Зошто пишува дека должиме милијарда долари. Јас последно имам сознание за 600 милиони? Нека напише некој нешто повеќе во врска со ова.
Нешто околу долговите на клубовите и промените кои планира да ги воведе Платини.
UEFA is considering changes in the rules governing club finances that could impact Chelsea and other English clubs.
Michel Platini, the President of UEFA, seems to have time on his hands since he doesn`t need to instruct referees to stymie Chelsea`s progress in the Champions League. He is looking at making the finances of the clubs under his control a bit more healthy.
Since the beginning of his mandate, Platini has tried to change the relationship between UEFA and clubs. More specifically, certain clubs which, he considered, had a disproportionate influence. One of the first decisions he took was to dismantle the G-14 organisation. This group of 18 (!) of Europe`s biggest clubs (not including Chelsea, we hasten to add) had lobbied UEFA to provide a larger slice of the pie to them, changing the format of the lucrative Champions League competition to their advantage. Since these clubs had threatened to form a breakaway European League, UEFA (at the time) gave in, adding more Champions League matches and more teams from 'top` countries.
Platini dissolved the G-14 into a new structure, called ECA, which contains just about any club in Europe that could play in a European competition, therefore diluting the power of the Real Madrids, Bayern Munichs, Milans etc. The big clubs` capacity to influence UEFA`s agenda has been reduced. This has already shown its effects: from this year, the qualification process to the first lucrative phase of the Champions League has been toughened up, in the hope that the Champions League would throw up genuine champions, albeit from smaller Leagues. New rules regarding the squads registered for the competitions entered into effect last year, to try to force clubs to grow their own players from their own countries. The result has been, in England, a scrabbling around for such homegrown players and an inflation in the price of English players. The best example of this has been Liverpool spunking up a disproportionate sum of money this summer for a right-back who failed to make it at Chelsea, and paying said player (according to the Daily Mail) some £139,000 per week.
And now Platini wants to go further, attacking what he calls 'financial doping`, considering that the big clubs are entering deeper and deeper into debt to strengthen their squads in order to qualify (and continue to qualify) for the lucrative Champions League group stages. For a 'Champions League` team not to qualify would represent a huge financial blow. Just before the 2008 Champions League final, for instance, Platini declared that 'if the clubs that are most in debt are those that win the big titles, that means that there is something wrong`.
There is no doubt that clubs are falling deeper and deeper into debt. Cumulatively, the Premier League has the highest debt, followed by the Spanish Primera and then the Serie A. That could also be a recognition of the size of the clubs in each of those Leagues.
The two most indebted clubs in the world are Manchester United (€960 million), followed by Chelsea (€821 million). Given that Real Madrid spent an unbelievable €230 million so far on player purchase this summer, paid for mostly from bank loans, we believe that they might well have burst into this hit parade of red numbers.
And so, apparently, UEFA will set up new rules and economic norms and standards, requesting that clubs clear up their balance sheets in three years, after which time it will be mandatory for clubs to meet such norms if they are to participate in UEFA competitions. In this, they could be supported by the EU, although I cannot see under what EU competence. Apparently European Commission President José Barroso is keen on some kind of budget control.
A number of club suits are meeting in Geneva to decide on these norms, which could include a salary ceiling. Internal politics clearly play a key role in this process: three of the most vocal advisers of Platini on this matter are Karl-Heinz Rummenigge of Bayern, Joan Laporta of Barça, and Michel Aulas of Lyon. All 3 clubs, whilst certainly not short of money, consider their progress on the European stage to be hampered by clubs that can spend more money than them. Real Madrid seem to be particularly targeted by this process: Michel Platini has certainly been vocal in criticising Madrid`s obscene spending this summer. Barça and Bayern would like to be able to resist better the 'imperialist` spending spree launched by Madrid`s megalomaniac president Florentino Perez.
One of the norms being envisaged is to set the proportion that clubs can spend on player salaries to 60% of their budget. That`s a norm that would impact Chelsea particularly hard: despite Chelsea having considerably reduced spending on player purchases, the club spends some 78% of its budget on salaries. New contracts continue to push this proportion up. It is, however, less than the Serie A clubs who have, in some cases, hypothecated their future TV revenues to pay player salaries today, sometimes over 100% of their revenue.
Any norm on levels of debt would also impact Chelsea, as well as any number of other clubs in Europe. However, it has to be said that each club`s debt is different: in Chelsea`s case, what is labeled as 'debt` is a gift from Roman Abramovich. In Madrid`s case, the debt is to banks to pay for their ridiculous payer purchases. Arsenal are another club in serious debt - their loans, however, have served to finance the construction of the new stadium, which has also considerably increased their revenue streams. In Manchester United`s case, the debt is the most bizarre: when the Glazer family purchased the club, they didn't use their own money, they borrowed money to buy ManU, and that debt was then transferred to the club`s balance sheet. However, whilst Manchester United have the highest debt of any football club, they also have the highest revenue of any football club. What ratio of debt to revenue would constitute a 'healthy` level for UEFA? The European football authorities cannot expect that ManU will manage to clean their balance sheet of some €960 million in 3 years.
It is also somewhat hypocritical of UEFA. For they know full well that, whilst these clubs are entering into unsustainable financial practices to participate in UEFA competitions (and specifically for the Champions League), the fact that these clubs have become so huge has also been a massive money-spinner for UEFA. The Champions League is a global competition, sold around the world. TV rights and advertising generates huge volumes of cash for UEFA. But
the competition wouldn't be so big if the most commercially recognizable clubs (brands) in the world don`t participate. In other words, UEFA has done very well out of these unsustainable financial practices. It would therefore be unthinkable to envisage a Champions League without ManU in 4 years time.