Okay, this sort of shenanigans has been going on for
YEARS with clubs of all shapes and sizes in all sports. And we too have been
doing it increasingly so over the years.
But with F(not-so)FP
now in danger of quashing the rights of owners to allow their club to join the
big players at the big table; clubs like ours are having to find more inventive
ways of combating UEFA’s restrictions.
Sauce for the goose…
Well Manyoo recently pulled off one HELL of a 10-year deal with Adidas
worth a WHOPPING £750M and that, largely, helped to fund what can only be
described as fantasy football-like spending on attacking players in the
summer. So, not to be completely
outdone at least, it’s recently been announced
that we are about to extend our current deal with Etihad worth a more-than
considerable £320M!
Not only that but with a variety of other new sponsorship
deals ‘in the bag’ and about to be announced also, we can add to that already-considerable
figure a further £80M! All of this, we are told, will produced a rather large
‘drip’ ‘drip’ of £50M per season of incoming funds. Nice.
It’s even nicer when you think that all of this will come on top of
other income from various sales, television deals and competition progress & success etc. For the
non-financial expert that I am, this would appear to have completely killed off any fears
that we can no longer continue to spend with the ‘big boys’ AND stay within the
rules that are being, quite-rightly, challenged ‘as we speak’.
Counter productive
I could probably type all day and night about how wrong I
believe UEFA’s ill-advised rules on spending are; certainly starting with the
most obvious point that the aim of the rule was to stop new owners allowing their club to spend
BEYOND their means and, therefore, run football clubs into the ground and out
of business. It was all very well meaning
before it got all skewed out of all shape and proportion.
But these latest developments from both the Stretford and
Manchester clubs respectively highlights, for me, the ironic outcome of the
soon-to-be, hopefully anyway,
unlawful rules, which is that football clubs are now FORCED to strike up far
more lucrative deals in order to simply counter UEFA’s mad, mad regulations.
Clubs were always going to bring in money via sponsorships,
of course, but I have a very strong feeling that the level of sponsorship and
cash that we’re seeing now wouldn’t have been anywhere NEAR as high if it
wasn’t for these distorted sanctions that loom over us all.
Not only are football clubs finding ways to raise cash to
compete against rival clubs but they are now facing a twin battle against UEFA
too! Utterly crazy - F(not-so)FP is now having the complete opposite affect!
 |
| Mmmm...indeed. |
As I say, whether it moves or it doesn’t there’s a good
chance it’ll get a sponsor slapped on it from now on so be careful whenever you’re walking anywhere near the Etihad…
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