Michel Platini Ends The Big Money Era

By: chris | September 15th, 2009

Michel Platini’s been throwing his weight around since assuming the UEFA high throne and, whether or not you agree with his ideologies, he’s getting stuff done. Now queue his biggest move yet, one which could change the landscape of football starting in 2012-13:

As of that year, clubs may only spend what they make from revenue – television, branding, prize money, etc. – on the football club. This means no more Manchester City’s. No more Chelsea’s. No more sugar daddies. The days of big checkbooks changing the scope of football are over. Football will be a sport of self-sufficiency.

Ironically Roman Abramovich was one of the instigators of this little rule – he’s already spent his millions building Chelsea into a sustainable brand, so what does he care?

“Manchester City can spend £300m if they want to but if they are not breaking even in three years then they cannot play in European competition. I have met with Abramovich, who is a football person and passionate about the game. He said that we must do something about this.

And this officially makes Roman the High Chief of Hypocrisy.

“If a club can get loans from a bank to buy players and is able to pay back bank loans, then it is not a problem. But if a club gets a lot of money or subsidies from a big backer and is still in deficit in two years, then it is a problem and we don’t like that.”

The ‘deficit’ portion is quite important. This effectively means the French-style no debt system and effectively means Manchester United is royally fucked. Anybody think they can clear that debt by 2012-13? Me neither. Ditto for the many other clubs with massive stockpilings of debt. (This does not include Chelsea, whose ‘debts’ are ‘owed’ to the High Chief of Hypocrisy himself.)

The players will likely be none too happy, as this limits the availability for wage funds and thus will likely see a halt in the progression of wages, if not a regression. We may even be looking at structured wage caps which are used by some clubs who already run self-sufficiently. And you can be damn sure it’ll be a long, long time before anyone breaks Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer record.

Of course that this does not apply to domestic competitions matters little: regardless of stature, everyone wants to play in the Champions League and UEFA have used this to their advantage. So even if one spends enough of their hard earned to bring a small team to the domestic promised land, they would not get the sweetness of European nights. A nice little umbrella for all to fall under.

But perhaps what’s most important in all this is that the clubs agreed, which is why it’s been passed. And this means there will be no backtracking, and there will be no weakened knees before caving to the demands of the affected. This is your new football.

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Category: World Football

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Jefferson

Could be a good idea, but the devil's in the details. I talked with a UEFA spokesman yesterday, and debt in this case seems to refer to a team's annual balance sheet. That would mean Real could take 500 million in debt into 2012, but as long as revenues were sufficient to cover interest payments, that would be okay.
RE: Bundesliga. Bayern love this ruling because they have cash in the bank. But the situation is trickier with teams like Wolfsburg, which is basically underwritten by VW, or Hoffenheim, which is bankrolled by a non-owner "patron."
It's going to be difficult to apply the ruling equitably given how different club structures are from nation to nation and league to league. The plan is to make decision on a case-by-case basis -- always trouble when UEFA is involved.
tOmmy wOng

I will play devils advocate and disagree with Inara. If one makes the point that Lyon started their transformation from small club to big club in 2002 when they won Ligue 1, then you also have to think of the money even then. Lyon just made the cut for teams eligible to become small teams through the same type of hard work. Even with all of this hard work Lyon still can't go deep into the Champions league because they don't have the funds that other big European clubs have. As such, it was only a year later in 2003 that Chelsea came under Billionaire ownership. Since that time many other billionaires and sports franchise owners have gone into pouring more money into the sport for their teams, who now all (mostly) sit at the top of their respective leagues, and continue to dominate the cash cow that is the UEFA CL. I'm trying to make three points -

1. The way it stood from 2004/5 to now is that the big clubs could only get even bigger in terms of money, and the sky was literally the limit for most of these some of the owners.

2. For as amazingly as Lyon played their financial cards, and talent scouting, they would never be able to reap the monetary return, and excell into truly "superclub" status the way most English/Spanish/ clubs have. This is MOSTLY do to the fact that they just don't have that same type of Billionaire ownership.

In summurization - even if a club is financially sound ala Genoa/Lyon/Villarreal, they will never go deep into the CL (where all the good money via whatever types of revenue have you) like the already established and money juggernaut clubs play.
Tristán White

Real Madrid has a €500 million debt AT LEAST. If you think UEFA will have the cojones to tell Real Madrid that they can't play in Europe until it's solved, you must be joking.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/foot...

As a result, this little idea from Platini will collapse, because they will never be able to enforce it on the big moneyspinnners like Man Utd and Real Madrid.

To answer someone's query, Villarreal is another team to come from the lower divisions and become a European player, without a sugar daddy but thanks to shrewd investments, getting players on loan instead of buying them, etc.

And they even can afford to make good gestures to people less fortunate: this season, the unemployed get in free at Villarreal, for example.
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/ne...
Javier De Roque

Working debt free within 3 years when your talking hundreds of millions is silly. The only clubs this will benifit are clubs with rich ownership. You are now going to see third parties buy players instead of the clubs and get intot he stupid tevez situations over and over.

This will not change the landscape it will just make third party deals more lucrative. Sure you can have Ronaldo for 20 MIllions. But you only own 10% of him and we can flip him when we feel like for more cash.
Aleksander

Ur so right, Inara
elle

alessio, yea that is what I'm saying. At least not in the modern game.
g

also, hoffenheim has no debt, but they do have a sugar daddy.
He just happens to care about the long-term more than blowing his stolen(abramovich) millions on a team he had no prior attachment to.
tOmmy wOng

Wealthy owners will now look to other leagues/other sports. This could be bad for the popularity of football.

- that being said, I'm glad it's going through.
elle

While this may mean there is never another Man City, it also means there will probaby never be any new challengers to the big clubs. The smaller clubs already don't make money, that's their problem. Now they never will.
g

HAHA
already about to overtake italy for 4 CL spots,
the Bundesliga is going to shoot upwards, somewhat.
Also, if they get a better tv deal.
MAD

If nothing else gets new stadiums in Italy, this will do it.
chris

It's already through, nothing more to be done. Finished. Effective 2012.

And the clubs were the ones that passed it via vote, so it was certainly democratically achieved by the participants.
old apple

I question the legality of this, as well as the wisdom
Oli

Correct, couldn't be happier. It helps smaller league clubs to prosper.
Adam

If he forces this through, every club with a large standing debt face a real chance of going under. For good. I think it would be a disaster.
frank

is platini basically judge and jury for European football or is there any legislative process at all?