Drugs in other sports and the media.

awavey

but I didnt think other than a handful of clubs at the top of the Premier league any football club was actually "profitable" anymore in the sense their income actually meets their out goings on paper.

they are all financial basket cases because theyve been dragged into this crazy world where you agree to pay someone 60k a week for x many years on the basis you hope never to have to complete the pay out because actually you dont have the money to do it.

ffp was supposed to force clubs to stop doing that and stop going on crazy spending sprees with money they didnt have.

Im sure there was a lower league chairman who was highlighting he's expected every season to find 10million pounds just to break even and then his club is competing with other clubs who are doing things like setting up companies selling their assets at vastly inflated amounts to these companies who let them back to these clubs to use them for free or lower than market rate values.

it will take a premier league club to go bankrupt before its taken seriously but theyll have set up some Euro super league by then

rick_chasey

Isn’t the real surprise that the ban has been slapped on? I don’t think anyone thought City were actually adhering to FFP?

RichN95.

awavey said:

but I didnt think other than a handful of clubs at the top of the Premier league any football club was actually "profitable" anymore in the sense their income actually meets their out goings on paper.

But the growth in the value of the company is a lot greater that the losses. Most major companies don't make a profit in their early days. Amazon for example didn't make a profit for 14 years. But it's value kept growing so people kept investing. FFP would have prevented the investment that allowed for that growth.


I don't dispute that Man City broke the rules, I just think the intention of the rules is not to prevent what Man City did, unless the intention is actually to maintain the status quo for the established clubs.

TheBigBean

Money spent on infrastructure, training and youth players is not included.

RichN95.

TheBigBean said:

Money spent on infrastructure, training and youth players is not included.

They don't win matches though. The exemptions just make the rule make less sense. So Arsenal & Spurs can spend huge amounts on a new stadium, but those who already have a good enough stadium can't spend it on improvements elsewhere?

RichN95.

Anyway. Back to cycling. TUEs are still being abused with nine being issued by the UCI in 2019

TheBigBean

RichN95. said:

TheBigBean said:

Money spent on infrastructure, training and youth players is not included.

They don't win matches though. The exemptions just make the rule make less sense. So Arsenal & Spurs can spend huge amounts on a new stadium, but those who already have a good enough stadium can't spend it on improvements elsewhere?

Capex and opex are different things. It's hard to argue spending lots on players is capex.

Mad_Malx

9 being abused or 9 issued?
Or do you think there is no case for TUE? Don’t all of Novo Nordisk need them?

RichN95.

Mad_Malx said:

9 being abused or 9 issued?
Or do you think there is no case for TUE? Don’t all of Novo Nordisk need them?

Issued. The 'abused' bit was a joke as some think TUEs are huge problem..

Novo will probably have long term TUEs lasting for several years. New riders will have their existing TUEs converted to UCI ones. So they probably don't show up in the data.

Mad_Malx

Ah right, didn’t spot the sarcasm (I should have thought about who posted).

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95. said:

TheBigBean said:

Money spent on infrastructure, training and youth players is not included.

They don't win matches though. The exemptions just make the rule make less sense. So Arsenal & Spurs can spend huge amounts on a new stadium, but those who already have a good enough stadium can't spend it on improvements elsewhere?

Hold on, Arsenal built their new stadium with their own money, not some billionaire gift. They didn't get it as a freebie from the local council / Olympic committee either.

blazing_saddles

No_Ta_Doctor said:

RichN95. said:

TheBigBean said:

Money spent on infrastructure, training and youth players is not included.

They don't win matches though. The exemptions just make the rule make less sense. So Arsenal & Spurs can spend huge amounts on a new stadium, but those who already have a good enough stadium can't spend it on improvements elsewhere?

Hold on, Arsenal built their new stadium with their own money, not some billionaire gift. They didn't get it as a freebie from the local council / Olympic committee either.

Yup.

If any sport should have a level playing field it surely must be football.

RichN95.

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Hold on, Arsenal built their new stadium with their own money, not some billionaire gift. They didn't get it as a freebie from the local council / Olympic committee either.

An owner investing in his club isn't a gift.

But that's not my point. It's still money. I don't see why some expenditure should be excused if the aim of the rule is to make clubs financially more stable.

No_Ta_Doctor

RichN95. said:

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Hold on, Arsenal built their new stadium with their own money, not some billionaire gift. They didn't get it as a freebie from the local council / Olympic committee either.

An owner investing in his club isn't a gift.

But that's not my point. It's still money. I don't see why some expenditure should be excused if the aim of the rule is to make clubs financially more stable.

Well, because investing in improving infrastructure doesn't significantly increase operating costs. Owner buys you a new training ground, you've got a new training ground. Owner buys you a load of expensive players, you've got a wage bill that isn't sustainable unless your owner carries on chucking the cash in.

RichN95.

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Well, because investing in improving infrastructure doesn't significantly increase operating costs. Owner buys you a new training ground, you've got a new training ground. Owner buys you a load of expensive players, you've got a wage bill that isn't sustainable unless your owner carries on chucking the cash in.

But ultimately they probably will become sustainable once they have established themselves fully and won the Champions League. Just like Chelsea did. The owner has the money to pay, the club isn't in hock to the bank, there's no financial peril. Any losses are offset by the growth of the value of the team. The owner honouring his wages is more likely than many teams that have borrowed on the expectation of CL qualification. The FFS rule, introduced by a man later banned from football for corruption, was to protect that expectation.

It's the same with salary caps, especially in the US. It's just a cartel of rich people protecting their bottom line.

No_Ta_Doctor

I truly doubt Platini had much at all to do with the FFP regulations, just some grandstanding on his part. Chelsea had a £500million "loan" with no expectation of repaying - which *should* have been covered by FFP.

I've said before that I have sympathy with the "pulling up the drawbridge" argument, but the knock-on effects throughout football needed addressing. That there are other things that need addressing (share of income from CL to lower clubs, share of income from Premier league to other divisions) doesn't mean that's not the case.

Whether or not City eventually become sustainable is entirely at the whim of the billionaire owners. They could pull out tomorrow for whatever their reasons and the club would be dead in a fortnight. That's not sustainable, and it's not right.

As an aside, you know I'm an Arsenal fan, and I've consistently argued against my club adopting the rich benefactor model. I didn't want my club financed by Usmanov, as I didn't want it to be a billionaire's full-sized Subbuteo team. I'd rather they f****ed off and bought a bigger yacht than the other billionaires if they want to get into a willy waving contest. I despise billionaire football as practised by Chelsea, City, PSG and others.

bobmcstuff

According to the FT:

"The club is now considering an explosive legal strategy in which it will not only argue that it did not breach the regulations but that these rules should not exist at all."

https://www.ft.com/content/c8e25054-519a-11ea-8841-482eed0038b1

larkim

RichN95. said:

Mad_Malx said:

9 being abused or 9 issued?
Or do you think there is no case for TUE? Don’t all of Novo Nordisk need them?

Issued. The 'abused' bit was a joke as some think TUEs are huge problem..

Novo will probably have long term TUEs lasting for several years. New riders will have their existing TUEs converted to UCI ones. So they probably don't show up in the data.

I've been banging this drum for years. The *actual* volume of TUEs is very low, yet the usual suspects in the press / blogs will have their readers believe that TUEs are so widely issued and in force that they are ten a penny. The reality is that they are low, and they have always been low (though perhaps they are even lower now due to adverse publicity).

That's not to say that *some* TUEs may have been questionable. But, for example, ask anyone whether Mo Farah has had an TUEs and they'll say he's on them for asthma, thyroid meds, you name it. In reality when Fancy Bears leaked their stuff he'd had one in 2008 (triamconolione, before he moved to NOP and long before he was a world beater) and then 3 in 2014 because he was hospitalised with a tooth infection (IV saline, morphine and vicodin).

If you were operating a doping programme, you'd be delighted at all the attention that TUEs get, because it provides a distraction for journalists who are simply asking the wrong questions. Beyond rapid emergency TUEs (e.g. morphine administration following a serious accident etc), TUEs and their administration is quite strict and challenging - and they are mostly very shortlived.

Yet your average man on the Clapham omnibus will read that TUEs are prevalent and are at the root of lots of doping.

rick_chasey

Think it's fair to say, journalists asking questions hasn't really had much of an effect on doping apart from acting as a nice reminder to athletes that the public don't like dopers.

All the genuine advances that have been made in the fight have been a combination of better testing (think all the CERA busts!) and police work.

kingstongraham

rick_chasey said:

Think it's fair to say, journalists asking questions hasn't really had much of an effect on doping apart from acting as a nice reminder to athletes that the public don't like dopers.

All the genuine advances that have been made in the fight have been a combination of better testing (think all the CERA busts!) and police work.

And that guy trying to ride the Haute Route and accidentally ending up banning Russia from sport.

rick_chasey

I thought the issue there was more the Russian police were *helping* athletes dope.

m.r.m.

bobmcstuff said:

According to the FT:

"The club is now considering an explosive legal strategy in which it will not only argue that it did not breach the regulations but that these rules should not exist at all."

https://www.ft.com/content/c8e25054-519a-11ea-8841-482eed0038b1

I see it the same way regarding my speeding tickets.

gsk82

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

rick_chasey

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

david37

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

And there's no use asking the doctor because he forgot to keep records..........

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

rick_chasey

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

Then why spend all that money on another panorama doc?

larkim

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

Yep, somewhere between those two truths. Though who we consider to be a "sensible" journo or not is a moot point. Clearly the BBC think Roan is a sensible journo, otherwise they wouldn't employ him. It'd be a brave journalist to say to their editor "Look, you know those £'000s you've allowed me to spend chasing this story which I said was dynamite and rock solid - well, it turns out there's nothing there."

david37

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

well they found that uk athletics and Farah were trying to hide what they were doing. They found another sports doctor forgot on just one occasion to keep records. that is not the behaviour of professionals with nothing to hide, any more than British Cycling and Freeman had nothing to hide.

RichN95.

rick_chasey said:

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

Then why spend all that money on another panorama doc?

Because the last one got good ratings?