If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, says Sir Jim Ratcliffe of the Premier League. Manchester United’s joint owner has been giving the billionaire’s view to financial and media institution Bloomberg. Sir Jim wants a hands-off approach to running the elite division of English football, a system that allows the rich to spend what they want, free of regulation and restriction.
And that means two fingers to an independent regulator with governmental oversight. Well, he is in control of one of the richest football clubs on earth, whom, even saddled with massive debt linked to the leveraged majority ownership of the Glazer family, would still be able to outspend the regulatory straitjacket imposed by the Premier League.
That’s why he offered qualified support to Manchester City in their legal challenge against the Premier League over associated party transactions (ATPs), via which the league regulates commercial deals with groups linked to a club’s ownership, in City’s case, the Abu Dhabi state. In the second week of the hearing, City’s legal team were doubtless toasting Sir Jim’s timely banging of the drum for them.
Ratcliffe’s is a powerful voice, as it would be emanating from Britain’s richest man. And he is not shy about using it. After hosting Sir Keir Starmer at Old Trafford last month to discuss his “Wembley of the North” idea, he has since come out in support of Labour ahead of next month’s election.
Though Labour is committed to an independent regulator for English football, the terms and conditions have yet to be established.
However, you can bet your half-and-half scarves that Sir Jim’s views on regulation are known at Labour HQ as well as his plans for levelling up Old Trafford.
Ratcliffe claims City are fighting for free market conditions, to be allowed to trade with whomever they wish. This is a perversion of the truth, a misrepresentation of the facts.
City are not trading in a free market. They are trading in their own market since a good number of the sponsors with whom the club is engaging are ultimately owned by the same Abu Dhabi source.
If City win the argument there is nothing to stop them, through linked sponsorship partners, paying way over the market rate simply because they can afford it.
Not only does their inexhaustible wealth place them outside of market forces, but it would also put them beyond regulation too, making the Premier League harder to win for any outside the rich few. Sir Jim wouldn’t mind that because United would be one of the clubs with the capacity to compete because of their own commercial power.
Ratcliffe believes regulation leads only one way, to the courts, which is worse for the game than free market economics. “If you start interfering too much, bringing too much regulation in, then you finish up with the Manchester City issue, you finish up with the Everton issue, you finish up with the Nottingham Forest issue – on and on and on,” he said.
“If you’re not careful the Premier League is going to finish up spending more time in court than it is thinking about what’s good for the league. We have got the best league in the world, don’t ruin that league for heaven’s sake.”
Good for whom? Good for Burnley, for Sheffield United, for Luton Town, all of whom went straight back down after winning promotion? Or good for City, Newcastle, Chelsea and United, and to a lesser degree, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham?
Ratcliffe’s beef at Old Trafford is not the amount United have sploshed on transfers but the value gained for the money spent. For top dollar you want a return on investment.
Instead United have shelled out high fees and six-figure weekly salaries starting with a “3” for fading brands with heavy legs. That’s a consequence of having too many accountants and not enough football savvy operators in control at Old Trafford, he complained to Bloomberg.
Though a win for City would clear the path to a future free-for-all, it does not necessarily redeem a past that led to 115 charges for alleged financial fair play (FFP) breaches.
The case brought against them by the Premier League, which is scheduled to reach the tribunal in November, refers to the rules as were not as might be. How deep into the legal minefield the Premier League are prepared to go on limited funds before reaching some kind of settlement, is another matter.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/Vj70Exy
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