This whole system is pretty f**ked up. Clubs try to find every and any loophole to gain advantage and all these governing bodies plug the holes as we go and they make up rules and regulations on the way. There is no way clubs can call them and ask if we sell this womens team to Blueco how would it effect the books. No, you just have to try it and hope it works. If it doesn't you are in a new set of troubles. It is like these clubs are children who poke and prod and try to find the boundaries. When dad says no the funs over.

It is a circus.

You can have your opinion on American sports all you like but I feel they have done this much better. The teams are much more unified and know they all should pull the same rope that helps every team. In Europe it is pretty much this chaos.

14 minutes ago, evissy said:

This whole system is pretty f**ked up. Clubs try to find every and any loophole to gain advantage and all these governing bodies plug the holes as we go and they make up rules and regulations on the way. There is no way clubs can call them and ask if we sell this womens team to Blueco how would it effect the books. No, you just have to try it and hope it works. If it doesn't you are in a new set of troubles. It is like these clubs are children who poke and prod and try to find the boundaries. When dad says no the funs over.

It is a circus.

You can have your opinion on American sports all you like but I feel they have done this much better. The teams are much more unified and know they all should pull the same rope that helps every team. In Europe it is pretty much this chaos.

The defining irony is that American sports are successful thanks to a highly-regulated, highly-unionized, socialist administrative system, whereas European sports are desparately trying to claw back the excess of a rampant laissez-faire free market.

5 minutes ago, SydneyChelsea said:

The defining irony is that American sports are successful thanks to a highly-regulated, highly-unionized, socialist administrative system, whereas European sports are desparately trying to claw back the excess of a rampant laissez-faire free market.

I am guessing this is also why Americans look at football and think there is a chance for them.

4 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

Right, I completely miscalculated and forgot 21/22 was still to be accounted for. In that case, it would be inconsistent of UEFA to now demand unqualified compliance. In the original assessment UEFA acknowledged not just the loss of revenue (which essentially amounts to 0 for a full quarter), but the operational constraints that necessitated bulk spending once the club's sale was finalised so it is clear that force majeur has to be taken into account.

This would also have been applicable to Roman's £1.5bn debt forgiveness at the time of sale, since UEFA FFP (unlike the PL to date) assesses shareloader loans for fair market value.

As for Stefan Borson, the media also variously claim he is a lawyer as well. Charlatan is more likely.

As I pointed out I haven’t seen how the RA debt has in effect been closed or indeed if from a CFC holdings point needed to as no or little debt was ever at CFC level it was further up the ownership structure .In effect loans to CFC from RA flowed through Fordstam who owned 100% of CFC increasing equity in the football club as opposed to leaving debt on the balance sheet of CFC.

From my perspective I never got close to fully understanding the full implications of owners loans in holding companies as opposed to the company directly running the FC. In theory it shouldn’t impact but I am far from sure as to why loans further up the company structure never lead to CFC holdings making reference to notional interest whereas Arsenal whose loans from KSE was at a earlier stage of company structure added a notation.

1 hour ago, SydneyChelsea said:

The defining irony is that American sports are successful thanks to a highly-regulated, highly-unionized, socialist administrative system, whereas European sports are desparately trying to claw back the excess of a rampant laissez-faire free market.

And that in one is why I to a large degree don’t buy into the narrative that BlueCo don’t know what they are doing from a financial perspective. Their experts will be all over both the PL and UEFAs regulations and whilst some will keep referring to “ loop holes” they will see them as allowances that are transparent and fully in accord with the stipulations.

If UEFA , if the PL don’t want clubs to take advantage of allowances that are currently sanctioned then it’s down to those bodies to change the rules.

Just watching Arsenal in the CL quarter finals V Real Madrid last night..... It wasn't long ago that we were playing Real Madrid in the CL quarter finals too....... In April 2023 .

We've gone backwards ever since.

On 07/04/2025 at 09:23, RMH said:

I don't think that the revenue has much to do with sporting success from that Club analysis. The fact that Utd, Arsenal and Spurs have more revenue than us and have won f**k all of relevance in football in the last 20 years says it all. It is down to how good the board is. You have savvy owners, you get to the top of football by knowning how to spend and build a team; if you have mediocre and/or leech owners, then it doesn't matter how much the club makes in terms of revenue, the sporting side will still struggle to get to the top.

I agree mate. In fact, EPL clubs have by far the largest broadcasting revenues of any other league. Spending billions on a new stadium to bring in extra revenue is pointless first if all of it's not used to benefit the football side of our club ( Tottenham haven't spent loads extra on the football team despite massive extra revenue) and secondly it won't be any use if our spending continues on the same model as it is now, a gamble on youth, large churn in players coming and going, not to mention a different manager every season. .

9 hours ago, terraloon said:

And that in one is why I to a large degree don’t buy into the narrative that BlueCo don’t know what they are doing from a financial perspective. Their experts will be all over both the PL and UEFAs regulations and whilst some will keep referring to “ loop holes” they will see them as allowances that are transparent and fully in accord with the stipulations.

If UEFA , if the PL don’t want clubs to take advantage of allowances that are currently sanctioned then it’s down to those bodies to change the rules.

This is exactly why this is such a circus. Clubs try to expose every little thing to gain advantage and the governing bodies just try to plug the holes as we go. That is just pure madness. How can you make long time planning in an environment like that. One year you can sell your hotel but next year it doesn't count.

I watch a ton of NHL and I still haven't heard or seen any good argument on why most of their systems wouldn't be 1000-times better than what we have in European football.

1 hour ago, The Rising Sun said:

I agree mate. In fact, EPL clubs have by far the largest broadcasting revenues of any other league. Spending billions on a new stadium to bring in extra revenue is pointless first if all of it's not used to benefit the football side of our club ( Tottenham haven't spent loads extra on the football team despite massive extra revenue) and secondly it won't be any use if our spending continues on the same model as it is now, a gamble on youth, large churn in players coming and going, not to mention a different manager every season. .

The new owners have said a million times you need to do well on the footballing side as well. Look at the biggest clubs in football. They all have massive stadiums, constant success, ever growing fanbase. If we want to be one of them we need to get a big stadium, have a solid plan on the footballing side and find different revenue avenues while balancing the books as we go. Not an easy task.

2 hours ago, evissy said:

The new owners have said a million times you need to do well on the footballing side as well. Look at the biggest clubs in football. They all have massive stadiums, constant success, ever growing fanbase. If we want to be one of them we need to get a big stadium, have a solid plan on the footballing side and find different revenue avenues while balancing the books as we go. Not an easy task.

The owners want a good return on their investment. And that is not dependant on football success.. Todd has confirmed that himself, he said Chelsea are worth more now than what they paid for us. " The trend is our friend" were the words he used . We had unparalleled football success for 19 years under Roman . Do you think we were profitable? Bournemouth and Brighton were 2 of only 3 clubs to make money a couple of seasons ago.

Btw , these owners ain't spending billions on a new stadium, Todd put a 6 to 10 years timeframe on us to " figure it out" a few weeks ago in that Bloomberg interview.....

Edited April 9, 20251 yr by The Rising Sun
Info

Basically, pay average…get average. There’s a stat somewhere that basically whoever pays the most, wins the premier league generally speaking.

EXC: Confidential spoke to the camp of a striker Chelsea are linked with and were told he will not be turning up at Chelsea any time soon because others are willing to go instantly higher on the wage he would be guaranteed to take home. (@MailSport)

That includes one club currently situated in the bottom half of the Premier League. “Chelsea don’t pay salaries,’ the source said, simply” (@kierangill_DM)

https://t.co/MEo75iUlLj

Edited April 9, 20251 yr by JM7

Garnacho for £70m just unforgivable. The fact we even spent a month contemplating it should see both co-directors sacked with immediate effect. Especially when you see PSG got Kvaskhalia for a less amount and the same wages as our current earners here.

4 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Garnacho for £70m just unforgivable. The fact we even spent a month contemplating it should see both co-directors sacked with immediate effect. Especially when you see PSG got Kvaskhalia for a less amount and the same wages as our current earners here.

I think you could say the same for a lot of our players. Too many average players.

Just now, JM7 said:

I think you could say the same for a lot of our players. Too many average players.

PSG are legitimately surface evidence for our owners to look at and see that their issues lie within the sporting directors they appointed.

2 hours ago, JM7 said:

Basically, pay average…get average. There’s a stat somewhere that basically whoever pays the most, wins the premier league generally speaking.

EXC: Confidential spoke to the camp of a striker Chelsea are linked with and were told he will not be turning up at Chelsea any time soon because others are willing to go instantly higher on the wage he would be guaranteed to take home. (@MailSport)

That includes one club currently situated in the bottom half of the Premier League. “Chelsea don’t pay salaries,’ the source said, simply” (@kierangill_DM)

https://t.co/MEo75iUlLj

Well not prizes for guessing which former Brighton and Coventry striker that refers to.

Looking at PSG's recruitment strategy with envy should be a red flag in and of itself.

On 09/04/2025 at 17:43, terraloon said:

And that in one is why I to a large degree don’t buy into the narrative that BlueCo don’t know what they are doing from a financial perspective. Their experts will be all over both the PL and UEFAs regulations and whilst some will keep referring to “ loop holes” they will see them as allowances that are transparent and fully in accord with the stipulations.

If UEFA , if the PL don’t want clubs to take advantage of allowances that are currently sanctioned then it’s down to those bodies to change the rules.

They don't, because they don't need to know what they are doing. They made their money in the private sector through blitzscaling and outpacing regulation with lavish spending and they see European football as being relatively de-regulated and ripe for exploitation.

There is no genius about it, just capitalist greed.

On 10/04/2025 at 03:05, evissy said:

I watch a ton of NHL and I still haven't heard or seen any good argument on why most of their systems wouldn't be 1000-times better than what we have in European football.

You're not accepting that European football fans don't want the corporate saturation that American sports have.

6 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

You're not accepting that European football fans don't want the corporate saturation that American sports have.

I understand that. I just think when all of that is in place in America and there are American owners in Chelsea, MU, Arsenal and Liverpool + many others I think some of that will land here.

That UEFA regulation system where they try to even the playing field is basically a sh*tty/fix-it-as-you-go version of that. In America they pool their resources together so that the 'product' (don't get your heads blown, it is just a word) would be the best possible. Because when the sport is at its best, the business follows. This means even the lowest clubs have to be competitive and have systems in place to make the environment more even. Such as the draft system.

I know it is a different world and culture and will probably not land here as it is but man is it better than this absolute chaos we have here.

Football itself is not the problem as it is the most followed sport on the planet. I see the American owners looking at it and thinking man you got some work to do here to make everything around it massively better.

People always complain about Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga not being competitive enough but when you suggest something that the big bad Americans have to offer, you go to heels and say we actually like Bayern winning the league every year...

The problems football have according to me: agents, uneven leagues, referees being 3rd world parties at the show, shady owners, stubbornness at change, zero cohesion inside Europe concerning regulation.

8 hours ago, SydneyChelsea said:

They don't, because they don't need to know what they are doing. They made their money in the private sector through blitzscaling and outpacing regulation with lavish spending and they see European football as being relatively de-regulated and ripe for exploitation.

There is no genius about it, just capitalist greed.

To outpace regulation they have to understand the constraints that are built into the system as well as the flaws . I wouldn’t tag it as being ripe for exploitation, that’s too much, but there are significant opportunities that the rules and regulations as written afford.

If you look at for instance the Tax Management Acts they are written by experts and run into volume after volume yet clever accountants, clever lawyers find that often a section written about say roll over relief can impact a section on say moving personal pension pots. Once those “flaws” are identified they create ambiguity which in term opens up legal opportunities which ironically the law makers subsequently try to clarify but the more pages that are added to the legislation the more opportunities open up.

Another example I will give goes back to the Enterprise Act which removed governmental departments having preferential rights when it came to insolvency events.

Along came Portsmouths Insolvency event which with it highlighted the football creditor rule which had no mention in any legislation but was enshrined in the FA rules.

No matter how many challenges by the government agencies that football creditor rule was deemed to be legal to the point it had preference

As a total aside did you see that Bournemouth only passed PSR because it appears that on takeover their old owner “ wrote off “ a huge loan.

The rules as written for some reason treat loans written off at point of takeover as allowable.

As I said earlier I haven’t seen anything around RAs £1.5 billion relief but any thoughts ?

Edited April 11, 20251 yr by terraloon

8 hours ago, evissy said:

I understand that. I just think when all of that is in place in America and there are American owners in Chelsea, MU, Arsenal and Liverpool + many others I think some of that will land here.

That UEFA regulation system where they try to even the playing field is basically a sh*tty/fix-it-as-you-go version of that. In America they pool their resources together so that the 'product' (don't get your heads blown, it is just a word) would be the best possible. Because when the sport is at its best, the business follows. This means even the lowest clubs have to be competitive and have systems in place to make the environment more even. Such as the draft system.

I know it is a different world and culture and will probably not land here as it is but man is it better than this absolute chaos we have here.

Football itself is not the problem as it is the most followed sport on the planet. I see the American owners looking at it and thinking man you got some work to do here to make everything around it massively better.

People always complain about Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga not being competitive enough but when you suggest something that the big bad Americans have to offer, you go to heels and say we actually like Bayern winning the league every year...

The problems football have according to me: agents, uneven leagues, referees being 3rd world parties at the show, shady owners, stubbornness at change, zero cohesion inside Europe concerning regulation.

What exactly in football needs "fixing" by Americans ?

8 hours ago, evissy said:

I understand that. I just think when all of that is in place in America and there are American owners in Chelsea, MU, Arsenal and Liverpool + many others I think some of that will land here.

That UEFA regulation system where they try to even the playing field is basically a sh*tty/fix-it-as-you-go version of that. In America they pool their resources together so that the 'product' (don't get your heads blown, it is just a word) would be the best possible. Because when the sport is at its best, the business follows. This means even the lowest clubs have to be competitive and have systems in place to make the environment more even. Such as the draft system.

I know it is a different world and culture and will probably not land here as it is but man is it better than this absolute chaos we have here.

Football itself is not the problem as it is the most followed sport on the planet. I see the American owners looking at it and thinking man you got some work to do here to make everything around it massively better.

People always complain about Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga not being competitive enough but when you suggest something that the big bad Americans have to offer, you go to heels and say we actually like Bayern winning the league every year...

The problems football have according to me: agents, uneven leagues, referees being 3rd world parties at the show, shady owners, stubbornness at change, zero cohesion inside Europe concerning regulation.

Right... See ownership of football clubs in Germany. Thank you.

Borussia Dortmund

The Bundesliga's 50+1 ownership rule

Ownership in the Bundesliga is rather unique. The 50+1 rule ensures all clubs are fan-owned. How does it work? Is it truly working?

.

5 hours ago, bluetrooper said:

Right... See ownership of football clubs in Germany. Thank you.

Borussia Dortmund

The Bundesliga's 50+1 ownership rule

Ownership in the Bundesliga is rather unique. The 50+1 rule ensures all clubs are fan-owned. How does it work? Is it truly working?

.

I know that. Haven't really changed a thing. Bayern have ruled that country decades over. Seems that the fans are not the key in this..

11 hours ago, evissy said:

I know that. Haven't really changed a thing. Bayern have ruled that country decades over. Seems that the fans are not the key in this..

Was more looking at a possible way out of our owner nightmare tbh... far better than the asset strippers we have.

45 minutes ago, bluetrooper said:

Was more looking at a possible way out of our owner nightmare tbh... far better than the asset strippers we have.

In those terms I agree with you. I like the system in Germany. Not for each and every culture though.