QPR FFP | Vital Football

QPR FFP

king_dezeeuw06

king_dezeeuw06

Vital Champions League
Interesting video about the QPR FFP fiasco considering they beat us in the play-off semi on their way to promotion. Absolute joke what they got away with, they should've been fined every penny of their tv Prem income and given demotion and points deduction for their cheating.

But any worries about our new owners being limited by FFP dont seem too bad when you look at the lack of punishment and precident set in this case.

 
RaggedTrouseredPhil said:
I said this at the time. I really really hope they get relegated this season, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of cheating barstewards.
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It's like the West Ham Tevez situation all over again with the FA seemingly unwilling to enforce their own rules.

I believe Bournmouth also broke FFP on their way to promotion and then paid a fine a fraction of the money they gained from breaking the rules. I think their fine was less than 5m when 1 year in the Prem is worth 200m or so. Hardly a punishment is it. That's more of an incentive than a punishment with the Prem tv money being so life changing for any club.
 
So Phil and King, just playing devil's advocate, if this alleged takeover ever happens would you be outraged if our new owners flaunted FFP rules and bankrolled us back to the premier league ?
Genuinely interested in your views, I don't have the intelligence for trolling or posting simply to wind folk up.
 
No doubt the clubs concerned had a legal team on the case and the Football League / EFL gave them a slap on the wrist instead of costly legal action.
Not in the same spending league (as QPR) but Wigan Athletic almost got hit with an FFP fine / embargo at the end of the 2014/2015 relegation season.
Millwall (also relegated) also overspent but their punishment was kicked into touch because of their relegation (no advantage)
 
Arthur_Itis said:
So Phil and King, just playing devil's advocate, if this alleged takeover ever happens would you be outraged if our new owners flaunted FFP rules and bankrolled us back to the premier league ?
Genuinely interested in your views, I don't have the intelligence for trolling or posting simply to wind folk up.
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I think it's a good question. Overall i think the rules on FFP are poorly thought out and a joke in so many ways but that is a seperate issue.

Overall I'd say the FA shouldnt make rules it hasnt got the stomach to enforce properly with proporional consequences If they set precidents like this then clubs will break them and you can't blame them for taking advantage of an inept FA.

But personally i dont trust the FA to be fair or consistent and if we did what others did Id fear that they would hit us with a genuine punishment that was vastly worse. So I'd not want to risk it. There are ways to legally pump extra money into the club but I'd ensure we didn't give the FA an excuse to screw us over. As i think more established bigger clubs get away with more while smaller clubs like ourselves that don't represent great commercial value in tv rights they'd be more willing to be aggressive with. I don't trust them at all to punish teams properly but at one point they will look to make an example and i would hate that to be us.
 
In American sport many leagues have what’s called a “salary cap” basically it limits the amount that can be spent on salary. The main reason for it is the leagues are in many ways a single business entity. Limiting team spending to ensure each team turns a profit and can still be competitive. The salary cap destroys true competition by lumping everyone together and is a monopolistic policy. I love that in England each entity is financially seperate it creates true competition. There should be no financial fair play if owners want to take risks then fair enough and when it doesn’t work out and they cant spend anymore straight down the leagues with them like Portsmouth and many others.
 
The problem with that Will is that clubs go out of business or drop out of the league mid way through the season as has happened before. FFP was brought in to stop this happening. In Rugby League there is a salary cap, but it has caused much debate due to the fact that many clubs import players from Australia, paying them mega bucks but fail to develop their own academy players because they cant fit them in the salary cap.
 
I like the salary cap in Rugby and it does seem to level the playing field. Does cause a lot of issues though.
FFP, if done correctly I think could work but it seems like the clubs are willing to risk it to make a push for Premier league. If you go up then great. If you don’t, you end up like QPR.
We should be looking at the owners of these clubs and sanctioning their involvement in a club if they repeat flaunting rules.
 
I think the FA need to simplify the rules:

1. Outlaw owners ability to tranfers their debt onto the club like the Glazers did at Man U.

2. Stop limiting or punishing owners for spending if they want to inject money which overall helps the EFL as money trickles down. Switch to punishments on those who can't pay their bills.

As at the moment the FA stop wealthy owners spending but allow clubs like Bolton spending a mill on a striker on deadline day but have players from last season awaiting money they still owed. Dusgraceful.
 
I'm not against clubs and their owners that want to speculate to accumulate within reason, most clubs do it, and we've done it too.
My key phrase is 'reason/reasonably practicable'.
Unless the FA and FL merge or align their rules there'll always be clubs overspending to reach the money league.
If QPR would've failed to get promotion that season they knocked us out of the play offs they would have folded because their overspend (cheating) was grossly disproportionate to their income. And what's more, they had no intention of trying to balance the books, unlike ourselves and others.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
I think the FA need to simplify the rules:

1. Outlaw owners ability to tranfers their debt onto the club like the Glazers did at Man U.

2. Stop limiting or punishing owners for spending if they want to inject money which overall helps the EFL as money trickles down. Switch to punishments on those who can't pay their bills.

As at the moment the FA stop wealthy owners spending but allow clubs like Bolton spending a mill on a striker on deadline day but have players from last season awaiting money they still owed. Dusgraceful.
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The problem with your first point KDZ is that there is nothing the EFL/FA can do regarding acquisition of clubs in this manner. Man Utd are a PLC and therefore are owned by the shareholders. This makes them subject to stock market rules which allow this type of acquisition and it is quite common, especially in the US, for takeovers to be done by this means. It would take a change of those rules to facilitate this and there is no way that will happen.

Regarding your second point, that's the way it used to be, until the introduction of FFP. The problem with allowing owners to do this is that they put the clubs in financial problems then walk away leaving the clubs to try and sort it out. Unfortunately most of them couldn't and failed or went into administration putting players and club staff livelihoods in jeopardy and causing problems for the league. There are many examples of buyouts for peppercorn amounts or fan takeovers that litter the leagues as a result of having no regulation.

I would personally like to see the authorities punish the Directors of any club that breach the rules, and punish them hard as a deterrent to others. What I don't like is that the punishment seems to affect the fans and the players more than the Directors who are ultimately responsible. For instance the deducting of points from clubs that break the rules, punish fans and players not the board. I would be happier to see the punishment directed at the people responsible for spending the money, the Directors, by way of personally fining them and perhaps barring them from holding a position with the club.
 
Good points TrueBeliever, but my suggestion for the first point wouldn't be to change PLC rules overall but to just introduce a rule for football clubs to take part in a competition. In the regard if the FA as a private business surely has autonomy to excluded other private businesses that do not comply with any requirements it sets. For example the current FFP rules are introduced by choice rather than being part of any legal framework and they have the ability to deduct points and even relegate teams as they see fit. I think a law setting out something like a clubs ownership cant add a certain percentage of debt to clubs share value after a sale could be implemented like FFP rules currently limit clubs racking up debts in another way.

For the second point i think a punishment for the owners like you suggest is probably a much better route but i suspect a private company like the FA trying to fine individuals significant amounts and getting them to accept it would potentially be very difficult and open pandoras box. Regarding banning them from holiding positions again good idea in principle but the likely outcome in trying to enforce that would become very difficult.

The harsh reality is as the FA will probably find it very difficult to apply punitive measures on individuals that own the club and any such punishment would ultimately truckle down to hurting the club itself. So it's much easier for them to just punish the club it's unfair but i think when you look at how poor the FA are at getting clubs to accept fines and how they back down and reduce punishment to minor slaps on the wrist i think going after individual owners would be even worse for them as they'd drag it through the legal courts.

I understand the overall idea of FFP and in theory it is a good one for the reasons you say but i do think that it's not giving clubs with wealthy and ambitious owners to invest as much as they want even if they are willing to write off the investment. I think the current caviats for this are only about 10m and should be removed all together. But i wouldn't disagree with the the principle remaining in place for spending not written off.

My big gripe is that it's a major issue that Bolton or any can refuse to pay it's current or former staff / bills and continue to sign new player as long as they stay within a threshold without punishment. Yet a club willing to invest money that would trickle down the leagues and could get punished. I think the current rules mean a rich owner like Dave Whelan building of a small club up with bug ambition become impossible but allow poorly managed clubs to renaige on existing responsibilities. If FFP existed in 95 we probably could never have had the possibilities we had and i think it's wrong for the FA to deny that chance to live the dream if a tiny club of no hopers is lucky enough to find a new owner who is willing to bank roll their dream.
 
Unfortunately, the rules regarding ownership are not set by the FA/EFL they are set by government and stock markets, and I do not believe competition rules could overrule this. As I say it is common practice for businesses to be bought and the debt serviced from the acquired asset.
Even if the FA or EFL brought in rules restricting this type of acquisitioned club entering the competition I think a legal challenge would see it overturned.

As far as barring or fining Directors or Club officials this can already be done under competition rules. Whether the fines are enforceable is a matter for the courts however Clubs fine players, the FA fine players under competition rules, so why not Directors?

I do agree that had FFP been in place in 95 we would probably not be the club we are today, however I also believe Whelan was a realist and insisted that the club was run in a businesslike way and has left the club in a much better financial position than many other clubs of our size. It will possibly restrict smaller clubs ambitions, but surely the ambition of all clubs must be to stay in business and continue to play football.
 
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