Manchester City spending fast so they don't fall foul of UEFA tricks

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UEFA call it Financial Fair Play 2.0. Makes it seem like a reboot, an update, a new model. It’s not. It’s the same old garbage: an attempt by the established elite to place restrictions on new money and new challenges.

Another grab for power by the forces of entitlement. And as UEFA are terrified of the marquee names in their Champions League draw, no doubt they will capitulate and wave it through.

That is why Manchester City are doing transfer business again. That is why there is a rush to advance the transfers of Aymeric Laporte and Fred. They have to get inside the castle before the drawbridge is raised — and that’s not new, either.

 Manchester City are spending fast so they don't fall foul of UEFA's same old tricks

The whole City project has been accelerated by UEFA’s attempts to shut it down. Other members of the City Football Group are not placed on this free-spending fast track; only the club that must comply with UEFA’s ever-changing moods and the restrictive practices of their rivals.

If UEFA were truly interested in competition, they would discuss wealth redistribution via Champions League prize money. More for the leagues, less for individual clubs. They don’t. They continue to kill domestic competitions around Europe by delivering huge sums to super clubs, making them untouchable.

Bayern Munich and Juventus are on the longest sequence of title wins the Bundesliga and Serie A have known. Olympiacos have won 19 of the last 21 titles in Greece, BATE Borisov the last 12 in Belarus.

City are in a rush to complete the signing of Atletic Bilbao central defender Aymeric Laporte

The first incarnation of FFP did nothing to address this. It was merely a device to negate the impact of new money in old leagues.

The European Clubs Association couldn’t care less that BATE are usurping the traditional dominance of Dinamo Minsk in Belarus. They just don’t want Manchester City sitting where Manchester United should be. FFP is about nothing more than preservation of an elite.

Before FFP 1.0, there was FFP 0.0, the original vision of Michel Platini that had among its targets leveraged buyouts such as the Glazer takeover at Manchester United. That, however, veered a little too close to home, so Platini was manipulated into taking on owner investment instead.

The Glazers, who saddled United with enormous debt, were given a free pass; Sheik Mansour, who brought new money into football and greatly benefited the local area, was the enemy.

The elite clubs knew emerging forces such as Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain did not yet have the revenue streams of the establishment, so attempted to stunt their growth.

Transfers, wages, amortised agreements, finance costs and dividends would be set against gate receipts, TV revenue, advertising, merchandising, disposal of tangible fixed assets, finance, player sales and prize money. Clubs could only lose £26million, balanced over a three-year period.

The whole City project has been accelerated by UEFA’s attempts to shut it down

That way City’s spending could be tied to income — and the income of a club that last won the league in 1968 could not possibly compete with the likes of Manchester United. The new clubs would be left to wither, unable to invest to grow. Even Chelsea backed this plan, having got where they needed to be under Roman Abramovich.

Buying in, he was now terrified of the competition if others did the same. Abramovich used to be the owner that Platini railed against. Then they ended up on the same side. That should have been the clue.

Fortunately, it did not work. Parts of FFP collapsed at the first legal test and Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain were smarter than UEFA and their rivals had imagined.

They moved fast, recruited well, achieved success and balanced the books. Revenue increased through sponsorships, TV deals, merchandising, prize money. They could win and also comply.

This is why FFP 2.0 is on the table in May. It is the latest attempt by Barcelona and Real Madrid, among others, to return to the good old days. If it fails, they will shift criteria again for FFP 3.0.

So, how will it work this time? Now FFP is going to be purely about transfers. The rest of it, all those revenue streams that were considered so vital to the efficient running of a club, are being as good as abandoned.

FFP  is going to be purely about transfers - the rest of it is are being as good as abandoned

If the current proposals are accepted, there will be a simple calculation, outlawing a transfer loss of more than £90million in one season. This won’t just affect Manchester City, but all Premier League clubs, as Europe seeks to limit the impact of the new television deal.

It terrifies La Liga that Leicester are now within £1m of Atletico Madrid in the 2016-17 revenue tables; Serie A are appalled that their league leaders Napoli are pegged behind Southampton in riches.

If revenue is no longer factored in, the Premier League television deal can be contained and the established elite will sign up for this, even in England, as a way of reining in Manchester City.

To hear Antonio Conte complain about the financial power of the Manchester clubs is to hear the conversations that go on behind closed doors. ‘These two big clubs can be seriously dangerous for other teams in the world,’ he said. ‘They are very strong already, and want to invest.’

Indeed, as Chelsea once did. Just because Conte has spent January looking at players who would simply not be considered in Manchester does not mean the system is wrong. It just means Abramovich has got what he wants from it and now hopes to scale down the arms race. Tough. You started it.

And, who knows, if Chelsea had not spent in the region of £80m sacking managers since Abramovich’s arrival, maybe they would have been able to join the bidding for Alexis Sanchez?

Fred is another City target and Pep Guardiola wants a deal done sooner rather than later

This explains why City are in a hurry again, rushing to complete deals for Laporte and Fred this January. It should not be hard to comply with a net loss of £90m, but at the current rates, significant upgrades are expensive. City spent £220m remodelling Pep Guardiola’s squad in the summer, and even bringing in £90m on transfers they were still £130m down — and £40m outside the new UEFA spending deficit.

In the current climate, losses are not unimaginable.

Suppose Liverpool think they need another Virgil van Dijk, because one alone isn’t working. If the going rate is the same, that is £150m on central defenders — and how might Liverpool raise £60m without losing another of their key players?

Yes, selling Philippe Coutinho more than balances the books, but that was a one-off. How often do deals of that nature come around?

Indeed, while Arsene Wenger is always up for economic sanctions on everybody else, the £90m limit may come as a shock to his employers when he leaves and the grand rebuilding begins. How much do Arsenal need to get competitive again? A lot more than £90m, that’s for certain.

Chelsea, with their production line academy — Christian Atsu played seven minutes for Newcastle at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, which is seven minutes more than he played there in almost four years as a Chelsea player — will be rubbing their hands together. Abramovich, back in the game.

Say what you like about the way he handles players and managers, like so many in the favoured elite, he certainly knows how to get the best out of UEFA.

Will Chelsea really get an upgrade on Batshuayi? 

Since joining the club in 2016, Michy Batshuayi has the best goals-to-minutes return of any player in games at Stamford Bridge. 

He scores there every 69 minutes. To put that into perspective, Diego Costa scored at home every 144 minutes over the same period; Alvaro Morata’s current rate is 190 minutes between goals. 

Clearly, there are extenuating circumstances. Batshuayi often appears in cup games, which may be against lesser or weakened teams. Equally, as a reserve, he might start against inferior opposition, or come on late as a substitute when legs are tired and there is more space for a forward. 

Yet, overall, Batshuayi has 19 goals in 53 Chelsea appearances which is no bad return for a player who has never truly had a run in the team — and is better than most of the players Chelsea have been chasing. 

In 53 appearances, Andy Carroll has 15 goals, Peter Crouch 14 — even Olivier Giroud only has 18. If Edin Dzeko could replicate his form for Roma that would represent an upgrade. 

Yet while Batshuayi has not been a roaring success at Chelsea, nor has he been a disaster. There are a lot of Premier League strikers who would be very happy with a goal every 2.7 games, and Chelsea may even end up recruiting one.   

Since joining Chelsea in 2016, Michy Batshuayi has scored 19 goals in 53 appearances

Every season, there will be a point at which we are asked to believe in Neil Warnock as the charming, kindly uncle of English football. He’s been around, he’s a bit old school and he can turn it on in front of the cameras, have no doubt of that. Lots of good stories, lots of good humour, lots of good lines.

His analogy about getting his Cardiff team to chase pieces of paper in training to replicate the movement of Manchester City was quite brilliant. So, too, his sincere admiration for Pep Guardiola doing his own scouting at Cardiff’s replay with Mansfield. Arsene Wenger is depicted as a football obsessive but is hardly ever seen at matches; even Sir Alex Ferguson had largely given up on it by the end at Manchester United. It is not as if Guardiola needs a break from four walls at the Lowry hotel, either.

Warnock, the football man, appreciated Guardiola’s dedication. By publicly acknowledging it, he played all the right notes going into the match. Some neutrals may even have started rooting for him, his battle to overcome the odds, and a team with a philosophy rooted in continental ideas. And then his Cardiff side took the field and — mimes shielding eyes — oh, for heaven’s sake. Neil, throw us a bone here, would you? Give us something to work with, please. 

There are plenty of old school English football men. Harry Redknapp is one. But Redknapp never sent a team out to do what Cardiff did to Manchester City — or tried to defend it after the game.

Some of the fouls may simply have been the result of a mismatch. City were faster and had the lion’s share of possession. Cardiff were outclassed at times and accidents happen. Yet others were spiteful and brutal. Joe Bennett may have deprived City of Leroy Sane for months — although he did at least apologise.

Warnock didn’t, though — and for him to then dismiss dangerous tackles as simply part of English football was wrong. Cardiff are not the first to kick Manchester City, and they won’t be the last, but it is a strategy that does not reflect well on the manager. For all his bonhomie, if his team plays ugly, Warnock looks that way, too.

Neil Warnock was wrong to dismiss dangerous tackles as part of English football was wrong

The Glazers? You almost had Gaddafi! 

If Manchester United’s fans were angry about the Glazers buying the club, imagine if it had gone to Colonel Gaddafi in 2004. Mehmet Dalman, the chairman of Cardiff and a financier who engineered the eventual takeover, said a deal was close to being struck with the Libyan dictator — who ultimately invested in Perugia. What would the protests have been like then?

Not much different, really. Fans are quite forgiving as long as the team is winning. Thaksin Shinawatra had a bad rep with Amnesty International, but not so much with Manchester City fans at the start. Even now, while Amnesty are not greatly happy with governance in the United Arab Emirates, those envisaging a tilt at the Quadruple seem not to care.

So, Colonel Gaddafi at Old Trafford. Would it have panned out as Harry Redknapp cynically suspected? ‘Saddam Hussein could have been a Premier League manager provided he kept winning,’ Redknapp wrote in his autobiography. ‘Had he finished where I did at Portsmouth, by the last match the fans would have been singing, “There’s only one Saddam”.’ 

If Manchester United’s fans were angry about the Glazers buying the club, imagine if it had gone to Colonel Gaddafi in 2004

The longest trophy drought among clubs that have been champions of England belongs to Sheffield United: 93 years, dating from their FA Cup win in 1925. Despite this, Bramall Lane has enjoyed the fifth highest attendances in the Championship this season. Success endures, through generations. It creates strong allegiances, that are passed down. That is why no club should turn up its nose at the FA Cup — and certainly no club that measures trophy-less years by the decade. 

How fascinating that Newport County scouts identified Serge Aurier and Davinson Sanchez as ‘the weaknesses in Tottenham’s defence’. 

This reference was made in a scouting dossier compiled before the teams met in the FA Cup on Saturday. That is £75m of players casually dismissed by a League Two club there — not to mention the most expensive defenders Mauricio Pochettino has bought.

Racism claims hit a dead end 

Still no news from the Football Association on the accusations of racism between Roberto Firmino and Mason Holgate, and Gaetan Bong and Jay Rodriguez. The clubs — Liverpool, Everton, Brighton and West Brom — support their players.

There do not appear to be witnesses to provide clarity, referees and team-mates seem not to have heard anything and match footage was inconclusive, so it is the word of one man against another.

How is the FA supposed to solve that — and how falsely ambitious is it to believe every incident has an adequate resolution? It is a desperately hard admission to make but, sometimes, where do you go?

Ben Stokes, £1.4m from the IPL. Rather makes a mockery of those restraint of trade fears, don’t you think?