Can Spurs push on?

Chris wrote:They have a good first team at the moment but will the top players there not want to go to somewhere bigger? They are not a club to match names like Man Utd, Milan, Inter, Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona and they don't have huge money like Man City.

Their manager who has got them to where they are is almost 65 years old and also favourite to take over as England boss after Fabio Capello.

They have a small stadium with a capacity of just 36'230 which not only makes them have less revenue but also means it would be less attractive than other top clubs for a potential takeover.

Next we go to the teams around them..

Man City - Never going to catch them because they don't have the capital.
Man Utd - The biggest club in England. Alot more attractive to top players and also have the biggest stadium and more revenue.
Chelsea - Have almost unlimited funds under Abramovich and also a very young manager with plenty of time to build a top team.
Arsenal - Have the second biggest stadium in England and also in a good position financially. Currently held back by a stubborn manager but the short term problems could easily be fixed.
Liverpool - Have alot of history but have never won a premier league title, also have a fairly small stadium. Tottenham could most likely compete with Liverpool for a long time to come but that is not moving forward.

What do you guys think?

It all depends if we finish 3rd. Automatic Champions League group stage place will show that we don't have to qualify, that alone would attract top players. They see the football we've played this season and last in Europe and they can see this is a team going places.

Yes, Harry is 65 but what does age matter? Fergie is 5 years older and still does a great job. The only thing surrounding Harry is the result of the court case today, or going to the England job. I would suspect Levy, who is astute businessman, to do what's best for the club as he always has done. It wouldn't surprise me if he has got money stashed away for when a new manager comes in to spend on top players to improve the squad further.

We're also building a new ground, as I believe funding has been agreed now. So, that is in the works.

The only thing that stops us, is our wage cap. Because of that, we can't pay players big money like City, United, Chelsea, Madrid, Barca which also hinders the chance of signing them. This also shows, that when players come to Tottenham, they do it for the football and not the money, and those are the players I want at my club.

I love how you ignored the last couple of seasons where we have improved massively. We finished 4th, then were quarter-finalists in our first Champions League season. Because we've played in it now, we know what to expect and how to deal with it even better than we did before. Parker is getting on, as is VDV, but Sandro is ready to step up in place of Parker for when he goes and we could always go back to 2 up top if we sign a couple of strikers in the summer.

So in conclusion, yes we can push on. We're only in February after all, United still have to come to the Lane, and for the first time I feel confident we can beat them. We don't leak goals like we used to and at home we'll attack and go for goals with De Gea not being the most confident. Finish at least 3rd and a top manager will replace Harry Redknapp if he goes.

pretty sure money will be spent during the summer, we havent been able to recently because of our squad size but with pav, hutton, keane, palacios, bassong etc gone and hopefully jenas, bentley, gomes and gio to follow theres space there. Weve spent barely a penny in the last few windows, since we made CL for the first time weve bought vdv, pienaar, parker and friedel, for about £18 million total. Our sales have covered that. Definitely think we'll bring in a top striker, a Winger and possibly a CB.

Also havent we had backing from the council to build a new stadium or something recently?

Dr. Ján Ĩtor wrote:pretty sure money will be spent during the summer, we havent been able to recently because of our squad size but with pav, hutton, keane, palacios, bassong etc gone and hopefully jenas, bentley, gomes and gio to follow theres space there. Weve spent barely a penny in the last few windows, since we made CL for the first time weve bought vdv, pienaar, parker and friedel, for about £18 million total. Our sales have covered that. Definitely think we'll bring in a top striker, a Winger and possibly a CB.

Also havent we had backing from the council to build a new stadium or something recently?

Yes we have. So the new stadium is effectively in the works.

Shouldn't an important part of the OP been the clubs' debt?

Isn't United like 700 million pounds in debt? Chelsea and City are running at losses of hundreds of millions each year.

Liverpool, meanwhile has no debt because of the takeover. Won't that be an issue if/when the FFP stuff goes into effect?

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As far as Spurs go, if I was a Spurs fan I would worry about losing Modric and Bale. Modrid clearly wants to play elsewhere (Chelsea) and Bale will probably be tempted with silly wages sometime soon. Spurs hit it out of the park with Modric, Bale, Ade but it would likely be tough to replace them. For example, were Modric to leave in summer and Bale next January, Spurs would be fucked. Look at how tough it was for Arsenal to replace Fabregas and Nasri like that.

They would also have to adapt largely to a new manager coming in were HR to take the England job.

And insulting Liverpool being 7th when Arsenal are 6th, with one point advantage and we won at the Emirates is a tad silly. Not to mention, you have been on a stroke of luck with Van Persie scoring every time he touches the ball....when traditionally he has been hurt every year. If he goes down, Arsenal won't score at all.

Mustangt125 wrote:Shouldn't an important part of the OP been the clubs' debt?

Isn't United like 700 million pounds in debt? Chelsea and City are running at losses of hundreds of millions each year.

Liverpool, meanwhile has no debt because of the takeover. Won't that be an issue if/when the FFP stuff goes into effect?

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As far as Spurs go, if I was a Spurs fan I would worry about losing Modric and Bale. Modrid clearly wants to play elsewhere (Chelsea) and Bale will probably be tempted with silly wages sometime soon. Spurs hit it out of the park with Modric, Bale, Ade but it would likely be tough to replace them. For example, were Modric to leave in summer and Bale next January, Spurs would be fucked. Look at how tough it was for Arsenal to replace Fabregas and Nasri like that.

They would also have to adapt largely to a new manager coming in were HR to take the England job.

And insulting Liverpool being 7th when Arsenal are 6th, with one point advantage and we won at the Emirates is a tad silly. Not to mention, you have been on a stroke of luck with Van Persie scoring every time he touches the ball....when traditionally he has been hurt every year. If he goes down, Arsenal won't score at all.

Oy, we just paid back 50% of that debt. We're 310M in debt now, with an annual revenue of over 300M a year, and a profit of over 100M a year, thank you very much.

Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

Jelavic7|EFC wrote:Nope, simply not good enough i.e. they don't pick up the points at lower table teams enough.

Sorry but what the fuck is this?

So far this season they've only dropped 7 points against 3 sides that aren't in the top 7 right now, 2-1 at Stoke, 1-1 at Swansea and 1-1 at home to Wolves.

In comparison, Man City have dropped 10 points against 4 sides that aren't in the top 7 right now despite being 7 points ahead of them.

So yeah, I wouldn't really say that dropping points at lower table teams is Spurs' problem.

Laurencio wrote:

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

It says they had a full house, when there must have been allot of fans that dressed up like blue seats.

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

I hope not.

One of the reasons why FSG bought Liverpool, was because of the new rules coming into place. Running a self sufficient club.

Which I agree with, but not if people can get around it.

Jordo wrote:

Laurencio wrote:

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

It says they had a full house, when there must have been allot of fans that dressed up like blue seats.

Season ticket holders who don't show up count towards the attendance figure.

Laurencio wrote:

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

I didn't know United paid half of it off, but the point still stands. And I never said anything about your operating costs, but Chelsea and City are totaling up losses of hundreds of millions each year.

And 310 million is still an awful lot of debt.

I was just curious as to what you all thought how this would affect the futures.

Chelsea lost 60 million last year if I remember rightly not sure on City

Theo Filippo wrote:Chelsea lost 60 million last year if I remember rightly not sure on City

Chelsea lost £67.7 million.

Theo Filippo wrote:Chelsea lost 60 million last year if I remember rightly not sure on City

City lost £195m.

Wow. Manchester City's whole revenue is around £153m a year and they lost £195m.

Mal wrote:Wow. Manchester City's whole revenue is around £153m a year and they lost £195m.

How they can balance the books in less than three years time.

No doubt they will, somehow.

Mustangt125 wrote:

Laurencio wrote:

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

I didn't know United paid half of it off, but the point still stands. And I never said anything about your operating costs, but Chelsea and City are totaling up losses of hundreds of millions each year.

And 310 million is still an awful lot of debt.

I was just curious as to what you all thought how this would affect the futures.

We have a revenue of over 300M a year, of which 100M is profit. If it was beneficial we could pay down that debt in 3-4 years...

Jordo wrote:

Mal wrote:Wow. Manchester City's whole revenue is around £153m a year and they lost £195m.

How they can balance the books in less than three years time.

No doubt they will, somehow.

FFP doesn't actually mean you can't have debt. It simply means you can't have a negative revenue stream. That is if Manchester City make 153M a year, and 120M of that goes to wages and running cost, then the remaining 30M could be used on transfer without actually breaking the FFP. Doesn't matter squat if they are already in debt.

Financial fairplay is a shit rule. Fairplay that teams like Madrid, Man Utd and Barcelona can spend more than anyone else? Bollocks...if the team is not in any actual financial peril i.e. Chelsea and City....they should be left alone.

Laurencio wrote:

Mustangt125 wrote:

Laurencio wrote:

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

I didn't know United paid half of it off, but the point still stands. And I never said anything about your operating costs, but Chelsea and City are totaling up losses of hundreds of millions each year.

And 310 million is still an awful lot of debt.

I was just curious as to what you all thought how this would affect the futures.

We have a revenue of over 300M a year, of which 100M is profit. If it was beneficial we could pay down that debt in 3-4 years...

Jordo wrote:

Mal wrote:Wow. Manchester City's whole revenue is around £153m a year and they lost £195m.

How they can balance the books in less than three years time.

No doubt they will, somehow.

FFP doesn't actually mean you can't have debt. It simply means you can't have a negative revenue stream. That is if Manchester City make 153M a year, and 120M of that goes to wages and running cost, then the remaining 30M could be used on transfer without actually breaking the FFP. Doesn't matter squat if they are already in debt.

Yep but Manchester City's complete annual revenue is around £154m and just their wage bill is £175m.

Lux wrote:Financial fairplay is a shit rule. Fairplay that teams like Madrid, Man Utd and Barcelona can spend more than anyone else? Bollocks...if the team is not in any actual financial peril i.e. Chelsea and City....they should be left alone.

The "pressure" of having to spend more has gotten so bad for certain clubs that they have reached bankruptcy, especially in Spain.

Mal wrote:

Laurencio wrote:

We have a revenue of over 300M a year, of which 100M is profit. If it was beneficial we could pay down that debt in 3-4 years...



FFP doesn't actually mean you can't have debt. It simply means you can't have a negative revenue stream. That is if Manchester City make 153M a year, and 120M of that goes to wages and running cost, then the remaining 30M could be used on transfer without actually breaking the FFP. Doesn't matter squat if they are already in debt.

Yep but Manchester City's complete annual revenue is around £154m and just their wage bill is £175m.

Well that is a problem then

Laurencio wrote:

Mal wrote:Also FFP won't mean shit. The Arsenal board are relying on FFP, thinking it's going to be their saving grace but my god they are wrong. There is so many ways round it, it would be impossible to stop.

Man City effectively sponsor themselves now and that money is seen on their results as income.

They sponsor themselves, they have loans to themselves and they have "investments" in themselves. It's great.

It's not just us.

Liverpools massive new kit deal is from people who have links to their owners too. I can find an article I read about it if you're interested.

Lux wrote:Financial fairplay is a shit rule. Fairplay that teams like Madrid, Man Utd and Barcelona can spend more than anyone else? Bollocks...if the team is not in any actual financial peril i.e. Chelsea and City....they should be left alone.

It does give an edge to already established teams. It's like they're saying you've missed the cut off point for being a big team if you're not already in the door. I agree that it shouldn't apply as a blanket rule, but only to clubs that are in trouble.

However I obviously would say that...

[quote="Zzonked"]

Lux wrote:Financial fairplay is a shit rule. Fairplay that teams like Madrid, Man Utd and Barcelona can spend more than anyone else? Bollocks...if the team is not in any actual financial peril i.e. Chelsea and City....they should be left alone.

It does give an edge to already established teams. It's like they're saying you've missed the cut off point for being a big team if you're not already in the door. I agree that it shouldn't apply as a blanket rule, but only to clubs that are in trouble.

However I obviously would say that... [/quote

So how do you prevent 'smaller' clubs out spending what they can afford and getting into financial troubles?

Laurencio wrote:The "pressure" of having to spend more has gotten so bad for certain clubs that they have reached bankruptcy, especially in Spain.

So the way to lift that pressure is by punishing them for doing so? I.E. not fixing the problem at all as they will still be inferior to teams who can spend more.

I'd say that the financial fair play rule is the worst of three options. Leave it the way it is, financial fair play, or wage/transfer caps etc. If you are going to put restrictions on spending.....at least make it even for all teams so that there is no advantage.

Jordo wrote:So how do you prevent 'smaller' clubs out spending what they can afford and getting into financial troubles?

Better ownership checks etc? Penalties for the owner/chairmen rather than the club e.g. fines, criminality

The finical fair play is only for teams that play in Europe?

If you qualify for the Champions League and you don't meet the requirements, they will not let that club play?


Am I correct?

Warrior is still a separate company from the owners, unlike City's arrangement.

Laurencio: Yes, but that would never happen. That money is used for other things and debt is paid off incrementally.

Jordo wrote:The finical fair play is only for teams that play in Europe?

If you qualify for the Champions League and you don't meet the requirements, they will not let that club play?


Am I correct?

I think that's how it is..though I think it's a step in the wrong direction. For all we know they may make it domestic or apply stricter rules in the future.

I agree that it being only for teams in Europe does lessen the negatives...but it still has an impact. It will make it harder for emerging leagues to grow, when you consider that most of them rely on the money and European football there i.e. who would want to play in Ukraine or Russia if the pay sucked and there was no Europe?

It also just generally makes it harder for the elite clubs to be challenged. Like Zzonked said..it means that clubs who have excessively spent in the past so that they can be huge and sustainable now have a massive advantage over emerging teams. For me, the best part of football is the competition. If the leagues and European competitions become even less competitive then it's only a bad thing for football.

Mustangt125 wrote:Warrior is still a separate company from the owners, unlike City's arrangement.

Laurencio: Yes, but that would never happen. That money is used for other things and debt is paid off incrementally.

Etihad Airways is not owned by the group that owns City. There is a half-brother connection though, so it's pretty obvious that they're doing us a favour.

So who exactly is Warrior? They’re owned by a Boston-based company called New Balance, well known for trainers mainly and, as I’ve said, started in the Lacrosse market before moving into Ice Hockey. Which begs the question of how such a niche producer got such a prestigious gig? Boston-based New Balance, known primarily for sports footwear, was introduced to Liverpool by their Boston-based owners Fenway Sports Group. Fenway also owns Boston’s Red Sox baseball team which is sponsored by Boston-based New Balance. The more perceptive will have noticed a theme in this paragraph. One Boston-based company sponsors a Boston-based sports team whose Boston-based owners introduce them to their own UK-based sports team, who conclude a deal for far, far more than their existing suppliers feel the market is worth. A deal that outstrips their Manchester rivals who sell twice as many shirts and regularly finish in the top 4.

The Warrior deal is hugely inflated on other clubs. Do you really think that there isn't a favour going on in there, considering that they both sponsor each others teams?

Liverpool sold the fourth highest amount off shirts worldwide, and was Adidas second biggest deal behind Real Madrid.