It's cute that people think fairness and application of the rules could happen in football. Cute, but no basis in observable reality.
Lets not forget that manshitty have been under charge for nearly a decade, and this is a week when illegal payments were found to be made under the previous regime at chelski. When absolutely everyone knew and saw at the time, that the business model was to move the cost of elite football out of the affordability of other clubs.
The whole thing has been rotten to the core for years, and long gone. It amazes me that viewers continue to pay hand over first, to be mugged off at rigged table.
The chances of timely and fair application of the rules is clearly tending towards zero.
Part of the problem is that the nature of financial reporting means that it's impossible to punish clubs for breaching financial rules in a timely manner.
If Everton "cheated" by overspending in 2021-22 (which is the charge), the first time it could have become apparent was when they filed their reports towards the end of last season. So the team they cheated most directly were Burnley - what possible action could any regulator have taken then?
I suppose the chairman has always been part of the 'sport' since day one, the issue now is the chairman is infinite and the access to credit much easier. Trying to apply some made up formula is impossible so the only answer is a budget cap which isn't going to happen.
Well that’s a choice. I can report, pretty accurately, the financial results and position of my employer within days of any given period ending, along with a pretty solid outlook for the coming months. Public companies around the world routinely prepare and publish complex quarterly results on tight deadlines. Internally, high level football clubs will have the numbers and know where they are, and where they need to be, re FFP, at any given time.
The football authorities have chosen not to require clubs to make the information needed available sooner. It’s almost as if they have no interest in any part of FFP not being shit.
So, you force them to end the year at the end of May? And produce the accounts by the end of August? How long for a proper quasi-judicial process to decide if they should be punished? Another 6 months? So they could have relegated Everton and cancelled Burnley’s promotion in April. Think that still might have caused a problem.
Why end of May? Why not say end of Jan when transfer window shut for that season. Can be more aggressive than 3 months to prepare if you want, say 6 weeks to mid March.
Then have two months to give out any punishment so sorted by end of May, roughly when play off final is.
You require preliminary full-season FFP accounts and forecasts within a few weeks of the summer transfer window closing. You require them to be updated after the January window.. at which point clubs have pretty clear visibility over large chunks of their income and expenditure (season tickets are sold, the playing roster is largely locked down, sponsorship and TV money is largely known).
Uncertainties remain, of course.. notably income from progression in knock-out competitions and prize money.. but as clubs will need to show forecasts that put them within FFP, there’s going to be enough there to spot the clubs at risk and anyone can be require to provide updated results and forecasts periodically as events evolve.
If there is an effective reporting regime and dialogue, the likelihood, impact, and timing of appeals is reduced. You might not catch every breach in time for timely penalties, but you absolutely ensure everyone is on notice that there are issues and actually put more pressure on clubs to manage things sustainably in the first place (which was supposed to be the point).
None of it has to be related to ‘ordinary’ company accounts and filing deadlines.
Just makes sense to tie the financial year to the natural cycle of players' contracts, season tickets, etc. And apart from alll that, it would mean our 21-22 season would have been covered by two different regulatory regimes (along with any other promoted or relegated team) which would basically mean we'd have to get a free pass.
Businesses, that stay in business, do their cashflow almost in real-time. Absolutely no reason that participation in the competition couldn't require FFP-flow to be shared with the governing body on a reasonable ongoing basis (monthly?).
