The state of football finance as the new season begins – Football Weekly

0:00Philippe Auclair:This is The Guardian.

0:30last week. Morecambe are still a-going concern, but only through the love of fans and volunteers. Sheffield Wednesday are in danger. We'll do the latest and ask why other fans don't really care. There's Lausanne, Diara and FIFA possibly liable to paying compensation to thousands of players. All that plus your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

0:54On the panel today, Barry Glendening, welcome.

0:56Max Rushden:Yes, I am one of the learned panel, Max and I'm delighted to be here and now the learned panel Philippe Eau Claire welcome Bonjour Michel Max Bonjour and from the Price of Football podcast Kieran Maguire hey Kieran all good all good Max yeah James says the best podcast lineup I've ever seen Charlie says I'm excited for Philippe to tell us that football has never been in a better place and that it's a future for all of us to look forward to free of corruption sports washing and financial strife for lower League clubs. There we are. It's all fine, isn't it, Philippe?

1:31Philippe Auclair:It's magnificent. Now let's explain why it is magnificent. Okay, great. Well, let's start at the top and work down, if that's okay with everyone. Jack says, with only six clubs allowed to spend money in the Premier League, and their right to spend seemingly totally disconnected from performance, see Manchester United, what's the point? So Liverpool's pursuit of Alexander Isek will have taken them to£400 million if they buy him, about the same that Chelsea spent last summer. This season, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man City have spent a lot. Man City did a lot in January as well. Last season's top four make up four of the top five spenders going into the new season.

2:07Manchester United, the other team. Spurs seem to have money to spend too. Gibbs-White aside, it didn't happen. So Kieran, are we seeing the beginnings of a kind of breakaway league within the Premier League? Certainly in terms of spending money, not necessarily where you finish in the league. I don't think we're seeing the beginning. It's very much a continuation. um i spent a couple of nights putting together a spreadsheet of the total spending you know how to live you know how to live if you look at the top 20 all-time spends it's chelsea have got eight manchester city have got six liverpool have got three manchester united have got three so there's nothing has changed as far as football is concerned and we have seen leeds united spend to date we've seen Sunderland spend well over 100 million I think because they've not been what you would call marquee signings they've been sensible so they've been signings aimed at finishing 17th in the Premier League which is what their objective should be um it tends to go under the radar so then it's fine so so there's not I mean I guess the question this is a sort of PSR question it's a Philippe's verse fall back and laugh it's kind of we tried to solve it yesterday and failed.

3:16This idea that there are clubs that could spend money, you know, whether we like who their owners are or not, but can't spend money. And kind of, Philippe, have a justifiable frustration when they look at what happens in the window. Justifiable? Well, I don't know. Maybe not.

3:30Philippe Auclair:The thing is that PSR is very controversial. You know you have quite a few underlist columnists who rail and rage against it. If you look at the case of the clubs, You cannot put all the clubs which spend a lot of money in the same box. For example, if you take Chelsea and Liverpool, I think you have two very different cases. And Kieran, who has got his spreadsheet, will obviously be able to correct me if I say something wrong. But in the case of Liverpool, what we have is a club which has been extremely profitable in the recent past. We've got a club which has been also very successful on the pitch and which also spent close to no money last year when the only arrival was Chiesa, as you remember, for something like£10 million.

4:20Philippe Auclair:So they have built a huge wall chest and they're also selling players. They're probably on the way to sell Darwin Nunes. They basically are renewing a squad, which comes at quite a high price because we're talking about replacing very, very high quality players. You add to that the fact that there is, of course, the fact that when you buy a player, you can amortise the purchase price of a certain number of years. When you sell a player, all of the proceeds go into your accounts for the same year. So it's quite virtuous. As far as I'm concerned, when I look at what Liverpool have done, I think I actually take my hat off and I say, well, well done, guys, because they're within the regulations.

5:03Philippe Auclair:They're not endangering the club in any way. What they're doing is actually putting a squad which is going to carry on challenging for the top honours in England and in Europe. But I look at Chelsea and it's completely different. Because Chelsea is genuinely spending money, which has been created out of some very interesting, quite bizarre operations, which include things like selling their own women's team to themselves, selling hotels to themselves. By the way, selling the women's team to themselves is also something that Everton has done. So they are finding ways around the regulations, which, to be honest, if it was about respecting the spirit of the regulation rather than the letter, they should be laughed at and told, no, you can't do that.

5:49Philippe Auclair:And the problem, as ever, is about the implementation of regulations and sticking to principles which are supposed to give the rationale behind those regulations. the same way, and we probably talk about that, that UEFA is now welcoming multi-club ownership despite saying it's against it. We have the same thing of enabling clubs to play with those regulations and to find themselves very different situation. I hope this is clear enough, but Chelsea is not Liverpool. Absolutely nothing to do with that. And I think there is a temptation to paint everybody with the same brush. Arsenal actually can do what they're doing now.

6:25Philippe Auclair:and it's not indicative of a will to tweak the market or play with the market in ways which are not acceptable. You might, what is really concerning is the fact that the power is concentrated within a few clubs, but that's a different question. That's the super elite of the super elite. That's a different question. But I think we've got to be careful when we talk about general cases, when there are actually some very, very distinct scenarios here at work. surely like like surely there's a way i mean there are a couple of things that seem really wrong that i selling stuff to yourself to just to the your man on the street seems like i wish i could make money this way but it seems ridiculous and and i actually deal with that one first because the other one is about players teams having to sell their academy products which also seems wrong but it's kind of part of the same mess i guess well related party transactions to give them their official accounting name have to be highlighted in the club accounts.

7:24Now, under the UEFA rules, the sales of the real estate, the sales of the women's team, the swap transactions that we saw in the summer of 24, all of those are prohibited. So that's why Chelsea have fallen foul of UEFA's rules. And yet they have huge capacity within the Premier League rules. the Premier League could have introduced a tighter set of rules but in order to have to achieve that they need 14 votes and because Chelsea have satisfied the Premier League rules at the time the reason why there's no there's no appetite to change the rules is it's now seen as a get out of jail free card in the sense that we don't particularly want to do it but we we want to keep it in reserve so yeah yeah the rules are farcical when they came out I used to teach a creative accounting course on Wall Street many years ago so I'm used to finding ways around the rules and I wrote down a dozen different ways that you could address the Premier League rules and I've just been ticking them off one by one ever since then the problem is is that the Premier League is not independent of the clubs and therefore Richard Masters whilst he probably wants to have a set of rules which have credibility he can't do so because he needs 14 votes in favour and the regulator wouldn't do anything about that no it's not the regulate it's not within the regulator's remit to to set the individual terms and conditions under which clubs operate in terms of cost control.

8:59You've got an independent UEFA who have managed to do this and also you've got the crazy situation that these sales of the hotels and so on are not allowed under EFL rules because when we had a spate of those in around about 2018-19 the likes of Derby, Birmingham City, Sheffield Wednesday, Reading and so on the other clubs did think it was a farce and therefore they voted to stop it so if Chelsea were relegated they might be in breach of the EFL rules because because of their historic transactions what's the dream Barry isn't it the dream is because there's always been teams with more money than other teams right there's always been a hierarchy and you know where you are in the pecking order but what is what is the dream that anyone can win the Premier League or that it's just more competitive and that you know teams that come up could go straight on and compete, teams that go down might not have a massive advantage to come up.

9:54Do we want socialism in football? What do we want?

9:58Max Rushden:I don't necessarily want socialism. I mean, we talk about teams that are able to spend way more money than other teams. Those teams don't necessarily spend their money wisely. Manchester United being a case in point, many of their very expensive acquisitions have been complete flops, an alarming number in fact. Okay, you've this group of clubs which I mentioned yesterday, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Villa, Everton, who all have money they would like to spend on players but aren't allowed to because of PSR. Take Newcastle, for example, whose owners are unspeakably rich. Their fans are frustrated because their owners are not allowed spend money on players that the club hasn't earned.

10:48Well, then find ways of earning money.

10:52Max Rushden:Look at Brighton. Brighton have made fortunes scouting talent in South America or Japan or wherever that have never inched their way onto the radar of other bigger clubs, bought them for pennies and sold them on for tens or in the case of Moyes Kasaito and McAllister, hundred million quid and that gave them the funds to spend a lot of money last summer and i think brighton are one of the most smartly run clubs on the planet if not the smartest run club and i would see brighton as potentially breaking that big six hegemony in the next few years and their owner, Tony Bloom, he's pumped money into Hearts in Scotland.

11:41Max Rushden:He did a Q &A the other night for Hearts. He doesn't speak publicly very often, but he did a Q &A for Hearts fans the other night, which apparently was massively impressive. And I was watching the Hearts-Aberdeen game last night, which Hearts won easily, and he was interviewed beforehand. And he's not one for bombastic statements, but he seems to be genuinely convinced that in the next 10 years or less, Hearts can win the Scottish Premier League that can break up the Celtic Rangers duopoly and I believe him. So just, if you're not allowed to spend money, just spend the money you are allowed to spend better.

12:25Philippe Auclair:Yeah, I don't have any problem with that. I mean, it's always difficult for me to praise Tony Bloom given when I think about multi-club ownership but it's a rare example of a virtuous version of it because it's limited, because it's completely transparent and because the methodology which is behind it has been proven right. To be honest, I mean, with the case of Newcastle, it actually quite amuses me when I hear fans complaining about the fact that they can't spend money on the transfer market. If I'm not absolutely wrong, when Eddie Howe arrived at the club and the Saudis arrived at the club, they actually spent more in net in the calendar year than any other club on the planet, including Barca, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Inter, you name it.

13:08Philippe Auclair:They actually spent more at the time. And if the little chickens have come home to roost, what's the problem with that? And I agree with Barry that you have to look at a system that is actually meritocratic and rewards virtuous behaviour. Well, virtuous behaviour doesn't mean you're sharing your fortune with anyone, Max. It just means keeping within certain parameters which are morally acceptable and also fit in the regulations. And if they can't do it, well, sod them. That's the amount of sympathy I've got for those clubs. Fair enough. Ben says, hi, Tim. Is there any news, rumour? Has Philippe got a deep throat-style leak around the Man City charges?

13:57the new season's just around the corner with still no certainty on the outcome uh also who's the hardest sportsman ever why is it chris wokes it's a it's a different podcast but yeah what a great site that was yesterday um i'll go to you kieran actually do you do we know anything about the charges because it just it was definitely going to be last season and now it hasn't happened yet no we know we know nothing at all there are probably no more than four people in the country that are knowing the progress of the outcome three of which were on the panel itself and somebody in the fourth person is the person who's got the really tough job of having to type up the whole thing um so i i talk to lawyers on on a regular basis and they've said nothing will be leaped out this is an incredibly professional operation given there was i think 50 or 60 000 pieces of evidence at the everton commission if you multiply that over a period of nine years under which Manchester City were being assessed you probably got 500 ,000 documents to to to review and then there's 130 charges through which they have to be filtered as well so it could last forever it could

15:03Philippe Auclair:be forever that there have been some rumors Max there's bound to be rumors but um it has been said I have heard that nothing before October of this year and you have to think that if we hear anything in October it doesn't mean it's the end of the road it means that the process will then go into another phase with appeals and things like that.

15:33Max Rushden:It's like Arsenal which phase are we on now?

15:38Philippe Auclair:So yeah there is absolutely yes John Dice with John Dice and with the Etihad as a bleak house I mean it's it's quite extraordinary but there's no sign that we're going to see anything anytime soon as I said October 2025 but to be honest it's one of those Max you keep kicking the ball a little bit further in the long grass it's like your Uber Eats delivery when it says you know preparing your order and then you know he's on his way but the bike isn't moving towards you and then it keeps going further and he's got three other deliveries to do and you're just like this pizza's getting cold for god's sake and then it gets cancelled and yeah and that is and then you can't there's no one you can message you just shout at the street um lots of listeners are interested about multi-club ownership and you know have looked at you know you know nottingham forest have two you know maranakis owns more than one texter owns more than one or you know has shares in more than one and yet because texter didn't fill a foreman at the right time palace are punished and forest aren't it doesn't sort of fit you know in a bit like chelsea selling stuff to themselves you know the purity or the letter of the law i don't know if that takes us any further down the good or the bad of multi-club ownership philip uh i think in the case of multi-club ownership uh anybody who had any hope that the system would actually be challenged at international level can now put those hopes aside.

17:05Philippe Auclair:You who enter here abandon all hope, here being UEFA. It is now accepted by UEFA that you can have clubs belonging to the same entity, taking part in the same competition. This was the case for last year Manchester City, with Manchester City and Girona. This could have been the case with Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos, which is the second club owned by Marienakis, and the third one is Rio Ave in Portugal. And they would have been able to compete had they qualified for Champions League in the same competition as Olympiacos, because what they use is a system called the blind trust system, by which the owner or the controlling owner of a club passes on the management.

17:50Philippe Auclair:I'm simplifying stuff here. Please do. The management, you know, So basically for whatever time is needed, that person no longer has direct control over his assets. I said his because they're all men. So a good example is Mark Carney in Canada. Now he's the Prime Minister of Canada. Mark Carney, obviously he has assets, shares and so forth. And being the Prime Minister of Canada, obviously he's parted to information, which would be very, very valuable to actually manipulate the markets. So what he does is that, OK, for the time that I'm a prime minister, I pass on the control of these assets to a third party.

18:28Philippe Auclair:I've got absolutely nothing to do with them. And he genuinely does, by the way. I have no control. All they have to do is send me some accounts from every six months, I believe, saying this is the financial performance. As to what they have done, he doesn't know. He has no influence on that. so that, let's say, Marinakis will pass on the control of Nottingham Forest for a period of one season, if Nottingham Forest had qualified for the Champions League, and he passes that on to somebody else who takes care of the club, takes care of the asset, and no problem, he has no control over it, just the same way, I mean, Jim Bradcliffe also did it for Nice and for Lausanne two years ago and last year.

19:09Philippe Auclair:I mean, it's a complete joke because the idea that Evangelos Marinakis has no control and no interest in the club anymore is actually a complete... He was quite close to Morgan Gibbs-White, but maybe that was just a coincidence. Just a coincidence. But what is extraordinary is that, so therefore multi-club ownership is now accepted in European football. Isn't the issue, Kieran, I guess, if you are a smaller club in a multi-club ownership, in a sense, you know the immediate thing might be successful for your club so like your you're willing your dream for your team to win this game might help that you are owned by Man City the larger dream may not exist and I suppose it's a bit like you know who your owners are right because football is this thing that we are just that doesn't that controls us in a way that we don't sit there and go I don't want to be part you know I don't want Cambridge to be part of a structure that's owned by Real Madrid because ultimately it means we won't win the Champions so I might think we might get you know Rodrigo on loan I mean that's a ridiculous example but you take my point that that is how that's how they win because we we are too focused on the next game you're absolutely right if you take a look at what's happened between Chelsea and Strasbourg this summer Strasbourg have signed players from Chelsea I think they've got two or three players on loan from Chelsea as well that could certainly assist and and then it's a case of do you feel that you've lost your identity in doing so.

20:33I think when Manchester City attempted to acquire, was it Breda in the Netherlands, there was a pushback from the fans because they said, we'd rather be Breda on our own merits than as part of an MCO. There are theoretical benefits and conceptual benefits to having an MCO, but realistically, we've never seen those put into practice. What tends to happen is that the mothership, the senior club within the partnership is the major beneficiary and the other clubs sort of are effectively tugboats who are just assisting the success of the prime club. Yeah, we've had lots of questions about various specific multi-club ownerships that we can't necessarily go into detail without getting right of reply from people who don't necessarily always give you right of reply if you understand what I mean.

21:25Anyway, that'll do for part one. We'll be back in a second.

21:32Philippe Auclair:Hey, it's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin.

21:45Max Rushden:Do we know if he's licensed, or does he just stone a ladder?

21:50Philippe Auclair:Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note, and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today.

22:11Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Rob says, Dear Football Weekly, do you have a live show coming up anytime soon? If so, please mention it on the pod so no one misses out. Thanks for the reminder, Rob. Yes. Thursday, September the 11th, we're playing the Troxie in London. The usual carousel of favourites from the Football Weekly family. To be announced panel. some outtakes a few videos we're working on maybe some music we'll see tickets can be purchased at theguardian.com slash footballweeklylive looks like they're selling quite well which is nice to know if you aren't in London we're live streaming the show tickets from the same link theguardian.com slash footballweeklylive let's talk about Sheffield Wednesday and Morecambe lots of conjecture on social media yesterday that Morecambe had ceased to exist Sani Rudravagala was there I messaged him and he voiced me messaged me back from inside the club.

22:57And the stadium manager was sitting next to him saying, no, no, we're still open, but there's no cash. Lots of people are just keeping it going for no money at all. We had quite a lot of questions like this. Billy said, given what's happening at Sheffield Wednesday and Morecambe and the severe lack of mainstream coverage where outlets would rather cover transfers and friendly matches between Premier League clubs, can anything be done to highlight these cases in future? And actually, Kieran, it's interesting. And I don't know if this reflects on the price of football pod as well, but when we do episodes about whether Alexander Rizak might be going to Liverpool, we will get more listeners than if we do a special about the future of EFL clubs in crisis.

23:35And obviously, you know, we need listeners. Sky Sports News needs viewers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's, you know, sometimes it is difficult, but lots of fans saying, look, you know, you don't care until it's your club, basically. I think there has been a fair amount of coverage. The fact that, you know, Sani's been working for Sky Sports. It has been covered on BBC, I was on BBC One on Sunday morning talking about Morecambe. So there is a concern. At the same time, we all know what generates engagement, and that is the obsession that people now have with the transfer market and sort of the number of fans that live in reflected glory in terms of their own self-assessment and self-worth.

24:18When their side is seen to be spending large sums of money, we perceive ourselves to be a better and bigger person as a result of it. So I think the amount of coverage in the mainstream media has been, I think, has been very fair. There was a fantastic article by Gregor Robertson in The Times over the course of the weekend, which went into an awful lot of forensic detail about the ways and wherefores of Jason Whittingham, the colourful owner of Morecambe Football Club. What can they do, Kieran? Because they say there's no money. So volunteers and love is great. It doesn't last forever. The people coming in who want to buy it, there are questions about them as well, aren't there?

25:02Yes, if you take a look at the companies which are owned by the people connected to Panjab Warriors, they seem to have been set up in the last few years. They don't seem to be generating significant amounts of cash. I think the one consolation is that the EFL, who have significantly upped their game since Trevor Birch took over, did appear to have approved them under the owners and directors test. And the big issues there is, A, do they have the money? And B, can they show where the money's come from? If you tick those boxes, that does give you a degree of comfort. But ultimately, if Jason Whittingham doesn't want to sell at the price that Panjab Warriors wants to buy, and with the mysterious Johnny Cato having come and gone within 48 hours, and I know who Johnny Cato actually is, and his name's named Johnny Cato, that's for sure.

25:55The options are either Whittingham finds some cash to support the club, because it is losing money there's no doubt about that um or it goes into liquidation because i don't think you can put it into administration when you haven't got a board of directors it's an interesting thing about the fit and proper persons test philip in the sense that you know it should one question be are you better than the current one because you know if you're if you're a morcombe fan you might go well we're not sure about these new prospective owners but they're certainly better than this guy who appears to be completely shameless and i don't know how he sleeps at night and he just doesn't care about anyone or anything to do with that football club?