ToffeeWeb - Season 2009-10

The Mail Bag

Platini — helping the little club?

The self styled man of the little club has already done some good, let’s face it. £16 or so million to a team like Apoel Nicosia must be like their dream come true (That’s the rough amount for entering the group stages of the Champions League BTW).

Unfortunately Platini’s new scheme is less well thought out. If you haven’t heard, Platini wants to introduce a very sensible sounding plan. All money spent on players must be generated using football revenue by 2012. Sounds great doesn’t it? No more Lescott sagas as teams buy their way to success. Look at this another way though. Who generates the most money? The top ten list from 2008-09 is as follows along with revenue generated (thanks Deloitte);

1 Real Madrid La Liga $470.2M
2 Manchester United English Premier League $417.6M
3 FC Barcelona La Liga $397.0M
4 Bayern Munich Bundesliga $379.7M
5 Chelsea English Premier League $345.7M
6 Arsenal English Premier League $340.0M
7 Liverpool English Premier League $271.1M
8 AC Milan Serie A $269.2M
9 AS Roma Serie A $225.4M
10 Inter Milan Serie A $222.1M

Everton’s revenue (and you will have to excuse me if it is a little wrong as I had to trawl the net) for 2008 was £51.M or approx $56.7M. With the new system in place, we would, once again, be at the bottom of the pile for money available to spend.

Admittedly a club could not be bought by a billionaire and force its way to the top like City. Remember though that City generates more revenue than us anyway, the new system would just save them a few quid as player prices would have to fall. The obvious answer is to generate more money, not Everton’s strong point as we all know, or to sell players like Lescott or Rooney to fund more purchases — in other words exactly like now.

In fact, with this new system, Everton are even less likely to succeed. No investor on a white charger will come in, buy the club and put in money. The new system doesn’t allow it. Platini will remove even that hope.

All this means an investor is vital NOW. By putting money in to buy players now, success and therefore revenue would increase just in time for the new system to come in, it’s our only hope.

(ps: For those of you who think the ‘top’ clubs will object — Abramovic has already backed the plans and why wouldn’t he? Chelsea are fifth on the list — they would be in pole position and he would save a fortune).
Robert Heaton, Ellesmere Posted 28/08/2009 at 07:10:04

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