Merlin96 – quick point but the international rights are for three years so it isn’t £50m pa but c. £17m pa. That’s around £7m more pa per club than the current deal.

Football is an almost perfect example of the impact of increasing the money supply in an economic system with fixed supply. Give 20 teams an extra £7m each and it will feed straight through into wages and transfer fees. More money in football doesn’t create more footballers (we’d all be Premier League footballers at wages half what they are now if we could!), so the prices rise.

Add the fact that every extra pound for the PL vs.the Championship makes relegation an even worse fate and the imperative to spend to survive will become worse.

At some point, football needs to stop and realise that money revenue is no longer improving the “product” or “fan experience” but just making things worse. Then we can put Scudamore to use doing something more socially useful (like selling arms to impoverished African nations perhaps, or ghost writing books for Katie Price).

LUHG

As long as the global market keeps expanding – America still untap, relatively “virgin territory” and North-East Asia a most lucrative growing market – there is no way that UEFA can rein in Premier League as they continue to develop global markets and expand out of Europe.

If Prem League earns a new global TV rights of £1-billion per annum, where each team gets £50m per season, it si POSITIVE cash-flow as far as they are concern and will keep spending to retain prem league status.

Factor in merchandise sales, sponsorships and commercial rights, average turnover for each prem team may hit as high as £100m, or total prem league £2-billion for 2010/11 season.

What UEFA report must do is to compare the annual prem league turnover to other European league turnover. Then we can get a better idea of the debt problem.

What prem league practices is the time-honored tradition of laissez faire capitalism, none better epitomised by this saying attributed to the late Jimmy Goldsmith:
“Use other people’s money to make money”.

I am afraid that as long as the global market is growing, with new markets being developed all the time, growing global TV rights and commercial rights, and plenty fo sponsorships and sugar daddies, there is now ay UEFA can do anything about it.

The greatest danger to UEFA and FA is the growing threat of a Pan-European league where all these 20 elite teams believe they should keep all these billions to themselves rather than sharing with other “not so globally attractive European leagues”.

Prem league and Pan European league will go the way of the global F1 circus show to keep the billions to themselves.

if a “Bernie Eccelestone” suddenly appear to kick-start a Pan-EUropean League……..with G-14, G-18, G-20…..

http://www.pjlighthouse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/moscow-subway-art-dota-seo-01.jpg

And THEN you factor in stuff like English clubs self-fund stadiums (French sides’ councils pay for them) or the fact that in Spain players pay 23% top band income tax compared to 40% in this country (soon to be 50%) so wage costs are vastly higher…

Until the financial systems in Europe are comparable, the debt figures aren’t worth much as a means of comparison in my eyes.

Of course, there’s also the other side of the coin. The Sugar Daddies. I’m definitely behind the UEFA on this Financial Fair Play ruling. Chelsea disgusted me the moment Abramovich bought their titles, and now Man City too. This might have came a little too late, but better late than never right?

AFC’s new stadium was built using the same process’ that any large scale commercial development project in London would require or use.
But stadiums (I can’t give any specific examples) can be funded as public infrastructure projects. e.g. In New York, home of Wall Street, the subway system was built using a Bond Issue, I think, & vaguely speaking, the Jubilee Line extension successfully applied a smorgasbord of techniques.

I believe there was an attempt to convince Islington Council & London Transport to attempt to ‘invest’ in the new stadium project, and carry the cost of regenerating some of the infrastructure around the stadium. Nothing really came of it beyond a conversation, so it seems as with the recent decorative cladding over the raw shell of the stadium, improvements to tube stations and transport links will be made incrementally over time when affordable.

It’s a fair compromise, I think the stadium is a fantastic achievement for the club and all individuals involved. Although, the way things turned out with Islington Council and London Transport, it has left the project open to criticism for not having built/incorporated a brand new tube station (or access to Arsenal tube) from right under the stadium, built to the quality of the Moscow Subway. The Chav$ would’ve been even more jealous, AFC’s very own bank vault & subway station hidden deep below the new stadium: Neo Mɑskaʊ.

Some wannabe Chav$ even use that as an excuse to leave the games early.

Revenue is revenue. If Abramovich is willing to pay £40M a year for his box, or even £60M, it is no problem to me, so long as revenue is tied to spending in the same period and is relatively predictable.

Unpredictability is what leads to inflation. If Chelsea spend £300M to buy a team to replace their current ancients, it is very inflationary if people believe they have unlimited funds. Other clubs would feel that to compete with Chelsea they have to spend at similar levels. If on the other hand, you realise its a one-off, their inflationary antics are less likely to make you spend more.

In any case, the constraints on their wages would curb excessive spending from them.

I personally have no philosophical problems with sugar daddies. My problem with them is the risk that a club suffers when Abramovich decides it might be more fun to buy Tonga and all the lovely if large-sized maidens therein, than owning a bunch of muscular apes with no restraints to their sleazy natures. The other problem is inflation. It is bad enough that KGB Fulham can buy 2 Premier League titles, it is a disaster that clubs have to risk bankruptcy to compete with them, much bigger clubs with more merit to boot.

I detest the fact that they could build success by going after Arsenal and Man United targets and paying twice or thrice the asking price. So they denude their competitors and strengthen simultaneously….by any definition that’s doping.

“The Premier League today defended the amount of debt carried by its clubs, arguing that as they make the most money of any in Europe, they can be expected to borrow more too. A spokesman pointed to the rules introduced by the league last summer, including a “going concern” test by which accountants will inspect clubs’ books and financial projections, as evidence that the league is concerned about the issue. “The critical point is not the absolute size of any debt,” he said, “but how sustainable it is.”

The Premier League won’t accept reform. Essentially there’s a spokesman saying that they would reactively test clubs every season with a going concern test. The test was in place this season, and it does not seem to have predicted the troubles Pompey is facing.

There is no evidence that the Premier League even has a plan of action for when clubs fail talk less of when a club fails their going concer test.

David Conn was exactly right. The problem at the heart of financial trouble in all football is wage inflation. If wages continue to rise at current levels, football would simply collapse at some point. Most of the other sources of overspending are also linked to this one point. Everything from fantastical transfer fees, to high ticket prices is linked to this problem.

The solution is a wage bill cap. Allow clubs to pay what they want to any 1 individual, but limit what percentage of turnover they can pay as wages. Be very clear what constitutes wages, and rendder illegal any kind of payment to players outside that definition.

The other thing needed is transparency in the process of buying clubs. Make sure that prospective buyers say upfront how much they will invest over a 5 year period. Make this sum public and ask propsective owners of clubs to issue a bond for the pledged amount which should not be regulated.