Could 5th get us into Champions League?

[Loz]

It's all a bit ridiculous really. The whole fair play system has only been designed to allow the "established" CL clubs stay there indefinitely by creation of a set of rules that only they have the money to bend anyway.
If the rules are to be enforced then City have to be banned....simple as that. Their legitimate income cannot come anywhere their crazy expenditure levels and having state owned companies "sponsor" a club owned by that same state is nonsense. It wouldn't be much different if Abramovich decided to plough another £200 million into Chelsea under the guise of a sponsorship deal from his wife, with funds paid from their joint account.

Personally, I think the CL has got to stuck up its own you know what and the clubs in it aren't bothered about anything else. If it is truly a "champions league" then the FA Cup winners should be in the 4th spot, not the Arsenal team that routinely finishes fourth, 20 points behind the leaders and manages to quality for the CL to earn enough to keep that up season after season. It should be about glory rather than financial perpetual motion. If FA Cup winners qualified (which I bet all clubs in England would vote for bar four of them) then the FA Cup would also become the great tournament that it used to be and everyone would take it seriously. It would also be better for the CL as you would then have good league sides and good cup sides in a tournament that is a hybrid of both.
Sorry lads...felt like a rant.

 

[Garrick]

You're wrong here mate, It is absolutely costing that, and should be more for the quality of it.

What City are doig is expansding their business, so that the 5's are spread. I'm not sure that there is anything that relates to first team playing staff, or backroom staff. there fore they can spread their costs out across the City brand. E.G, their womesn team. Man City get £150m pa in soonsorship, from, well, their owners. They then also sponsor the womens team £50m pa. It all goes into the same pot. If City get in trouble, they will just start a basketball team or somethiong. i cant help but think that this is exactly why they have bought the Aussie team. It's all just a mixing pot to drop money into, in the hope of it coming right back in to the first team.

They could easily spend more than that on a stadium if they needed to do large scale FFP money laundering. In the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings are looking at dropping $1 billion USD/600 million GBP on their new stadium.

 

[MACCA75]

The best solution for 'financial fair play' would be for the Prem to operate a strict wage cap - say 50k a week, that was adhered to, with severe penalties (points) for clubs trying to get around it.

Bring it in for say 2019, so it wouldn't affect existing contracts. Obviously would lead to lots of the top players leaving to play elsewhere, but at least we would have a genuinely competitive league again, and i'd prefer that.

Will never happen whilst the Prem is such a global brand obviously.

 

[efcfanwirral]

'Some people are feeling financial fair play is a fair financial fair play, but some are feeling that it is a dodgy financial fair play' - from Mourinho today. Brilliant stuff

 

[SerenityNigh]

They could easily spend more than that on a stadium if they needed to do large scale FFP money laundering. In the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings are looking at dropping $1 billion USD/600 million GBP on their new stadium.

Jerry Jones reportedly spent $1.2B USD (~£750M) to build his new stadium, although I'd not be surprised at all if the real cost were $1.5B or greater.