Club Transparency

[Spike]

I was thinking about it today, most clubs are somewhat secretive with their finances and rightfully so. I wonder how many clubs are, and how much they are bankrolled by entities that are outside the club structure. We all know the obvious, Chelsea, Paris-Saint Germain, The City Group, but what about Bournemouth? A.C. Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Olympique Lyonnais, Olympique de Marseille, Liverpool, Southampton, Tottenham, and so on. You don't have to dig very deep to see who owns what, but I'm still curious of the amount of clubs receive to facilitate running. Marseille is owned by Frank McCourt (and part by Margeret Louis-Dreyfus), a very wealthy man that owns the wealthiest baseball team in America. Lyon was just another Ligue 2 club before financed in the 80s by multi-millionaire Jean-Michel Aulas. It does make me wonder about other French clubs, though whatever PSG can do would make anything else seem insignificant.

A.C. Milan and Inter were bankrolled by two of the most notorious Itailan business, the always controversial Silvio Burlesconi, and Massimo Moratti. The former I wonder how much of the Italian people's money was embezzled into and out of the club during his time. Juventus is owned by the Agnelli family, and how is it not an anti-trust violation (or the Italian equivalent, or even the FIFA equivalent) that they are sponsored by a brand they own? Agnelli owns Jeep, but they sponsor their own team? Isn't that a violation of FFP, a ways to circumvent and artificially inflate the books? I won't pretend to be an expert but isn't that exactly what PSG were punished for several years ago, when it was found out that they were sponsoring their own club with shell companies?

Are Premier League clubs that have received funds in the past floating on them, or they are now transitioned to surviving mainly on the astronomical TV deals and sponsorships? We all know that Chelsea is bankrolled by a Russian Oligarch, Tottenham the clever and tight Daniel Levy, Liverpool the Fenway Sports Group, Leicester the Thai Conglomerate King Power, Wolverhampton the Chinese billion dollar company Fosun (not even mentioning their shady relationship with Jorge Mendes), and so on. Naturally there are different degrees of investment but I wonder how self-sufficient the English clubs are compared to a decade and a half ago, the money in the league is boogling, to the point a relegation team seems to be able outspend major teams in Italy and Spain, everyone seems to be flush with cash in England, and I think people tend to forget that or at least don't realise how much money is in the Premier League. It seems each club has a huge stack in every club in England, flush with foreign cash. How many of these clubs have a parasitic relationship with their owner? Does the owner take money out of the club or do they invest?

tl'dr football is corrupt in conclusion

[Spike]

Oh yeah and the Germans as per usual do it weirder with Vfl Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen being literally founded by employees from conglomerates. I don't know why Leverkusen and Bayer don't change the name, when I think of Bayer I think of heroin and Monsanto.

[Azeem]

Sports were last good in the 90s, from there it's all downhill 

[Spike]

35 minutes ago, Azeem said:

Sports were last good in the 90s, from there it's all downhill 

But that is when things started snowballing, inparticular look at the money AC Milan and Inter spent, amongst the other Italian clubs like Juve and Lazio

[Smiley Culture]

Clapton Community FC are a club formed by the former “Clapton Ultras”, a hard left group who adopted Clapton FC as their club before having a big fall out with the Clapton FC chairman and eventually going on to form their own club. 

They are as transparent a club as I know and release a monthly breakdown of costs. 

https://www.claptoncfc.co.uk/2020/08/08/july-2020-income-and-expenditure/

[Spike]

1 hour ago, Smiley Culture said:

Clapton Community FC are a club formed by the former “Clapton Ultras”, a hard left group who adopted Clapton FC as their club before having a big fall out with the Clapton FC chairman and eventually going on to form their own club. 

They are as transparent a club as I know and release a monthly breakdown of costs. 

https://www.claptoncfc.co.uk/2020/08/08/july-2020-income-and-expenditure/

What a great club, they even have a Covid fund for struggling families. That is what you want to see out of this sport.

[Rucksackfranzose]

On 22/08/2020 at 05:00, Spike said:

Oh yeah and the Germans as per usual do it weirder with Vfl Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen being literally founded by employees from conglomerates. I don't know why Leverkusen and Bayer don't change the name, when I think of Bayer I think of heroin and Monsanto.

 

Honestly you shouldn't comment of German football, as you have obviously no idea of it. If you had you 'd know that German clubs are obligedto reveal their financial situation and revenues of all origins annually. Therefore it's laughable to mention them in a thread about lacking transparency.

[Spike]

1 minute ago, Rucksackfranzose said:

 

Honestly you shouldn't comment of German football, as you have obviously no idea of it. If you had you 'd know that German clubs are obligedto reveal their financial situation and revenues of all origins annually. Therefore it's laughable to mention them in a thread about lacking transparency.

Prickly ol' bastard aren't you? Could have just said that German clubs have to reveal their financial reports but you had to make a little soapbox out of it and talk down to me. Piss off.

[Mel81x+]

I don't think the amount you declare is directly proportional to how 'non-corrupt' you are. Accountants thrive on being creative in their reporting of finances so I'd imagine at every level all these clubs are doing some balancing to look legit to their local authorities much less authorities auditing them from outside the country of their operation. This all ultimately boils down to how much these clubs do with their finances at the end of the day of course and whether or not regulatory authorities find their owners or assets in breach of financial practices. I'd also add that with the advent of investment across the board from groups like Etihad or the Qatar Foundation the rest of the financial management groups are being made to look like saints in the larger landscape and thus getting less of the spotlight. 

[Cicero]

2 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I don't think the amount you declare is directly proportional to how 'non-corrupt' you are. Accountants thrive on being creative in their reporting of finances so I'd imagine at every level all these clubs are doing some balancing to look legit to their local authorities much less authorities auditing them from outside the country of their operation. This all ultimately boils down to how much these clubs do with their finances at the end of the day of course and whether or not regulatory authorities find their owners or assets in breach of financial practices. I'd also add that with the advent of investment across the board from groups like Etihad or the Qatar Foundation the rest of the financial management groups are being made to look like saints in the larger landscape and thus getting less of the spotlight. 

I read when a club signs a player that is on a 5 year contract for example, only a certain amount is allocated in the books for that year with respect to the contract.

 Whereas if the club sells a player, the entire amount is allocated in the books for that year. 

[Mel81x+]

2 minutes ago, Cicero said:

I read when a club signs a player that is on a 5 year contract, only a certain amount is allocated in the books for that year. Whereas if the club sells a player, the entire amount is allocated in the books for that year. 

Was that something you read about Spain? Because I remember getting very fascinated by how the RFEF handles transfers within the leagues in Spain so as to not look like some clubs generated profits which could be margined differently had both the clubs reported the amounts as per the sale. They also did it to include all clubs in contractual blocks by the player/agent(s) so that the money never truly disappeared but sometimes it did. I tried to find more info on this and it was around the time the Atletico/Barcelona transfer for Griezmann was going on.

[Spike]

1 minute ago, Cicero said:

I read when a club signs a player that is on a 5 year contract for example, only a certain amount is allocated in the books for that year with respect to the contract.

 Whereas if the club sells a player, the entire amount is allocated in the books for that year. 

I've read that as well. For instance Bayer and Chelsea with Kai Havertz, Bayer will book €80,000,000 for this season as income, but Chelsea will only write up  €16,000,000 this season as expenditure, making up the total over the five years of his contract. I think it is a way of manipulating the FFP three year cycle (this one is double cycle, six years). I don't know how they figure bonuses and agent fees into that.

[nudge]

For those interested in football business and financials, Swiss Ramble is a great account to follow. 

https://twitter.com/swissramble

 

[Spike]

15 minutes ago, nudge said:

For those interested in football business and financials, Swiss Ramble is a great account to follow. 

https://twitter.com/swissramble

 

Looks like the Germans will have more money to toss around. Shame it's not fair split of the domestic pool, looks like Bayern Munich takes the biggest cut, but still it is even less than Lyon makes.

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

Levy doesn't own Spurs outright, he's a minority shareholder.

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, Spike said:

I've read that as well. For instance Bayer and Chelsea with Kai Havertz, Bayer will book €80,000,000 for this season as income, but Chelsea will only write up  €16,000,000 this season as expenditure, making up the total over the five years of his contract. I think it is a way of manipulating the FFP three year cycle (this one is double cycle, six years). I don't know how they figure bonuses and agent fees into that.

Agent fees can't be amortised like salaries and bonuses (if he triggers any bonuses, they'd count that expenditure for the year he triggered that bonus)... unless somehow the terms of that players' contract account for agent fees certain conditions a player meets over the course of his contract. Then the club would be able to amortise that expenditure.