Cardiff City Transfer Ban… Is this really what FFP is for?

In recent months, four Championship teams have received transfer embargo for financial misconduct. Basically they have fallen foul of UEFA’s rules on how to run your club’s finances.
The latest of these teams is Cardiff City, who find themselves in the midst of a promotion fight to the Premier League, and their transfer embargo has impeded the signings of Tony Watt and potentially Anthony Stokes.

Friday 22nd Jan 2016

The whole purpose of FFP was to counteract the effect of money in football and level the playing field for teams that don’t have the turnover of Manchester United or Real Madrid or unimaginably wealthy owners like Manchester City. It is also intended to prevent the building up of unsustainable debt at a club and stop situations like Portsmouth’s fall from grace. But, we have to begin to question the role of FFP in football when teams chasing promotion or fighting against relegation are being punished and prevented from operating their clubs to the full extent when the regulations have just recently been relaxed for the likes of Paris Saint German.

The Bluebirds were relegated from the Premier League in 2014 and have been attempting to return since but now that prospect and hope seems to be fading. Loop holes in the sanctions placed upon them still allows for loan signings, explaining the arrival of Lex Immers of Feyenoord, but without the ability to make permanent deals key first team player so far this season Tony Watt looks unlikely to return. Cardiff were a welcome diverse addition to the Premier League and should they return they would be a welcomed away day for most fans but FFP is distancing that possibility.

accounts of Cardiff City for the FFP breach period in question won’t be released till March but the alleged breach came due to the club taking in a loss of over £6m and is the second time in 6 years the club has faced embargo sanctions. The club have announced they believe they have trade within the FFP limits for 2015/16 and expect to participate in the 2016 Summer transfer window but this season could suffer.

Without add re-enforcements in January Cardiff’s position of 9th in the Championship Table looks unlikely to improve and their bid for promotion looks to have been severely depleted. If FFP was about balancing the playing field for smaller teams, then it has failed. If aspirational teams and fans are being failed by owners like Vincent Tan and their ability to run a well financed football club, then surely UEFA and the FA should’ve stepped in before he acquired the team.

The history between Cardiff City fans and owner Vincent Tan has been chequered to say the least; his changing of the kit colour to Red for the Premier League season being his most overt middle finger to tradition and the fans. This mishandling of the club finances has to be placed at his door as well as UEFA’s but it is the fans and players of Cardiff City that are really suffering.

Only a fool must have thought FFP was meant to help the smaller clubs or their fans. It is and always was a mechanism to entrench the current financial superiority of the big rich clubs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't QPR breach FFP massively when they got promoted, and the football league couldn't do anything about it because they were then a premier league club. They then got relegated and have still not suffered a punishment? There's seems to be lots of loopholes for clubs to get out of this. I seem to remember Man City getting out of it aswell? Surely it's pointless if the bigger clubs can still pull tricks to get out of embargo's, points deductions, etc.

It's been scrapped in premier league I think

QPR paid a £50m fine didn't they?

It doubt believe it impedes clubs chasing promotion I believe it seriously hurts clubs that get relegated and try to bounce back at first attempt as revenue streams are far lower parachute payments don't cover the gap between those revenue decreases and the increased wages being paid hence once we knew we couldn't go up last year we tried our best to cost cut and stay writhing the rules, if we were top 2 at the point where we cost cut that wouldn't have happened we would have gambled on promotion and paid the fines when due instead

Clubs that have been championship for long periods shouldn't really fall foul unless they spend continuously above what they generate in revenue, so I firmly believe it's related clubs from premier league that don't bounce straight back that get into trouble as the recent embargoes seem to show

It's been scrapped in premier league I think

QPR paid a £50m fine didn't they?

It doubt believe it impedes clubs chasing promotion I believe it seriously hurts clubs that get relegated and try to bounce back at first attempt as revenue streams are far lower parachute payments don't cover the gap between those revenue decreases and the increased wages being paid hence once we knew we couldn't go up last year we tried our best to cost cut and stay writhing the rules, if we were top 2 at the point where we cost cut that wouldn't have happened we would have gambled on promotion and paid the fines when due instead

Clubs that have been championship for long periods shouldn't really fall foul unless they spend continuously above what they generate in revenue, so I firmly believe it's related clubs from premier league that don't bounce straight back that get into trouble as the recent embargoes seem to show

Some very good points there!

I may be wrong but I seem to recall that it was pretty much scrapped (in all but name) for the so-called 'top' clubs in Europe after several of them were due to fall foul of their rules (Man City and Paris St Germain spring to mind)

Just found this on QPR - Queens Park Rangers are set to avoid a crippling fine from the Football League that relates to the club exceeding financial fair play rules in 2013-14, with the punishment expected to be around a more manageable £8m.

The Championship club’s figures for the period in question, which was their promotion season back into the Premier League, showed losses of £9.8m, although the chairman, Tony Fernandes, and the other shareholders wrote off a further £60m in loans. The manner in which they did so raised questions and they have been at the heart of the FFP discussions between the club and the Football League.

Personally I think it was a deliberate ploy by the club to avoid spending during the January window.

Personally I think it was a deliberate ploy by the club to avoid spending during the January window.

That thought had crossed my mind too.So it begs the question why?To stop Slade buying any more duds as he is on borrowed time?,or just Vinnies way of saying I ain't spending no more.

Personally I think it was a deliberate ploy by the club to avoid spending during the January window.

That thought had crossed my mind too.So it begs the question why?To stop Slade buying any more duds as he is on borrowed time?,or just Vinnies way of saying I ain't spending no more.

Buying.

Wasn't it the case that we broke the rules by failing to submit the accounts, or have I got that wrong ? If true, it does support the notion that it was engineered to avoid buying players

Wasn't it the case that we broke the rules by failing to submit the accounts, or have I got that wrong ? If true, it does support the notion that it was engineered to avoid buying players

No that's not the case, although we wont be submiting our accounts to company's house until march (that's the same time every year) we had to hand them over to the footballl league for inspection, i also have a feeling this move is to stop slade wasting anymore monies in the transfer market, at least with only loans coming in it's a short term expense.

It can be simply fixed by a player and wage cap like the yanks do for their sports.
Bonuses can be whatever they want, so basically a player under preforms hes on the same at Man City as he would be at Sunderland.
And also players wont be chasing the penny. They will be looking at game time to earn more money.

SIMPLE