Thought I'd bump this with yet another splendid article from Martin Samuel.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... ay-it.htmlToo long to cut and paste, but here's one of the highligts from the q&a's at the end.
FFP might not be perfect but something is needed. Give me Rochdale and a billion and I'll make them champions of Europe. For the select few, Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris St Germain, those clubs don't need to develop young players, don't need to struggle for years to create winning teams that attract supporters that pay their money to watch the team to make them able to afford to buy and pay players with which to challenge again. They only need Russian or Arab oil money. Roman Abramovich just bought the Premier League the year after the Abu Dhabi group bought it. How is that any fair on the rest? At least Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool compete with money and resources that are their own. Peter Maher, San Francisco.
So what is the Etihad campus if not an attempt to develop young players? Chelsea spend fortunes on youth development every season, too. The oil money was the push to get started. Now those clubs will be increasingly expected to stand on their own two feet. Remind me again? Was it Chelsea who bought Manchester United’s player of the year for £37.1m last year, or the other way around? And as for the struggle to create a title-winning team? How much of a struggle was it for United to buy Peter Schmeichel, Steve Bruce, Dennis Irwin, Gary Pallister, Paul Parker, Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis, Eric Cantona, Brian McClair, Mark Hughes and the rest of that first Premier League winning squad? Do you know how many players made over 15 appearances in that season and were not bought? One: Ryan Giggs. So wind you neck in. Just because you now think you’ve backed the wrong horse over in San Francisco doesn’t give you a place on the high moral ground.