Sunderland reveal significant loss

**legendz** · 16/02/2011, 2:01 PM

http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2011/...underland.html

The situation across the water with clubs going into debt is crazy. How many clubs have gone into administration and have had to rebuild? We go on about bad financial running in the LoI but even clubs with their millions are being run into the ground.

**Stuttgart88** · 16/02/2011, 3:26 PM

I attended the UK Parliament's enquiry into football governance last week. There was a hearing yesterday too, where the Football League said they were terrified by the amounts of debt clubs were incurring. The talk I was at had two opposing sports economics specialists debating the key points. One was a free market libertarian who argues that nothing is wrong, the other is a (Irish) guy who takes a more left wing / interventionist view who has written on the regulatory disaster that is the EPL and English football. The new UEFA regulations will have some positive effect I hope.

I've been studying the economics of professional football in the evening for the last 18 months. Very interesting stuff.

In the last decade over 30 clubs have gone into administration.

**legendz** · 16/02/2011, 4:03 PM

Thanks for that info.
There's too much focus on the LoI's problems when other leagues are having the same. This doesn't take away that action needs to be taken by the league but there's too much of a focus on that.

**Stuttgart88** · 16/02/2011, 6:51 PM

In one sense I think that the problems in smaller leagues can be seen as "collateral damage" caused by the bigger leagues like the EPL. I think this is acutely the case in the second and third tiers of English football and the SPL. The LOI has its own unique issues I suppose but living beyond one's means is a global problem in football with very few exceptions.

I've been quite supportive of the FAI's efforts to license and regulate the clubs. The principle is sound anyway, whatever about the execution.

Check out the answer to Q33 in UEFA's 2008 Benchmarking Report

This was what prompted UEFA to act and introduce its financial fair play initiative.

**paul_oshea** · 16/02/2011, 11:17 PM

whats this got to do with the world cup?

**legendz** · 16/02/2011, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by paul_oshea

whats this got to do with the world cup?

My bad. I meant to post this in World Football. Maybe a mod will move it...

**legendz** · 16/02/2011, 11:35 PM

Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

In one sense I think that the problems in smaller leagues can be seen as "collateral damage" caused by the bigger leagues like the EPL. I think this is acutely the case in the second and third tiers of English football and the SPL. The LOI has its own unique issues I suppose but living beyond one's means is a global problem in football with very few exceptions.

I've been quite supportive of the FAI's efforts to license and regulate the clubs. The principle is sound anyway, whatever about the execution.

Check out the answer to Q33 in UEFA's 2008 Benchmarking Report

This was what prompted UEFA to act and introduce its financial fair play initiative.

I'd agree with the effort to licence as well. The execution of it is questionable though.

That's an interesting report. I don't have the time to go through it but I've been following this story since around then. It's defnitely the way to go. It's also fair on club's who run their business properly.