[kurtsimonw]

There's been a few things coming out of UEFA lately, like the spending caps, 6+5 rule, etc and I didn't kno where to put them without going OT in another thread in Football Discussion. Lock if you don't feel it'll be used enough.

Anyways, something else from UEFA.

Uefa gives green light for Platini's spending restrictions on clubs

The plan devised by Uefa's president, Michel Platini, to make clubs live within their means was approved by an executive committee meeting of European football's governing body today.

Dubbed "financial fair play", the new rules will in principle ban clubs from spending more than they make from their revenues, and aim to curtail the trend of rich owners buying into the game and transforming the fortunes of a club.

"We don't want to kill or hurt the clubs, on the contrary we want to help them in the market," Platini told reporters, adding he had the support of the clubs. "The teams who play in our tournaments have unanimously agreed to our principles," he claimed.

Platini said the new rules would be implemented in the 2012-13 season and clubs who failed to abide by them could ultimately be thrown out of European competition. The new rules would not cover domestic competitions, but only clubs who were competing in the Champions League or Europa League.

In my opinion, this will single handedly destroy the competition in football, it's sickening to read, at least when applied to the EPL anyway.

The way I see it is this. Being in the top 4 gives you so much more money, this is what helps turn a team into a super power, consistant CL qualification. Who are the biggest threats to the CL teams? Using comon sense that would be the teams in 5th and 6th, the places just outside the CL positions. With this new proposal, it pretty much guarentees that the teams in 5th and 6th have no chance of breaking the top 4. The new proposal wants teams in Europe to be capped, with the restriction in spending being based on their income. So the teams that had the best chance of breaking the top 4 are now being restricted in what they can spend, not only this, but they will be able to spend LESS than the teams in the CL as it's based on income! So this will make the gap between 4th and 5th even bigger. Generally, teams outside of Europe are 1. so far away from 4th place that they aren't a worry to the CL teams and 2. don't have the spending power to bridge the gap. It seems that finishing in a Europa League places makes you the most disadvantaged team in the league, you hardly get any revenue from the competition and then you are restricted by how much you can spend.

Thank God for Man City right now, otherwise there would be no hope of anyone breaking the top 4 in this country. Ridiculous, poorly thought out idea from Platini and the money greedy UEFA.