They're a joke.
Look at Chelsea stockpiling young players and then using the money from them to mask financial doping.
I get where you're coming from racer but remember, when we "look at Chelsea" (or anyone else, for that matter), we tend to miss looking elsewhere and maybe that's the reason we are encouraged to "look at Chelsea. "Look over there - a distraction!"
Take Kronke's Arsenal or the Glazer's Man Utd (bit of a theme
), for e.g. - when everybody is busy looking at
their "noisy neighbours" [Chelsea & City], they forget who the biggest beneficiaries from FFP really are.
The biggest beneficiaries
aren't the West Ham, Swansea, Stoke or Leicester's of this world; clubs who will never be able to compete, with the big boys, if they are only allowed to spend what they make. What is
fair about a system which actively promotes a two, or three-tier structure?
What,
exactly, is different between Chelsea being able to spend more than Arsenal, City being able to spend more than Utd (pre FFP) and Arsenal, Man Utd or Liverpool being able to spend more than Swansea or West Ham (post FFP)?
Be under no illusions that there were ulterior, self-serving, motives behind the clamour for the 'spend only what you earn' element of Financial Fair Play and being "Fair" wasn't one of them. Sign up to FFP and you [the owner] will, never again, be under any pressure to spend your own money; eat into your own profits...
even if you have the money to compete with anyone. If you are 'lucky' enough to have bought into [own] a big club, with huge revenue potential, before FFP; you can't go wrong. FFP is a Godsend for an ownership who
don't want to invest money (other than the purchase price) but
do want to sit back and watch the profit-margin grow...
Anyone who believes, for one minute, that Mr. John and Fenway Sports Group would have bought Liverpool without the passage of FFP is delusional or daft. These people don't give a flying F**k about what's fair.
Want to be fair; really fair? Then make it that a club can only spend the same amount as the lowest common denominator.
Well... either that or... drop the lie and facade that we signed up because we want to be "fair".