For anyone who considers that Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules will create a level playing field consider this. Earlier this week Arsenal announced a massive new kit deal with PUMA that is worth a reported £150m over five years. Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis called the deal the:
“biggest commercial deal in Puma & Arsenal’s history. The money from this deal will be available to the club from this summer”
By comparison, Adidas and Nike are locked in a battle with Manchester United over their kit deal. Nike’s current deal with Nike is worth £23.5m-a-year and expires in 2015. Nike had a period of exclusivity, during which United could talk only to them about a new contract, but that expired last summer and not United are talking to Adidas, PUMA and Warrior Sports about a new deal. With some much competition the price is getting continually increased with estimations now that a five-year deal could be worth as much as £350m for United.
That is more than double Arsenal’s revenue, which means that if Man United and Arsenal had the same income, this new deal would allow United to spend twice as much money on transfer fees and wages as Arsenal.
That is why United can afford to offer Wayne Rooney a £300,000-a-week pay package that would make him the highest paid player in the Premier League.
Platini and Uefa said that FPP would allow teams to compete on a more level field. That teams would no longer be reliant on their owners wealth to buy players. The other side of that argument is that the best run teams with the strongest revenue streams (Barcelona, Man United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich) will be able to dominate European football for the foreseeable future.