PIF and RB Sports & Media

[Kid Icarus]

Just now, Miggys First Goal said:

Just means that when we do become successful, it’ll be an even better feeling because we’ll know we had to do it the hard way. 

 

We'll have done it in exactly the same way tbf, by swinging the big dick of money around. I fully expect Newcastle to act in exactly the same way if Jeff Bezos decided to buy Crystal Palace or someone. 

[ponsaelius]

I don't really agree with FFP but from a fundamental point of preventing an unsustainable inflationary wage and fees spiral it does make some sense. Controlling infra spending makes no sense at all except for trying to limit competitiveness and establish a de facto cartel.

[beardsleymagic]

This could be one push back too many.... UEFA might have shot themselves in the foot here.

All it takes is one high powered legal fight against this and all of UEFA's /PL's plans to protect the so called big clubs could come crashing down and work against the club's they are trying to cosy up too

[manorpark]

Just now, beardsleymagic said:

This could be one push back too many.... UEFA might have shot themselves in the foot here.

All it takes is one high powered legal fight against this and all of UEFA's /PL's plans to protect the so called big clubs could come crashing down and work against the club's they are trying to cosy up too

 

And I cannot think of a better equipped wealthy set of owners to lead that (very essential) fight, than our three owners . . . 

[Geordie Ahmed]

I get that their intentions aren't to make football more competitive and it's to keep the top clubs at the top but including spending on infrastructure and women's team is ludicrous 

[Kid Icarus]

It's got no chance of succeeding like. Look at what happened when UEFA investigated Man City and Man City just got private investigators to do the same to them then took their ban to CAS and got it overturned depite blatantly breaking FFP. This is what happens when you create financial monsters with extreme power. Whether we like it or not our owners are likely the be the biggest ones out there. 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Kid Icarus

[Hovagod]

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

It's got no chance of succeeding like. Look at what happened when UEFA investigated Man City and Man City just got private investigators to do the same to them then took their ban to CAS and got it overturned depite blatantly breaking FFP. This is what happens when you create financial monsters with extreme power. Whether we like it or not our owners are likely the be the biggest ones out there. 

 

 

 

Whenever conversations like this crop up I’m reminded of Larry David telling his divorce lawyer that, though he does want to look like a good guy, he does not actually want to be a good guy.

[Unbelievable]

I think people are overplaying the significance of no longer excluding infrastructure (and youth and women players' wages). Infrastructure cost are typically amortised over a very long period of time. Let's say NUFC build a new state of the art training ground for 200m. I imagine a training ground would be used over a 50 year period, so that outlay would account for 4m per year. Or am I missing something?

 

As before, the key to NUFC's chances of breaking the top clubs' oligopoly is to grow revenue asap (particularly attract some big sponsors) and invest wisely. I don't think these new Uefa rules change anything in that regard. If anything it looks like it's become easier for owners to prop up a club's coffers.

 

For football as a whole this appears to be a bad development. Competing without a sugar daddy owner just got harder, again, as if it wasn't bad enough before.

[LV]

7 minutes ago, Unbelievable said:

I think people are overplaying the significance of no longer excluding infrastructure (and youth and women players' wages). Infrastructure cost are typically amortised over a very long period of time. Let's say NUFC build a new state of the art training ground for 200m. I imagine a training ground would be used over a 50 year period, so that outlay would account for 4m per year. Or am I missing something?

 

As before, the key to NUFC's chances of breaking the top clubs' oligopoly is to grow revenue asap (particularly attract some big sponsors) and invest wisely. I don't think these new Uefa rules change anything in that regard. If anything it looks like it's become easier for owners to prop up a club's coffers.

 

For football as a whole this appears to be a bad development. Competing without a sugar daddy owner just got harder, again, as if it wasn't bad enough before.

The problem with growing via sponsors is that the PL want to vet any new sponsors we get for related-party infringements. You can bet they’ll try to hamstring us there too. 

[Hovagod]

9 minutes ago, LV said:

The problem with growing via sponsors is that the PL want to vet any new sponsors we get for related-party infringements. You can bet they’ll try to hamstring us there too. 

Are they even trying to hide this? I am fully on board with any concerns about our owners from a human rights perspective. But in terms of sporting fairness they seem completely comfortable to just pull the rug away and the wider football world seems faintly indifferent? Am I missing something?

[Guest]

I say call the PL's bluff and do what city have done with all the fake offshore shell companies that sponsor them. 

[Minhosa]

Probably a stupid question and perhaps one for the accountants but can we not allocate an infrastructure spend now by using some form of prepayment?

 

Essentially pay for (or towards) a large part of the stadium/training ground investment now before the new rules apply?

[Tiresias]

16 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

Are they even trying to hide this? I am fully on board with any concerns about our owners from a human rights perspective. But in terms of sporting fairness they seem completely comfortable to just pull the rug away and the wider football world seems faintly indifferent? Am I missing something?

 

This is not a problem for actual sponsors, it's just a right pain that Man City and the like got away with this shit for so long, Man City got caught with their pants down doing it and seems likely will get no substantial punishment and we don't get the opportunity to take advantage of previously lax rules. 

 

I understand what is going on somewhat, I think we definitley need financial fair play in some form to stop runaway inflation in costs and stop clubs being run by lunatics bankrupting them, but it should also be about getting a more level playing field rather than a bit of ladder pulling up. 

 

I am moderately relaxed though, this would be a problem if the owners were wanting to buy everyone psg style immediately, but they are very clear they want to build the club patiently and sensibly, which will be slower but will avoid ending up like a circus act a la man u. 

[Lazarus]

Any legal challenge to these new rules that is successful will surely open the super league door again, wouldnt it?

 

 

[Unbelievable]

44 minutes ago, LV said:

The problem with growing via sponsors is that the PL want to vet any new sponsors we get for related-party infringements. You can bet they’ll try to hamstring us there too. 

 

It's been surprisingly quiet on the new sponsor announcement front so maybe I underestimate how easy it would be to get around this. Any big company or organisation that would want to curry favour with PIF could quite easily sponsor us, even in return for favourable terms on other deals. Then there is just the increase we should be able to do within the current framework by pointing out that our current deals are disproportionately low compared to some of our competitors.

[TRon]

2 hours ago, et tu brute said:

I can see a legal challenge coming in

 

You would think they would have learned from the Rick Masters shambles over the takeover. But no, these football bodies just have to force the lawyers to get involved.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

46 minutes ago, Minhosa said:

Probably a stupid question and perhaps one for the accountants but can we not allocate an infrastructure spend now by using some form of prepayment?

 

Essentially pay for (or towards) a large part of the stadium/training ground investment now before the new rules apply?

 

Not really,

 

You only start depreciating (i.e. allocating a cost into the accounts) once the building is complete. So unless UEFAs FFP relate to timing of cash payments rather than established and recognised accounting rules it would be tricky to work it that way.

 

As Unbelievable points out any stadium or training facility spend would be spread over a long period of time so you could look at other ways of bringing costs forward to create the same impact - writing down contract values would put a lot of cost in the current year should we wish to as even modest £20k a week gives you £1m of cost per year of contract write down. Its a nil sum game though, over a 3 year period it would even out so only of benefit if we are very confident of significant increased revenue.

 

Edit - another option is of course to get the training ground sponsored. Nobody is going to be able to argue that £4m a year is not market rate for sponsorship, put a 20 year deal in place and you cover the cost and get around FFP

 

I'd personally be lumping as much into this years accounts that relate to Ashley's time here, write down contracts, accrue for early termination fees etc and do a mega friendly in Saudi just after the World Cup that magically has the same value as these write downs.

 

I'd also be looking at how much of the training ground could be classed as land as this is not depreciated so theoretically no cost ever in the accounts for it. 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Colos Short and Curlies
Added point on sponsorship

[Ben]

Is the major problem in football the people that either don't have money or use the clubs money that's not theirs to put them into debt, if Saudi Golf want to put £100 million into Newcastle as a sponsor how can they say no ? 

 

Burnley and Man Utds takeover model is a lot more dangerous than ours

[RodneyCisse]

Neom have just title sponsored McLarens electric racing endeavours with extreme E and Formula E Cars.

 

No outrage for the probably ridiculous sum of money I’m sure they’ve taken. 

[Tiresias]

Oh completely the debt leveraged takeover much worse for the clubs themselves. The sponsorship thing is a different thing, that's more directly about stopping nation state owned clubs having loads of money pumped essentially laundered to look like legitimate sponsorship. The rationale is that makes the league uncompetitive if all the clubs are legitimately earning income to buy players etc and man city just suddenly got 100m from a 'sponsorship deal; at waaay above expected market rate. What's annoying is that man city were doing this and yet there has been no word of any punishment of any kind even though that was threatened. Of course it is pulling up the drawbridge before we got over it but it's a different thing to preventing debt on clubs and again I think a perfectly reasonable rule in a vacuum. 

[Guest]

I’m what other industry could you do that man.  Absolutely bizarre. ‘Don’t spend too much on the infrastructure or you can’t spend on players’. I bet if they went back 15 years and did FFP on that alone we’d probably have about £200m to play with.

[Wolfcastle]

Instead of investing in infra structer, academies, the community and improvements for fans - things that have always been said to be sensible and just investments -  all that money will go on the first team now and rightly so since that's what pays the bills.

What a rollicking idea. But as long as the super leagues teams who tried to bolt are protected f**k football eh.

Everton will be at Goodison Park forever unless they fancy at least one relegation. There would be no way a team could build a new stadium or even stand now.

 

[Colos Short and Curlies]

5 minutes ago, Wolfcastle said:

Instead of investing in infra structer, academies, the community and improvements for fans - things that have always been said to be sensible and just investments -  all that money will go on the first team now and rightly so since that's what pays the bills.

What a rollicking idea. But as long as the super leagues teams who tried to bolt are protected f**k football eh.

Everton will be at Goodison Park forever unless they fancy at least one relegation. There would be no way a team could build a new stadium or even stand now.

 

or it just forces more money into the game through ensuring that stadia are sponsored.

 

[Joey47]

1 minute ago, Colos Short and Curlies said:

or it just forces more money into the game through ensuring that stadia are sponsored.

 

 

Sorry if i'm being dumb here but this would still impact the amount a club can spend on infrastructure right?

 

If not for these new FFP rules a club could have their stadium sponsored and spend that sponsorship money directly on first team and not have to worry about any FFP allocation going to infrastructure?

[Tiresias]

I think people are overreacting somewhat, see prior comment about amortasization or whatever the word is the cost of the stadium will be spread out significantly. It's not going to be designed to make it impossible to build new stadiums...maybe through incompetance thinking about it...