A FEW MONTHS ago I suggested on these pages that we could be on the brink of the worst recession in living memory. The next week in the sports letters page it was suggested that I should shut up about economics as I knew nothing about it and should stick to football. I look forward to the apology next Sunday.
Well once again I am the harbinger of doom because I really do feel that the very future of some of Britain's major football clubs is unsafe in the now extreme economic climate. Worse still, I think there is a head-in-the-sand attitude prevailing in
certain areas in the game when it comes to the credit crunch and its ongoing effects.
This week one former player writing in a quality newspaper said that "there are absolutely no problems and there is nothing for clubs or fans to worry about." Try telling that to West Ham fans when they woke up to find out that Iceland's banks were teetering on the edge and, as such, Upton Park's current owners might want to pay the next week's wages in haddock fillets instead of cash.
The story over the last few years has been of wealthy foreign owners who have billions to spare, but there are only a very few of them. Others, like those at Manchester United and Liverpool, have had to borrow to gain control and this is not a good time to be heavily in debt. If the major banks, which in most respects are considered solid enough businesses, begin to creak with the strain because of liquidity problems, then wealthy businessmen could easily be at least as vulnerable to growing debt repayments.
The global markets have told us over the past month that nothing is impossible in the current climate, just ask employees at international giants such as Lehman Brothers and AIG. At the moment, the top four alone in England are up to their eyes to the tune of £2bn at least. They claim their debt is serviceable but they have not fully addressed the infamous Donald Rumsfeld 'unknown unknowns'.
What if a club's sugar daddy has difficulties in his core business – and plenty will in the coming months and maybe years? Will he sacrifice his own financial security for the club? My suspicion and my experience say not. The odds are not great that many of these high net-worth individuals will simply walk away, but what are the odds of them dying? Bookies are still not taking many bets on anyone living forever so clubs have to hope that their provider has made provision for when he has shuffled off this mortal coil. Once again I am not convinced this is regularly the case.
In that the leagues are now hammering the old administration scam, if a football club is left with something approaching three quarters of a billion pounds worth of debt and a mass of huge contracts to service alongside it, they can't use the system and they certainly can't trade their way out of it. They have to hope and pray that another kindly billionaire will turn up willing to take on the debt and agree to lose a whole shed-load more capital going forward into the bargain.
The thing that keeps most of the biggest clubs afloat in this sea of uncertainty is of course the television money, specifically the vast Sky deal. The clubs must be on tenterhooks and on their knees daily praying that the next deal is at least as lucrative as the last one because if that falters their huge budgets immediately begin to look dangerously nonsensical. But is this likely to happen?
Well, Setanta and others have made the battle for TV rights much more of a real market place. Even so, if we do go into a lengthy recession, then a full satellite football package is not exactly a necessary outlay for the average consumer compared with food and fuel, especially as highlights are almost invariably available on terrestrial TV eventually.
I am loath to say it but I do think there was some sense emitting from Sepp Blatter's camp recently regarding the issue of debt in the English game in particular. It might be perceived down south as nothing more than an anti-English rant and indeed there may be more than a grain of truth in that, but even the Champions League itself is becoming ever more predictable, and thus dull, because the English and their debt-ridden clubs are buying success by sweeping up almost all the best players throughout the continent. It is affecting competition and that is the driver of people's interest and the reason why they continue to watch it and pay for it.
Just before the current banking crisis there were huge sums still being made daily on the stock market and I had economists arguing with me that everything was still rosy. The problem is that it was all built on confidence, particularly in banks, and football is increasingly relying on confidence, not only on the field but off it as well.
For some time FIFA and UEFA have been planning the implementation of the licence scheme to safeguard the clubs from dangers, not least from themselves. The idea floated by UEFA general secretary David Taylor that Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool could be thrown out of the Champions League because their debt levels contravene the new rules is probably far-fetched – they would have to eject the likes of Real Madrid as well considering their financial record – but the governing bodies are flagging up a situation that cannot go on forever. They know it will almost certainly have some high-profile casualties sooner or later.
I have long been arguing that the real solution is to limit players' wages, generally the biggest single outlay for clubs, to around 60% of turnover with one major caveat. If the club entices a wealthy investor there should be no problem with using his money for players, but only if he gives the money secured in an account and does not merely loan it.
Some have called me naive when I have suggested this in the past, because it is not cost-effective for those giving and it is generally not the way money is used by these people in their global financial dealings. Well guess what, tough luck if it is not the most tax-efficient method, if you want to bask in the glory of the fame of the beautiful game, it is going to cost you.
What's more, some of those people who have used complex loan deals have managed to bring the world economy close to its knees. Maybe we shouldn't be listening to them as much these days anyway. After all there are only two types of people in the current markets, the don't knows and those who don't know that they don't know.
The full article contains 1175 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
