UEFA Financial Fair Play uygulanırsa zengin ve karlı kulüpler arayı daha da fazla açabilir mi?

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) web sitesinde yayınlanan bir yazı Şampiyonlar Ligi’nde başarılı olan kulüplerden yola çıkarak Avrupa’nın en çok gelire sahip ya da zengin ortaklı kulüplerine ve onların başarılarına analitik bir yaklaşım yapıyor.

WSJ, Financial Fair Play kurallarının uygulamaya katı olarak geçmesiyle bu farkın daha da açılabileceğini öne sürüyor. Yazıda Galatasaray’ın da geçtiğimiz yıl Deloitte Money Ligi’nde ilk 30’a girmesinden de bahsediliyor. Aşağıda yazının bazı önemli kısımlarını bulabilirsiniz:

Şampiyonlar Ligi arayı açıyor

• UEFA FFP kuralları zarar eden kulüplerin maliyetleri kısmasına ve yetenekli oyuncuları karlı devlere satmasına yol açacak
• Chelsea, PSG ve Manchester City gibi zengin sahiplere sahip kulüpler FFP harcamaların kapısını kapatmadan önce gelirleri artırmayı hedefliyorlar

Gruplara ilişkin tespitler ise şöyle:

• 8 grup liderinden 7’si son maç öncesi bir üst turu, 4’ü ise liderliği garantilemişti
• Son 5 sezonda 8 grup liderinden ortalama 5.4’ü 6 maçta 13 puan ve üzeri aldı, 1999-2004 yılları arasında bu rakam 3.6 idi
• 2009-10 sezonundan bu yana grup liderlerinin puan ortalaması 13.6, 1999-2004 arası bu rakam 12.2 idi, üstelik son dönemde grup lideri takımlar pozisyonlarını erken garantiledikleri ve son maçlarda, hatta bazen 5. maçlarda yıldız oyuncularını dinlendirdikleri için bu puan daha da yüksek olabilirdi
• Deloitte Futbol Para Ligi rakamlarına göre 2011-12’de en yüksek gelir elde eden 16 kulübün 13’ü bu yıl ŞL’ne katıldı ve 10’u eleme turunu geçtiler
• Eğer rakamı 30’a çıkarırsanız turu atlayan G.Saray ve Atletico Madrid de bu listeye giriyor
• Avrupa’nın en çok gelir elde eden 30 kulübünden 17’si ŞL grup aşamasına katıldılar, 12’si turu geçtiler
• İlk 30’a giremeyen 2 kulüp, PSG ve Zenit, zengin sahipleri nedeniyle yüksek harcama yapan takımlar
• En çok gelir elde eden 7 kulübün hepsi ya grubu lider bitirdiler, ya da en çok puan toplayan ekipler oldular
• Bu 7 kulüp 42 maçtan 31’ini kazandılar ve ortalama +9.6 gol averajı elde ettiler
• Bu durum yerel liglere de yansıdı ve 1999-2004 ve 2008-2013 arası kıyaslandığında Avrupa’nın 4 önemli ligi şampiyonlarının kazandığı puanlar yükseldi
• Bu dönemlerde İspanya’da şampiyonun puanı 75.8’den 96.4’e, İtalya da ise 74.4’den 83.8’e yükseldi.

Bundan sonra bizi ne bekliyor:

• UEFA Financial Fair Play ile ilgili ilk raporunu Nisan ayında verecek ve uyum sağlamayan kulüplere gelecek yasaklar hakkında fikir sahibi olacağız, ancak futbol ve rekabet için neyin iyi olacağını kestirmek çok mümkün değil.
• UEFA’nın mevcut statükoyu koruması halinde en güçlü ve karlı kulüpleri kızdırması söz konusu olabilir
• Eğer FFP sıkı bir şekilde uygulanırsa bu sefer de, başta Chelsea, PSG ve Manchester City gibi zengin sahipleri ve yüksek harcamaları olan olan bir çok futbol kulübünün harcamalarını ciddi biçimde kısmasına neden olabilir
• Bu da en büyük, karlı ve başarılı kulüplerle diğerleri arasında, halihazırda zaten ciddi şekilde açılmış farkın daha da açılmasına neden olabilir

http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-406069/

Champions League Gap Widens

Competitive Edge Gets Blunted as Big-Spending Clubs Pull Away From the Rest

The difference between the haves and have-nots in European club soccer is continually increasing, fueled by apparently conflicting factors.

By Gabriele Marcotti

Benfica's Lima, right, competes for the ball with Javier Pastore of Paris Saint-Germain during their Champions League match in Lisbon on Dec. 10.

 European Pressphoto Agency

Last Tuesday and Wednesday saw the final matchday of the UEFA Champions League group stage. This was the round of games which would determine who advanced to the lucrative knockout phase of the richest club soccer competition in the world.

It was also an anticlimax.

Seven of the eight clubs leading their groups heading into matchday six had already qualified. For three of them, the only question was whether they would do so as group winners—and therefore be seeded in the following round—or runners-up. For the others, even that had already been determined.

The gap between the haves and have-nots in Europe is continually increasing, fueled by apparently conflicting factors.

On one hand, the introduction of Financial Fair Play (FFP)—legislation that punishes clubs for excessive financial losses over a particular period—is pushing loss-making clubs to cut costs and sell talent to the heavyweights.

On the other hand, a group of clubs with wealthy backers, such as Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, has spent heavily in recent years, partly to increase revenue just before the FFP door slams shut.

By any metric, the group phase is becoming more lopsided. In the past five seasons, an average of 5.4 of the eight group winners racked up 13 or more points in the six group games. In the first five years since the Champions League adopted the current format in 1999, that figure was 3.6. And, again, since 2009-2010 the average points total for a group winner was 13.6. Between 1999 and 2004 it was 12.2.

And those numbers are tempered by the fact that these days many clubs qualify mathematically so early that they rest players in matchday six and sometimes in matchday five as well, which negatively impacts their points total. This was the case with the likes of Atlético Madrid, held away at Zenit St. Petersburg in matchday five on Nov. 26, or Paris Saint-Germain, defeated on the road by Benfica last Tuesday.

At some point, this must become a concern for UEFA, the governing body of the European game and the organizers of the competition. The value of broadcast rights continues to boom, but even now there are clubs struggling to sell out group games, mainly because it sometimes feels like a foregone conclusion.

Deloitte ranks the European clubs by revenue and releases its results every January in what it calls the “Football Money League.” Of the 16 highest grossing clubs in 2011-2012—the most recent year for which results are available—13 participated in this year’s Champions League. All but three—Juventus, Napoli and Olympique Marseille—advanced to the knockout round. And Napoli and Marseille can count themselves unlucky to have been drawn in the same group as Arsenal (sixth in the Football Money League) and Borussia Dortmund (11th).

Extend it to Europe’s top 30 and you’ll find two other clubs from Europe’s sweet 16: Atlético Madrid and Galatasaray. Put a different way, 17 of Europe’s top 30 grossing clubs entered the group phase. Twelve of them advanced, including the top eight. Of the four knockout-stage teams who do not rank in the top 30, two—PSG and Zenit—have wealthy backers who don’t seem concerned with enormous spending on wages and transfers.

It doesn’t end there. The top seven revenue-generators all either won their groups outright or finished joint-top on points. Their cumulative record indicates that they won 31 of 42 games and, between them, had an average goal difference of plus-9.6.

What’s more, clubs like Manchester United (third in the Football Money League) and Chelsea (fifth) didn’t play particularly well either, yet still coasted through with relative ease.

We’ve become accustomed to this trend in domestic leagues as well. Again, using 1999 as a baseline and comparing 1999-2004 with 2008-2013 shows that in each of Europe’s top four leagues the average points gained by the champions increased. Take Spain’s La Liga, where the winner went from an average of 75.8 points to 96.4, or Italy’s Serie A, where the jump was from 74.4 to 83.8.

The question is what happens next. FFP promises sanctions ranging from warnings to fines to outright bans from participating in the Champions League for clubs who violate the standards. UEFA will release preliminary reports in April and that’s when we’ll get a sense of how aggressively they elect to punish clubs who don’t comply. But, even then, you’re not quite sure what might be best for the game and its competitive balance.

Failure to crack down on the free spenders—and with mooted legal action it remains to be seen how much of an appetite UEFA has to throw the book at them—would maintain the status quo (while angering those big powerful clubs who are already compliant).

But by the same token, a hard-line approach would, likely, force clubs with sugar-daddy owners who might not immediately meet a stringent interpretation of the requirements—Chelsea, PSG and Manchester City are just a few examples—to roll back their spending significantly.

That, in turn, would mean the gap between the biggest, most profitable and successful clubs and everyone else would only increase further. Or, put another way, instead of soccer having a 1% lording it over everyone else, it could become a 0.1%.