The Coronavirus outbreak is going to have a devastating effect on football finances and even the richest clubs will feel a significant pinch.
The amount of money at stake is mind-boggling, we are talking TV money, prize money, gate receipts, sponsorship, hospitality, merchandise and much more.
Add on to that the wages that have to be paid out, business rates, electricity and you then get an idea of how much a club will lose in this period.
Then you have financial fair play, that is still in effect and clubs, even Man City, cannot just go out and drop £40-50 million on a single player without it have a dramatic effect on the bottom line.
All this points to the transfer window being a lot quieter than usual. Simply put, the clubs will not have the money to make any massive signings or undergo major overhauls.
It in effect forces the clubs to play their youngsters, they will not have much choice and that will apply to almost every Premier League team.
If that is the case then Arsenal is well placed in comparison to most other teams, they have an abundance of quality youngsters and in an era when finances will be under the microscope having a bunch of highly talented youngsters in the squad is a huge advantage.
There is so much we do not know right now and none of us has any real idea what is about to happen but the longer this goes on, the more money that is lost the more important it will be that your club has a group of young players they can blood next season.
A young line up of
Nketiah..
Martinelli, E. Smith-Rowe, Saka..
Guendouzi, Torreira..
Tierney, Holding, Saliba, Bellerin..
Leno.
Where this team lacks is in the Central midfield area.
S.J love the names you give, but what about a young substitute bench of:
Macey – AMN (?) – Chambers – Willock – Mavropanos -Pepe -John-Jules?
Lots of quality for Mikel Arteta (our young coach) to work with and we are looking at further young talent, if reports are to be believed.
Sensible analysis Martin. For certain, football finances in every aspect are going to be vastly different once we eventually resume playing. It will be more important than ever then to avoid paying huge salaries, esp on long contracts. I can foresee more one year contracts becoming the norm which a is huge problem with team building. I feel that managers will have less power than ever before to insist on keeping or buying expensive players. Ozil’s contact stands out as a huger still barrier now, than before and rules out any remote chance that some hoped for, that we would award Auba a similar sum to sign on again. Football will reflect business life everywhere in this respect and the weakest will go to the wall for sure.
FANS WILL BE DESPERATE TO ATTEND MATCHES AGAIN BUT BY THE TIME THAT OPPORTUNITY COMES, WILL THEY BE ABLE TO AFFORD IT? I SUGGEST NOT WITHOUT SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTION IN TICKET PRICES AND THUS SALARIES FOR PLAYERS.
financial fair play rules will be relaxed to accommodate for the huge financial crisis about to hit the respective leagues and clubs. Tv right money, prize money and European competition money will be a mess to deal with. I fear some clubs will take advantage of that
Ackshay, our club waited for years for the financial fair play rules to be instigated and they never were, just ask Wenger!!!
Why was that?
In my opinion the authorities were scared of the “big” clubs breaking away and forming their own super league, so they played lip service to it.
Suddenly, a “smaller” club in manchester city were bought out, basically, by a country and believed they could act in the same way.
This wasn’t tolerated by the said big clubs and they put pressure on fifa to investigate and prosecute – this they have done.
Real Madrid have always been backed by the royal family in Spain and have been one of the most notorious for ignoring the rules for years, but as the richest club in the world, they got away with it.
This is all my OWN OPINION of course, but I would love someone to explain to me exactly what it is that city have done, that the other big clubs haven’t been doing for years?
Yes, I know the rules were changed, but why?
Simply to ensure that city couldn’t do what they have been doing for decades – it should not be one rule for one and one rule for the others, something our club tried to point out way back when!!!
@Ken1945, that is the sorry state of world football were FFP is introduced and used on clubs with rich owners (City and PSG) so that the status quo can continue (Madrid and Barca).
I don’t know if you’ve noticed that neither PSG or City have a chance of winning the much-coveted UCL trophy, playing a semi-final of this tournament is the closest they’ll come to winning it… Just my 2 cents worth opinion.