Colos Short and Curlies

The Zip Stick was a game changer

I'm pretty much the same, but I'd rather see Haaland jump to Spain and City look at Isak rather than Arsenal. He would take Arsenal up a level and an bit but wouldn't have the same impact at City

You'd end up needing to reshape the full pyramid though, if you increase the ability to spend in the PL then you're pretty much closing the door to clubs becoming established after promotion.

He looked pretty decent against Manu on his debut as well. the injury definitely took away any chance of him being a success here.

There's 2 things that dictate what a club can spend. 1. The profit that a club generates and/or use of the rolling £105m losses allowed under PSR 2. The cash available to utilise 1. Sponsorship deals increase 1, hence the APT rules and bring in cash for 2 Loans have no impact on 1 but increases 2. Bear in mind that the allowable losses are essentially cash losses so any club operating within the £105m needs a cash source to do so. As loans 'artificially' increase clubs ability to trade in players it stands to reason that there should be a mechanism to account for this. We've gone the equity route instead so there was no need to go down the loan route

Just add to that… the BPT requires a contract to stand up and essentially make sense when the term is removed. i don’t see how fixing this can be done under this principle, the whole idea behind APT falls down if you remove fair market value

Depending on the value commercial loans will often be at a variable rate with a hedging instrument put in place, its also not uncommon for these to be priced in 3-5 year periods. If you were looking retrospectively properly you would take that into account and it is very likely that all shareholder loans will have a period of the higher rates applied to them

That could still cause issues on a legal/compensation challenge. You have rules that were illegal but no redress for those adversely impacted and no retrospective ‘adjustment’ for those who benefited. you basically can’t unwind it which makes sorting it out so complicated. The new rules shouldn’t be that hard to draft if you were starting from zero. The PL have to be hoping that the likes of us and City agree to leaving the past in the past if the new rules allow for greater (not unregulated) use of related parties

So in theory a cap reduces the demands made by players and clubs (transfer fees) and this results in lower the rights bids and then lower costs for fans oi, stop laughing uncontrollably in the corner there

imo city aren’t actually that bothered about the APT rules and they won’t be the big winners from the ruling. what they now have is a view into the PLs legal thinking and one view on how an independent panel views them. that is invaluable in the way they defend themselves against the 115 and is the real reason they took the opportunity to ‘test’ APT and threw a lot more at the accusations then would ever stick

If you break it down PSR - not ruled one, not challenged. Probably fine to have as an overarching rule within a competition APT - ruled on, in itself not illegal if applied consistently and fairly Premier League APT - ruled on, illegal due to the different treatment of interest on shareholder loans and linked sponsorship - i.e. the treatment punishes clubs without debt who wish to use sponsorship money to underpin a club against those who would rather use loans to underpin cash losses. The decision on the Premier League APT means the use of APT in the premier leagues PSR has been illegal. Its an easy fix in theory - bring interest into cost calculations - but unwinding the past and the future impact from debt laden clubs makes it a nightmare. PSR will be thrown out in its current guise but will be replaced by something else that limits the overall spending of any one individual club

Yes but the key is that it is the PLs APT laws that were ruled on as being illegal and not the idea of APT full stop. Even Shaggy and Scooby Doo could work out the PLs plan with the rules they had in place

Eggs over Lambeasy

The main point though is that City did win and did prove that the PL's APT rules were illegal. They didn't need to win on all the points put forward and there is clear position. APT rules are in themselves allowable and would be a sensible thing for the PL to have The PL APT rules are structured in a way that makes them illegal. This gives City 2 things - 1 resolution that they have been disadvantaged by illegal rules and more importantly (2) they have had an insight to how the courts view various aspects which will feed into their defence for the 115 charges. From a PL view they have lost, yes they could introduce legally compliant rules quite easily if they were starting from scratch but unwinding what they have let build is going to prove very costly, if not impossible. They can spin it however they like, but the overall ruling is that their rule is illegal.

So we send the PL to 'mediate' between Russia and Ukraine

The magnificent 7 are those fighting against the current APT rules are they not? You bring in the likes of Brighton and Arsenal who would be against hanging the rules to bring in shareholder loans but there has to be a point where the mag 7 are happy to retain APT if shareholder loans are brought into PSR calculations but allowable losses are increased to allow for this. In that scenario Liverpool, Chelsea, ManU would likely get on board as they see a positive outcome from that without it opening the floodgates on the likes of us and City. If Spurs are looking at investment it would likely suit them. So I can see support for change, the sticking point would be how do you remedy the past - if you say the rules were the rules (even if illegal) then hello compensation claims, if you try and remedy that by retrospectively putting in shl you get all the problems that brings. The cleanest approach is to get rid of PSR and APT altogether with an agreement that no claims can be brought and something like a spending cap and ability to service debt brought in to replace it.

Reading the Samuel article I don’t see how the rules can/will be changed. There’s too much potential impact/legal battles around what would have happened if the interest was in the calcs 2,3,4 years ago. They have to change /go, I just don’t see how they change

Surely APT and PSR are only here to stay if the shareholder loans is brought into its scope. if that is too unpalatable for the premier league to do then PSR may well go the at of the dodo and they’ll just rely on the UEFA rules doing its job for them, maybe with a spending cap. or alternatively they change the rules to accommodate shareholder loans but raise the PSR losses to allow the change to happen with no detrimental impact this season on those with big loans. A scenario of course that benefits us

You could use average wage or I'm sure there is a transfer fee inflation calculation out there somewhere to use as a base. The basic point is that the sponsorships City/Chelsea etc had in place before they became established were higher than we are allowed compared to the rest of the league at that point and that should be the benchmark

I'd have thought a true FMV comparison would be to look at the sponsorships City/Chelsea etc got when they were at a similar stage of development and then adjust for inflation. Sponsors will pay a premium for a 6th place team who are obviously going to challenge top 3 in the near future and have massive exposure so you have to take potential into acocunt

So do the Premier League backdate the interest charges in the PSR calcs or compensate clubs who can demonstrate a loss from having to comply with the FMV/APT rules? I don't see how you can just say 'fair cop gov' and only look to change the rules going forward.

The way Wimbledon approached it meant this was basically an early season pre season friendly addon to get some minutes in legs

Bruno give him a DHGate special?

3 games 3 clean sheets so far this season for our Greek God

The backheel I'm with you on, but the role of a keeper has changed now to be both a custodian of the net and also a starting block for possession. We're in a transition period now where keepers are good of one or the other, give it 5 more years and all keepers will be ball players unless the whole way of playing reverts back to 4-4-2 direct playing (wouldn't be a bad thing imo!)