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The recent Liverpool takeover valued the club at £5.5 billion.
Transfermarkt data (I know, I know) gives a combined valuation for the 96 EFL and National League clubs of around £2.4 billion - approximately 47% of the Liverpool valuation.
The real problem with English football is that trickledown economics is a fairy tale.
"It's just such a completely bizarre situation. What have they even cheated? Financial rules which were clearly put in place to stop clubs like them, Newcastle, Villa and God forbid - clubs even lower than those three with the temerity to try to challenge the top table. Most fans don't even agree that the rules that they've broken should exist."
That all sounds very reasonable.
But if the rules are so obviously unfair and uncompetitive (and I agree with you that they are), why didn't the City owners use their enormous wealth and access to razor sharp lawyers to challenge the legality of those rules instead of trying to cheat their way around them?
I suspect the answer is that the City owners are quite happy with those rules, just as long as they could find a way to force their way into the little circle of elites and then use those same rules to keep everyone else down.
So for me it rings a little hollow when City fans are bleating online about how unfair the rules are. They were perfectly happy with them when they thought they were working in their favour!
Simon Kuper on why Infantino will probably remain as FIFA President
I have to say the whole system is even more corrupt than I realised:
"Infantino understood the central fact about Fifa: it’s a patronage system. Almost all its income comes from one source: the men’s World Cup, started by Fifa in 1930. That income is divided among the 211 national football federations. Each member association, regardless of size, was entitled to up to $9.2mn over the four-year cycle up to 2026.
The system fails India, the country where football has most scope to grow, while overfunding the Caribbean island of Montserrat (population 4,300). Nicholas McGeehan, director of the campaign group FairSquare, says, “I’ve spoken to a couple of people in development and told them the model, and they don’t believe you when you tell them how it works.” The model makes no sense as a way to develop football. But it makes perfect sense as a way for Fifa’s incumbent president to please poor federations, especially as Montserrat has one vote in Fifa’s council, the same as India."
Although I can't say I have ever been a fan of JW.
I'm surprised he didn't bring up the possibility of big clubs taking a fresh look at a European (or larger) Superleague.
If there's one thing people like "a deputy prime minister of Abu Dhabi, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, a billionaire based in Monaco for tax reasons and a disappointing assortment of investors and private equity funds" have in common it's that they don't like being constrained by rules meant for the little people.
I think City has probably left it too late to get any benefit from trying to overturn the FFP rules.
The PL is a membership organisation and the members are bound by contract to be governed by the rules of the organisation.
The PL charged City with breaches of FFP from 2009-2018.
The statutory limitation for contractual breaches is six years. And that runs from the time of the breach, not the date the breach of contract was discovered.
So even if City successfully challenged FFP in the courts it wouldn't help them to recover any damages from them breaking those rules before 2020.
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