2014 - 2015 Football Thread - Page 39

On July 25 2014 00:44 Craze wrote:


Clubs can't just make a stand. Football generates massive amounts of money because of players, so their wages need to reflect that. A majority of a teams proceeds should go toward wages. Transfer fees creep up for the same reason, as Football begins to bring in more money the players become worth more.

On July 25 2014 03:46 Rebs wrote:



This is not true, it is unequivocally proven that no club except in Germany and Arsenal generate massive amounts of money. Atleast not against a reflection of what they spend.

The average (average) premier league club 4 years back had 2 thirds of the revenue of a single tesco. And sure Tesco is big, but in the grand scheme of things as much money might be involved, its not exactly "big business"

Also all top clubs over pay players compared to their means, even Arsenal now.

Players dont become worth more because football is bringing more money. That is absolutely untrue and proven to be untrue.

Players wages go up because the interest in the sport gets bigger. Football clubs are like cultural lynchpins that their communities force owners to prop up and ignore fiscal responsibility.

Football relative to the amount of interest in it generates fuck all in terms of revenue.

On July 25 2014 03:46 Rebs wrote:

This is not true, it is unequivocally proven that no club except in Germany and Arsenal generate massive amounts of money. Atleast not against a reflection of what they spend.

The average (average) premier league club 4 years back had 2 thirds of the revenue of a single tesco. And sure Tesco is big, but in the grand scheme of things as much money might be involved, its not exactly "big business"

Also all top clubs over pay players compared to their means, even Arsenal now.

Players dont become worth more because football is bringing more money. That is absolutely untrue and proven to be untrue.

Players wages go up because the interest in the sport gets bigger. Football clubs are like cultural lynchpins that their communities force owners to prop up and ignore fiscal responsibility.

Football relative to the amount of interest in it generates fuck all in terms of revenue.

On July 25 2014 04:44 Pr0wler wrote:

If we follow your logic that means that the football clubs are spending more than they earn every single year... And their owners "spend" money from their pocket/business to keep the club alive. I certainly thing that the smaller clubs do that, but for the big ones... I don't think so. And the small clubs don't actually spend that much.
About the "no club except in Germany and Arsenal generate massive amounts of money" check this page.
Also if the sport gets bigger then it actually brings more money. I don't know how this is proven to be untrue. More eyeballs always mean more money. Don't forget that many clubs earn money from TV rights, merchandise etc. Real Madrid for example earns 2+ billion dollars just from that.

On July 25 2014 05:08 zev318 wrote:

i lol'd when i read that he wrote "except germany and arsenal" like of all clubs he decides to put arsenal in there lol

On July 25 2014 05:59 Ysellian wrote:
I would say SAF has done a great job as well and personally I feel a slightly better one than Wenger in the overall schemes. Looking at United in the last 20 years and you see club that similarly to Arsenal has actually maintained a good balance financially. Sure United have spent over the years, but they have sold enough to balance things out while really profiting from the commercial value of the EPL. Where Wenger and SAF differ is Wenger's wage structure has, up until recently, just been downright poor. Players with great promise are players with great promise, you don't pay these players similarly to players that have fulfilled these promises. I've loved Arsenal ever since the days of Bergkamp and I always use the Wenger philosophy in Football Manager, but I am SAF when it comes to wages.

That said, United did really screw up when they went public.

On July 25 2014 05:22 Rebs wrote:


its not my logic lol, its well accepted fact, every other journal on the subject has the same to say. I think there was a book a few years back called soccernomics that had quite an interesting take on it aswell. It tried to over rationalize alot of things but it was pretty accurate on how football clubs are bad busness.

Real Madrid does not earn 2 billion dollars a year . I think last year it was like between 600 and 800million depending on accounting practice and where you check it. Please do not pull numbers out of your ass if you havent looked it up. Or just look here

They consistntely spent above that in wages and ops costs and transfers, because they can.

in the 90's United was super profitbale and Fergie was a genius at winning and making money. The only one of his kind. He to however went and fucked up by getting into Horse disputes with the part owners who he managed to get edged out of the club and then Glazers went and leveraged a billion dollars in debt for the takeover. United will probably make it up.. at some point in our lifetimes if things go at the current rate.

Football is a bad business and no one really makes any money on the long term. Turning a year on year profit for a while does not eclipse the fact that these clubs are leveraging debt like its not even funny.

Sure its getting better, much better, but only for the big clubs.

Why do you think in this "cutthroat as fuck manager turnover central of a football world" where the average life of a manager in Europe is a little over a year or like 1.2 years to be exact (aggregated across all managers in The top 5 leagues) did Wenger manage to hang around without winning shit for years ? Because he handled the club properly and the people on top knew what he was doing and were ok with it.

Wenger overachieved massively he had a first mover advantage on European Talent, practically got half the all conquering French national team for penny's, getting his Veira's and Henry's on the cheap, aswell his diets and training shit. As soon as everyone else got on that wagon and started scouting the continent he was no longer ahead of the curve.

The new fashion is throwing money to win. So hes been forced to join the club and now also throw money at his problems. The only reason he had to wait was because he is responsible and waited to pay off their stadium. He just didnt move first on it and the teams that did benefited.

Year on year profits is like me saying I have 1000's dollars to pay off. But for the last year I made 20 dollars in profits at my lemonade stand so Im in great shape Ill pay it off in the next 50 years.

Teams are consistently having debts written of into equity or shares. At the end of the day football clubs are safer than any bank because they just get phoenixed.

Which as far as I am concerned is fine.If football clubs are institutions and a burden on the ones that support them its their own pressure on the ppl runningthe clubsthat causes it, so its a fair trade.

Its the players who benefit the most in this scenario (unless clubs go into administration, then they are pretty much fucked)

But lets get real. Running a football club is the last thing you want if you want to be a profitable business.



This is the kind of stupidity and ignorance that reminds me why I got tired of making any sensible comment. I will not address this.

On July 25 2014 05:59 Ysellian wrote:
I would say SAF has done a great job as well and personally I feel a slightly better one than Wenger in the overall schemes. Looking at United in the last 20 years and you see club that similarly to Arsenal has actually maintained a good balance financially. Sure United have spent over the years, but they have sold enough to balance things out while really profiting from the commercial value of the EPL. Where Wenger and SAF differ is Wenger's wage structure has, up until recently, just been downright poor. Players with great promise are players with great promise, you don't pay these players similarly to players that have fulfilled these promises. I've loved Arsenal ever since the days of Bergkamp and I always use the Wenger philosophy in Football Manager, but I am SAF when it comes to wages.

That said, United did really screw up when they went public.

On July 25 2014 06:05 Craze wrote:


I read Soccernomics twice, it's a fantastic read for anyone interested in the money side of the game (among other things, development, performance etc.).

I didn't say that clubs generate massive amounts of money, I said Football does. There is a massive difference. Football includes all of the advertising deals, commercial sponsorships, tickets sold to games, travel expenses generated by players/fans moving around the world and most importantly TV deals (there's obviously many more things). The global sports industry is worth almost 3/4 of a trillion dollars now. Football generates the lion's share of this part of the global economy.

While you are right to say that most clubs operate in the red, this is because their assets completely dwarf their expenditures. You are creating far more value by accruing a bit of debt every year and raising your clubs market value then you would by trying to operate profitably.

To say Football is bad business is incorrect because you are valuing a teams worth based on their profitability, not on the check that comes in the mail when an owner cashes out. Owning a football club is not like running a standard business, or even a multinational corporation. It's almost like running a national economy. You're trying to grow the overall pie at all costs, even if that means you have to constantly cut out of it and just add more dough repeatedly.

PS. That last analogy might be terrible, but I'm not coming up with anything better right now sorry I love this kind of talk though, I wrote a final paper on this exact topic in college for Policy Analysis. Glad to have a group that can discuss it.

On July 25 2014 06:05 Rebs wrote:


Yea Wengers wage structure was pretty pretty much as communist as you can get. First team Abu Diaby - plays 10 games in 4 years. Gets same paycheck as RVP.

I am no fan of SAF but his record and cash management will probably never be matched.

on average better paid players feel more valued and play better there is a pretty strong correlation to that aswell. Its a bit cart and horse though. You could also say better players get paid better :p

On July 25 2014 06:09 zeo wrote:

Well you have to take into account that ManU before Fergie was the 'big club that didn't really win anything' (kind of like Liverpool today). The timing of their rise also played a huge role, the establishment of the Premier league did wonders for taking English football to a higher level. When people outside of England started becoming a financial factor guess which team was dominating everything? ManU, I mean, Beckham started the whole 'footballers getting way too much attention outside of football'

On July 25 2014 06:13 Rebs wrote:


So if we are talking about football making money, sure, it does. But only a fraction of the amount of interest and revenue that football itself generates (and I wont even bother to try and estimate what that is, that is way to global).

We are not talking about what football does to an economy and its impacts on busienss in general if thats what you are implying.

We are talking about clubs specifically here. And a person who runs a football team is in the business of football.

Someone who runs a pub near old trafford is not in the football business he is in another one. So that argument is painfully irrelevant or has a sports shop selling United merchandise is also not in the football business.

With respect to valuation

Here is the thing , you know what happens to valuation bubbles that are based on increasing the pie and ignoring fiscal responsibility ?

Those valuations are based on the potential to make money. You still have to be able to make enough to run the damn thing. You know what happens to the pretty valuation bubbles when they dont ?

They burst.

Fortunately or maybe unfortunately football clubs are exempt from that.

On July 25 2014 06:26 zeo wrote:
Anyway, legendary Football Manager player Freddy Adu is on the brink of signing for a club that's like 30km away from where I live, Jagodina. Man, I remember trying to auto-sign that 15 year old kid with every single club every time I played.

And to think he is like 25 years old now.