f***ing up football

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

should get Platini & Blatter involved really

 

Football The Premier League could make a radical change to regulations regarding transfers at its summer AGM, when a proposal that all fees must be paid within a year of a player signing will be discussed.

 

Transfer payments are currently scheduled over the course of a player's contract, which usually ranges from three to five years, in line with practice across Europe. The proposal on the table for discussion at the AGM, which will be held in the first week of June, will suggest that 50% of the fee must be paid on the player signing with the remainder due within 12 months.

 

The Premier League is intent on tightening its financial regulations, following the troubled season experienced by Portsmouth, who are in administration with debts of £122.8m, of which £14m consists of unpaid transfer fees.

 

Portsmouth are due to hold a meeting with creditors on Friday at which their administrator, Andrew Andronikou, hopes to agree a Company Voluntary Arrangement. He has stated that he hopes to take Portsmouth out of administration by the end of next month. A fire sale of players is expected to aid that process.

 

It is hoped that if only a year were allowed for a fee to be paid, clubs would be forced to exert a stricter control over their finances and leave themselves less open to accruing unmanageable debt by falling behind on instalments.

 

David Gold, the co-owner of West Ham United, who will attend the league's AGM, told the Guardian he would welcome the change. "From my own club's perspective I would say: 'Here I am needing as much credit as I can get because we're in financial restraints because of the debt we've inherited,'" he said of West Ham's £100m-plus liability. "However from an overall, footballing point of view I actually believe that controlling debt is one of the fundamentals that the Premier League should be addressing.

 

"We almost need to be saved from ourselves. Because we're in such an extraordinary business we are subject to building debt because we're under pressure from fans, other board members, the manager, the players. The greatest driving factor is the overall requirement to succeed or avoid relegation, so clubs take risks. You have to have good governance and I applaud the Premier League board for addressing this issue. Let's hope that the majority of clubs agree with this policy."

 

At the AGM the clubs could ratify the proposal for next season decide further discussions are required or dismiss it. One objection to the proposal might be that it could leave Premier League clubs with less room to manoeuvre financially in signing players compared with teams in the rest of Europe.

 

So - now there'll be an even greater incentive to buy abroad, but as foreign teams know of this, they'll be able to charge an 'english tax'

 

If you're going to mess with the economics of a business, you have to make it affect all-comers, not just a bunch in a certain geographical location

[Hassony]

i think it's a good plan personally

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

It is - if you can get all of Europe onto the same playing field

 

Otherwise you'll spend 10m on a foreign player where you can pay 2m per season

 

And then the press (and Cameron) will moan about more foreign players

[Hassony]

It is - if you can get all of Europe onto the same playing field

 

 

true

 

can they legally do it anyway?