Why is Man City’s FFP case taking so long to solve?

Ayo Akinwolere is joined by The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Adam Crafton & Matt Slater to discuss the recent action that the Premier League has taken against both Everton and Nottingham Forest. The Toffees were dealt a vicious 10 point deduction earlier this season and fears of a repeat are now beginning to linger at Goodison.

Nottingham Forest have also been charged after their enormous transfer overhaul in recent seasons. Manager Nuno Espírito Santo only came into the club only a month ago, so keeping them in the Premier League would undoubtedly be the toughest challenge of his career should Forest receive a large points deduction.

The four also talk about Manchester City’s FFP allegations and the probable implications of the whole debacle.

Everton and the Profitability and Sustainability rules 00:00 – 03:52
Notts Forest and the Profitability and Sustainability rules 03:52 – 08:48
Everton and Forest’s lack of strategy 08:48 – 13:12
Everton’s frustrations 13:12 – 17:12
Man City comparison 17:12 – 24:42
FFP house keeping points 24:42 – 27:20
Rest of the Premier League 27:20 – 29:03
Chelsea’s spending 29:03 – 33:03
What is FFP for? 33:03 – 38:36
Club owners 38:36 – 40:16
Final Comments 40:16 – 42:11

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#everton #mancity #premierleague

All right so we’ve got a heavyweight lineup for today’s podcast we’ve got the Avengers together I’m joined by the Athletics David orstein who broke the story over the weekend and also Matt Slater and Adam Crafton as well David let let’s get into Everton because look they’re charged again didn’t they just

Recover from a 10-point deduction which actually left them at the brink of relegation a couple of months ago yeah let’s lay out the situation as succinctly as possible the premier league has a financial fair play model it’s now called profitability and sustainability rules the essence is that

You live within your means you spend what you earn and they uh allow losses within that of a maximum of 105 million pounds across a three-year period Everton were found in the last calculation to have exceeded that 105 million limit by1 19.5 million they were subsequently handed a 10-point deduction by an independent

Commission they have appealed against that penalty and that appeal is going to be heard pretty soon and they will hope for a positive outcome in the meantime we have moved on to the next three-year accounting period and Everton have again been found in breach we don’t know the

Details for certain but it’s very likely to be exactly the same charge the 19.5 million pound overspend because that is still within the three-year rolling cycle uh they are expected to protest their innocence and launch a staunch defense um and put forward mitigations such as you have already punished us

Once you should shouldn’t be punishing us again and it’s plausible that the outcome of the appeal against the first punishment could have an impact on the second charge what’s going to happen now is that Everton have a couple of weeks to respond another independent commission

Will be set up they will hear the case once they know the outcome of the first appeal by the way and then the Premier League hopes that this will be wrapped up by the end of the year there is a back stop just after the end of the Premier League season so it’s

Conceivable that this could go on past the final day of the Premier League season the Premier League will hope not but they want to make sure it is completely finished by the time the Premier League holds its summer AGM because at that they allocate all 20 places for for the next season’s Premier

League it’s an expedited process now that has resulted from clubs being unhappy that Everton’s first case took so long so they had to all submit their accounts by the 31st of December and they were given 14 days to learn their fate that fell on Sunday just gone we revealed on the

Athletic that both Everton and Nottingham Forest were expecting to be charged on Monday the charges were confirmed and the process now goes forward the rules are going to be changing again in the summer which adds further complexity to the situation and we’ll get in to discuss that in this pod

You summed it up quite well there um Matt in terms of forest um are we surprised that they’ve been dragged into this mess I mean what 40 odd signings um all at once coming up into the Premier League no we’re not surprised at all are

We I mean I think it was 42 I can’t remember the actual total price tag but look you know when you’re going to spend that much money um on players and of course wages um you’re you’re going to be you’re going to be you know certainly in

The in the conversation around around an ffp breach and and I think the thing to for fans to remember is is just how we account for transfers so you know you if you spend 100 million pounds on a player it doesn’t immediately show up in next season’s profit and loss account is 100

Million pounds it is advertized it is stretched over the course of the player’s contract so just really simply I’ll do it simply because my is early and my brains not working quickly 100 million pound player fouryear contract that’s that’s that’s 225 million p a year as your amotization charge so if

You think about how complicated these um these sums are these these submissions are you have spend there’s a lag it’s sort of stretched over a period of time so a big bout of spending and if we go back to the Everton example there was a huge sort of splurge by by masheri initially

That spending is stretched over a period of time of course you are selling players as well confusingly the sale of a player happens immediately in your accounts um so there are sort of various things going on at once so people often sort of get very focused on oh net spend

My net spend this year you know what why why am I in trouble well it it’ll be because you know your amotization costs there’s a lag there um and and and then you know equally the Brennan Johnson example I think does raise some really interesting questions

About is this the best way and I think as David has alluded to we’re going to change we’re going to the Premier League is likely to to mirror uh the move you has already made where we go to a sort of slightly different um well it is actually quite radically different um

Approach to this it’s this squad cross rule where you know again it’s tied to revenue so it’s a percentage of Revenue but it is a think a bit bit of a more subtle tool we can maybe talk about that later but with with this with this timing issue this Brandon Johnson issue

I think the forest do have a reasonable point to make but again I want to stress and I’ve heard it again on the radio this morning as I was making my breakfast this this idea that these are alleged charges right or that that no that’s not quite

How this system works it really isn’t adding up exercise forest and Everton have accepted their their breaches they’ve accepted right they they’ve handed their submission in and go yeah we’re over there is no allegation what we have now is a conversation around mitigation right sorry your honor yeah you know

We’re over your limit of course we are here’s our numbers everyone could see it however this is why we’re over and if we go back to the last Everton case uh you know it was a lot a much more of a contested conversation again around that Stadium uh interest point which again I

David gave a very Everton friendly account I can assure you that is not how the commission saw it last time and it’s also not how a lot of Everton’s rival clubs see it you I don’t you know we could be doing this for half an hour we

Did actually do a whole podcast on it Everton made choices about how they tackled the issue of funding a stadium the Premier League does not punish clubs for building stadiums you capitalized Stadium costs Everton did it in a slightly unusual way some of it bad luck to do

With they thought they were going to get this you know this wonderful naming right steel from far’s business business partner Alicia usmanov some of it was because their accounts were such a mess they were they were so like poorly run that they couldn’t borrow from the

Market early um so you know there is with the Everton story so so much of it does it’s it is a combination of bad luck it is there are bits of their story which which you know are unfortunate but a lot of it self- Afflicted as well the

Rules were pretty clearly laid out they’re in the handbook fans can download the handbook if they want want to um you know this is this we’ve gone for a system where we are trying to tie spending on the pitch with how much money you’re bringing through the door

So that that as a concept is not that hard to address and it it’s a challenge for all clubs to stay on top of it yeah I’m just thinking about what they might both have in common really and I think we were speaking about this just before

We started recording the Pod and I think Ole K writes about it this morning in that they’re fundament being punished for for a lack of strategy or you know that perhaps their machine isn’t as sophisticated as the other ones uh Chelsea Manchester City Adam yeah I mean

Everton it depends how far you want to go back really with Everton you know Everton were for many years you know if you go back to the time where David Moyes was there they were the club that would kind of be the the Premier League’s dream club right they were

Being run pretty sustainably they’d set they’d buy players cheap they’d sell reasonably well um and then obviously you have the farad macheri Reign which has been completely shambolic and you know I suppose this is this is where you get to the whole question about the fit and the

Proper owner what what what what safeguards do you have from somebody who appears to have the money to buy a club but then comes in and has you know a pretty awful strategy which involves spending a load of money and and running a club pretty unsustainably now you know

At the moment there seems to be a bit of talk around and we’re pulling all different strings here because there’s so many different ways you can weave at this conversation but what you’re starting to see is almost this backlash now completely against ffp as though it’s all kind of one big conspiracy to

Forever and ever and ever lock in the same clubs now we can have a conversation about that but if we’re going to have that conversation we also have to remember why Financial fair play has been necessary and that is because football clubs couldn’t really be trusted to run themselves sustainably clubs were were

At risk of going out of business even with these rules in place Everton are in an incredibly fragile situation I mean let’s see what happens with the Takeover that’s about to happen um or if it happens at all at the moment what they’re going through so these clubs do

Need protecting from themselves at certain times and the best way to do that is probably the bit that’s contested where where I have sympathy for Everton is in you know W kind of being done twice some of which is on the same thing but where I have very little

Sympathy is you know the calculations appear to be been based on money they were going to be getting from a commercial deal with a guy in in nman of that they’ spent years telling us they didn’t really have ties to right then all of a sudden you have these accounts

Come out and you have these punishments and we have inevit statement you know due to the war in Ukraine unforeseen circumstances well unforeseen to a certain extent but people who were paying attention to what was going on in Russia and Ukraine for the last few years this wasn’t completely

Unforeseeable that there could be a point down the line where access to some money becomes a bit more difficult so if you’re basing your projections and how you hope to bring in Revenue commercial revenue on that basis then it puts you at risk and that’s what that’s how it’s

Kind of turned out um for Everton I I I I understand the frustration of the supporters but I mean the rules are there for a reason they’ve accepted that they’ve broken them it’s really a case now of almost like damaged damaged limitation you know how much can

You get these points deductions down can you get a fine instead of a points deduction perhaps but is a fine is sufficient enough disincentive for other clubs you know to not push at the boundaries what you what you’re seeing at the moment is you’ll have clubs like Everton and

Forest now kind of saying these rules aren’t fit for purpose perhaps or the rules need to be changed I don’t expect these rules to be really significantly changed in terms of getting a majority in the league and probably the big reason for that is everyone KN knows

That Newcastle are there right so if you relax these rules too much then Newcastle will have this huge huge access to money and I think a lot of the people that make the rules I.E the Premier League clubs um will be very wary of that the difficulty here is and

It’s one of Everton’s uh biggest frustrations is that there is no clear um Matrix or U method for how the points deduction that they were handed uh in Autumn was calculated um and without that formula there’s always going to be a lack of trust from the club the fans

And maybe the wider public so the efl does have a formula and as it panned out the Premier League’s punishment for Everton was not too far off the efl’s um Matrix however the independent commission did state that they rejected the Premier League’s request to impose this uh Matrix and they had all options

Available to them points deductions fines and other sporting sanctions it was their discretion and so it’s really impossible to predict how this will go the way in which Everton have responded to this um suggests they’re far more AG grieved and going to fight much harder potentially than Nottingham Forest whose

Statement was short I don’t think they wanted to antagonize the Premier League further um there’s a clear breach their discrepancy seems to be more about the date of when um the accounts need to be filed by uh and I’m not sure how successful they’re going to

Be on that so perhaps they’re looking to sort of reduce any punishment um but yeah that there is the chance that this uh does cost them their Premier League status uh of course and and that will be pretty terrifying to Everton with the the new stadium then a year from opening

If it’s if it’s to go by the schedule I just wanted to to raise a couple of points um and and the guys were were spot on when speaking about Everton one of the reactions that I I’ve seen the most on on social media and and by the

Way the majority of Everton fans that I’ve seen or spoken to um uh seem to get this that they’re very critical of the uh expenditure in the early years under farad mascheri and even many of them seem to see that you know they were trying to pay for a stadium uh as Mt

Explains in in ways that were not necessarily how they should have been or they didn’t have the money available because of what’s gone before um and then you see lots of fans saying but we haven’t spent in the last couple of years we we we’ve done nothing on

Transfers if this was on Squad expenditure in the last couple of years Everton would be absolutely fine the football side of things um they have got their house in order they the the the the transfer spending was low we’ve talked about this on previous podcast they’ve structured many of the payments

For for further down the line um they’re they’re they’re in really good shape on that front and by the way by the way this will all come down to the commission rather than the Premier League it’s not the Premier League that hand the points deduction to Everton it’s this independent commission um you

May say that the the the the the the punishment is Draconian and Everton you know are saying that sort of on on mass but it it’s almost like until we see how this plays out in in the coming times with with many clubs um seemingly uh in an uncomfortable position we don’t know

For sure that Everton are being treated unfairly or whether they’re kind of unfortunately for them the start of a bit of a wave of of punishments that may come the way of multiple clubs okay well let’s talk about Manchester City and be people listening to this pod going tell us about City

Matt uh you know David alluded to it earlier um let’s just reiterate why is it different to the Everton case blim me uh how how many different ways can I tell you 115 different ways it’s different um look when we talk about notingham forest and everon like I said we we

Really are talking about a sort of adding up exercise um yeah there’s some complicated bits around when you capitalize a stadium project that means when you take it out of your profit and loss your annual profit and loss and you put it on the balance sheet therefore it

Doesn’t become an ffp issue uh there can be an argument about well we couldn’t sell the player then because it would have been been stupid it would have been like you know counter intuitive to sell it then we sold him two months later or the season had started by the way um so

You know uh yeah there are there are some complicated bits around the edges but it is fundamentally quite straightforward Manchester City’s case and I have said this on so many different podcasts and I’ve written it so many times and I still see it it’s you know people just don’t can’t get

Their heads around it and I and I I sort of see why they can’t but it does appear to be this sort of simple story of one rule for them you know another rule for every body else the Manchester City case is completely different it is the allegations are around lying lying

Cheating uh a conspiracy to lie and cheat um really cynical um wellth thought out um project to deceive UEFA the Premier League fans all of us they’ve been through a couple of processes already they lied to those process do you see the point I’ve said lie about three or four times when you

Accuse someone of lying and cheating that’s a big allegation you need big proof right and it’s not then we have to think about okay well who are we accusing of lying and cheating we’re accusing the owners we’re accusing well the owners presumably lying to the Auditors because all these accounts were audited we’re

Accusing this is all about Manchester City’s U inflated sponsorship deals so the sponsors were in on it uh and then we start to think well hold on who who owns Manchester City well okay then we have a little debate about whether it is UAE or whether it is just the Deputy

Prime Minister of UAE but anyway Shake manur uh powerful member of the UA Abu daab royal family um you’re saying you lied you were in on it this is massive this is massive for the Premier League it’s pretty big for the UK this is not a simple

Case I’m I still sometimes you know I sort of think I’m quite surprised the Premier League have even done this they have they put the charges in they spent a fortune on this they’ve been doing fighting this for years and there there’s a ways to go yet that that is

Why the the two examples if you know you know your straightforward PSR cases your ffp cases and what Manchester City are charged with totally different it will take as long as it takes yeah well this is this is what I was also thinking in terms of um corporate corporations in general and uh

Trying to get off the hook or I don’t know try trying to shift things a bit further on down the line I don’t is it just the case that City have got incredibly good lawyers you know um and it it’s almost as if they they know their Realms within their position in

The law at this moment in time and because they have got great lawyers it sort of extends this case a bit further and further on well they’ve all got good lawyers um you know you’d think and they’ve all got access to quite a lot of money so

It’s certainly true you know City have been aggressive legally and you know they’ve taken every possible Step at certain times to make sure this isn’t necessarily the fastest process however they’re absolutely entitled to do that they’re being accused of really really serious things um and you know many

People in the same situation would do the same um the issue the the issue the Premier League have is that for most people they aren’t going to be following this in the depth that we are or Matt or certainly that that Matt has been for the last

Decade and as a result of that what the headline that you see the headline that you you kind of feel is there’s a load of clubs being accused of financial issues and some clubs that are seeing the consequences of that much faster than the club that’s getting the medals

At the end of most seasons and that is that is an Optics issue it’s a Communications issue I’m not really sure how the Premier League gets around that other than basically just relying on people like us to continually explain it because they don’t really come out and

Explain it themselves um and they could do that right you know they basically seem to take the approach that all of this stuff is so important so confidential that it can’t even be discussed publicly whatsoever and actually it could right Premier League’s chief executive Richard Masters or other

People who work at the Premier League could be coming out and doing high-profile broadcast interviews doesn’t have to be with us go on go on bbc1 if you if you want get that get that cover get the coverage and exposure and explain explain the differences clearly between the cases explain why

This issue with Manchester city is taking as long as it has explain the complexities explain the delays and then I think at least you then put yourself in a position where um people who have a kind of a more passing interest in some of this are able to understand it a

Little bit better but the Premier League doesn’t work like that and you wonder where that’s coming from is it coming from kind of the people at Premier League HQ who don’t really have that personality who want to do that who don’t necessarily see themselves as perhaps being strong enough to do that

In terms of their positions or is it actually because the Premier League is essentially a a club right it’s it’s a member-led organization do the clubs actually want the Premier League HQ coming out and being communicative and being open and transparent you know it’s very easy at the moment where you you

Have these clubs that are disgruntled and feeling disenfranchised where they’re all like oh the Premier League’s all over the place as though the Prem as though they as though they’ve not been in it forever right Everton have been there forever they’ve been around the table sort it out right you know you’re

You’re there at the table change the rules if you don’t like try and change the rules if you don’t like the rules uh speak openly about the issues with the rule don’t just do it when all of a sudden you’re staring at repeated points deductions I’m not saying that you have

To start confronting every crank and conspiracy theory but you do at least need to put yourself in a position where you’re being efficiently transparent and open so that most sensible people can look at this and think yeah get I can understand that right it’s frustrating I

Don’t I don’t like it but I understand why it’s taking as long as it is because they’re really coming out and attempting to explain it it’s worth a couple of ffp PSR housekeeping points that we’ve mentioned and and so have every sort of other media outlet for a long time but

Sometimes it doesn’t seem to uh resonate that F first firstly to Adam’s Point um Premier League rule changes um are made by the Premier League clubs so you need a a majority 14 out of the 20 to to pass rule changes so the current rules that we’re seeing now

Um and the potential changes that will come to this system in the summer um are put in place voted for by the Premier League clubs that Everton and Forest are around the table at the moment and they have their input and um so do others who

Are unhappy happy one way or the other um and so I don’t know if it as aam says it’s perhaps more of a communication thing that somebody should should come out and and explain on record um why the Manchester City situation is take taking longer so that people hear it from the

Premier League chief executive or another executive’s mouths or they release a statement just to be explicitly clear because in in response to every single story or report that we’re doing at the moment underneath your uh articles on the athletic in response to these podcasts underneath your social media posts

99% are saying what about City so crucial to mention that City also on top of what Matt has explained they deny their charges so there was ad mission of um breach to an extent by Everton and Nottingham Forest to get to this point Everton did comply with the process they

They did agree to Expedition although it wasn’t dealt with at the end of last season because they didn’t feel it was ready and the commission backed them on that um but they agreed to get it heard as soon as possible Manchester City haven’t because they don’t believe they

Have any wrongdoing yes they will probably throw um a lot of legal support at it so have Everton I’m sure Nottingham Forest will with Nick Demarco as well so Manchester City aren’t alone in that but they deny the charges there’s a vly deny the charges and are going to

Robustly defend themselves yes um so there are real differences here and the Premier League clubs do have control over how we got here and the future and and we can’t get away from that yeah I’m just thinking about what you were talking about in terms of the Premier

League being a bit of a a mess right at the top here um do we do we get a sense that any execs at the clubs that you all speak to think the rules are actually working well I mean by by definition the fact that they’re they’re changing them doesn’t

That doesn’t that suggest something pretty clear that we we are the clubs themselves are are not convinced and Dave is right you know the the the change this season to try and get the Justice quicker you know this very simple principle of Justice delayed is Justice denied you know that that was a

Fudge that was an amendment and that was really really the Everton first case is the sort of example there to look at because that did spill over into The Following season and of course that upset relegated clubs you know if ever soon if that punishment was applied at

The right time the table would have been very different so but David’s point is is is just absolutely fundamental to this people really need to understand this the premier league has 20 shareholders they are the clubs that’s what you get when you get promoted right you get a share of the league that’s

What those shareholder meetings are all about that’s where the votes are remember that 2/3 14 out of the 20 to change things and and and Adam’s right Everton have been there forever you know they were one of the founding members they they pushed for this yeah they were big

Five back then all right so remember that uh a quick interjection that um loads of people have been actually while listening uh to the guys and and recording this looking through some of the commentary and not as um as fullon as the man city reaction has been a lot

Of people saying what on Earth is going on with Chelsea uh because their spend has been astronomical unprecedented since the uh tooi Clear Lake Capital uh ownership came on board um and again it’s more a bit of housekeeping just to explain how they are compliant this time

Round um they will have to be very careful going forward because um the costs will continue and so they will need to continue to balance the books and it will be interesting to see how they do that now the premier league has capped amortization spreading of costs

Uh of transfer fees from there being No Cap to just five years um and we will all be watching closely if they sell somebody like Connor gallaga in the January transfer window because homegrown players represent pure profit um and whether you like it or not they they’ve actually done quite well

Financially to uh fall within the limits um another really interesting point that Matt touched upon about the rules changing um so clearly they realize maybe outdated it’s been in place for a long time hasn’t taken into effect a number of factors such as interest rate changes blah blah blah I think it’s more

To fall in line with UEFA who have already implemented changes for clubs competing in European competitions um and you are allowed to lose a little bit more but you’ve got to um uh you’re going to have caps on what you can spend on your squads in terms of salaries

Transfer fees and agents fees um most prominently and you wait for a starting it at like uh you can only spend 90% of your revenue on those factors then it’s going to come down to 80% then 70% uh the Premier League’s probably going to go at about

85% uh some of the clubs right now if you were to calculate it like an Arsenal and a Chelsea uh they might full foul of of of that percentage uh they’ve got some time to bring their house in order and that explains why some of these

Clubs are being so diligent and and so that’s one thing we we need to be conscious of going forward and then I was just going to um throw a point over to the guys on all of this reputationally for the Premier League we can explain it as much as we like uh but

Fundamentally the um perception out there uh among vast SES of the public is that all we’re talking about now is ffp PSR clubs can’t spend in the January window they’re worried about their financial situations they’re worried about points deductions um the impact this is going to have on the Premier

League as a global spectacle as a product to sell as a commercial asset um the benefit for the UK and the economy Etc am I going a bit over the top or are we reaching a point where it’s getting out of control yeah look it’s certainly

Part of the conversation isn’t it I it’s part of the conversation I have zero time for uh because the Premier League uh spends so much more than everybody else on transfer fees on wages has a huge financial advantage and it’s growing all the metrics are going in the

Premier League’s direction that oh my God just just shut up about this please you want to hear what other people in other parts of the world say about this everywhere from Saudi pro league to be honest uh and they’ve got a long way to come all right so I I don’t have much

Time for this uh I understand the conversation uh it is again part of that um wider conversation with government it kind of helps you know please don’t push too much on us because we are very very true uh a global brand and how many of

Those does the UK have right now and it does actually return a lot of money to the exer um you know through tax re seats it is a wonderful story it certainly wasn’t a given in 1992 that the Premier League would be the world’s best domestic Football League not not

Not at all so well done the the good people at the Premier League and the clubs and the media and the players and everyone that has contributed and the fans to creating the success story but the idea that you know a little bit of controversy around PSR and maybe a

Little bit of belt tightening now is going to damage this product I’m sorry there is absolutely zero evidence for that the flip side of this is we have seen you know look at what the golfers were offered right with live golf to go and play there look at what PSG were

Offered in the summer by uh by a Saudi club for Killian mbappe 300 million right that wasn’t that wasn’t that wasn’t a fake story that was what they were offered and as a result of that if you’re basically saying the Premier League completely relax these regulations well everything else that

We’ve seen about Saudi Investment and the speed at which Saudi wants to impact the the world would suggest that they would do very similar things with Newcastle now some people would say fine let them other people will say you would be creating a an uncompetitive environment in a more damaging way than

What is currently in place now is there some some sort of happy medium right is there some sort of happy medium that both protects and safeguards clubs so they can run sustainably but also allows owners to be a little bit more ambitious particularly in those first few years

Right if I think Gary Neville had this idea of you know owners having to put some sort of bond in to a kind of neutral location almost like when you put a deposit down when you rent a flat right you know you’re putting some of some of your own money is locked away

Therefore you’re going to take care of the apartment in the time that you’re there that’s that’s one idea for it um but it’s not easy it’s not an easy thing I think to overcome and that is where this whole thing of the clubs make the rules does become a little bit sort of

Protectionist right it does become you know Manchester United and liverp and Liverpool and Arsenal of course they don’t want Newcastle being able to spend whatever they can because that’s bad news for them but there’s also clubs in the middle of the division that don’t really want that either because it would

You know if the club at the top is spending five times more than what’s currently being spent on transfer fees that’s going to have an inflationary impact on everyone’s spending so that there are Arguments for and against this and of course some of the motivation over the years particularly with some of

The big clubs in Europe has been to stop uh you know those kind of clubs that have state links and be able to spend as much as they want as quick as they want of course right but the idea that it’s you just get rid of these

Rules I think would be even more damaging but I don’t know the guys might might disagree with that you know ad Adam is is right when he talks about there is there are various things going on with ffp you know what what was it for and the sustainability point is

Really really important it goes right back to this is what platini was talking about he was your president at the time when ffp came in and and it’s absolutely right I think David made this point that the changes that are coming in August are again a reaction to changes that

Uefa’s already made UEFA started this process 10 15 years ago so first started thinking about it and at that time um Portsmouth had just gone bust Rangers were going bust there were some high-profile bankes on the continent there was an really alarming stat I can’t quite remember it but it was the

Total Ode to tax authorities across European football tax authorities okay you and I Public Services um and every time there’s an administration of course the tax authorities lose you and I lose schools roads all that stuff normal stuff okay so there are consequences to clubs going bust right there are consequences to

Clubs overspending and this the flip side that Adam was talking about there’s a really there’s a really obvious flip side too the Sugar Daddy White Knight model let them spend let them spend yeah yeah is great while the sugar daddy and white knight is willing to do so willing

Able to do so history tells us and I could be here all day talking about the clubs that have been owned by very very wealthy people who have either died their business has gone bust they’ve lost patience uh they got fed up they just made terrible mistakes and they’ve gone

And they’ve left a club Behind with huge debt running too hot and it’s crashed now that is what you’re safeguarding that’s the protect ction yes absolutely ffp only really kind of took off because the big clubs were like oh not only does it do all that good stuff

All that sort of socially responsible stuff it might actually kind of be the drawbridge we need right because at that time they were worried about Man City and Chelsea and this finishes my point about the new if I go back to your question about Newcastle did it stop Manchester City

And Chelsea no it might it might have slowed them down it might have slowed them down but they got there Newcastle calm down you’ll get there right two three four years of good decisions you know what Matt was just saying about you know the the sugar daddies that

Disappear right the 15 years we all thought there was you know Roman Abramovic might be there forever then all of a sudden something happens in the world sometimes it’s not even about the person who actually is is in there deciding to pull away sometimes he’s put they’re pulled

Away and you know if I was a Newcastle fan given everything we know about the world at the moment you I would also want there to be that layer of protection in case right at the moment things are all right between Britain and Saudi and the US and Saudi

Just about but it’s a it’s a strange world out there at the moment and what you don’t want is you know a club that is the absolute heartbeat of a community to be to have its fate decided by external world events so yeah I mean Matt’s right right when

He says that you know some of these big clubs they get to kind of have their cake and eat it right they get get to look like Good Samaritans God we’re just put we’re wrapping our around our arms around football we’re making sure that all these clubs they’re looked after

Thank you know thank God for us right look look at what we’re doing here look at you know we’re saving you but at the same time obviously they’re helping themselves but actually like it’s not helped most of them that much right man united have had everything that could

Have been pitted their way for the past decade you still need some smart brains at the top of it to pull it off Barcelona look what’s happened there Juventus look what’s happened there I think there are legitimate grumblings about having to sell homegrown players you know it doesn’t feel quite right

That you know one of Chelsea’s best players this season Conor Gallagher is is the potential um cure to all PSR ills and there’s you know similar suggestions at the moment about somebody like Emil Smith row and Eddie and keer at Arsenal we’ve seen previously Anthony Gordon leaving Everton for Newcastle who are

Now being talked about in the same Realms when it comes to somebody like sha longstaff and Elliot Anderson um the list goes on and like why are clubs producing homegrown players which used to be the pride and joy the the the the the guy that got the crowd on its feet

And and gave you such Pride now they’re being used as this porn this um this the solution to to so so so you can you can you can sell uh a player for 50 million in one go brilliant homegrown Talent 50 million pure profit you then bring somebody else in for exactly the

Same amount over the five-year contract and it only cost you 10 million for that year it’s like we’re playing we’re playing football in economics in accountancy offices and and legal Chambers and and something feels a bit um unsatisfactory about that yeah I tell you what let’s let’s wrap it up

There this is definitely been a two-parter so much to talk about on on this subject for sure jent I really appreciate your time literally just sat there listening to you both just pass it about David Matt Adam really appreciate you joining us for the Pod please remember to rate and review this podcast

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