Financial Fair Play / Profit & Sustainability

[Numbers]

Its all going to come crashing down, noise is increasing on a daily basis on how fucked up all this is.

 

Surely will be challenged in court very soon.

 

 

[Abacus]

Fire up the bread-maker Di Marco.

 

Could be a lot of dough in this for you.

[beardsleymagic]

The more noise there is about it makes me think the premier league will make some watered down changes before a challenge in court happens.

 

Just enough to cloud the waters of a challenge, but not enough to upset the cartel and at very least slow down any threat to them.

[The College Dropout]

People don't realise how clueless the FA are.

[FloydianMag]

16 minutes ago, Abacus said:

Fire up the bread-maker Di Marco.

 

Could be a lot of dough in this for you.

He certainly fucked governing bodies attempts to cap agents fees under anti competitive legislation.

 

https://x.com/nickdemarco_/status/1741102055014433221?s=61&t=Yt8DTJJ-7Jh_ndgpdGSFKQ

 

https://x.com/nickdemarco_/status/1735644167521341793?s=61&t=Yt8DTJJ-7Jh_ndgpdGSFKQ

[Jonas]

Spurs, even though they're protected by ffp, have scrapped concessions for oap's re tickets.

Fair. 

[KingArthur]

14 hours ago, Abacus said:

Re the new adjusted rules; for us I think the most damaging thing is putting the onus on clubs to justify that commercial deals are at fair market value, rather than the PL having to prove they weren't.

 

Each football club is unique - the reasons sponsors might invest and what they want to get for it differs.

 

I have no idea how the PL could have proved what was or wasn't FMV, which wouldn't be open to challenge. Likewise, knowing what a range of sponsors, say, had offered (per the supposed database they were building up) was always pure nonsense.

 

Let's say Saudi wants to improve it's reputation with it's companies wanting to associate themselves with a PIF owned club. Regardless of whether you think that's palatable, what's the fair market value of that? If we'd made that case, how would the PL have disproved it?

 

I think flipping the burden of proof to the club was the only way they were going to get out of the stupid situation they'd put themselves in previously. And makes it all the more obvious who they were aiming this at. The PL are politically inept and have tied themselves in knots ever since this whole saga started.

This is going to be messy.

 

If we get 2 offers for shirt sponsor: Sela and Clowns of Buckingham Ltd and first one offers 15 million a year and the second 5£ per year, what is the fair market value? It is impossible for club to prove when they sell player for ex. 

If we try to sell Almiron to Saudi, they offer us 25 million and him 500k / week, and ManU offer 2 million and 150k a week, what is the fair market value for a player like this?

[Fezzle]

2 hours ago, KingArthur said:

This is going to be messy.

 

If we get 2 offers for shirt sponsor: Sela and Clowns of Buckingham Ltd and first one offers 15 million a year and the second 5£ per year, what is the fair market value? It is impossible for club to prove when they sell player for ex. 

If we try to sell Almiron to Saudi, they offer us 25 million and him 500k / week, and ManU offer 2 million and 150k a week, what is the fair market value for a player like this?

That works both ways, any time a super 6 team bids we double it and force them to pay more

[KingArthur]

4 minutes ago, Fezzle said:

That works both ways, any time a super 6 team bids we double it and force them to pay more

Yea, but this fair market value only applies when you are buying from/selling to a team with the same owner. 

 

[Keegans Export]

2 hours ago, KingArthur said:

This is going to be messy.

 

If we get 2 offers for shirt sponsor: Sela and Clowns of Buckingham Ltd and first one offers 15 million a year and the second 5£ per year, what is the fair market value? It is impossible for club to prove when they sell player for ex. 

If we try to sell Almiron to Saudi, they offer us 25 million and him 500k / week, and ManU offer 2 million and 150k a week, what is the fair market value for a player like this?

The Adidas deal is a good example. Because of our history with Adidas, a deal is worth more to them than it would to Nike, Umbro etc. because of the opportunity to cash in on all the retro stuff, historical goodwill and so on.

 

Adidas would look at £20m/year as good value, whereas others might only see value at £10-15m. Does that mean we'd have to only take £15m? 

 

There is certain equipment I find very useful for my job, so I'd be willing to pay a decent wedge for it. You have no idea what the equipment is or what it's for, so you'd value it much lower. Which of those two is "fair market value"? 

 

The rule is a complete nonsense imo.

[TheBrownBottle]

2 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

The Adidas deal is a good example. Because of our history with Adidas, a deal is worth more to them than it would to Nike, Umbro etc. because of the opportunity to cash in on all the retro stuff, historical goodwill and so on.

 

Adidas would look at £20m/year as good value, whereas others might only see value at £10-15m. Does that mean we'd have to only take £15m? 

 

There is certain equipment I find very useful for my job, so I'd be willing to pay a decent wedge for it. You have no idea what the equipment is or what it's for, so you'd value it much lower. Which of those two is "fair market value"? 

 

The rule is a complete nonsense imo.

Yep, it’s daft really.  When I do tender analysis at work, I want to see at least three contractor or subcontractor quotes for the works, as well as my own estimate - that’s how I test market value.  But they’re doing the same thing with the same outcome - that’s not how sponsorship works.  

[Fezzle]

8 minutes ago, KingArthur said:

Yea, but this fair market value only applies when you are buying from/selling to a team with the same owner. 

 

I was thinking more the Man Utd links to Todiba mind

[nufcnick]

4 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

The Adidas deal is a good example. Because of our history with Adidas, a deal is worth more to them than it would to Nike, Umbro etc. because of the opportunity to cash in on all the retro stuff, historical goodwill and so on.

 

Adidas would look at £20m/year as good value, whereas others might only see value at £10-15m. Does that mean we'd have to only take £15m? 

 

There is certain equipment I find very useful for my job, so I'd be willing to pay a decent wedge for it. You have no idea what the equipment is or what it's for, so you'd value it much lower. Which of those two is "fair market value"? 

 

The rule is a complete nonsense imo.

We don’t have to pass FMV with Adidas because PIF have no ownership of them 

[Keegans Export]

Just now, nufcnick said:

We don’t have to pass FMV with Adidas because PIF have no ownership of them 

We don't have to pass FMV so far!

 

Regardless, the point remains - some companies will value the sponsorship more than others. A Saudi company will probably value a link with NUFC more precisely because we are part-owned by PIF and are therefore in a position to be "the" Saudi PL club. That isn't the same for a potential sponsor from elsewhere who will value the deal at a lower amount. 

 

As @TheBrownBottle says, you're not comparing like-for-like in terms of potential outcomes for Company A versus Company B.

[macphisto]

Interesting article in the Athletic about Barcelona making their own shirts. I wouldn't advocate going down that route but this caught my eye:

 

"

As per the terms of their current agreement, Nike pays a yearly fee for the right to produce various items of Barcelona sporting equipment and apparel, and the American company keeps all profits made from sales.

 

However, through the BLM (Barca Licensing & Merchandising) arm — mentioned by Laporta in his radio interview — Barcelona also exclusively market and sell some clothing and apparel themselves. BLM was the fourth-biggest source of revenues in Barcelona’s most recent budget, accounting for over €100million across 2022-23."

 

Whilst I don't think we'd make anywhere near 100 million Euros, it does show we have numerous revenue streams waiting to be exploited. 

[nufcnick]

Just now, Keegans Export said:

We don't have to pass FMV so far!

 

Regardless, the point remains - some companies will value the sponsorship more than others. A Saudi company will probably value a link with NUFC more precisely because we are part-owned by PIF and are therefore in a position to be "the" Saudi PL club. That isn't the same for a potential sponsor from elsewhere who will value the deal at a lower amount. 

 

As @TheBrownBottle says, you're not comparing like-for-like in terms of potential outcomes for Company A versus Company B.

Even in the new rules FMV still only applies to related party transactions, it will never apply to non related parties because you would then have the sly6 calling into question each others deals 

[TheBrownBottle]

1 minute ago, macphisto said:

Interesting article in the Athletic about Barcelona making their own shirts. I wouldn't advocate going down that route but this caught my eye:

 

"

As per the terms of their current agreement, Nike pays a yearly fee for the right to produce various items of Barcelona sporting equipment and apparel, and the American company keeps all profits made from sales.

 

However, through the BLM (Barca Licensing & Merchandising) arm — mentioned by Laporta in his radio interview — Barcelona also exclusively market and sell some clothing and apparel themselves. BLM was the fourth-biggest source of revenues in Barcelona’s most recent budget, accounting for over €100million across 2022-23."

 

Whilst I don't think we'd make anywhere near 100 million Euros, it does show we have numerous revenue streams waiting to be exploited. 

Rogan Taylor advocated for this in Total Football about 25 years ago, suggesting that clubs would make far more money if they did.

 

Not sure if that would be true today, when the value to an adidas or Nike is even more in advertising than it was then (much bigger worldwide market etc)

[Abacus]

2 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

We don't have to pass FMV so far!

 

Regardless, the point remains - some companies will value the sponsorship more than others. A Saudi company will probably value a link with NUFC more precisely because we are part-owned by PIF and are therefore in a position to be "the" Saudi PL club. That isn't the same for a potential sponsor from elsewhere who will value the deal at a lower amount. 

 

As @TheBrownBottle says, you're not comparing like-for-like in terms of potential outcomes for Company A versus Company B.

Indeed, and per my previous post, because there is no way of proving FMV, that's why the PL are putting the onus on clubs (mainly us and Man City) rather than themselves.

 

Two options here; you either show you have competing non-related party bids of similar value, which you could get in all sorts of bother with re commercial confidentiality, even though in a free market sponsors will have all sorts of different reasons for what they're prepared to bid.

 

Or, you say this sponsorship is worth x amount in an open market because it's what similar sized clubs have. And there's no way you could compare our size to Man U's, say, meaning that any deal would automatically be lower than theirs, hence locking in their advantage forever.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

Player values are interesting if you break it down. what you are paying for is a registration and not actually buying the player (that would be slavery!)

 

A registration for a league should be valued the same regardless of the player - you could maybe argue different tiers for positions so should the additional value of the player based on ability etc be paid to the selling club or just factored into what you would pay them in wages / signing on fee?

[Abacus]

6 minutes ago, Colos Short and Curlies said:

Player values are interesting if you break it down. what you are paying for is a registration and not actually buying the player (that would be slavery!)

 

A registration for a league should be valued the same regardless of the player - you could maybe argue different tiers for positions so should the additional value of the player based on ability etc be paid to the selling club or just factored into what you would pay them in wages / signing on fee?

Well, I suppose that what you're paying the selling club for is the value to them of breaking their existing registration to them early, unless I miss your point entirely.

 

 

Edited March 8 by Abacus

[Colos Short and Curlies]

52 minutes ago, Abacus said:

Well, I suppose that what you're paying the selling club for is the value to them of breaking their existing registration to them early, unless I miss your point entirely.

 

 

 

 

Yes but it has a value that could easily be defined if you wanted to and then transfer fees become more rigid. You could even go registration value plus the remaining value of a contract etc.

 

It would never happen anyway

[Abacus]

15 minutes ago, Colos Short and Curlies said:

 

Yes but it has a value that could easily be defined if you wanted to and then transfer fees become more rigid. You could even go registration value plus the remaining value of a contract etc.

 

It would never happen anyway

Yeah, too many vested interests. You'd need to get rid of agents in their current roles for a start and image rights etc, but it's an interesting Bosman type argument re player registrations for both players and to the real "value" of a transfer to selling and buying clubs, which will of course be completely different from club to club.

 

It's why proving FMV is a mess when there wasn't FMV in the first place.

[Jonas]

FMV doesn't take into account speculating to accumulate from both parties.

Whatever McEwans sponsored Blackburn for in 1991 could be argued to be too much but they soon became a premier League Force and won the title so McEwans got a great deal well under the going rate. 

May as well just tie sponsorship in with the money you get for finishing where you finish in the league. It's the sort of bureaucratic soulless thing they'd go in for.

[The Prophet]

Not sure if it's been posted, but Leicester in the mud.

[Pixelphish]

54 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

Not sure if it's been posted, but Leicester in the mud.

This before or after they've told the PL and the EFL the rules dont apply because they werent in their leagues for the full timeframe?