool FC’s “key performance indicator” of regular participation in Uefa’s Champions League unrecognisable to many.
For a significant number of fans it was remiss that the club didn’t take the opportunity to seek the services of one of two leading managers on the continent with an abundance of silverware between them, but instead hollowed out Brendan Rodgers’ coaching staff while leaving him in situ. Confusion abounds regarding the club’s executive structure, and particularly what roles Ian Ayre now performs, given little has been done to disabuse supporters of the notion that Michael Gordon has become a quasi-CEO, and commercial activities are largely Billy Hogan’s remit.
It would be helpful if the club could provide evidence of what action, if any, has been taken to limit the resale of season tickets through non-official channels, so often can stewards be seen coaxing fans from overseas unsure of how they work through the turnstiles.
A lengthy article could be penned on the complexity of ticket pricing and affordability for “local” fans, given how laws over indirect nationality discrimination would affect any attempt to ring-fence tickets for geographically located supporters, even while understanding that Liverpool FC’s most passionate matchday fans are the club’s backbone and most recognisable image, and are in growing danger of being lost.
Ticket pricing questions often also ignore the issues of revenue and outgoings on transfer fees and wages being directly correlated to performance, which in turn must be balanced against hostile atmospheres and attendance directly influencing referee behaviour, opposition performance and results.
The club’s executives might also seek the counsel of those versed in crowd behaviour, dynamics and psychology when inserting a whole middle tier of corporate hospitality into what is already the quietest stand at Anfield, and how this might further negatively affect atmosphere in a ground which provided little evidence of its historic reputation last season.
There are plenty of other issues aside to be addressed. However, to suggest that Liverpool FC, a club deemed by Uefa to have complied with FFP, should take as a financial model a club which arguably attempted to game and subsequently failed to comply with FFP regulations and was heavily punished for doing so, despite hiring staff intimately familiar with the concept and its mechanisms is risible — a known known.
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Donald Rumsfield, fuck that guy
That’s all I wanted to say
And Donald RUMSFELD wasn’t much better….
yet another needless dig at overseas fans. If you think it’s hard to get a ticket as a local (where it will be a lot easier through 2-3 degrees of separation to get hold of a ‘season ticket holders spare seat’) it is nigh impossible as an overseas based fan.
Wise still you didn’t really address the Manchester City model outside of bleating about ffp, and then ticket prices. Not saying Man city is the one and only model – but it seems to be working for them. Every business looks to work their books to present them in the best possible light, I would hope Liverpool are as well.
Hardly a reply, just a moan
Hi Nathan,
Firstly, I can assure you that no dig was intended at overseas fans. If you’ve ever been (unfortunate enough to look) through my Twitter feed, you’ll find that I’m a pretty staunch advocate of foreign supporters and them coming to Anfield. I have an especially strong relationship with Japanese Reds and the Japanese Supporters’ Club, including having shown a few around the city and played football with them in Tokyo! Raising the season ticket issue in the manner I did was to explain the experience of a significant number of stewards I’ve spoken to, in that they are ending up in the hands of foreign supporters and very possibly due to touting. All things being equal, it’s more likely foreign fans will be less familiar with season tickets than those locals who are 2-3 steps removed, with the locals in general more likely to have previously attended. Moreover, and while I apologise for not having any evidence for this point, I’d think it more likely that those locals who are 2-3 steps removed are more likely to be able to pay face value and refuse to accept paying a greater amount. In any case, apologies for given a different impression than the one intended if that’s how you felt it read.
As for looking at the model, the reason for concentrating heavily on FFP – whether clubs like it or not – is that together with licensing it’s the most significant development in club football governance and finances in history, and fundamentally underpins the operations of those clubs. I think it’s pretty reasonable to take the history of what the club has done in that regard and apply it as a lesson “at large”. Moreover, I’d written – or as you called it, “bleated” for over 2,300 words – and it would be a full length academic essay had I explored other issues. David Conn, if you haven’t read his work, is well worth looking at on the topic in terms of pros and cons, including, for example, whether the ownership is used the club to launder Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s reputation (see http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/jul/30/manchester-city-human-rights-accusations).
Thanks for the feedback.
I AM A LIVERPOOL supporter, It does’nt matter to me whether it be local supporters or overseas supporters, the fact of the matter is that the LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB is a Global Brand and that we should encourage “pilgrimages” to Anfield !
Good to see the dig at foreign supporters is a misunderstanding. It just seems to be in atmosphere. Perhaps the club should look at setting aside a few tickets for non UK passport holders or those who live outside of Liverpool, charge a tout price (god knows we will pay it) and then be more stringent around the admin of who can use someone’s allocated season ticket (i.e. some form of photo id where if not re-sold through official channels it flags the person walking in isn’t the ticket holder and isn’t allowed to enjoy the festivities.
On ethics, it’s not really an argument worth presenting in relation to the owners or their origin. As a western society we look to the mid and far east as places full of corruption, slavery, and a raft of dodgy activity. But we are happy to support our favourite brands who manufacture in the east, and vote for our governments who invade other countries, only to miss-understand the situation, destabilise an area, throw good people into unholy situations, and then walk (fully or partially) out for someone else to clean up the mess – and no-one does, or no-one is capable to.
On FFP, it’s an accounting standard. Meeting an accounting standard does not equate with well run. I would rather have owners that look at the pro’s and con’s of meeting regulations and accounting standards and make a call on balance. It happens in businesses globally every year, and more than just the debate on how to make the books look the best during reporting season. It’s all a series of trade-offs. What happened to those banks that were caught rigging libor (a far greater crime and impact on society than merely breaching an accounting standard)? They booked the profits, caught the fine, and go on to trade and make people stupid amounts of money.
Personally, I’m not a fan of FFP – but I see merit when considering situations like Leeds. But when you look at Chelsea (who have enough of a track record to hold up as a club that has done well following the strategy) who invested heavily prior to FFP now have a sustainable model while winning things it looks like an attractive strategy if you can make it work. Unlike leeds who couldn’t. FFP might have saved Chelsea, it might not have, but because we have FFP it denies clubs the chance to give it a go and change their lot in the world.
Man City have some way to go to convince the world they are sustainable, but one breach of an accounting standard does not equate to poorly run. Man City looking across the group to maximise potential – that’s just smart. Would I want that behaviour at LFC, to a point. I prefer the model we have, I wish it was a bit more like Arsenal (but with more trophies) – but it doesn’t mean the City or Chelsea way is fundamentally floored.
And I would certainly hope the trade-offs between the costs involved of complying with an accounting standard are being weighed up with the benefits of not doing so (including opportunity costs). 9 times out of 10 it probably makes sense to follow them. I just sat in a meeting where we discussed exactly that on meeting some new regulations coming in from our financial regulator – turns out it makes sense to comply (even though it massively curtails our capex plans and hampers revenue growth initiatives). But rules were made to be broken and the debate should be had (ask UBER and Airbnb).
Hi Nathan,
The easiest way to get tickets outside of the UK is to join an official supporters club in whichever country you reside and buy yourself a red card. The supporters clubs get an allocation of tickets which although small would allow you to get to Anfield without having to get a season ticket holder’s card.
I think both sides of the argument have been fascinating. It does however make me wonder who are the ideal owners if it’s not the Sheiks? Is it Abramovich, given that he’s invested billions, selling players he doesn’t feel are necessary any more for a great profit, despite the fact he has previous in regards to sacking managers quicker than you can say Chavski? Are the owners of Arsenal, who FSG have admitted they’ve admired in the past, the way to run a football club? Long term support of a manager, allowing him one marquee signing a summer and earning loads of cash despite not winning a lot? What about the Glazers? Commercial and sponsorship deals going through the roof, supposedly giving their manager a massive war chest to splash the cash? Or are FSG the ones? They’re a mystery to me our owners. They’ve done some great stuff for the club, such as saving us in the first place from Hicks and Gillette, trimming the debt, giving us the funds to go and spend on players, commercial deals are at an all time high and they went for Kenny after the dark days of Hodgson (the fact they got rid of him makes them saints!) But on the other hand, they’ve got the wrong transfer policy, haven’t always backed the managers, are hardly ever in the city let alone the ground, insist on youth over experience and wont pay the necessary wages. So I would like to know, who are peoples ideal owners to get Liverpool Football Club to be league champions again?
The fans.
Ideally for me.
But the whole of the EPL would need to get rid of the sugar daddies for a fan owned club to be able to compete, I think.
Swansea are 20% fan owned of course.
It might sounds naive, but I can’t think of any reason why a fan owned club couldn’t drive commercial revenue and be just as well run. All I hear most people ask of FSG is that the transfer and wages spend of the club reflects the club’s income and I don’t see why that wouldn’t be the case with a fan owned club.
LFC fans don’t have the money. You’ll need over £500,000,000 to be able to get anywhere near buying the club once the first part of the ground development is complete, or maybe more, thanks to the new TV deal future income.
We have people moaning over a few quid on ST increased all the bloody time. Where do you think hundreds of millions of pounds is going to come from. Those OOTers, wools and foreign fans many in L4 detest? Good luck with that!
That’s just the thing. They’ve spent enough to compete in the top 4. They’ve spent a lot of it on crap. That’s the downfall. Also, what system does BR want to use? That would probably go a fair way to fixing the transfer policy. Does he want to run a 4-4-2 diamond? A 4-3-3? We don’t know yet. And that’s a problem.
Bit of a pedantic post.
Who cares if City hired some UEFA finacial guys and whether they failed this silly FFP thing.
At the end of the day we (Liverpool fans) would love it if there was no FFP and a rich Arab bought us and got us on the trophy trail. It’s all double standards sadly, if it’s not your club you shout foul but if it’s your club benefiting then it’s all smiles.
Not to mention the xenophobia that’s around City and Chelsea – for political and racial reasons. The Arabs and Russians aren’t less moral than the American owners we have had over the few years and their countries aren’t less moral (america is the one that is more bomb happy than all of them).
The real digfference is, our yanks are paupers in comparison to the richer boys of Chelsea and City.
FFP will collapse soon so FFP get ready to get your wallets out or just sell off to a richer guy (preferably not an American as America does not have a good human rights track record :))
Parry, you should have sold to Dubai when you had the chance.
Fair play to City and their Arab owners. Ignore our moaning, we’re just jealous and upset that you didn’t help us out.
Parry wasn’t the owner, blame Moores and his nicotine addiction.
“Parry, you should have sold to Dubai when you had the chance.”
Well Parry has recently been very clear about why that happened and since the investment fund basically collapsed soon afterwards, that was a lucky escape.
Ahem….listen to our exclusive interview with Rick Parry here: http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/06/the-big-interview-rick-parry/
;-)
That’s not to say they would not to say they would not have been able to pass the club on to some other rich Arabs. Looiko at the Thai guy who got City…he passed it on to a group of Arabs who just blew us out of the water and left many of us with green eyes.
Rather DIC than H and G.
Well said Nico, Party’s recent interview with the Wrap on TAW Player was enlightening with regards to the near sale to DIC. Redlondon, I suggest you have a listen, it was a lucky escape
Sorry. Couldn’t get past Rumsfeld. The blood on his hands and those of my country (usa) make me sick to my stomach. I love football. Leave genocide out of it.
Unfortunately most people in the UK have no idea what Rummy and his cronies have been doing for decades with the war machine for their buddies. The very same people criticising people in the US for not “getting” Liverpool.
Great piece; well researched and well written. For me, it comes down to one main, big thing. In professional sports, success should be achieved collectively as a whole, or not at all. This is definitely a contentious point as “collectively achieved” is variably defined by different people. However, I view the purchase and investment of hundreds of millions of pounds into a mid-table club, to make them automatic title and european contenders overnight to be as far from “collectively achieved” as you can possible get. I have no problems with spending money within your means to improve your squad. If you earned it, by developing your players, promoting from within, having the right squad mentality, etc., its your right to do as you please with it.
My problem with Chelsea, Man City, PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, are that they don’t play by the rules. In the case of Chelsea and Man City, the initial outlay in the hundreds of millions, was clearly beyond their financial means at that time, and their lavish spending (particularly Chelsea’s, see an excellent analysis on the effect of Chelsea’s spending on the Premier League by Paul Tomkins: http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/08/how-chelsea-ruined-football/) has led to a domino effect of needing more and more investment by owners of football clubs to keep their teams competitive. Somewhat differently, Real Madrid and Barcelona, although quite able to afford outlandish (and quite frankly ridiculous) sums of money for players, have accrued their wealth at the expense of the rest of La Liga, by negotiating separate TV deals for themselves. And even now, are resisting change (http://www.beinsports.tv/la-liga/title/la-liga-chief-slams-real-madrid-for-opposing-new-tv-rights-deal/article/4v1fgwt3tu2c1u2v9az01q8yh).
Prowl the latest rumor mills circulating the interweb and find the usual bull**** from the same suspects. Either one of the “big, successful, well-run” teams mentioned above are about to break the bank for the next big thing. The only difference these past 2 seasons, are that Man United are joining the club, throwing whatever money they have saved over 20 years of success at anything they possibly can to retain said success, terrified of losing it. Why are they doing this? Why are Liverpool fans crying out for an injection of [more] wealth, dismayed at FSG’s model of player development (a caveat: there are major other issues surrounding Liverpool’s transfer policy besides the amount of money spent)? Because, the same prime suspects started it all, and regulators allowed them to do so.
I can’t blame them. I want it as well, but I want Liverpool to do it the right way, and its going to be awfully hard.
Nice one Josh, agree with much of the above. I wanted to write something similar and it kept on coming out that I thought CFC,MCFC et al were not being fair! Like much in life actually is in reality!
I am well aware that most clubs including mine have plenty of issues that ethically do not look good. The 2 teams mentioned were catapulted in a relatively short time onto heights that their support could only dream of. TBF CFC had started to have a good level of success prior to RA buying the club, city had been nowhere since the 80s really, and CFC were broke.
I am hoping against hope that FFP will allow a sensible level of investment – whatever that is – but not what has previously occurred. The difference for me is that Arsenal, LFC, United built over long periods of time….you can see how this ends…
This debate over the last few days reminds me of the first ‘lads’ holiday I went on. On the plane we spoke about how we were gonna attract the fittest girls.
At our hotel there were 2 girls who latched onto our group. One was fit and one really wasn’t. I asked the fit one out and she said she had a boyfriend. I said ‘so what, he’s hardly gonna find out’. Anyway, she bombed me off and I ended up with the ugly one. My mates were taking the piss and I said, ‘look, the fit one’s got a boyfriend, I wouldn’t do that and besides the other one is a much better laugh.
Life is like that. You have to take the positives. You can’t wallow in self pity or you’ll do yourself in. City’s model is abhorrent. At least if we win the league we’ve done it morally correct. Truth is though, I wanted the fit one.
Excellent, nearly spat my drink out :)
“It would be helpful if the club could provide evidence of what action, if any, has been taken to limit the resale of season tickets through non-official channels, so often can stewards be seen coaxing fans from overseas unsure of how they work through the turnstiles.
A lengthy article could be penned on the complexity of ticket pricing and affordability for “local” fans, given how laws over indirect nationality discrimination would affect any attempt to ring-fence tickets for geographically located supporters, even while understanding that Liverpool FC’s most passionate matchday fans are the club’s backbone and most recognisable image, and are in growing danger of being lost.”
So, who is re-selling the season tickets through ‘non-official channels’. The “local” fans who are the most passionate supporters and the backbone of the club?
As an overseas supporter I’m getting heartily sick and tired of these digs at ‘non-local’ fans, the author’s fig-leaf attempt at self-justification above not-withstanding.
I never miss a match and if the Kop is the epitome of passionate support then I for one can tell you it needs to take a long hard look at itself.
Yeah, yeah, I can only see it on TV, but on far too many matchdays at Anfield the place is quiet as a grave while the Kop waits for the team to do something to justify the support making an effort.
Liverpool fans are supposed to inspire the players on to greater heights. From what I can see – and hear – it is the players lifting the crowd, not the other way around.
The locals are privileged to be able to be there in the flesh, but as far as I can see they take that privilege for granted.
We only sing when we’re winning sums up the so-called passionate locals to me.
You got it, local ST holders are using them as income streams. Some hold more than one. They’re not content just sending their children out with “mind yer car, mister,” crap, they want fag and booze money on the back of sitting on tickets.
If you don’t make X games a season (unless extremely sick or sent away for work – both easy to prove), you should lose your ST.
Interesting piece and I appreciate the time you obviously took in constructing such an erudite and well researched reply. I’m going to leave aside the Liverpool ownership thing for now and what FSG should/shouldn’t do.
With regards City though I’m a little bit at a loss to understand what the problem is with the things you’ve referenced whether they be City moving employees to different companies or the Lampard loan deal, or City employing experts who have an intimate knowledge of FFP. You seem to be missing a very important contextual point. FFP was created by UEFA in part as a reaction to City’s takeover. This is why such stringent rules were put in place with regards investment into clubs. UEFA tried to neuter City at the behest of the established hegemony of clubs who already had the revenues to not worry about FFP. The game was rigged from the start to try and slow down the progress we were making.
It seems strange to me that this is even allowed to go on. Whether you like it or not City have a business plan, and that business plan is working. Whether we failed in 2013 because we were naive and whether we knew we’d fail or not isn’t really relevant. What’s relevant is the overall trajectory the club would take in terms of revenues catching up with costs. Historically football clubs have operated regularly at a loss and regularly with debts saddled against the club. This utterly gratuitous set of regulations was driven with the almost sole intention of stopping people who could actually afford to run clubs from running them and building them into a force, whilst leaving in place owners who are happy to saddle a club with huge amounts of debt and then pay off the debt using the club’s revenues.
I’m sure there are some benevolent aspects to FFP which could over a period of time help stabilise the footballing market place. But none of those aspects are the ones which stop genuinely good owners with serious plans from following through on those plans because it upsets a small group at the top who’ve been drinking from the same money trough for many many years.
It’s staggering that nothing more has been made of the “changes” to FFP this summer. Effectively new owners can now come in and do what City’s owners or PSG’s owners did with much more freedom as the rules have been relaxed. Are we supposed to believe that it’s merely coincidence that three months ago Karl Heinz Rummenigge was lamenting the state of Italian giants Inter and AC Milan and publicly suggesting that they needed help from FFP. Some of his quotes are below:
“If you have a hole, you can’t plug it without any fresh money. I’ve read that Milan could be sold, but the new owner couldn’t put in too much money without going against UEFA limitations.
“So, it’s up to us as big names to find a solution which won’t penalise them any more.”
This is a man who has said this about Manchester City:
“I recommend that Uefa should think of harsh punishments, otherwise there will be no financial fair play. Let’s take the example of Manchester City. How does it work when you write about 200 million (£194.9m) loss? The working group of the Uefa is required here to establish strict penalties. Some clubs want leniency, but in the final analysis, only the exclusion from the international competitions or the non-licensing for the European competitions or Champions League place (is appropriate.)”
Funny how his tune has changed now City’s hole is plugged and some of his more established buddies need investment.
Anyway for me, I stand by what I wrote in my original piece. FFP is a quagmire of bullshit which no amount of hypotheticals is going to change. It was put in place to try and stop us, it failed, and so it’s slowly being phased out. The reason it has failed with regards City is because we have the smartest minds in football working for us and helping us to continue to grow at an exponential rate. I wish UEFA all the best with their regulations and it’ll be interesting to see what comes first, another climbdown in the regulations themselves, or their wholesale consignment to the bin by the ECJ.
Hi,
I am just wondering why you are so certain that FFP will fall at the ECJ? Is this based on fact or a hunch as their appears to be some evidence going the other way.
It would appear that UEFA are confident that ECJ will not rule against them.
Secondly other authors – Matt Scott – would suggest that the changes that you spoke about are a tinkering and not wholesale – Why do you believe this is not the case. I ask not to be antagonistic but out of interest.
A hegemony had been built but in most cases this was built over decades and mostly in a different way – You will remember city spending fortunes in the late 70s and 80s themselves, presumably a mixture of debt and money made over time through football activities – As I suggested earlier most of the big clubs will have had help over time – LFC – Moores – but it was the time taken and the scale that now differs.
For me there is much to admire in what City have done especially in terms of infrastructure and how they appear to be trying to run themselves – by the way just cough the 50m for sterling and stop messing about :) – But with the best will in the world city did not get their current status through football activity which is surely why as supporters we are actually here – and that for me is the catch.
Unlike you I see FFP as a flawed attempt to try and bring some sense to the mad finances of football – in terms of debt that appears to have had some success – tinkering is required so that investors can come in but not to such a degree that the whole thing is sent on an inflationary spiral.
Liverpool FC in my opinion are in a hole of our own making. We have money to be competitive but not to waste as we have done the last 10 years or so. Until that changes we will continue on the same path – but at least its a footballing path.
Cheers.