PIF and RB Sports & Media

[Thumbheed]

1 hour ago, r0cafella said:

The issue isn’t injecting money in to the company, the issue is what counts towards FFP spend. 
 

the reason the likes of Man city have to do these stupid sponsorships is because the ownership can’t just inject money and have of count towards FFP. 

 

But Ashley's loan didn't count towards FFP did it? 

[r0cafella]

1 minute ago, Thumbheed said:

 

But Ashley's loan didn't count towards FFP did it? 

His loan pre dated FFP. 

[Abacus]

5 minutes ago, Thumbheed said:

 

But Ashley's loan didn't count towards FFP did it? 

No, and a loan doesn't count as income anyway.

 

So they could inject all the money in the world through loans, and it would make no difference to the ffp spending cap.

[macphisto]

9 minutes ago, HTT II said:

The money wasn’t pumped into the club by any one person though, the wealth of the club to enable it to rise in the way it did, first stemmed from the fans spending their money on anything NUFC related and sponsors and other commercial deals the club attracted due to the success of the team. 

Our income didn't cover what we spent at that time, no where near. If this link for 1997 is correct then the money we were spending at the time was not matched by our income. The only difference between now and then is that our spending was fuelled by debt rather than the pockets of our owners. The point still stands that it wasn't organic growth and we grew rapidly by spending money, more than our competitors.

 

In addition to what we spent on transfers and wages, also worth noting the money Hall and Shepard were taking out too, i.e. warehouse in Gibraltar. 

[Jackie Broon]

12 minutes ago, Thumbheed said:

 

But Ashley's loan didn't count towards FFP did it? 

 

Owners can inject money either directly or though loans etc. but they are limited to 105m in total over the past three years to count towards FFP.

 

[Guest HTT II]

11 minutes ago, macphisto said:

Our income didn't cover what we spent at that time, no where near. If this link for 1997 is correct then the money we were spending at the time was not matched by our income. The only difference between now and then is that our spending was fuelled by debt rather than the pockets of our owners. The point still stands that it wasn't organic growth and we grew rapidly by spending money, more than our competitors.

 

In addition to what we spent on transfers and wages, also worth noting the money Hall and Shepard were taking out too, i.e. warehouse in Gibraltar. 

It was matched, in a business sense. There was no external monies coming into the club from some sugar daddy or by taking on major debt. Everything was driven by the success of the team, the demand of the fans to buy whatever was in club shops, even subscribing ti magazines, buying videos of matches and anything else black and white related and then major sponsors wanted a piece of the action and of course we floated in the stock market. We were no Man City outspending everyone with someone else’s money, we did it organically and thanks in part to the business acumen of Freddie Fletch and KK’s eye for talent. 

[Guest HTT II]

In 5 years we went from being 6m in the red to turning over 40m only second to Man Utd at the time who had the bigger gate capacity, were already a listed company, with a huge fanbase globally and major sponsorship deals and other endorsements in place. Our ability to break the world record transfer fee on Alan Shearer was because going forward, our future income would project that ability, with shirt sales, waiting lists and lucrative sponsorship deals. 

[Dr Venkman]

I think this issue has brought front and centre what plenty of people have known for years but some are only just coming to terms with. Football is competitive on the pitch but off the pitch it's actively anti-competitive and surely this has been the case for decades? You only have to compare it with the NFL, with the parity they've achieved via the draft and wage cap, to see football for what it is: it's brutal capitalism presented as a sport. We've won the lottery, enjoy it. You're not getting anywhere 'growing organically' these days, though, those days are gone.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Dr Venkman

[Guest HTT II]

Becoming a PLC fucked us over so badly, it instigated KK leaving and allowed ‘outsiders’ to take actual money out of the club.

[TRon]

16 minutes ago, HTT II said:

In 5 years we went from being 6m in the red to turning over 40m only second to Man Utd at the time who had the bigger gate capacity, were already a listed company, with a huge fanbase globally and major sponsorship deals and other endorsements in place. Our ability to break the world record transfer fee on Alan Shearer was because going forward, our future income would project that ability, with shirt sales, waiting lists and lucrative sponsorship deals. 

 

Which all goes to show that our position at the top table is no falsely inflated sense of worth, traditionally we always had the ability to fund a CL club, not that many in England can claim likewise. If it weren't for Sugar Daddy investors pumping their own money into Chelsea and Man City, we would still be in a position to totally fund our own title challenges. 

 

PIF has really just redressed the balance. I would still prefer the old way where each club funded it's own success, but that was taken out of our hands by the likes of Abramovich and Mansour, whose success with their respective clubs has been hailed and celebrated. 

[macphisto]

16 minutes ago, HTT II said:

In 5 years we went from being 6m in the red to turning over 40m only second to Man Utd at the time who had the bigger gate capacity, were already a listed company, with a huge fanbase globally and major sponsorship deals and other endorsements in place. Our ability to break the world record transfer fee on Alan Shearer was because going forward, our future income would project that ability, with shirt sales, waiting lists and lucrative sponsorship deals. 

That's not organic growth, 2nd to Man U after only 5 years, ahead of Liverpool. It was fuelled by debt, our income didn't cover a transfer like Shearer's together with our other expenditure at the time. That's why we had the years under Dalglish where we had to buy players like Rush, Pearce and Barnes. We were fairly skint due to our debt. For info, I know what you're saying about our commercial deals, for example I remember the Adidas advert with Ferdinand kicking a ball being shown around the country.

 

Anyway, my major point is that we have had dramatic growth in the past and no one cared less; everyone loved it.

[Happinesstan]

2 minutes ago, Dr Venkman said:

I think this issue has brought front and centre what plenty of people have known for years but some are only just coming to terms with. Football is competitive on the pitch but off the pitch it's actively anti-competitive and surely this has been the case for decades? You only have to compare it with the NFL, with the parity they've achieved via the draft and wage cap, to see football for what it is: it's brutal capitalism presented as a sport.

How many Gridiron teams are not owned by Americans?

[Ankles Bennett]

Seems to me the big 6 are trying to force PIF out.  The whole purpose of buying NUFC was to make a profit as they are an investment group.  If we are prohibited from making eye watering sponsorship deals we will never be worth more than what they paid for us and PIF might decide to cut their losses and sell their share in us!

[GWN]

Just now, Ankles Bennett said:

Seems to me the big 6 are trying to force PIF out.  The whole purpose of buying NUFC was to make a profit as they are an investment group.  If we are prohibited from making eye watering sponsorship deals we will never be worth more than what they paid for us and PIF might decide to cut their losses and sell their share in us!

 

I don’t think they will ever make a profit surely? 

[gjohnson]

3 minutes ago, GWN said:

 

I don’t think they will ever make a profit surely? 

Not directly, but there will be many intangible benefits that us non-accountants will ever be able to calculate.

 

No one invests in anything to lose money, so they'll get something back even if it's not cold hard cash....better profile, more interest in their other companies etc

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Raconteur said:

People talk about the Big Six as if they’re etched in stone - but in the PL era we’ve had the Arsenal-Man Utd duopoly, and a Big Four.

 

I’d argue the Big Six doesn’t even work as a monolithic entity any more, with a Big Three and three other Big Clubs fighting to cling on to their revenue streams.

 

And who knows, in a few years, it might be a Big Four again that includes us?

 

8 hours ago, r0cafella said:

Don’t think about the big 6 in sporting terms. Think about them in revenue terms. 
 

As the whole takeover saga has demonstrated football is a business not a sport. 

63 of the last 72 top 6 finishes since Man City emerged on the scene have been taken by those 6 clubs. That’s a helluva domination tbh.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by Optimistic Nut

[Yorkie]

Nice research. Didn't realise it was that bad tbh.

[FloydianMag]

12 minutes ago, Ankles Bennett said:

Seems to me the big 6 are trying to force PIF out.  The whole purpose of buying NUFC was to make a profit as they are an investment group.  If we are prohibited from making eye watering sponsorship deals we will never be worth more than what they paid for us and PIF might decide to cut their losses and sell their share in us!

Nah, they bought us to get there products and companies out there, what a way to do that owning a PL club. The profit any PL club could possibly make is loose change to PIF.

[Manxst]

14 minutes ago, Ankles Bennett said:

Seems to me the big 6 are trying to force PIF out.  The whole purpose of buying NUFC was to make a profit as they are an investment group.  If we are prohibited from making eye watering sponsorship deals we will never be worth more than what they paid for us and PIF might decide to cut their losses and sell their share in us!

Not just about profit, but also about the ‘sportswashing’ and changing the view of Saudi in Western eyes. That’s beyond money.

[Ankles Bennett]

4 minutes ago, FloydianMag said:

Nah, they bought us to get there products and companies out there, what a way to do that owning a PL club. The profit any PL club could possibly make is loose change to PIF.

Yes but look what Man City are worth now compared to what it cost to buy them!

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Nice research. Didn't realise it was that bad tbh.

Only 1 club has broken the top 4 in those 12 years. 
 

Chelsea are the only club from those 6 clubs to finish outside the top 8 in those 12 seasons, and they came back to win it the next season. It’s been a massively closed shop but for Leicester’s few seasons.

[Jackie Broon]

10 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

63 of the last 72 top 6 finishes since Man City emerged on the scene have been taken by those 6 clubs. That’s a helluva domination tbh.

 

 

 

 

This article, about why FFP is probably unlawful under competition law, has some interesting stuff in it about research showing that FFP has directly increased the dominance of the current top clubs:

 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441056.2021.1935570

 

With over a decade for the effects of FFP to set in and for data to be collected, the evidence is empirically showing that FFP has in fact led to the fossilization of European leagues. One 2019 study, claiming to present the “first empirical analysis of the potential effects of FFP on competition in the major European football leagues”, collected and analyzed a novel and extensive dataset covering more than 300 clubs across the first and second tiers of the Big Five Leagues pre- and post-FFP.120 The results of this study showed that “FFP has further amplified competitive imbalance” and “tends to make European football leagues less equilibrated and to freeze current hierarchies”.121 The study notes that an “important driver of this result rests on the finding that a larger number of investors makes a league more equilibrated[] because … investors might break up established structures and increase competition”, but FFP raises barriers against new investors.122 The study also echoes that FFP “benefits already successful clubs and makes it more difficult for less successful teams to spend more money on new players to improve the squad, which, in turn, results in lower competition”.123 Ultimately, based on the empirical evidence analyzed, the study finds that FFP has resulted “in an ossification of established hierarchies in football leagues”

[FloydianMag]

7 minutes ago, Ankles Bennett said:

Yes but look what Man City are worth now compared to what it cost to buy them!

Yes, £2 billion, however given that PIF are worth between £320-700 billion according to various sources it still ain’t huge, maybe to us but not them. Remember the paid Qatar £1 billion compensation to settle the piracy issue and didn’t even blink.

[r0cafella]

4 minutes ago, Jackie Broon said:

 

This article, about why FFP is probably unlawful under competition law, has some interesting stuff in it about research showing that FFP has directly increased the dominance of the current top clubs:

 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441056.2021.1935570

 

With over a decade for the effects of FFP to set in and for data to be collected, the evidence is empirically showing that FFP has in fact led to the fossilization of European leagues. One 2019 study, claiming to present the “first empirical analysis of the potential effects of FFP on competition in the major European football leagues”, collected and analyzed a novel and extensive dataset covering more than 300 clubs across the first and second tiers of the Big Five Leagues pre- and post-FFP.120 The results of this study showed that “FFP has further amplified competitive imbalance” and “tends to make European football leagues less equilibrated and to freeze current hierarchies”.121 The study notes that an “important driver of this result rests on the finding that a larger number of investors makes a league more equilibrated[] because … investors might break up established structures and increase competition”, but FFP raises barriers against new investors.122 The study also echoes that FFP “benefits already successful clubs and makes it more difficult for less successful teams to spend more money on new players to improve the squad, which, in turn, results in lower competition”.123 Ultimately, based on the empirical evidence analyzed, the study finds that FFP has resulted “in an ossification of established hierarchies in football leagues”

Working exactly as intended. 

[gjohnson]

27 minutes ago, Manxst said:

Not just about profit, but also about the ‘sportswashing’ and changing the view of Saudi in Western eyes. That’s beyond money.

 

Completely this.

 

There's been reams and reams written about how Saudi is so terrible, but curiously it's never reported how they have been consistently at the top for about 10 years in improving the human rights in their country. There's some league for it somewhere....

 

Yes they still are quite horrific by our standards and still commit terrible atrocities, but they've made concessions far beyond what they could have done if remaining purely driven by the Quran. Sport washing is one, but that opens them up to having to tolerate alcohol to a degree and letting up on LBGQT which is another step.

 

If bin Salman went on Saudi TV tomorrow and said that everything was changing to Western standards as of now, there'd be a coup de tat by the end of the week. Got to remember a lot of the population are completely engrained and happy as to how their country is ran, so changes have to be subtle and gradual.