Arsene Wenger says that proposed changes to the FFP rules, announced by Michel Platini this week, won’t affect Arsenal as the club is not dependent in money pumped in by owners.
The UEFA chief surprised nobody yesterday when he spoke about how the current restrictions would have to be relaxed because of legal challenges, meaning oligarchs, oil barons, and other obscenely rich states/individuals, can snap up football clubs across Europe and try to make them successful via cash injections.
Speaking to RTL, Platini said, “The world is two-faced but we will say this openly: I think we’ll ease things, but it will be the executive committee who will decide if it is to be eased or something like that, and the outcome will be known by the end of June.”
A UEFA spokesman said the rules would, “encourage more growth, more competition and market stimulation while strengthening the emphasis on controlling spending and safeguarding financial stability”, and some people laughed so much a bit of wee came out.
Asked about the changes today, Wenger said, “I believe the television contract in England has pushed some other clubs in Europe to want this to be a bit more flexible for them so they can compete better with investors investing in their clubs.
““It looks like there’s an international pressure to make these rules more flexible because of potential investors in other countries.”
Although he did suggest it wasn’t entirely the fault of the European game’s governing body.
“Everything can be challenged by the European Court and that makes it much more difficult for UEFA to have rigid rules applied, because it’s always in contradiction with freedom of investment regulated by the European rules.”
And on its possible effect on Arsenal, he said, “It will not affect us at all because we always spend the money we have. It will affect the clubs who have never respected the FFP.”
All of which makes you question why any club would try and go about things the right way, but there you go.
Premier League clubs are still bound by rules agreed in 2013. Details of which can be found here.
Dodgy, I don’t trust FIFA/UEFA etc.
Would be rubbish to get through the stadium restrictions to have City/Chelsea or another drug (ie financial)-boosted club get suddenly a lot better, undeservedly
From this fortnight’s Private Eye Magazine for non-UK readers, an investigative journalism/satirical magazine: ‘Weeks before Chelsea were confirmed as Premier League champions, it was also confirmed that owner Roman Abramovich had passed the billion pound mark in the financial support that has made this success possible. The latest accounts for Fordstam, which owns the club, disclosed that in the year to June 2014, the loan from its owner rose from £984m to £1,041,243,000. The loan is interest-free and requires 18 months notice of repayment. And there is more where that came from. Abramovich has confirmed that “sufficient funds will be… Read more »
I can understand Arsenal’s point of view in this matter. However, putting the shoe on the other foot, in a league with no foreign investment where the dominant teams would forever remain Manchester United, Liverpool and perhaps Arsenal. How would a competition between those three and the rest of the league, constantly being left further and further behind financially, be considered fair and competitive. This was a case for some time with dominance by Liverpool (one score and many years ago), then Manchester United and Arsenal. The only reason that monotony was broken was due to the influx of the… Read more »
I’d agree to some respect – after the emergence of Chelsea and Man City, and the reviving of Arsenal (and kinda Man U), the EPL has become very competitive in the past two seasons, which is a good thing I suppose. However, I doubt that it’s the only solution, and I consider it a far less healthy one – basically by creating an influx of new wealth, the market seeks to take advantage, and always if that’s the case, the inflation hurts smaller clubs. Furthermore, it drives ticket costs (for much needed revenue to buy overblown players), TV sub prices,… Read more »
The key here is to differentiate between investment and what has been going on at Chelsea/City/PSG etc, which has had the effect of distorting the entire climate of professional football. Investment is to improve facilities, academies and infrastructure so as to better on the pitch performances, and of course acquiring new and better players externally to augment your squad is fair enough. But what happened at City and Chelsea was the systematic gutting of the playing squads and the recruitment of an entirely new team of players, which had the effect of warping the market to an absurd degree. If… Read more »
Financial doping wins the day. Man Shitty owners know they can’t grow their “product” responsibly. So now they won’t have to. Human rights abuses in Qatar turned into pouring obscene money to improve public image through sport. So many problems at each level. And they get to do it anyway.
For once I’d like to see UEFA grow a pair and meet the challenges head on, in terms of the punishments, nobody is MAKING UEFA invite the clubs that break the ‘ rules’ to the champions league, the European court doesn’t own them.
by and by, they’ll get totally scraped.
I have that piggy bank
Kos,is that where you put all the strikers you find in your back pocket after a game?
Having watched the press conference and seen Wenger say he especially doesn’t listen to Maureen makes me love him so much!
In fact I may start calling him “Dad” such is my happiness at having such a respected man in charge!
In Dad I trust!
Our Boss is a total Guru. *bows in respect*
Bye bye FFP, we never knew ye all that well. Let’s crack on with those money pipe lines from Russia and Qatar. How nice of Platini to wait until FFP would be too late for the Chavs, to let Man $ity buy Bony for £30m, and P$G to buy David Luiz for £45m. What a lovely, thoughtful man that Platini.
Sometimes I forget we are competing with teams who have pretty much entered the cheat code for unlimited funds at the start of every season. Damn it makes me proud to be a gooner.
You have just made me hate you, blogs! Now I want a piggy bank like that and I have never seen it anywhere in my country 🙁
but seriously why would uefa ease the ffp rules? It puts clubs like Arsenal at a disadvantage as such clubs always do things the right way, with class
It seems (surprise surprise) that Platini is as bent as Blatter,
April 24th Sepp congratulates Olympiakos on their 5th successive title, praising the clubs leaders for promoting football “as a school of life for the young people today”
April 28th Olympiakos president Evangelos Marinakis charged with match fixing, extortion, bribery and arranging for as ex refs bakery to be blown up.
Say no more.
Don’t worry, the Emirates will soon the be the Dangote stadium and we will be spending £100 million on the next Messi
Just never understood how does imposing fine help ffp.its like you have spent so much just put some money in this little fine piggy bank and you can spend some more but not much more for that you will have to put some more additional amount in our piggy bank. Fucking ban them from transfer activity and the fear of losing out top teams that they will form an independent league is bollocks. If Arsenal , United and rest historically big clubs wanted to do that they wouldnt have worried about ffp and risk losing all those years of achievement… Read more »
Just disappointed you didn’t say anything funny…:-(
Me too. It felt like it must be to read a Rambling Pete comment thats spot on the subject.
We have to be decisive in the transfer market or else, it will affect us. No dilly-dally over few millions. Locate our target and wrap it up with minimum fuss. No more Matas, etc
Have you emailed that plan to Dad?? 🙂
Nowadays this is less of an issue for us as we are competitive FFP or not. It just means Chelsea/City/ PSG are less constrained. But then they were not particularly constrained anyway. FFP was always a bit of a charade IMO.
I think FFP was just starting to show some effect last summer particularly with Chelsea’s net spending being so low and even Real and Barca having to sell before buying to at least partly balance the books. What I think Wenger is saying is that Platini is pissed off at the English Premier League’s unprecedented pay deal and in order to ‘balance things out’ across Europe, relaxing FFP so that new Billionaire prospect owners can buy up more Italian/German/Spanish/French clubs is the way to achieve this. It is, of course, entirely hypocritical, corrupt and anti-English in nature. Which are all… Read more »
Who cares, you can only field 11 players at a time. In fact, Mourinho shud buy more and better so I can enjoy the cess traitor getting benched. Happened to na$ri, Rvpussy. …..etc. When warming the bench….money n trophies means nothing. …Adebayor. Our eleven is good and happy…..hope to get 1 or 2 adds. Thanks Fpp
Cess traitor benched….hahaha, may happen sooner than later. You heard it here first…..100+ thumps up?
Amusing as it would be, don’t be blowing you’re own trumpet.
Also it would be tempered by the fact that chelski had gone out and bought somebody even better. RVP’s situation is conversely made more hilarious by what he has to sit watching every week…
“FFP does not affect us”…
Unfortunately and rather predictably, it will not affect anyone else either.
They should bring in some regulations regarding owners taking money out of the clubs ala our own mister kroenke