Keegans Export

That's the issue, play it safe with something that looks like every glass/steel structure in every big city in the world and could look dated in 15 years, or risk it and go with something that could be an eyesore mocked for eternity.

I've always had in my head that it should be a tribute to Grainger Town/Tyneside Classical but I have absolutely no idea what that would actually involve or what it would look like. Columns and sandstone I guess?

That might be the worst thing I've ever seen. And I don't mean the worst football kit I've seen.

He barely picked Gordon for 6 months because he wasn't up to speed with how he wanted him to play. We'd have to target 2034.

If I supported any other club I'd want Howe. As it is, I'd prefer to see them install the reanimated corpse of Hermann Göring than take Eddie Howe so Tuchel is definitely an upgrade on that.

We can spend in January but that's just due to the leftover money we didn't spend in the summer, we don't need more sponsorship to do that.

...Saudi?

Depends where you set it though doesn't it? Obviously they're estimates but most sources agree that the top spenders salary-wise are Man Utd/City/Chelsea at around £200m/season. Outside the big two, the biggest spenders in La Liga are half of that. The only two I can find that seem to be over it are Bayern and Real Madrid. Edit - you could also make the argument that if teams like ourselves and Villa were allowed to spend more, that would attract more quality players to the PL, which would attract more interest/viewers globally, which would increase earnings of all PL clubs, which could be used to justify an increase in the cap.

On the other hand, wasn't the salary cap in Rugby Union approved on the basis that the teams under it (Saracens being the club who brought the case) were still competitive both in terms of player acquisition and in terms of success on the field? I think a salary/expenditure cap can still be lawful provided it doesn't stifle competition. In fact, a salary/expenditure cap, if set high enough and flexible enough to change with various metrics, is probably more competitive than the current rules that allow some clubs spend more than other clubs they are in direct competition with.

Personally I never expected NUFC to be their top priority, or even close. Bin Salman spent more on a painting for his yacht than PIF spent buying 80% of the club. ...but that sounds more than good enough to me.

That's exactly their point - the APT rules were unlawful because of the omission of shareholder loans, therefore the APT rules were never lawful in their entirety. I don't think the ruling from the Tribunal is clear on that either way. If one part of a contract is unlawful, does that invalidate the whole thing? Presumably not, although this isn't contract law...

They already sponsor their shirts so it's not a new relationship. Still a hefty chunk of cash mind.

I'm not overly concerned about who is or isn't meeting with whom. I'm not saying we will (or should) but I don't think our owners would find it particularly difficult to influence the Government if they thought it was necessary.

It seems like a classic legal grey area, I'd suggest what the entire legal profession is build upon Either the APT rules just need adjusting so as to include shareholder loans and can otherwise continue as normal, or they were never legal to begin with because of that omission and therefore the whole thing needs to be scrapped and re-written to adhere to UK Competition Law. I wouldn't say the ruling is clear either way; So they are unlawful because they exclude shareholder loans. Fine. But that quote from Cliff ("the PL agreed with MCFC that this is an issue which will need to be resolved by the tribunal. It is therefore remarkable that the PL is now seeking to involve the member clubs in a process to amend the APT rules at a time when it does not even know the status of those rules") suggests that the Tribunal has "resolved" the issue, when I'm not 100% sure they have. They haven't said "add something about shareholder loans and everything is fine" but they also haven't said "...therefore the APT rules should be ignored completely until something else is put in their place".

He can just sell them to himself as I understand it. We've done the same thing whenever PIF/Reubens have wanted to put cash into the clubs accounts.

I think you can just create shares, is he the only shareholder?

It's not going to be an easy decision for the shareholders to just write off the loans. It can be done obviously, but if Bloom is £400m in, is he just going to write off a third of his net worth? (estimated as £1.3b)

I'm sure it's more nuanced than this but it seems as if the APT rules being applied to sponsorship deals only is not lawful because it doesn't also apply to shareholder loans. So, as it stands, the rules are not lawful. The PL now have to amend the rules to include shareholder loans which could be problematic for some clubs. Presumably this is what is going to be voted on at the next meeting. They were quick enough to close the "loophole" they thought we might exploit. Let's see how long this takes...

Loans don't count as income. We couldn't just loan ourselves £60m on 30th June to overcome the shortfall.

I don't think that's true, the interest on the loan still counts. Lets say you take a £100m loan to build a new training ground and it costs you £15m/year in interest. The £100m doesn't get included because it's infrastructure but the £15m does. If you take the same loan and buy two players with it, both the amortisation & wages get included plus the £15m interest on the loan.

The interest on loans Everton took out to help pay for their stadium definitely counted, it's part of what got them into trouble in the first place. As I understand it, the interest on loans counts towards your "losses" whether you spent the money on a stadium or a new striker.

Reading this through the prism of their 115-charges case, is this essentially saying "Take us down and we take loads of you down with us"? If they're arguing that FMV should apply to shareholder loans as well as sponsorship and that would result in loads of clubs falling foul of the rules, maybe there'd be enough support to ditch those rules...?

The rest are under £50m. We are £0m apparently.

I think their argument here is that if you're applying FMV to sponsorship deals from APs then you should do the same to loans.

Sounds like they are not abolishing FMV completely, not surprising