Abacus

That BBC article doesn't seem right. For one thing, it's claiming us and Villa would benefit from it. Who was one of the three to vote against it? Oh yes, Villa

Those are the current rules, clarified earlier this year https://www.sportindustry.biz/news-categories/news/new-premier-league-rules-faces-opposition/

Yup. Scrutinised more, anyway.

Which, in turn, gives us a bargaining chip of sorts. Think I read something that these rules on multiples are, magically, exactly about the amount Man City currently overspend compared to the bottom club now. Be funny if an absolutely potless club gets promoted in future, maths fans.

85%, 70% is the UEFA rule. And yes, the two go together. So, we could spend 5 times that of the bottom clubs, but only up to 85% of our turnover. Which means, we couldn't spend 5 times that at all, but all the big boys still could as their revenue is so much greater than everyone else's.

I don't think the anchoring would make any real difference in isolation. If a club can still spend 5 times as much as another, what's the point? It doesn't fix competitive balance at all. And I actually agree with the points made by the objectors - it hobbles the PL in Europe. From our point of view, get rid of some of the other rules and then we're cooking, but I don't think this change would do any of that. Unless there's some sort of pact to protect the 'smallest' clubs with this change first so the other rules go too, since we or anyone else then couldn't just run away with it, as has happened before.

Could give Milan a game, this lot.

Jürgen Klunt has really blown it by announcing his retirement. Even in the back of their minds, that has to have an effect on the players

On the other hand, I don't think there's all that much fraternity within the ESL 6. Man City could blow up the rules and carry on unimpeded and I doubt they'd give a hoot about what the others thought - their own position would be fine, which is all any of them care about.

Yes, conflicting reports - anywhere between 12 months and two years in various media, but I wonder if reports are sometimes mixing up the notice period and the covenant. The Athletic says the extended notice period is 'believed to be' in excess of 18 months, but let's assume it's 18 which is the most common guess. To a layman like me, so I may be completely wrong, I think it is true that 12 months is more common in senior execs, and beyond that is pretty unusual. Mind, it's an unusual sport. But still, you'd imagine there could be grounds to argue that's excessive (per Ratcliffe's moaning) whether he's signed it or not. If so, in that case an Employment Tribunal would presumably strike out the clause - not replace it with something more reasonable. I.e. if we lost that, there'd be no notice period and he'd be free to go already. I guess the same stands for any compensation payment. But that would all take time, legal expense, and there would be no certainty of winning on either side as it would be a bit of an unusual case, and yes this is all guesswork. So, a lot of ifs and buts there, but I'm wondering whether that's why they've tried the arbitration route first, just in case we weren't sure of the outcome of any future case and wanted to test that.

I'd doubt that, but in any case I'd always thought that if a contract wasn't legally enforceable, you didn't have to stick to it anyway. Arbitration is surely for when two parties can't agree on something or where there is some ambiguity and it's either forced as a contractual means of dispute resolution (i.e. a route the contract says you have to take first), or both sides genuinely want a third party to rule or find a compromise. I'd guess we wouldn't want a compromise, and if we're confident in our position let Dan the flowerpot man take it to court instead.

It is mildly hilarious that some clubs are against anchoring as it could make then uncompetitive in Europe, as they have the money to spend and it would harm their ability to compete if they weren't allowed to spend it. But when it comes to their own league, and the same principle applies to clubs who could be competitive against them when those clubs could spend too, well suddenly that's perfectly fine and isn't hypocritical at all. In a lot of ways, I hope they win the competition argument on anchoring on one metric, without realising what a giant target they've placed on their own back by anchoring using a different one.

Apparently he's the best in the business though, according to Ratcliffe. So a world record fee sounds about right.

Wait until the highly qualified independent third party arbitrator is announced as a Mr Michard Rasters

Heh heh heh, Ratcliffe.

In fairness, Eddie Howe didn't seem all that happy about those particular games in Australia either. Not that I think a ban like this is a good idea or fair to all clubs.

The rumours about Gallagher seem too persistent for there not to be something in them. He does seem a good character and, having learnt from doubting Gordon, I'm prepared to wait and see on this one if he comes in. Yes, there are other positions I'd like recruited first, but I'm guessing there are a range of options and combinations we're thinking of depending on where we finish and whether we're in some sort of European football or not. Either way, better than waiting till the last day of the window with no rumours at all and then half-heartedly scuffling about for some sort of loan deal we don't even get, like we used to do.

Yes, and delighted shoppers are AMAZED that this limited offer which looks so expensive is actually so cheap! As one delighted customer commented online "It's a boon!"

Likewise though, with Chelsea and Liverpool's players. Who else was prepared to offer them those salaries? Which is also part of the package and value to the selling club in removing their contracts from their books and helped fund their squad refreshes. Not arguing, by the way. The Saudi League was and is a market distortion, and the only point of debate I can see is why we couldn't seem to take the same level of advantage of it that others did due to the FMV rules, but I'm a bit ambivalent to it personally. Maybe they wouldn't have bought him at all without our ownership, so I can definitely see the argument the other way.

Essentially, yes. I don't think there is any objective way to establish a FMV for a player which isn't open to challenge. To take an example away from us, what is Declan Rice worth to Arsenal, compared to another team already well stocked, who could afford him, or didn't play that way? If we'd had an inflated fee for ASM, how could that possibly be proved when the Saudi League had already cleared out expensive dead wood from Liverpool and Chelsea? So that market we sold to was already completely different. There are still debates on here about whether he was under or over valued, which suggests to me that we pitched it about right, in terms of scrutiny on us You could make the exact same point point about sponsorships - a different deal is worth different things to different sponsors, so how can you readily compare? You could say it's on objective metrics like global fanbases etc, but even THAT metric is open to challenge. E.g. when most of Man U's global online fanbase barely contribute monetarily, what's it actually worth, that you couldn't challenge in court? I think that's why the PL shifted the burden of proof to clubs themselves, because they'd realised they'd dug a hole for themselves. And before they did that, even in the sponsorship example, let's say you are negotiating between two sponsors, and one offers £10m more than the other because you've played it cleverly. Are you then obliged to tell the PL all about these commercially confidential negotiations? Imagine if there was a leak. Imagine if it then set a precedent which stopped other clubs from negotiating their own deals better, because you've already set a precedent which all potential sponsors of other clubs would be well aware of. You've essentially killed competition there too. Buildings and land DO have an objective commercial market value as there is an open market there. But Chelsea don't seem to have done that, or proved it yet.

Chelsea have said they had two independent quotes to show that the value of the hotel was fair. From what I read, that still needs to be approved (or at least did, when the accounts were submitted). It does slightly beg the question as to why they didn't just do that and sold it to their own owner instead, but hey, I'm no cynic. What I do find interesting is that these are an "ESL 6" club, and instead of it just being waived through, it's more and more clear that either the PL are wary of being challenged on how fair they are, or that there are divisions between them.

I suppose the thing is that we don't know what has been contested (if anything) and what hasn't. Or on what basis. They originally came up with some claptrap about building a database to show the FMV of everything. Since that obviously has so many flaws in it's commercial application, they then backtracked on that and asked clubs to prove it themselves, thus showing that they don't know what they're doing. Saying all that, I do think we're all a bit in the dark about whether or to what extent FMV is limiting us. We can suspect we'd have some shiny new sponsorships by now, I do personally, but we don't actually know.

It's quite a funny response though. She's basically responded (correctly) that he's gone back on what he'd previously agreed and just come out with a load of waffle, so to be specific as to what he's actually talking about, in detail. I think Masters is playing politics at quite a junior level here. It would also be interesting to see what level of consensus he has from all clubs for whatever he comes up with, and therefore what his mandate is for any response.

I don't actually have a problem with the hotel sale thing, more a problem with the rules and how they are being applied in the first place. So, as long as it's a fair market value, because that's the dance we all have to dance for now at least, there's nothing really wrong with it. It was the club's, it was sold, so what. In your examples, I didn't fully follow the issue with Arsenal building their stadium (they did suffer a bit for that with spending for a few years), or that they then refinanced their loans at better rates, so apologies if I'm being thick there. In your shoes, from the outside the thing I'd be slightly more worried about would be selling off long term infrastructure designed to make income for the club to pay for shorter term player trading, if indeed that's what it was for. But my first thought was to wonder about what that means for the "sustainability" part of the argument for those rules to exist in the first place if you're selling long term stuff to buy short term stuff like players. Maybe it's worth it and will prove to be so. Don't know myself, genuinely, just asking your opinion. NB, maybe that's all moot if the stadium redevelopment promised at the takeover goes ahead and the hotel was just surplus to what the club needs (not a trick, asking as without looking into it you'll know better than me on all this).

Player of the season for me. He's made a right mug of us