There is absolutely no 'apparently' about it.

FFP came in well after Chelsea were transformed by Abramovich. City were the last club to be overhauled so drastically by a rich owner. In fact, some claim the regulations were bought in specifically because of those two examples.

FFP was criticized by City, and one or two others, as being an attempt to stop rich individuals transforming a smaller club through personal wealth alone, even when they were happy to do so. Their argument was that the big, established clubs were pushing for FFP so as to create a closed shop, and deny any smaller clubs the chance to suddenly compete with them. Which it does. Even if the Americans wanted to buy us a title winning team, they wouldn't be allowed.

The counterargument is that FFP stops clubs running up mad debts and relying on the whims of a rich individual who might up sticks and leave one day. Which it also does.

This guy is pretty good:

[Link]

What I expect, after 50 years supporting the 'Glaziers', is UPS and DOWNS. This season alone....won at Old Trafford...0-7 home to Liverpool...scoring 5 at WBA.....the Brighton win (walking on air after that one). Even in Scotland (in exile up here), people think Palace an interesting club, usually something bizarre going on. At the moment, it's being a ONE MAN club which has to come to an end.

I also expect relegation at this rate! Looking at the fixtures, we'll be lucky to get 5 points across April and May....

Scots for CPFC: McArthur Hopkin Freedman Cannon [most appearances ever] Queen McCormick Simpson [most goals ever]

Sorry but from my experience's since 1970, progression has been our club's survival in the loadsofdosh league for longest period in our history. By lord we beat ManU away this season, last season the boy Townsend scored a worldly against M££ity. For a bunch of ragamuffins from an unfashionable part of South London we ain't doing so bad.

I was brought up with the, support your local team idea. Never thought any different ever since. However, we are in a different world now and I believe support will veer more and more towards the successful and entertaining teams. All that is going to happen is the big clubs are getting bigger and better supported and teams such as Palace get pushed further to the fringes.

At the end of the day fans are relatively unimportant to the clubs in the top league because their money is a drop in the ocean compared to tv and advertising rights but to teams in the lower leagues they are still the life blood, so maybe being in the top league is not the be all and end all of football as we think it is.

I have to say I've not seen any objective arguments put forward by people that want to keep Roy other than the fact we avoided relegation. I don't really see a strong argument to say why that's what our expectations should be limited too.

Although, I'm also disappointed by many of the critics of Roy with the level of subjectivity in there argument.

A good point has been pointed out by others is that there have been very few signs of progression on the pitch. Whilst last seasons 14th place finish was disappointing, and just above the minimum expectation other factors came into play. Particularly the refusal to play younger players, Reidewald, Meyer, Mitchell, Pierreck, Camarasa, Sorloth, AWB etc. Say what you like about the recruitment strategy, Hodgson is the leader and the buck stops with him. We don't seem to be building anything, we are just drifting. Each season is getting progressively worse, with less reason for optimism.

Yep, those were the same conclusion I came to, though I feel that the benefits are very much worth the disbenefits, given the utter shambles so many cowboys have left so many football clubs in.

To extend your example of one person earning £1m p/a and the next £100k, with both being able to invest only 10% of it - the further cruel twist is that the guy earning £1m not only has a far larger business than the guy on £100k (with whom he is competing), but will also grow his business not only far larger, but also far faster.

The actual sum equal to each persons 10% will grow each year as their respective businesses grow, but the rate at which the rich mans 10% grows will be far greater than the rate at which the poor mans grows, because his business is ten times larger to begin with.

Hence the situation you describe, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You could demonstrate therefore that the longer we stay in this league, the relatively less well off we become compared to everyone else who has been in the league as long or longer. Our position in the financial pecking order gets worse every year, not better, unless someone with more money than us makes a mess of it and goes down, and gets replaced by a smaller club than us.

The current FFP regs do play a big part in appraising what one's expectations of Palace actually are, and of seeing the clubs long term plans in context.