Leicester City PSR breach.

FanchesterCity said:
You do realise Liverpool and United dominated football for more than City have and with far more success right? Yes City have done amazingly well (and paid a handsome price for the success), but it's still nowhere near 20 years of dominance. The league really wasn't so much more competitive before.

And let's not forget, some clubs have spent a fortune and not been successful, so whilst money has a huge influence, it's not a guarantee.

'Completely distorted the competition' is hyperbole. The few interlopers who broke the United dominance (Blackburn and Leeds) only did so via massive spending.
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There is no competition at the top any more as the big 6 are too financially powerful and can afford to have a bad season or 2 without Europe in any way. The days of a team or 2 coming from nowhere and challenging for the top places are rare and this season is again thanks to Chelsea failing and Man Utd not doing so great. It was still interesting up to the early 2000s, even after all the daft spending with the Premier League money allowing clubs to go daft spending as revenues grew faster than wages/player fees. We even we had a sniff of being at the top in our two 7th place seasons but then Abramovich came along in 2003 and took spending to another level.

Since 2004/05 the only non big 6 team to break into the Champions League places was Leicester in that 'freak' season in 2015/16 until the Mags did it last season. Therefore those 6 clubs have been getting millions more in revenue the next season and Champions League is big money even in the group stages.

Leicester then thought they could keep pace with the big boys and spent big on wages hitting summit like 105% of wages to revenue at one point. Their debt also climbed as they chased the Champions League money again but failed and it's eventually come back to bite them on their arse and they also got relegated. Now they're in the shit and this is the reason why the rules were brought in to stop clubs overspending. It's also to stop an owner hoying in their own money but then leaving a club in the shite if they pulled the financial backing. Not that all Leicester fans will complain much winning the league is a lifetime memory but financially they're far worse off by trying to stay at the top and it got them relegated.

Look at their wage bill in 2015 before they won the league compared to 2021 in the 1st image. The 2nd image shows the revenues and you can see 2017 Champions League season and how much more they made. Their wages went up season on season as they went daft chasing 'success' but in 2021/22 they missed out completely on Europe so not even a few more £m in revenue and then then got relegated in 2022/23.

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I said ages ago it would come back to bite them on their arse trying to play keep up with the big boys. Sure enough it's happening as it was simply unsustainable given the never got the CL big money ever again and eventually not even Europe and then relegation. I posted this in 2022 and I've said it prior to that and I also mentioned Everton and even the Mags, who now are spent to the 'limit'.

NUFC/Sportswashing - Summer 2022

In the last 30 years NUFC has had 15 years of mostly ambition and excitement, and then 15 years of mostly regression and disillusionment. Ashley was the catalyst for that change. 15 years? Were the 6 seasons of lower league finishes of 13th, 13th, 11th, 11th, 14th & 13th showing ambition and...
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Leicester could sell players like they did previously like Maguire, Kante, Mahrez etc but they still need replacing and they've done well bringing in players but a few bad recruitments and it will catch up with them. It looks like Everton could end doing that too as they spent up so can't spend big unless they sell.

All this overspending by the mags new owners on players and offering big fees & clauses along with higher wages isn't sustainable unless their revenue climbs hugely. If they haven't got in with the big boys in coming seasons it could well go wrong and they end up like Everton. They may well have rich owners but this isn't the 90's again as now the owners can't just go spending money without the revenue coming in. Even the fiddling of sponsorship deals may not be enough to finance it all as the money is obscene now and the revenue of the big 6 combined is greater than the other 14 (lowest of the 6 is still double the highest of 14). I hope it all goes tits up for a few reasons which includes reasons regarding the 'majority' owners.
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The Premier League is fucked as a competition and in time it will be either the expansion of the Champions League (like it has next season) or the European Super League that will end up the money monster. The PL will fade away as it's the global audience and fans that make the big money and having all the best players in one league will be the multi billion money maker, unlike it is now with top players split over various leagues. The Saudis are trying to build their league but it looks like it will fail to be the top league but a single league with 16/18/20 teams of all the best players in the world will be massive. Hopefully English football can be reset in some way so it can have teams that rotate a lot more up and down the league.
 
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Sporty said:
There is no competition at the top any more as the big 6 are too financially powerful and can afford to have a bad season or 2 without Europe in any way. The days of a team or 2 coming from nowhere and challenging for the top places are rare and this season is again thanks to Chelsea failing and Man Utd not doing so great.
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I don't disagree on that... but I do disagree that it was so much more competitive before.
We had 30 years of dominance by predominantly two teams (Liverpool and United). The few interlopers (Forest, Leeds, Blackburn) all had spending sprees prior to their success.
Arsenal were the only other challenger, but nowhere near as dominant as the two mentioned.

The gulf has increased, but that's down to the scale of money involved now. Instead of being local millionaire vs local multi-millionaire, it's moved on to billionaire investment group vs billionaire sheik/oligarch and the sponsorship's moved from local window frame company to multinational corporation / tv rights.

The chances of a less well funded club being able to scale the heights of the mega-rich is hindered by FFP. You can't organically grow from a corner shop into Tesco no matter how hard you try. Your only hope is via a lot of (wise) investment. Killing the investment kills all hope.
 
FanchesterCity said:
That really isn't the case and City fans have been saying it's a stitch up for well over a decade.
The rules were brought in to stop the likes of City and Chelsea competing with the established elite. It was happening in Europe when the European big boys wanted to create a European league (which was why the Champions League was formed to appease the European elite).

The ruse was that FFP would protect clubs from spending what they couldn't afford - but it was never ever about protecting the likes of Portsmouth or Bury, it was always about keeping the big boys in place. After the TV money came flooding in, the big boys assumed they would get all the money from it, and didn't anticipate billionaires putting their money in cheaper clubs like Chelsea and City in order to break into the elite. As soon as that started happening, the elite started inventing rules that meant the only people who could spend big were those who already had money.

Over a decade later, some of those clubs aren't doing as well any more and they want to keep changing the rules - because they are now being hindered by their own regulations!

Absolutely there needs to be some form of GENUINE financial fair play, but don't be fooled into thinking the current set of rules are anything of the sort. The PL is run by the clubs in the PL and some clubs in particular have significantly more clout than others:

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This lot pretty much appointed Richard Masters themselves.
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That's pretty much my take on it. ManU, Arsenal and Liverpool (and Spurs, too, remarkably) have had their fingerprints over every greedy, conspiratorial move since the mid '80s.
 
FanchesterCity said:
I don't disagree on that... but I do disagree that it was so much more competitive before.
We had 30 years of dominance by predominantly two teams (Liverpool and United). The few interlopers (Forest, Leeds, Blackburn) all had spending sprees prior to their success.
Arsenal were the only other challenger, but nowhere near as dominant as the two mentioned.

The gulf has increased, but that's down to the scale of money involved now. Instead of being local millionaire vs local multi-millionaire, it's moved on to billionaire investment group vs billionaire sheik/oligarch and the sponsorship's moved from local window frame company to multinational corporation / tv rights.

The chances of a less well funded club being able to scale the heights of the mega-rich is hindered by FFP. You can't organically grow from a corner shop into Tesco no matter how hard you try. Your only hope is via a lot of (wise) investment. Killing the investment kills all hope.
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The answer isn’t to make it worse than it was though. The league needs to be more not less competitive

And Forest didn’t go on a spending spree to win trophies, nor do I recall Derby, Villa or Leeds doing it. Pre Bosman player movements were a lot less
 
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Hardyman's Yugo said:
The answer isn’t to make it worse than it was though. The league needs to be more not less competitive

And Forest didn’t go on a spending spree to win trophies, nor do I recall Derby, Villa or Leeds doing it. Pre Bosman player movements were a lot less
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Forest broke two British transfer records - Shilton (for a goalie) and Francis (first 1M footballer).
Leeds spent plenty too (Cantona, Dorigo, Wallace, Hodge, Lukic)
 
ThreadBumper said:
Pretty sure that's why the European qualification rules were changed a couple of season back.

Previously, if the winner of the FA Cup had already qualified for Europe through their league position, the Cup Winners spot went to the runner up.

Now, it's been changed to the next placed EPL club gets the qualifying spot instead.

We were getting ahead of ourselves, thinking if we got past United, we'd be in Europe. Not to be.

UEFA protecting the quality of their competition I guess.
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I think they also insisted on only top flight teams after someone won and got relegated.
Hardyman's Yugo said:
The answer isn’t to make it worse than it was though. The league needs to be more not less competitive

And Forest didn’t go on a spending spree to win trophies, nor do I recall Derby, Villa or Leeds doing it. Pre Bosman player movements were a lot less
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Derby broke the UK record fee for a defender twice in succession with Todd and Nish. Cloughie spending was the reason he ended up being sacked by Longson
 
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If Leicester have broken the rules, the ones they signed up to, then fair enough they deserve punishing. Same as Everton and Forest, and City when that eventually happens.

But personally, I agree with the City fan in the thread that FFP is just a massive attempt by the big clubs to shut the shop and stop new clubs from challenging them. As a Sunderland fan, it's brilliant because it'll prevent the Mags from achieving as much as they would have.

But in reality, if an owner has enough money and wants to spend it, it boggles my mind why they shouldn't be allowed.

If the league was truly concerned about clubs not "doing a Portsmouth", then bring in rules about not saddling a club with a shitload of debt, or that owner contributions need to be gifts, not debts to be repaid. But they won't bring that in, because one of the big boys would be absolutely decimated by it (hi United).

FFP is one of the worst things to happen to modern football, and the most amazing thing about it is that most fans of non Big6 clubs love it and think it's brilliant.
 
riffraff said:
I think they also insisted on only top flight teams after someone won and got relegated.

Derby broke the UK record fee for a defender twice in succession with Todd and Nish. Cloughie spending was the reason he ended up being sacked by Longson
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When Derby won the league in 1972 the only player in that squad who they paid top money for was Todd, the others were either cast offs, decent professionals who Clough got a tune out of (Durban, Hennessy, Hector, Hinton) players bought from lower league clubs who turned out well (Gemmill and McFarland) or long serving professionals. Nish was bought the season after. Hardly a spending spree

This was repeated at Forest with the same blend. Frank Clark, Ian Bowyer, Withe were average, Woodcock and Robertson were unheard of, McGovern and O’Hare were seen as has been or flashes in the pan after failing at Leeds. OK, Shilton cost a lot of money but they weren’t big spenders generally
 
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Hardyman's Yugo said:
The issue isn’t the parachute payments, it’s the enormous gulf in finances between the premier league and the EFL. How is a club supposed to plan when relegation could mean they go out of business.?
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How about an immediate 50% reduction in players salaries when relegation is confirmed. Parachute payments are causing a revolving door between the PL and championship.
The current situation is anti competition and needs addressing
All clubs who game the system need a meaningful reduction in points
 
Lord Nigle said:
How about an immediate 50% reduction in players salaries when relegation is confirmed. Parachute payments are causing a revolving door between the PL and championship.
The current situation is anti competition and needs addressing
All clubs who game the system need a meaningful reduction in points
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But didn’t Sunderland benefit from the parachute payments, why shouldn’t others?
 
Lord Nigle said:
Did we? …. The parachute payments need to be replaced by an automatic 50 % wage reduction for all clubs including SAFC when relegation is confirmed
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Unless there’s a clause in a players contract it wouldn’t happen.When a player is wanted by a club they’re unlikely to agree to those terms……..after all that’s what agents are for, looking after their clients interest. Oh and yes, Sunderland got the parachute payments, whether they were of benefit I couldn’t tell you.
 
Not sure why the EFL have thrown the transfer/registration embargo on now and not wait till Leicester's financial reporting period is over. It's not really going to hurt them.

Looks almost certain that Leicester will be promoted so an EFL embargo won't concern them as the EPL will take over financial responsibility for them after June.

As @SAFC11 says, EFL can't punish them for just 1 year and by the time they go up, EPL won't be able to either as their new PSR rules are said to start around the same time, supposedly.
 
I have little sympathy for them.

They got away with breaking the rules in 2013/14 because they were promoted so the EFL couldn’t really punish them as they were in the Premier League.

They have acted as if the rules don’t apply to them for years and now it’s bitten them on the arse.
 
riffraff said:
I think they also insisted on only top flight teams after someone won and got relegated.

Derby broke the UK record fee for a defender twice in succession with Todd and Nish. Cloughie spending was the reason he ended up being sacked by Longson
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The story is usually told and largely accepted as Clough petulantly resigning over some daft row, assuming he’d be begged to stay and Longson would back down. Longson didn’t.
ThreadBumper said:
Not sure why the EFL have thrown the transfer/registration embargo on now and not wait till Leicester's financial reporting period is over. It's not really going to hurt them.

Looks almost certain that Leicester will be promoted so an EFL embargo won't concern them as the EPL will take over financial responsibility for them after June.

As @SAFC11 says, EFL can't punish them for just 1 year and by the time they go up, EPL won't be able to either as their new PSR rules are said to start around the same time, supposedly.
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Something a bit dodgy doing it at all considering the EFL LOST its case before the review panel that Leicester should be obliged to submit a business plan. Seems impossible that it would therefore be lawful for them put interim sanctions on them for not doing so.
 
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