
?355m loss....that's quite some going. Amazing what happens without the ownership of the Russian gangster
I gather that even though your books may show you are functionally, factually even, bankrupt, so long as your owners are willing and able to demonstrate that you are not actually going to go bankrupt then you're OK.
At the end of the day, you don't really want to force rich people, and their inherent rich people financial shenanigans, out of the game.
Football, eh![]()
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."
That was the idea until Bosman, the Premier League and the revamped European Cup. The game became too attractive and rich and football clubs became too big to go bust, in any case, so the initial panic that led to FFP etc. quickly faded away. Football supporters and authorities alike began to see the positives in formerly "illicit" provisions of cash.
The Old Guard of the game's custodians were pushed aside and bought out by lots and lots of new money. Now, everybody wants to be owned by a nations' sovereign wealth-fund trust owner, an outfit of tech billionaires, natural resources monopoly magnates or, failing that, vertically-integrated sanction-busting arms dealerships, cocaine-smuggling firms and counterfeit pharmaceuticals-dealing syndicates. Far East gambling cartels. The Gambino Family.
For example, Manchester City may well lose their current legal disputes, nobody knows, but one thing seems certain; when the matter next goes to a vote they will be proven to have been visionary. Everybody wants to do what they have done and now no-one sees anything really wrong with it.
We simply don't care anymore; everybody just wants to win the European Cup![]()
"Plenty of strikers can score goals," he said, gesturing to the famous old stands casting shadows around us.
"But a lot have found it difficult wearing the number 9 shirt for The Arsenal."