Football finance – breaking, smashing, creaking, snapping and crunching news.

Two snippettas of news (I know there is no such word, but it is gone 10.30pm in the UK and the gas fire has been on for a couple of hours and I couldn’t go jiving because I pulled a muscle jumping up and down in the Ems on wednesday night, so I am allowed to make up words).

First I am extremely grateful to one of the really good friends of this site, who goes out of his way to provide me with up to date info that I otherwise would miss, and this snippet is an example, which really should have been in the last article…

The Spanish Football Federation (El Corrupto) is planning a match day strike in protest against the reform of the Beckham ruling through which players called Beckham, plus those who hold the nationality of any other country other than Spain or Gibralter, and who earn over 600,000 euro now will have to pay 43 percent tax like the locals.

The Fed has convened an EGM which will decide whether the strike goes on or not. Most of the clubs (so I am told) would agree to a strike.

Until now Johnny Foreigners (to use the phrase popularised by Alan Sugar of Tottingham Hot) pay 24 percent tax and some people born in Spain are changing their nationality to some other Euro country in order to get lower tax.

The rule was introduced in 2004 and named after David Beckham when he played for Real Mad.  Any change in the law would apply to employment contracts signed after January 1, 2010.

Britain has already changed its tax laws to accommodate the corrupt financial affairs of UEFA.  UEFA refused to give Britain any Euro cup finals unless it changed the way players were taxed on extra earnings they received from sponsorship and similar rights resulting from appearance in such a match.  The government caved in to the demands although not until the Ems lost the rights to a Euro cup final.

This move in Spain can be considered as some good news to the PL and subsequently to Arsenal. We all have heard the rumour run and re-run by the Mail and Sun concerning Arshavin who was said to be unhappy with the 50 percent tax ruling in the UK.  It makes it cheaper for English clubs to employ other EU nationals and those from elsewhere who qualify.

Meanwhile and more extraordinarily Ron Gourlay of the KGB in Fulham has said Che-lsea, has decided to rename its stadium Stamford Lubyanka Bridge.   Now when I was researching MAKING THE ARSENAL I am sure I came across a deed related to the name of the Chelsea ground and the name of the club being linked, but for the moment I can’t find that document.  When I do I’ll come back to this.

But that is not the main point.  Just look at this comment from the man…

“What we are not prepared to happen, and I am sure our fans will appreciate this, is allow our rival clubs in England and Europe to gain a competitive advantage over us in terms of the revenue they can generate through either expanding the capacity of their existing stadia or moving to a new stadium and then invest that upside in their team or the club.

“Those possibilities are not open to Chelsea for the foreseeable future because of the restrictions in expanding our stadium and the issues around finding a new site, so that means we have to be creative and look at our sponsorship architecture and see if we can create new value and new opportunities that keeps us competitive.”

Now excuse me if I am a bit dim, but I thought the whole operation was bankrolled by Mr Abramovich, MP for Siberia, (or is that Surbiton) in which case why bother with something as silly as renaming an existing ground.   There is no point in moving when the club fails to sell out so many of its games – particularly in the Champs League and the Diddly Cup – games that Arsenal do manage to sell 59,000 or 60,000 for (the variation is usually in relation to away fans).  What’s more Mr A has often spooked about moving the club somewhere else.  (Orkney perhaps).

So is there a message of the hidden variety?  Is Mr A really starting to squeeze the old cash flow and say, “make a profit of trot off to the frozen northlands?”

Who knows.  I certainly don’t and as regular readers will appreciate I make much of this up.   Making the Arsenal is good though.

(c) Tony Attwood 2009.

10 Replies to “Football finance – breaking, smashing, creaking, snapping and crunching news.”

  1. Poor old Ruskies. Watching the money-launderer extrodinaire flush their roubles into the bottomless cesspit aka Stamford Bridge.

    Maybe they should rename it Sputnik Bridge, cos Comrade A has spent the equivalent of the USSR space programme on his pet project.

  2. For those of us old enough to remember, there was a time when ‘rich’ people were taxed in excess of 90% of their income/revenue in the UK. This led to many a formerly rich person leaving and establishing a tax presence in foreign climes.
    It is oft spoke that one needs to remember the past to make smarter decisions for the future. Raising income taxes is NOT one of those smart decisions. In fact there’s a fairly solid economic argument for exactly the opposite decision.
    If one takes just a small step back, not into the drink, but just to look at the level of personal taxation our elected representatives continue to support and encourage we might wonder whether they really have our best interests at heart.
    I believe economic punditry, much like football variety, is essentially an academic pursuit not based in reality. Whatever happened to the notion of a flat tax rate that everyone pays no matter how much they earn, no deductions loopholes or anything. Calculations have been done in the US and they worked out that 18% was the magic number and they would gather more tax than ever before.
    I know this doesn’t directly relate to Beckham ruling, but unless there is consistency across the EU then there will always be countries disadvantaged by these economic insanities. Don’t ask me how one could achieve this, I’m not an economist!

  3. Well I must say in the country I live, we are in the top 3 on taxes we have to pay in the world, would love to have the 18 % tax. I think over here when you earn 60.000 euro you already are in the 50 % tax rate. And then they wonder in my country why everyone is trying to cheat on the tax man. Make fair and normal tax rates and nobody (well almost) will try to cheat.
    Couldn’t this be a case in which Europe, for once, makes the rules the same for all. Let’s say the lowest tax rate and apply this to all country’s. Well one can dream. Sorry for the moan.

    On the Chelsea stadium name it is rather strange as you say Tony. And how dare they speek of keeping themselves competitive after they have bought the other teams out of competition with money from outside the club. Is Abramovich having enough of this toy ?

    Tony, another one on the injury list ? What’s the matter with our club. Not only our players are injury prone, now the fans start having it too. 😉 Hope you recover well and soon.

  4. Tony: As Walter stated, it looks like the perennial bane of The Arsenal has been extended to you. Now you need to show example to our boys and get well ASAP.

    Well considering that Mr AbKGBfish lost a fair bit to the credit crunch, it will not surprise me if the TOY is becoming too expensive and, therefore, boring. Noone can squander money for ever. At some point the club has to learn, like everyone else, how to sustain itself. Another example of the rest learning from The Arsenal.

    This Europe thing is equivocal to me anyway. A continent that purports to be presenting a united front turns out, at every opportunity, to undercuteach other. Very strange. Couldn’t they ensure parity by levelling their taxes accross the board? I welcome the news anyway, since it means that my club will not be disadvantaged by some underhand European tactic.

  5. Error: “undercut each other” Not ‘undercuteach’. I don’t even know if such a word exist; unless of course I make it up using Tony’s guide.

  6. Off topic – sorry – but I just received my copy of ‘Making The Arsenal’ and I’m sufficiently excited about this to mention it here. Bravo Tony.

  7. On the subject of Chelsea, the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) have suspended Chelsea’s punishment for the Gaël Kakuta transfer rule breach until after the appeal. The punishment was a ban on transfers for two transfer windows, which let’s face it, everyone assumed would see reduced to one on appeal. The appeal is unlikely to be held till the new year so guess what, Chelsea will almost certainly be free to buy in January, rendering the punishment virtually toothless as all Chelsea have to do is turn to Abramovich and ask “can we have next year’s money now?”. Even with his recent reluctance to bankroll extra spending he’s unlikely to deny them funds that he would eventually give them anyway, if it means jeopardising the club’s short term success.

  8. Steww, I was going to say the same. Received my book a few minutes a go so really exited. If you don’t hear from me the next weeks… I”ll be reading. 😉
    That is, if my wife lets me have it because it’s for my birthday and its another month so… Try to be nice when she comes home. 😉

  9. Yo Walter, lucky you. I am still waiting with bated breath, well almost salivating really, for mine. Enjoy the read.

    I guess we always knew that CAS will turn everything into a joke. Another toothless UEFA punishment. Useless!!!

  10. LRV, actually it was a FIFA punishment, not UEFA. It makes sense that the appeal would suspend the punishment, but I seem to remember that originally the CAS said they would handle the appeal before the transfer window… Well, not a really surprising turn of events.

    I still do not think suspension of the punishment is undermining the FIFA rules. What is undermining is that should the CAS find Chelsea quilty as charged they’ll almost certainly reduce the penalty. Which is very stupid because the penalty is clearly stated in the FIFA disciplinary code.

    Chelsea has paid their way out of these troubles before, and there was some hope that with FIFA in it maybe something will finally be done. One would think that a supposedly independent court of arbitration could actually make some tough decisions.

    Interesting to see what they decide on FC Sion’s case, which is totally similar.

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