Financial Fair Play Initiative: the fans' view

[Sarah Star]

Thought some of you would find this interesting:

Some of you may already have heard of UEFA's 'Financial Fair
Play' initiative aimed at stabilising European club football and
preserving / enhancing its appeal.

'Financial Fair Play' has a range of objectives, including: to
stop clubs paying excessive salaries and transfer fees; to
promote investment in youth development and playing
infrastructure; and to prevent clubs from financial collapse.

To complement this initiative the plan now is to run a research
project looking into football fans' opinions on 'Financial Fair
Play'. The intention is that the results of this survey will
contribute to making the UEFA 'Financial Fair Play' initiative
potentially even better.

We would be delighted if as many of you as possible would like to
take part in this survey and thus play a part in improving
European club football.

In order to be able take into account the views and interests of
football fans from the whole of Europe, the survey is being
conducted on a pan-European basis. The questions can be answered
in English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish or German.

Completing the questionnaire only takes about 12 minutes. You can
access it at

http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/hsw/sportwiss ... alfairplay
/

[Friday's Legacy]

completed.

[Maquisard]

Long but not difficult.

My concern is how will all of these good ideas be put into practice - does FIFA have the guts to get strict. I suspect not - money is too powerful

[Platypuss]

Championship clubs have voted to bring in FFP from next season. Details of how it will work in practice here:

http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/FLExplainedDetail/0,,10794~2748246,00.html

[ZacNaloen]

How long until this will be implemented in the premier league?

[Dare to Dr£am]

Championship clubs have voted to bring in FFP from next season. Details of how it will work in practice here:

http://www.football-league.co.uk/page/FLExplainedDetail/0,,10794~2748246,00.html

Interesting. Does this mean major cut-backs at West Ham and Leicester this summer?

[PieEater]

Probably not, there are still 2 years to transition.

The sanctions seem pretty limp, promotion = a fair play tax, no promotion = a transfer embargo.

I'd like to have seen points deducted, particularly if there were outstanding tax bills. It's also not clear if the transfer embargo included loans or not, if it doesn't then the sanctions are a farce.

[Geekins]

Surely we don't care about this anymore...

[Friday's Legacy]

Championship clubs making losses of more than £6m will be fined millions of pounds or put under a transfer embargo from the 2014-15 season.
Three of the 24 clubs voted against new regulations to limit investment from owners and curb total spending.

The changes will also prevent owners from funding their clubs through loans.

Football League chairman Greg Clarke said: "They will begin to lay the foundations for a league of financially self-sustaining football clubs."
Owners will be allowed to invest £6m next season, £5m the year after, then £3m in the 2014-15 season.

From 2015-16, clubs will be allowed to make a £2m operating loss, as well accept a £3m investment from an owner - allowing for a £5m overall loss. Clubs promoted to the Premier League that fail to adhere to the amendments must pay a fair-play tax on their losses, ranging from one per cent on the first £100,000 to 100 per cent on anything over £10m.

Non-promoted clubs will not be punished financially for failing to adhere to the new rules, but instead placed under a transfer embargo.
QPR made a loss of £25.4m in their promotion season and would have been fined around £15m if the new regulations had been in place last year.
Clubs relegated to the Championship will not be subject to sanctions in their first season as long as they have met their financial obligations under Premier League regulations.

They would, however, have to pay the fair-play tax if they did not comply with the new regulations and got promoted.
The new regulations are based on Uefa's break-even model of Financial Fair Play and come after the Football League's research revealed the 72 clubs of the Championship, League One and League Two are on course to accumulate £2bn of debt.
And chairman Clarke is happy the trend is to be reversed after the successful vote on Wednesday morning.

He said: "On the pitch we have three exciting, competitive divisions with crowds at their highest levels for 50 years.

These new regulations seek to curb the risks some clubs go to when pursuing their dream of reaching the Premier League.

Riches await those clubs who reach the Premier League. But, as Portsmouth's recent troubles demonstrate, those who live beyond their means often have a long way to fall when the dream turns sour.

"But that success isn't necessarily being reflected on our clubs' balance sheets and we have to remedy that situation or face an uncertain future.
"I'd like to commend the Championship clubs for the courageous decision they have taken today.

"It means that for the first time, all 72 Football League clubs have agreed to take concerted action towards controlling their financial destiny."
Youth investment and accounting charges from past spending on players and stadium-building will not be included.

Leagues One and Two will continue to limit spending on wages to a proportion of turnover.



Leicester and West Ham will have their work cut out over the next two seasons to bring their costs down. Should be fun!

[ZacNaloen]

So who were the two clubs to vote against?

[Friday's Legacy]

So who were the two clubs to vote against?

Three voted against. I would expect West Ham and Leicester to be two of those, as they have the biggest wage bills by a long long way.

[Franchise FC]

So who were the two clubs to vote against?

Three voted against. I would expect West Ham and Leicester to be two of those, as they have the biggest wage bills by a long long way.

According to the BBC and Sky it was only 2, but you may be right.

[ZacNaloen]

Yeh bbc is where I got the number 2 from

[rhroyal]

I'd say a transfer embargo is a pretty decent punishment, as I imagine they would have to sell players too to stop a second season. Also, QPR would have been fined £15m. Once again, not to be sneezed at. It would be harder to push these changes through in the Premier League; far more clubs would vote against it.

[soggy biscuit]

So who were the two clubs to vote against?

Three voted against. I would expect West Ham and Leicester to be two of those, as they have the biggest wage bills by a long long way.

According to the BBC and Sky it was only 2, but you may be right.

Head of football league was on talksport earlier and confirmed it was 3. Asked who they were he said 'we won't be revealing that but you can probably guess'

[ZacNaloen]

Leicester, west ham... Err who else spend well above their means??

[winchester_royal]

Cardiff?

[Friday's Legacy]

So who were the two clubs to vote against?

Three voted against. I would expect West Ham and Leicester to be two of those, as they have the biggest wage bills by a long long way.

According to the BBC and Sky it was only 2, but you may be right.

My quote is BBC, but they're often unreliable.

[handbags_harris]

Two things about the whole thing:-

1) Will this be the start of "interesting" accounting and will the FL be employing the services of forensic accountants to try to protect against the accounting principles of the likes of Ken Bates?

2) How much would Newcastle Utd have paid in fair play taxes in their Championship winning year, 09/10? Given that I read it as anything above 10 million = 100% of that amount in taxes (so £20 million losses = £20 million tax on top), they must have been over £10 million losses so would have been well in the 100% bracket...

[ZacNaloen]

Presumably Newcastle just spent their parachute money? How much would Ashley have had to invest?