Former Man City star hits out at FFP rules as 530-word ‘very simple solution’ detailed
Ex-Manchester City star Danny Mills insists club owners should be able to “spend whatever they want” as he hit out at the FFP rules that his former side have fallen foul of.
City were found guilty of breaching 114 Premier League rules by an independent commission last month, as the panel found them to have used ‘sham’ sponsorship deals to boost they earnings by around £900m between 2009 and 2018.
The club have now appealed that verdict as they insist upon their innocence and clim they have ‘irrefutable evidence’ to prove it, in the form of documents showing that the sponsorship funds came from the Abu Dhabi government rather from their owners.
READ: Ten Manchester City grounds for appeal and why they won’t wash
The initial three-man commission has already seen this evidence, as it ‘concluded it was an explanation that the club had concocted well after the event in an attempt to conceal the realities of the Disguised Funding Scheme’, but City hope an all-new panel will rule in their favour.
Possible punishments include fines, transfer bans, points deductions and even Premier League expulsion, while it’s also been suggested the club should have their titles stripped in a retrospective action.
But Mills doesn’t believe Manchester City’s owners should be punished for spending their own money as Aston Villa and Newcastle – clubs with similarly wealthy owners – continue to be hamstrung by the regulations.
Asked if clubs should be able to spend freely, Mills told GOAL: “Yes, with certain caveats.
“The whole point of Financial Fair Play is that clubs do not go bust. Because obviously, especially in this country, the club is a community. It’s about the fans. It’s much, much bigger than football. It’s about the whole thing.
“If a football club goes bust, it affects the whole town, the city, whatever it might be. We have to protect that as much as anything. So Financial Fair Play, whatever you want to call it, PSR, is there to stop clubs going bust.
“It’s a very, very simple solution to this. And I’ve said this many, many times. If you’ve got billionaire owners, let them spend whatever they want to spend. Why not? Well, on the caveat that those contracts they sign are put into an escrow account. So those contracts are protected.
“Let’s say I take over a club tomorrow and every contract is worth 900 million for the next however long it might be. That’s the total value of those players’ contracts. I say, ‘there you go, there’s 900 million pounds into an account that cannot be touched’. There’s effectively a safeguard. If I walk away tomorrow, it’s my bond and I lose my 900 million quid.
“If I sign a new player, I have to keep topping it up. And obviously each year it is revised, you’re playing around with that number. So you’re putting a bond in. If I walk away tomorrow, the club’s protected. Those contracts will eventually run down, but the club doesn’t lose out. The club can sell players and stuff in the meantime if they want and get money back in. But that club never has to worry about, we cannot pay those players’ wages.
“For example, Luton Town got promoted and let’s say the Saudi Investment Fund were Luton fans. You can’t compete. We’ve seen that in Newcastle. Why, if it’s your money, can’t you spend as much as you want? As long as the club’s protected.
“People say, ‘oh, it’s a lot of money’. Well, you have a choice. If you buy a football club and you have to put a billion pounds in a bond, so be it. If not, run your football club better and put 500 million in a bond.
“You start to see that in the EFL. Obviously teams that drop out of the Championship have to prove that they can pay their wages for the following season and admit their losses. It’s kind of a similar thing, just obviously on a bigger scale with bigger numbers.
“Can Chelsea afford to do that? Can the Glazers afford to do that? Yes, of course they can. And okay, they might borrow it from a bank, whatever they might do, but you can protect those football clubs.
“I’d be all for letting them spend what they want. As long as it’s not borrowed money, as long as it’s not against anything else, it’s actual cash that they’re investing, real capital, why not? As long as it’s not loans that have to be paid back or X, Y, Z. If you’re going, ‘here’s my bag of cash, boom, there it is’, I’d let them spend whatever they want.”
