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| Michel Platini UEFA President |
Say what you like about Michel Platini, but he’s no slouch. It only took
the ruination of the Bundesliga, the reduction of the giants of Italian
football to neutered also-rans, the destruction of leagues across Eastern
Europe, £100million-plus in unjustly levelled fines, the milking of fans for
owner profit at clubs such as Newcastle, legal actions in double figures across
Europe and the creation of a sinister, untouchable European elite for him to
work out what some of us knew eight years ago.
Namely, this. ‘Those who despise Chelsea invariably fail to answer one
basic question: how else is a team meant to break into the cosy club that is
the Champions League, and remain there, without spending beyond its means?’
That was from a column in The Times published on February 21, 2007. You’re
welcome. Weekly bulletins on similar lines have been issued since.
Hell, it’s been a long road but finally someone at UEFA saw sense.
Financial Fair Play in its present form destroys competition. It creates, in
Germany and elsewhere, worthless one-team leagues, it strangles investment and
discourages new money from coming into the game. It makes heroes of profiteers
like Mike Ashley and Karl Oyston and villains of enhancers such as Sheik
Mansour and Jack Walker. It creates inevitabilities and foregone conclusions
and values accountancy over ambition.
Its dismal mantra was adopted by some of football’s slowest minds, and
as a result may yet destroy Queens Park Rangers. All of this was entirely
predictable and, baby, I’ve got the back catalogue to prove it. Anyway, hate to
say I told you so, as The Hives sang, so we’ll move on.
Here is today’s question. Why is it that whatever is good for the two
Milan clubs also happens to be what is best for football, according to UEFA?
Ever wondered that? Whatever the Milan clubs want, they get. When they wanted
FFP, in it came; now they want more financial freedom, they get that, too.
Don’t be mistaken. The relaxation of UEFA’s wrecking
ball regulation is a mighty positive for football, particularly if it ensures
that, from here, owner investment must be a gift. UEFA should also consider
simultaneously closing loopholes such as Roman Abramovich’s £1billion loan to
Fordstam, the company through which he owns Chelsea. This would prevent another
Portsmouth from occurring.
Yet there are plenty of clubs and recent developments that could be
cited as highlighting the need for change in FFP rules. Bayern Munich’s
stockpiling of the best domestic talent in Germany; the summer plundering of
Southampton; nine consecutive title wins for BATE Borisov in Belarus; the
failure to find a buyer for Everton; the fine of roughly £50m for Manchester
City, despite their wonderful regeneration project in east Manchester.
Yet the name that is said to have provoked this
rethink at UEFA is that of AC Milan. Silvio Berlusconi wants to sell his club,
but can’t, because a new owner would need to spend heavily to move Milan from
midtable torpor, and UEFA rules do not allow that. So now it’s all change.
When Platini introduced FFP, he cited the wishes of the club bosses as
high onhis list of considerations. ‘It is mainly the owners who asked us to do
something,’ he said before the Champions League draw in 2009. ‘Abramovich,
Berlusconi and Massimo Moratti at Inter. They do not want to fork out any
more.’
Not much of a philosophy, then, was it? I don’t want to spend my money,
so you can’t either. I’ve got what I want, so let’s just pull up this drawbridge.
Abramovich, we know, was a turncoat. Having bought his way into the
elite, he crossed the floor because he didn’t want other new owners matching
his spending power and challenging Chelsea’s supremacy. These are the
principles that Jose Mourinho now espouses as if they are (a) noble and (b) his
own.
For Berlusconi and Moratti, however, it was different. Their clubs were
part of the establishment, but maintaining that status with men like Abramovich
around was becoming a huge financial drain. Tie spending power to revenue and
that was the problem solved, they thought. The new owners from the east would
be shackled and the status quo maintained.
What they had not anticipated was the parlous financial state of Italian
football. Poor matchday revenues, underdeveloped commercial opportunities with
many clubs not owning their stadiums and a TV deal which paled into
insignificance beside the sums on offer in England and Spain. Suddenly
committed to spending what they earned, the influence of the Milanese clubs
collapsed.
In 2012, AC Milan sold their two best players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and
Thiago Silva, and the current squad is a pale imitation of the glory days.
Inter were largely jettisoned by Moratti in 2013 — he retained a stake of 28.1
per cent — but new owner Erick Thohir has been unable to move forward, saddled
with the demands of FFP and huge debt.
So now the protectionist, exclusionist plan A has failed to work, the
Milan clubs have advanced plan B: back to the future. The principles they
demanded threatened to ruin the pair of them. But, don’t worry, they’ve got
some new ones over here.
That is likely to be the stance of the English elite, too. They will
need to find a fresh position on the moral high ground, because the old sermons
won’t convince any more.
Financial Fair Play, we were so often told, came from a desire to
prevent another implosion such as the one at Portsmouth or Leeds United. That
is why Manchester City should be banned from Europe, or, as Mourinho suggested,
docked points.
Yet if UEFA rules now prevent owners or third parties from loaning clubs
huge sums of money — and then just as airily demanding arbitrary repayment —
these financial catastrophes will no longer be possible.
So what will be the case for FFP then? The elite will be forced into the
open to admit it is not Portsmouth who are being protected, but the financial
and political supremacy of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal.
David Gill, former chief executive of United, was among those who helped frame
FFP. Amazingly, what was best for the European game appeared to correspond
precisely with what was best for his old club. It was the same for Karl-Heinz
Rummenigge at Bayern Munich, too.
But not for the rest of Europe. As Arsene Wenger pointed out yesterday,
the Premier League’s new television deal is the other vehicle for change,
terrifying the continent with its enormity. If English clubs have so much
additional revenue then they can spend accordingly and blow their rivals away.
This was always a complication.
In FFP terms, one size could never fit all. How can clubs be tethered to
turnover if Barcelona and Real Madrid’s television deal is constructed in an
entirely different way from that of the rest of Europe?
How can clubs all work under the same financial regulation when each
country has different laws on, for instance, taxation — meaning at one stage it
would have cost Paris Saint-Germain roughly 30 per cent more to pay Wayne
Rooney the same salary he earns at Manchester United.
How can there be one rule for a league that routinely receives forms of
state aid, when others do not? The only way FFP could ever have been fair was
if UEFA took into account the variables in different domestic competitions, and
addressed issues of wealth distribution in the Champions League.
Once the size of the Premier League’s television deal became apparent,
however, it was plain that parts of continental Europe were simply going to
become uncompetitive. Milan, for example. Now those clubs are back in the game,
and so are a lot of others — which is just as it should be.
So Platini got the right result, eventually, but perhaps for the wrong
reasons. Next time, he shouldn’t try so hard to please the entitled elite.
‘It’s not easy,’ said Wenger of FFP yesterday. ‘There are very intelligent
people at UEFA who have worked for a few years now on that problem.’ Really?
They should have worked harder then.
Any negative that can be seen from eight years out by a bloke with an E
grade maths O level sitting in his front room, really shouldn’t have been too
much for Europe’s brains trust to compute. Fair play didn’t have to be rocket
science; it just had to be fair.
Laudrup and his high ideas
Michael Laudrup has delivered rather a brutal snub to West Ham. ‘I am
not going to accept an offer from a midtable club in England or Spain,’ he
said. ‘They are experiences I have already lived.’ Well, some of the time, yes.
Laudrup was manager of Getafe in 2007-08 when they finished 14th of 20
clubs. Low midtable, at best. In 2010-11 he guided Mallorca to one place above
relegation, which isn’t midtable at all, although they were 11th when he left
after five games the following season. Swansea City finished ninth in his first
season in charge, solidly midtable, but were two points off relegation in 12th
when he exited on February 4, 2014 — which is more of a midtable illusion.
Anyway, isn’t West Ham’s aim to progress from midtable? If finishing
11th was satisfactory, surely Sam Allardyce wouldn’t be on his way out?
And while we’re at it...
Boxingnews24.com, an American website, sat one writer down to revisit
the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight. Bizarrely, he called it a draw. As
some folk had a lot invested in Pacquiao on the night, this has been seized
upon as evidence that every judge, plus most professional observers, including
some of the greatest fighters in boxing history, don’t know what they’re
looking at. In other news, Mori have asked the gentleman in question if he is
available for the next election.
No Jose, Fabregas got off lightly...
What if Chris Brunt had ducked? Had the West Bromwich Albion player seen
what was coming on Monday night and taken evasive action, there is half a
chance Cesc Fabregas would have hit referee Mike Jones flush in the face with
the ball.
In those circumstances, he would be looking at considerably more than a
three-game ban. So Fabregas was lucky: fortunate that Brunt took the blow,
charmed that his punishment will be measured in matches, not months.
Jose Mourinho’s faux disbelief that Fabregas’s suspension will carry
over into next season, or that a more experienced official would have laughed
off the incident, should be viewed with scepticism.
He cannot seriously believe players can hoof the ball
at each other — or the referee — when the game has stopped and get away with
it.
First, there’s the issue of the example set. Players can escape caution
when using industrial language if they are in conversation with the referee;
but shout the same words across the field and a sending-off may result. Why?
It’s about perception and influence. A private conversation remains that, but
if the other players see and hear a team-mate get away with loudly voicing
abuse they might all start and official authority is lost.
The same applies here. If Jones had allowed Fabregas to kick the ball
deliberately at an opponent, where does that end? The gesture might be imitated
and returned with interest until the game deteriorates into a clash of unruly
infants. Jones took exactly the right action. Put it like this: will it happen
again?
Sir Clive Woodward was in Paris on Tuesday, discussing a director of
rugby role with the French federation. Some will regard this as disloyal but if
the French want to tap into his expertise, good luck to him, and them. We must
have some rare geniuses behind the scenes at the RFU when we can afford to let
Woodward work for the opposition.
Tottenham trail in
What have the following teams got in common? Liverpool, Manchester
United, Ipswich Town, Watford, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Queens Park
Rangers, Everton, West Ham, Arsenal, Norwich City, Aston Villa, Leeds United,
Sheffield Wednesday, Manchester City, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United and
Chelsea. Since three points for a win began in 1981-82, they have all finished
within 12 points or less of the champions. No place for Tottenham. Incredible,
isn’t it?
Having posed on the steps of a private plane and announced he wants to
be the next Cristiano Ronaldo, Memphis Depay has now passed his medical to play
for Manchester United. Sir Alex Ferguson felt some players shrank when they
pulled on the red shirt. One
imagines he won’t be among them.
Source:dailymailsport
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