Financial Fairplay

[Sleepy]

Bargs mentioned it in the Bundesliga thread, but it probably deserves its own thread.

UEFA listed the three ‘main pillars’ of the new regulations: 1. Break-even requirement – clubs must not spend more than they generate over a period of time. 2. No overdues payable during the season - towards other clubs, employees and/or social/tax authorities). 3. Provision of future financial information – to ensure clubs can meet their future obligations. Their aim is to put clubs on a sounder financial footing and reduce the massive advantages currently by the richest clubs, so reinvigorating fair competition.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/eng-inter ... F306465124


The Times writes:

But as English clubs pore over the most significant changes to the game since the start of the Premier League era, they are approaching the new restrictions with ill-concealed concern.
[...]
No more Sheikh Mansour lavishing more than £400 million to secure a place in the Champions League unless he can square the outgoings with Manchester City’s income. No Mohamed Al Fayed propping up Fulham, or Randy Lerner at Aston Villa, unless their cash injections are beneath the limit — to become less than "10 million (£9 million) a year on average — that a sugar daddy can spend.
[...]
Platini denies that his plans are anti-English; simply that the Premier League has more clubs that are guilty of spending beyond their means. In the 2007-08 season 14 of the 20 Premier League clubs made a loss, including United, Chelsea and Liverpool.
To support his proposals, Uefa recently published The European Club Footballing Landscape report, which revealed that 47 per cent of Europe’s top clubs made a loss in 2008 despite record revenues. Although the Premier League clubs reported the highest revenue, they also owed almost £4 billion. Platini is a fan of the German model in which at least 51 per cent of every club must be owned by the supporters, ruling out private speculators.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... t=0&page=1

The whole 60 page concept can be found here

So, any thoughts on this?
I like the general idea, but I think the plan, as it is, will not survive its first contact with reality. The sugar daddys of the Premiere League, the Werksvereine of the Bundesliga, the practices of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, the situation of Barca in Span, etc make reform necessary, but a two/four year span is too short impose this regulations.
To give an example, the new rules state that wages mustn't be greater than 70% of the annual turnover of the club. Manchester United currently pays more than 100% of the turnover to their players. As it is, they'll have to drastically reduce their wages to comply with the regulations by either releasing quite a few players or negotiating new contracts with their whole team. We could see very drastic player movements as the deadlines of 2012/2014 come nearer.

Anyway, it's a step in the right direction. It could lead to more regulations down the road and create something like the CBA for soccer. Perhaps not in the next ten years, but as some kind of longterm goal.

[_SRV_]

I hate it, it means only big market teams can win, if Man. City's owner wants to spend to beat the big red enemy he should be allowed, it makes new teams coming out to compete virtually impossible, because yo no longer can win with locally groomed talent.
EDIT: I do agree that acquiring talent shouldn't be based on debt, and the owner should provide the cash flow if he wants to overspend.
BTW, where did you see the ManU salary thingy, in the fans vs Glazer episode, it was claimed that part of the income was going to cover the Glazer's loans.

[Sleepy]

The Times article mentions the United salary problem.

I don't think soccer clubs will have problems with big market teams. Currently, tiny cities like Kaiserslautern or Freiburg have a first division team, while Berlin plays in League 2 and Leipzig has no respectable team at all. Same is true for France with Paris (up and down history).

It's not the big market that makes a club, it's the infrastructure. It correlates, but it's not the causation. To have longtime success in a top league, a club needs top notch training grounds, a youth academy, a big stadium, etc. The new regulations are there to encourage (or better: to force) investors to pump their money in this stuff and not go the quick'n'easy route of buying players for hundreds of millions.

From the Times article:

He [Platini] is insistent that his rules do not thwart ambition. For smaller clubs with rich owners, he claims that there is a route to success because the regulations do not limit spending on infrastructure or youth policy.

[Slava]

The United salary part is completely false since we made an operating profit of more than 60 mil pounds over last season alone with signing a new official mobile sponsor for Asia, official beer sponsor nd the new sponsorship contract with AON kicking in. Ideally this money would mostly be spent on transfers making us the biggest players in the market.

As suck I like it since United are already a well established brand and raising revenue will not be much of a problem compared to someone like City whose operating profits mainly incluse the TV rights and a few jersey sales.

There's a million different loopholes in this and owners like City's can thoroughly exploit those so it'd be interesting to see what kind of penalties they can impose for perpetrators.

[bargs]

Good thread!

well, the situation poses itself as a real threat for clubs which spent more than their turnover. Just to link to something already said, well..70% of turnover is a fair amount of money for wages, don't forget the costs are not only made by wages, rather i see 70% as a high mark to achieve..unless people want a negative net result.

as for what j-far said, no doubt clubs like Mu can spend more than clubs like Mc looking at their turnover ..don't forget about the interests; an operating profit could be even more than 60 mil pounds of course, you've got to watch the cost of money borrowed, and i assure you Mu and many other clubs around the world have a DEBT over EQUITY ratio extremely unbalanced.

at the end of the story, the concept is "sustainability" ...a part of this is about containing the costs, but it's only a part...

[demens]

This is BS, the only way a small market team can compete is if they get a rich owner who pours money into the team and is willing to take the inevitable loses. Big market teams will always be the ones that can generate more money to balance spending so they will be the ones spending more money. This is the opposite of fair play!

[Slava]

If you go by that logic, Fulham should make more than Liverpool and Manchester United since they are based in London. That's not how things work in football.

It takes years to build a brand.

[demens]

If you go by that logic, Fulham should make more than Liverpool and Manchester United since they are based in London. That's not how things work in football.

It takes years to build a brand.

Fulham is 1 of what 10000 teams in London? So no thats not my logic. By Big Market teams i mean the Big NAME historically popular teams, just because a team is based in a big city doesn't mean anything.

[Point forward]

I hope that the UEFA enforces this strictly and severly punishes and relegates debt-happy clubs. I am so sick of seeing a club happily racking up a 100m debt and buying their way into the Champions League, while a German club gets relegated (!!) for just having a 5m debt.

BTW, I really do not believe that there is a strong correlation between big market and performance. The correlation between "using your brain" and performance is much stronger. Just look at Germany, where you probably have the strictest financial soccer rules in the world...

In the past years, Bremen and Wolfsburg owned the big neighbor HSV, medium market Stuttgart took several bites out of big market Munich, and big city clubs like Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden or Leipzig remained either mediocre or worse.

Among fans, there is a high level of antipathy against foreign takeovers (Bundesliga fans know the "50+1" debate). I would also like to point out that you can buy a ticket for a Bundesliga game with only 12 Euros, which makes the game extremely attractive for school kids - who then rather decide to play soccer on the pitch rather on the Playstation.

Creating a level of common financial rules rather strengthens than weakens the role of clever management. How else could a club like WOLFSBURG (???) win the German championship? I could rattle off 5 teams that are hands down richer than them (Bayern, Schalke, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leverkusen...)

[demens]

Ohh please, Germany has been irrelevant in European football for more then 10 years now. Hardly an example to live by. There will always be a small market team that will assemble some talent to challenge a big team, the question is what happens after, can they sustain it, can they keep the talent? And with these rules its a clearly no they can't. Talk to me about Werder and Wolfsburg after the top teams snatch up Ozil an Dzeko.

Top teams will always be the ones making more money even if they are losing, so they will always be the one able to spend the most. They dominate as it is now, but at least there are a few others that have owners who are willing to spend trying to challenge them, and do it consistently, not be a 1 year fluke. Was Abramovic taking over Chelsea a bad thing? I didn't follow EPL when i was younger but i dont even remember them in Euro Cups during most of the 90s. Only exception i can think of is when Zola was there, now they are one of the top teams in the world, guess what, thats all thanks to money. Same thing is happening with Man City, they were perennial outsiders from what i remember, and maybe the big spending didn't transform them into contenders immediately because they dont have the name power and big players refuse to go there, but this IS changing and that IS a good thing. Look at the eastern block teams, Zenit, CSKA, Shakhtar, when was the last time those countries won anything in Europe before recently? 1986 thats when. If and owner is willing to take a loss to make his team better that IS A GOOD THING, he should be commended for it.

[Sleepy]

Ohh please, Germany has been irrelevant in European football for more then 10 years now. Hardly an example to live by. There will always be a small market team that will assemble some talent to challenge a big team, the question is what happens after, can they sustain it, can they keep the talent? And with these rules its a clearly no they can't. Talk to me about Werder and Wolfsburg after the top teams snatch up Ozil an Dzeko.

That's a pretty harsh judgment. No matter which criteria you use, German teams have hardly been irrelevant in the last decade. They have won the Champions League and were in the finals 3 times... in ten years. Four times if we add the uber-dramatic final of 98/99. That's about on par with the Italian League and not worlds apart from England or Spain. They have also been twice to the UEFA Cup final, with many, many semifinals losses.

But what is more important in this context is this stat. Germany has had the most participants in the CL, indicating that the German model indeed produces a variety of teams playing on the top level. Teams like Leverkusen and Dortmund made it to the finals of the CL and won it without a big international trackrecord.

Another, and imo the most impressive, stat is the appearance of players from a league in the latter stages of the World Cup. The Bundesliga had both the most players in the semifinals of 2010 and 2008 and I wouldn't be shocked to see that the other tournaments of the decade look similar.

Anyway, if you're talking about appearances in Nike Spots, you're certainly right. The Bundesliga doesn't get the same attention from the media than the other leagues, partly because the broadcasting and marketing rights are still with the league and not with the individual teams. But no matter what's the reason, I still find it quite amusing that a fat Ronaldinho (who didn't make it to the cup) gets a spot in a multimillion Dollar marketing campaign and Bastian Schweinsteiger doesn't. You can even argue that Schweinsteiger has thus far achieved way more in his career than Wayne Rooney (not saying anything about the players. Not gonna start some arguement about who is better), but Rooney is an international superstar while Schweinsteiger has barley a tenth of that fame.

But, well, getting off topic...

Not being able to build dynasties is also an iffy statement, but even if it were true, would that be a bad thing?
The biggest argument against it are the Bayern themselves who haven't sold an important player in as long as I can remeber. Owen Hargraves perhaps, and this only because ManU totally overpaid to a degree it would've been stupid to keep him.
Dzeko still plays with Wolfsburg... you think a team like Villa or Tottenham could've fought of bidders like that? Bremen let Diego leave to Italy because they knew it would've been stupid to pay him that kind of money and it was the right decision. Bremen certainly didn't loose in this transfer.
The only team I can think of that got bought out was Leverkusen in 2002. And then it was a mix between stupidity and bad luck and the winner wasn't some English or Italian team, but the Bayern.

Anyway... who cares about success in Europe if your domestic league goes bankrupt in the process. Even if no German team could have competed in Europe in the last decade, having the lowest ticket prices and best attendances, free TV soccer over the whole weekend and a very competitive national squad make more than up for it.


What's the best case for a model with ownerships? The NBA without the CBA? A bunch of 20-30 top teams playing in a different league financially while the rest looks in from the outside? F... that!

I'd rather cut all the transfer sums and wages in halve and give the clubs back to their supporters. Sure, that doesn't mean equal chances, but at least the question then is "who got the greatest fanbase" and not "who got the richest owner".

I'm sure guys like Malcolm Glazer can find some other ways of making money and amusing themselves. Buy the Warriors if you are bored, but leave the clubs to their fans.

[demens]

That's a pretty harsh judgment. No matter which criteria you use, German teams have hardly been irrelevant in the last decade. They have won the Champions League and were in the finals 3 times... in ten years. Four times if we add the uber-dramatic final of 98/99. That's about on par with the Italian League and not worlds apart from England or Spain. They have also been twice to the UEFA Cup final, with many, many semifinals losses.

Sementics. I made the cut off after the year Bayern won it. So 9 years rather then 10. 2 finals in CL and what, 2 finala in Uefa Cup in 9 years (and zero wins) is no where near England, Spain or Italy. And if i were to cut off 1 more year (2002) that would make 1 CL final and 1 Uefa final in 8 years, thats not even on the level of the French, Russian, Ukrainians, Protugese and Scotish.

But what is more important in this context is this stat. Germany has had the most participants in the CL, indicating that the German model indeed produces a variety of teams playing on the top level. Teams like Leverkusen and Dortmund made it to the finals of the CL and won it without a big international trackrecord.

I dont see why that is a good thing, they had the most participants yet they are 4th in wins. And thats only because of ONE team which is Bayern. Dont see what good this variety has done for you when if it wasnt for 1 team, Germany would to ranked on par with Portugal, Holland and the French. So what is Bayer and Borussia made the finals, Swedish Malmo made it once.


You say you dont care about Europe success as long as the League is good, cheap tickets and so on. I completely disagree. To me, success in Europe is the ultimate goal of every team, its the best of the best where you have to prove yourself year after year. National teams are fun, but there is something wrong with a guy like Podolski who is a nobody for 2 years is suddenly looked at as one of the worlds best players, then is a nobody again and then the cycle repeats. WCs and nice, Euros are nice, but its about hot streaks and injuries, club football is where the best of the best win, not the domestic league. And the only way smaller clubs can compete against the best consistently is if they have owners that can compete financially.

[cgf]

I disagree completely on the WC and euro point. Poldi isn't a nobody who just gets hot, he's a remarkably talented player who coasts for his club. He only plays hard for the national team and that's why he's a nobody for 2 years before tearing things up for the naitonal teams. If it were all a question of hot streaks he wouldn't have scored 30 or 40 something goals (?) in 80 games for hte national side.

While europe is nice as a fan of soccer in general I can tell you that it does fall behind the domestic league in germany, I can't say for the epl, serie A and La Liga, but in Germany the fans and the clubs aren't as focused on european competition as they are the domestic league. Which is why the CL model doesn't work as well as one might think. I think that's something that could be changed if scheduling were different, say get the leagues to clean up faster and then after the season have a playoff like Champions League where the teams can first focus exclusively on their season and then actually focus on the CL. But that's a whole nother discussion.

[demens]

I disagree completely on the WC and euro point. Poldi isn't a nobody who just gets hot, he's a remarkably talented player who coasts for his club. He only plays hard for the national team and that's why he's a nobody for 2 years before tearing things up for the naitonal teams. If it were all a question of hot streaks he wouldn't have scored 30 or 40 something goals (?) in 80 games for hte national side.

While europe is nice as a fan of soccer in general I can tell you that it does fall behind the domestic league in germany, I can't say for the epl, serie A and La Liga, but in Germany the fans and the clubs aren't as focused on european competition as they are the domestic league. Which is why the CL model doesn't work as well as one might think. I think that's something that could be changed if scheduling were different, say get the leagues to clean up faster and then after the season have a playoff like Champions League where the teams can first focus exclusively on their season and then actually focus on the CL. But that's a whole nother discussion.

Podolski sucks. Noone just coasts for 2 years, and then 2 more years. If you're good you gonna be good go out and play good, being talented once every 2 years is bs.

Maybe certain teams and fans in Germany do put more stock in the domestic league, there is a reason for that but you can't tell me Bayern is one of them. I know certain English and Italian teams neglect the EL, considering it a 2nd rate tourney and saving their best for domestic league, but noone neglects the CL. The more soccer the better imo, i like that these teams have to play 2 games a week or more, i like that the top teams have to play on 3 or 4 fronts, thats what makes them top teams. This is why you need money, cause you need 22 (or more) quality players not just 11. Teams that concentrate on domestic leagues are the WEAK teams, they know they can't manage both, so they have to pick one.

Thats were variety comes in. Your team with 11 talented guys can have a great run 1 season, make the CL semis, finish 3rd in the league or whatever, but next year, 3 of them will be sold off, 3 will get injured and the team will get relegated and you get another team take their place. I dont like that kind of variety, i'd prefer that team try to hold on to their 11, maybe sell 1 and add 6 to maintain their spot and improve.

[Point forward]

Sementics. I made the cut off after the year Bayern won it. So 9 years rather then 10. 2 finals in CL and what, 2 finala in Uefa Cup in 9 years (and zero wins) is no where near England, Spain or Italy. And if i were to cut off 1 more year (2002) that would make 1 CL final and 1 Uefa final in 8 years, thats not even on the level of the French, Russian, Ukrainians, Protugese and Scotish.

Sorry, but you are way off here. You are gerrymandering: by your logic, Porto is better than Chelsea, and Feyenoord is better than Arsenal The UEFA coefficient 2009/2010:

1. England 81.856
2. Spain 79.757
3. Italy 64.338
4. Germany 64.207
5. France 53.740
6. Russia 43.791
7. Ukraine 39.550
8. Romania 39.491
9. Portugal 38.296
10. Netherlands 36.246
16. Scotland 25.791

Note the HUGE gap between Germany and the rest.

You say you dont care about Europe success as long as the League is good, cheap tickets and so on. I completely disagree. To me, success in Europe is the ultimate goal of every team, its the best of the best where you have to prove yourself year after year. And the only way smaller clubs can compete against the best consistently is if they have owners that can compete financially.

Cheap tickets are unimportant??? Full stadiums (and I mean, regularly full 50,000+ stadiums), passionate fans and superb atmo at every match are unimportant??? Wow.

A good management >>> a truckload of money. If I had the choice between 250m Euro and five years of Mourinho, Wenger or Ferguson, I would choose latter. Money sometimes makes you REALLY stupid, see Paris St Germain for details.

EDIT: for the 250m comment, I fully endorse it. As a 1. FC Kaiserslautern fan, I watched our megalomaniac management waste money like complete idiots. They built the stadium too big, booted out his entire championship winning 1999 squad for expensive mercenaries (Djorkaeff, Pettersson, West, Ognjenovic, Basler, Georg Koch, Timm...), kicked out GOAT coach Otto Rehhagel for a string of idiot neophyte coaches, alienated the fans, resorted to financial fraud and essentially sold the soul of the club away. Our IRS clamped down hard, and we had to sell our stadium to survive. We
are still reeling from that shock.

Brains >>> money

[demens]

Sorry, but you are way off here. You are gerrymandering: by your logic, Porto is better than Chelsea, and Feyenoord is better than Arsenal The UEFA coefficient 2009/2010:

1. England 81.856
2. Spain 79.757
3. Italy 64.338
4. Germany 64.207
5. France 53.740
6. Russia 43.791
7. Ukraine 39.550
8. Romania 39.491
9. Portugal 38.296
10. Netherlands 36.246
16. Scotland 25.791

Note the HUGE gap between Germany and the rest.

Germany being 4th proves my point. That is a not a high ranking considering their own standards in the past. They were 4th just 2 times during the 90s (#2 or #3 the rest of the way), they have not even been in the top 3 in the 2000s at all. Thats a decline, they finally might make it back in there this year. The gap between them and the lower teams is not huge, and it should be. And dont forget the the rating is a 5 year one. Is it a coincidence that England and Spain are the 2 biggest spenders and have held the top 2 spots 4 straight years. England was bouncing from 5th to 7th throughout the 90s, hardly the power house you see today. Noone in their right mind you say EPL is stronger then Bundesliga back then. Look and Russian and Ukraine BOTH in the top 7, back then neither one could even crack the top 10.

Why do you care if the club loses money anyway. Its the owners problem not yours. Cheap tickets and big crowds are great, but last time i checked the top clubs can still draw a **** load of fans no matter how much the tickets cost.

[Point forward]

^^ That is exactly the hazard of having a sole owner. The club is property of one person. If that person gets bored, he can sell it to whoever he wants, relocate, or simply liquidate it, and nobody can do anything against it. Do you want to see your favorite club do a Seattle Supersonics?

Soccer teams are not franchises.

[demens]

^^ That is exactly the hazard of having a sole owner. The club is property of one person. If that person gets bored, he can sell it to whoever he wants, relocate, or simply liquidate it, and nobody can do anything against it. Do you want to see your favorite club do a Seattle Supersonics?

Soccer teams are not franchises.

When has something like that happen?

[Sleepy]

Sorry, but you are way off here. You are gerrymandering: by your logic, Porto is better than Chelsea, and Feyenoord is better than Arsenal The UEFA coefficient 2009/2010:

1. England 81.856
2. Spain 79.757
3. Italy 64.338
4. Germany 64.207
5. France 53.740
6. Russia 43.791
7. Ukraine 39.550
8. Romania 39.491
9. Portugal 38.296
10. Netherlands 36.246
16. Scotland 25.791

Note the HUGE gap between Germany and the rest.

Germany being 4th proves my point. That is a not a high ranking considering their own standards in the past. They were 4th just 2 times during the 90s (#2 or #3 the rest of the way), they have not even been in the top 3 in the 2000s at all. Thats a decline, they finally might make it back in there this year. The gap between them and the lower teams is not huge, and it should be. And dont forget the the rating is a 5 year one. Is it a coincidence that England and Spain are the 2 biggest spenders and have held the top 2 spots 4 straight years. England was bouncing from 5th to 7th throughout the 90s, hardly the power house you see today. Noone in their right mind you say EPL is stronger then Bundesliga back then. Look and Russian and Ukraine BOTH in the top 7, back then neither one could even crack the top 10.

Why do you care if the club loses money anyway. Its the owners problem not yours. Cheap tickets and big crowds are great, but last time i checked the top clubs can still draw a **** load of fans no matter how much the tickets cost.

1) Know your history... German teams spent like crazy during some of these times and exactly that hurt them. The Bundesliga got a TV contract with a pay-per-view station (similar to the Premiere League) and went out spending like drunken sailors. That hurt the league and that what this span of (narrow) fourth place finishes cover. Kaiserslautern with Djorkaeff is just one example, the prime case is Dortmund spending 25.000.000€ on Marcio Amoroso. It was the "get successful quick by spending big" frenzy in the earlie 00s that nearly killed a bunch of very respectable clubs. They totally negated their youth teams, didn't develop own talent, just went for the quick fix. Andres d'Allesandro, Alex Alves, the list goes on.
Spending was the problem... spending too much money on stupid transfers.

EDIT: To expand a bit:
Leverkusen made it to the finals in 2001... and what did they do after that? The ran a transfer deficit of more than 15 mio€ AFTER selling players like Ballack and ZeRoberto to the Bayern for much money. The spend 30.000.000€ on this:

Code: Select all

França  (São Paulo)       8.500.000 €
Paulo Roberto Rink (1.FC Nürnberg) *    -
Juan (Flamengo)    3.500.000 €
Jan Simak (Hannover 96)    6.500.000 €
Daniel Bierofka (1860 München)    4.200.000 €
Hanno Balitsch (1.FC Köln)    2.000.000 €
Christoph Preuß (E. Frankfurt)    2.200.000 €


Juan for 3.5 is not bad, but everything else is just painful.

Dortmund, after they finished the 90ties really strong with wining the CL and several league titles turned around and spent close to 100.000.000€ on Evanilson, Amoroso, Frings (flop for them), Ewerthon, Ikpeba, and some others.
They effing spent 3.200.000€ on Sebastian Kehl who had, IIRC, 2 more months on his contract. And I'm leaving out guys like Rosicky for 15.000.000€ and Koller for 10.000.000€, which is still badly overpaying, but atleast the got something out of that.

And that's just two of many examples. 1860 destroyed their club while going on a powertrip, as did Karlsruhe to a degree.

2) The English top clubs, the Bayern and some others all have problems attracting "fans". Fans as in people who start chants, who bring banners with them, who make noise. Not people spending a few thousand bucks on a business suite. There's a documentation on youtube about English fans who fly to Hamburg over the weekend to watch a St. Pauli match, cause that IS cheaper (and a better experience if you are into this whole fan-thing) than buying tix for Chelsea to sit next to some Russian oligarch or Arabian sheik. Nothing against oligarchs and sheiks, they actually pay the price, but a stadium full of them is just boring.

Anyway, nothing prevents owners from buying the stadium and setting it up just as he likes. Just don't touch the actual club.
If Mr.X wants to buy Club Y and set up a stadium of VIP lounges with Champagne instead of beer and chants from CD instead from the fans, just go for it. But don't let him buy everybody he likes and by that destroy the prices all over the market.

EDIT: Here's the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yf04lyyD-g
(It's on German)

[Point forward]

Want to hear a sad story about a small club that got killed by a money spending owner? Enter Tennis Borussia Berlin, a club with a rich pre-WWII history.

In the 1990s, the Göttinger Gruppe (a German financial holding) under Kuno Konrad bought the club, injected 30m into "TeBe" and wanted TeBe to become registered as stock exchange brand. After promoting from the 4th to the 2nd Bundesliga, they bought many mercenary players who did nothing and angered the DFB with shady financial practices.

In the end, Göttinger Gruppe pulled out, leaving the club to die. Players were scammed out of their salary, could not pay their bills, marriages were destroyed (!!) and one player (Zikovic) was reported to have lived on tap water only during the week because he had no money to buy food.

TeBe never got over this blow. They *just* managed to survive, relegated into the 5th division and stayed there. I just heard that they will be relegated to 7th division because they cannot pay their bills anymore.