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jimmy - I don't know anything about the legal machinations of it and I suspect we won't get a handle on it until the enforcement bit comes in, which I think is in March.
The idea behind it is on the face if it well meaning - they say they want to stop clubs spending themselves out of existence. That said I don't think many clubs cease to exist after financial problems - there's always someone willing to take them on.
It doesn't seem designed to level the playing field and make the sport more competitive - there are much more effective ways to do that. Other than obviously trying to limit the sugar daddys.
FFP was as much about giving established clubs like ourselves a solid foot hold from which to make money for the owners. It can be passed off as helping to make the game more competitive but I agree with those that argue it just maintains the status quo.
There'd be about ten things i would do before FFP to level the playing field. If the intention was truly to make the game more competitive there's way more that can be done - but clubs at our level would clearly lobby against that. And the threat of a European league
I don't know much about the exemptions - but spending on stadium facilities and youth development is encouraged which is positive. Provided the receipts back it up.
I posted an article a while back about the various little tricks you can do to take advantage of the rules - we changed our accounting year for this reason. The main issue seems to me to be the sponsorship, and I think is the issue that will decide whether FFP is a joke or not.
Our efforts to increase sponsorship/ partnerships are totally above board - no related companies are sponsoring us.
John Henry made the salient point that he's like to see the losing bids for those sponsorship deals city are doing - and if UEFA don't look at that the rules are a farce. Some of those city sponsors have absolutely nothing to gain from the deals- it's as clear as day they're bullshit covers for the owners putting more money in. PSG has the most outrageous deal for me, they signed a deal in 2013 with a related company which included selling sponsorship rights for the previous year, money for nothing.
One concern I'd have is that the waters have been sufficiently muddied by various companies l, trusts, off shore corporations etc
so that it's impossible for anyone to determine quickly who owns the companies. So UEFA will have difficulty determining what's a related company. I think Ken Bates managed to hide his ownership of Leeds for ages this way. You would hope common sense prevails, but would you bet on it ?
