Friday The 14th And Fair Play

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Yesterday was more like a Friday the 13th as so much happened and I am still not sure if it is all good or all bad. Firstly we had the Steemit thing going on with Tron with everyone guessing what Justin bought as it wasn't Steem from my understanding as he doesn't own Steem.

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Lucky charm,not so for the Rabbit though.

Manchester City getting banned from Europe for two years is seriously sensational as they have become the first team to achieve such a huge punishment. PSG had something similar but that got overturned for exactly the same thing City has done. There is a precedent already set so their is still hope.

Manchester City it seems gave false revenues based on it's sponsorship deals. This if true which it looks like it is puts them foul of the fair play rule where you cannot spend more than your total income. This seems fair and understandable yet teams still manipulate figures. Personally I don't see how they will be banned on the same grounds of what happened to PSG who only paid a fine. If they are banned it gives Pep the excuse he possibly wants in order to leave and yet still save face in his failures at the club. Almost seems to perfect for him and one I am sure he will use at the end of the season.

The fair play ruling was bought into the scheme of things by UEFA in 2011/12 as more than 50 percent of clubs were losing money and spending money they didn't have or shouldn't spend. Clubs need to be run firstly as a business otherwise there is no future. People criticized Arsenal under Arsene Wenger ,but what they did was run it as a going concern keeping it in profit. Arsenal lived within their means sticking to a low budget.

If we dig a little deeper in 2009 UEFA did an audit and found that 655 clubs in Europe were operating at a loss. Some of the bigger clubs didn't really care as the owners were wealthy and wanted to just buy their trophies and not worrying about balancing the books. Twenty percent of clubs audited were found to be in financial disaster and were not businesses you would invest your money in.

Part of the fair play stats were raised by independent companies such as Deloitte as we know is an accounting firm. Deloitte did a check on the balance sheets for the 20 premiership Clubs in 2008/9 and this showed that the clubs owed a combined £3.1 billion. This is living beyond your means and the directors are just gambling with the clubs fortunes.

Portsmouth that year ran into trouble owing £59,458,603 and couldn't pay it's tax bill let alone the staff and players. Remember Leeds as something similar happened to them and how long have they been out of the Premiership. This was not only a premiership problem though as teams in the Championship also gambled to go for broke trying to reach the money laden Premiership

Clubs in Europe mirrored exactly what was happening in England with Inter Milan raking up losses of over €1.3 billion over the last 16 years. Lazio had to organise a repayment plan to pay back €140 million in back taxes. Clubs in La Liga owed around €2.5 Billion in debt with Barcelona and Real Madrid leading the list.

What I don't understand is how a club who already owes €200 Million can be allowed to spend another €100 Million.I agree with the fair play rule as you should only be allowed to spend what the club can afford. Manchester City like PSG is different though as they have some rich oil men backing them.

Maybe the way around it is for these owners to buy the players themselves and sell them to the club at an affordable price or lease them to the club. That would make for some interesting discussions and possibly a grey area that could be manipulated.