Out of pocket might be a slippery slope. Theoretically, couldn't an owner use a team as collateral, and then use his money "out of pocket" to invest in his team?

matter?

And again, if that’s your true concern, then you make rules about taking debt or posting your team as collateral for other obligations. There is simply no way to square FFP with anything other than a transparent attempt by traditional football powers to maintain their stranglehold in Europe. They are trying to stamp out competition, which is horseshit.

Traditional powers have and continue to be powers. That's like other schools complaining that Notre Dame gets special treatment with the BCS. Damn straight they do. They earned it. And businesses and towns with workers are attached to that.

Letting an outside influence come in and destroy it all by creating an inflated market is just crazy talk. Again, if Man City have maneuvered the rules well, then what's the gripe? That you want even more outside money to pay for Neymar, Bale and the like?

Maybe you want it run like the Chinese super league.

Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, etc.? I can’t believe you are making that argument with a straight face. Yes, the poor workers in Liverpool will be displaced if the unfortunate Reds can’t maintain their Champions League place year in and year out because of the evil oil oligarchs. Give me a break. What about the workers in Paris and Manchester, as well as the cities themselves, who benefit from the influx of capital?

And the BCS argument is not even close to comparable. It would be more like the NCAA passing a rule saying that the number of scholarships a team can hand out is tied to its revenue. So Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Texas, can build a roster with 110 scholarships, while the MAC schools (along with the lesser power 5 schools) can field a team of 25 or so. If the NCAA even thought about making such a rule, about 100 member teams would (rightly) scream bloody fucking murder.

EDIT: And City have been successful largely because of the moves they were able to make before EUFA tried to step in and wipe them out. This isn’t just about City. This is about the fans of the lesser clubs who will never have a chance to compete (apart from a fluke), because the rules prevent them from making the investment required to convert a smaller club into a club that can compete with the big clubs.

This would be similar to the MLB adopting a rule that tied salary to television revenues. It not only would allow the major market teams to spend freely (as they do now), but it would prohibit a wealthy owner from say, buying the pirates and spending his own money to build a winning team. This is far more than giving a subtle advantage to clubs that are currently big. It is virtually guaranteeing that those clubs, and only those clubs, will be the most successful clubs in perpetuity. It’s total horseshit.

You act as if only the European powers and EPL clubs are the only teams that exist.

Soccer clubs across all of Europe are/were in financial distress. The big clubs were never really in doubt. It's the smaller clubs that couldn't compete in an inflated market. And entire leagues were going bankrupt. Even in the world of FFP, you look at what happened with Neymar. How can a small club compete in the transfer market if a club can arbitrarily inject outside money in the market? At least tying it to revenue and encouraging sound business investment has logic to it.

When Alex Texeira went to the Chinese Super league for 45M his market rate was probably half that. The big clubs could pay that. Tell me how a Swansea City is going to compete in an inflated market like that?

If player transfers skyrocket, but revenue is the same, how is that sustainable?

compete), then the simple solution is to cap spending across the board. And if teams are in financial distress due to debt caused by unsustainable spending, then you limit the amount of debt a club may incur. Structuring FFP the way it is structured can only be explained as an attempt to lock in the aristocracy of European football in perpetuity. And it’s transparent. You may be fine with that because it benefits the club you support, but I can’t see how you can be intellectually honest and yet deny that this is precisely the goal of FFP in its current form.

The same cap for each league? Championship is the same as EPL? La Liga is the same as French League 1?

It's really not worth arguing with you. You seem to think it's an anti-city system, and yet nothing stops outside money. It just has to be done with wise business investment. That's hardly a controversial rule.

Your oversimplified alternative seem to address your concerns, but little else. We'll agree to disagree. If you've got that in you.

Well done to all of you, very informative/insightful, etc