Football is financially broken – but these five new regulations can fix it
Thom Gibbs
In retrospect Financial Fair Play was doomed by its name, which promised a future it could never deliver. Little wonder that fans have become jaded with the idea, both through the lack of meaningful change and how tedious it is to consider things like amortisation and rolling three-year calculations when we would all rather be laughing at rubbish throw-ins.
The rebadging to Profit and Sustainability Ruleshas done little to help, especially because PSR sounds like a form you fill out waiving your legal rights before appearing on a reality show. Yet there is some sympathy for Nottingham Forest’s position this week, seemingly disciplined for being ambitious. Albeit this punishment was less harsh than Everton because Forest were cooperative in the investigation, as if they had been done for shoplifting not signing too many goalkeepers.
In the grand scheme of football’s surreal economics, points deductions feel a messy way to rule. After all, what is a £34.5 million overspend between friends? So there is a widespread feeling that something should change, but what do we actually want from the financial rules governing football?
Ideally, obviously, the sport should be prioritised over the owner’s profit. Instinctively it feels like written-off investment should be allowed within reason, so long it does not endanger the future of a clubs. More Jack Walkers, fewer Dai Yongges. Certainly greater fluidity between leagues would be preferable. Change, especially at the top, is healthy. Stasis is not. Maybe, Utopionally, success in the sport could somehow be less tied to spending? That horse may have bolted but that does not make it too late to redress the balance.
Part of the current problem is far too many rules, so here are five simple new principles that might actually make football better for fans and prevent the prospect of relegation being decided by lawyers. Let us stroll together to the sunlit uplands of competitive balance, healthy investment, and a novelty team winning the League Cup now and again.
Make dynasties harder
Win the league three times in a row? No new players for you in the following season. It is in no one’s interest for the most prestigious trophy in the country to feel like a foregone conclusion. Four in a row? Sorry, your manager’s fixed-term has now elapsed and they cannot return for a decade. Five? Immediate relegation.
Help promoted clubs
The gap between Championship and Premier League has never felt starker than this season, so impose spending limits on a sliding scale. Last year’s top flight winners have the strictest controls over investment, the team in 17th the loosest and promoted clubs can spend whatever they like. But there should be league-wide hard limits on the number of signings you can make in one season. Eleven players is a whole team and any more is obscene. Here is where your sympathy for Forest may expire.
Opacity tax
There is no excuse for undisclosed transfer fees and wages. Clubs can still choose this method if they like, but a 20 per cent levy is added to any secretive fees and salaries then redistributed to other clubs. If the British public is entitled to know what Zoe Ball earnsfor presenting the Radio 2 breakfast show (£980,000 a year) then the footballing community should know exactly how much Antony earns for sitting on the bench at Manchester United.
One club, one owner, no funny business
Manchester City recruiting from Girona, a club that just happens to share the same holding company. Watford and Udinese swapping players as if basically the same entity. Brighton and so-called “Hove” combining then using their world-beating data to make James Milner good again, aged, 47. None of this feels fair does it? Outlaw multi-club networks in all their forms.
Cannot pay wages?
Unacceptable, you’re gone. The club is seized by the government like a failing rail operator until someone fit and proper emerges who wishes to run the club sensibly. Should prevent situations like Reading’s, yet while under government control spending decisions must in no circumstances be taken by members of the cabinet. They simply cannot be trusted.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/03/21/fans-financial-rules-want-see-independent-regulator/
Football is financially broken – but these five new regulations can fix it
Thom Gibbs
In retrospect Financial Fair Play was doomed by its name, which promised a future it could never deliver. Little wonder that fans have become jaded with the idea, both through the lack of meaningful change and how tedious it is to consider things like amortisation and rolling three-year calculations when we would all rather be laughing at rubbish throw-ins.
The rebadging to Profit and Sustainability Ruleshas done little to help, especially because PSR sounds like a form you fill out waiving your legal rights before appearing on a reality show. Yet there is some sympathy for Nottingham Forest’s position this week, seemingly disciplined for being ambitious. Albeit this punishment was less harsh than Everton because Forest were cooperative in the investigation, as if they had been done for shoplifting not signing too many goalkeepers.
In the grand scheme of football’s surreal economics, points deductions feel a messy way to rule. After all, what is a £34.5 million overspend between friends? So there is a widespread feeling that something should change, but what do we actually want from the financial rules governing football?
Ideally, obviously, the sport should be prioritised over the owner’s profit. Instinctively it feels like written-off investment should be allowed within reason, so long it does not endanger the future of a clubs. More Jack Walkers, fewer Dai Yongges. Certainly greater fluidity between leagues would be preferable. Change, especially at the top, is healthy. Stasis is not. Maybe, Utopionally, success in the sport could somehow be less tied to spending? That horse may have bolted but that does not make it too late to redress the balance.
Part of the current problem is far too many rules, so here are five simple new principles that might actually make football better for fans and prevent the prospect of relegation being decided by lawyers. Let us stroll together to the sunlit uplands of competitive balance, healthy investment, and a novelty team winning the League Cup now and again.
Make dynasties harder
Win the league three times in a row? No new players for you in the following season. It is in no one’s interest for the most prestigious trophy in the country to feel like a foregone conclusion. Four in a row? Sorry, your manager’s fixed-term has now elapsed and they cannot return for a decade. Five? Immediate relegation.
Help promoted clubs
The gap between Championship and Premier League has never felt starker than this season, so impose spending limits on a sliding scale. Last year’s top flight winners have the strictest controls over investment, the team in 17th the loosest and promoted clubs can spend whatever they like. But there should be league-wide hard limits on the number of signings you can make in one season. Eleven players is a whole team and any more is obscene. Here is where your sympathy for Forest may expire.
Opacity tax
There is no excuse for undisclosed transfer fees and wages. Clubs can still choose this method if they like, but a 20 per cent levy is added to any secretive fees and salaries then redistributed to other clubs. If the British public is entitled to know what Zoe Ball earnsfor presenting the Radio 2 breakfast show (£980,000 a year) then the footballing community should know exactly how much Antony earns for sitting on the bench at Manchester United.
One club, one owner, no funny business
Manchester City recruiting from Girona, a club that just happens to share the same holding company. Watford and Udinese swapping players as if basically the same entity. Brighton and so-called “Hove” combining then using their world-beating data to make James Milner good again, aged, 47. None of this feels fair does it? Outlaw multi-club networks in all their forms.
Cannot pay wages?
Unacceptable, you’re gone. The club is seized by the government like a failing rail operator until someone fit and proper emerges who wishes to run the club sensibly. Should prevent situations like Reading’s, yet while under government control spending decisions must in no circumstances be taken by members of the cabinet. They simply cannot be trusted.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/03/21/fans-financial-rules-want-see-independent-regulator/
