Financial Fair Play aka Communism

This article will probably be a bit less focused. I'd like to have another whinge, but, to be fair, there are multiple sides to the argument. So though I know what side I come down on, I understand that it's not palatable to most people ..for one obvious reason.

That, in my world, football clubs would be allowed to go out of business.

I know. No one wants this. But the alternative isn't great either ..and it looks like the Soviet Union.

A little example..

I'll use a pub. (Perhaps an ironic example, as pubs are going out of business - every day - and the powers-that-be are not so bothered.)

Anyhow, let's say you own a pub. Now let's also say you have a little windfall. Let's say you inherit £30,000 from some distant great-aunt who's died. You then think, "Ah, I'll use this money to invest in my pub. To make it better. Expand the business."

However, then some bureaucrat comes along and says, "Sorry, you can't spend that money on your pub. No, no, no. It wouldn't be fair on the pub down the road."

You then say, "But it's my money. I want to invest it in something worthwhile. In my business - my life's passion. I don't just want to waste it on another holiday or leave it sitting in a bank. Plus, what about that mega-pub in town. They spent £100,000 improving their premises."

"Ah, yes, you see," replies the bureaucrat, "But the mega-pub makes a lot more money than your pub. So they can afford to spend more money."

"But I can afford to spend the money too," you plead, "I have it there in my bank account. How will my pub ever become a mega-pub if I'm not allowed to invest it?"

"No, these are the rules. You can't spend it. It just wouldn't be fair."

This is basically what the financial fair play rules say to football clubs.

Now, in defence of such rules, they did come about to stop clubs from going out of business. Plus, my example is obviously a bit of an oversimplification. We've seen countless examples of clubs going into administration over the years, so the problem is certainly real. Clubs were spending and borrowing too much money, in order to compete with other clubs, and falling into arrears. So, in this case, it's understandable that people were saying "Something Must Be Done!".

So the rules are partly there to make sure clubs don't spend and borrow beyond their means, but they're also there to stop clubs that have the means from spending so much that it's unfair on other clubs.

It sounds nice in theory, however, in my opinion, it's just not how the world works. Firstly, the world is always going to be unfair. You can't regulate that away. The mega-clubs (and mega-pubs in my example) already have a huge advantage that just ends up entrenched by the rules.

Secondly, it's competition and the fear of going out of business that pushes businesses to make good economic decisions. So, in the long run, though it seems fairer, it just makes it more likely that the entire footballing economy will tank. It's like comparing a communist economy, where the state manages everything, to a capitalist economy, where companies are free to take risks and potentially go out of business. Generally the capitalist economies do better overall. It's not nice when a company goes out of business, of course, especially for the employees, but sometimes things go out of business. That's life.

Sure, this is another oversimplification. There are arguments both ways, and most countries tend to have a mix of something in between, but still, football, and the Premier League in particular, was a very successful export long before these rules came about. We need to be careful not to kill the golden goose.

People talk about a football club going out of business like it's a hospital closing down. But they're not hospitals. No one's dying. It's not the NHS. It's a game. So a bit of perspective would be handy.

(I've ended up having the whinge I wanted to have 😁 Again, I'm being a tad unfair, as fans want their teams to be ambitious and to compete, yet they also get upset if that ambition leads to financial issues. So football governing bodies (and politicians that get involved in the debate) are trying to give fans what they want ultimately. A world where a club can never go out of business.)

I think I'm definitely in the minority on this one. The rules just seem insane to me though. As a child I used to sometimes dream of becoming rich and buying a football club. It'd be a bit pointless now. Why would you bother? Personally I think the super-rich owners have been good for football. Abramovich buying Chelsea (..and no, I'm not getting into the wider politics there, lol) turned a two horse Premier League title race into a three horse race. Likewise, the turnaround of Manchester City has been remarkable and memory-filled.

Newcastle could be doing similar things today with their Saudi owners, but, typical Newcastle, they got the money just as the bureaucrats turned up to stop them spending it. It would've been good for the north-east, but apparently it's fairer this way.

(Finally, there's an argument that the fair play rules weren't just brought about to save clubs, but also had the aim of clipping the wings of the Premier League - which was becoming too wealthy and dominant for UEFAs liking. I can imagine there's some truth in this, so it's worth noting, but I spend enough time bashing Europe when it comes to the EU, so I'll try to leave it out of my football whinging.)