A strategy to help people manage their weight (and long term health)

I listened to a phone in today on 5Live about the rise in the incidence of type 2 diabetes and how it was caused by being overweight. There was a general cry for “something must be done” and an argument between those who said it was all abut personal responsibility and those who blamed the food and drinks industry. Solutions were in short supply.

I am not a dietician, doctor or indeed anything that is relevant to the debate. I am just a normal middle age bloke whose weight has fluctuated as I have aged and has tried various things to try and manage this.

I know (as do most people) that eating more calories than I use means I will get heavier but that alone does not really help. I can also see when I gain or lose weight (scales, which clothes fit etc) as can most people.

However calories are quite abstract things – you cant see one and it is surprisingly difficult (despite all the labeling) to count the calories you consume and it is even harder to count those you use. Guesswork doesn’t work well so how do you keep score?

Based on my own experience here is a simple strategy that will help those who want to helped (if you don’t want to help yourself, then you need to deal with that first).

Step 1 – Decide you actually want to lose weight and you care enough about it to do something.

Step 2 -  You will have a smart phone or tablet. Use that to find a free app that helps you count calories in and out. I use MyFitnessPal but there are many others. They allow you to see daily progress even though it takes time for your weight/size to change; there is a social network side if you want to share (I didn’t) and it adds a little fun (gamification I believe it is called!)

Step 3 – Do the set up. This will tell you how many calories you actually need each day to achieve your goal.  Bound to surprise you.

Step 4 – Keep score. Tell the app what you consume and the exercise you do (tip: play with the exercise search facility and you will be surprised what counts as exercise and how many calories they burn – its not just about going to the gym)

Step 5 – Persevere. No quick fix here, slow and steady is what works – but it does work. I have found I end up exercising more and eating differently; net result? A steady and continuing weight loss that is taking me back to a weight I have not been for over 20 years – and in no sense do I feel like I am on a diet.

Dear BT - an open letter about your service

Dear BT

You have some good people working for you who try and be helpful but their best efforts are being frustrated by a truly awful telephone service.

How not to design a telephone service:

1.  Print a number on the bill for faults which is incorrect.
2. Ask for the number of the line I am calling about at the beginning and then not give that to the advisor so they ask for it straight away
3. Put a recorded message at the beginning of the call saying “use our web site instead” and repeat that after every option I press. Do you think we want to phone you?
4. Ask me a whole series of security questions before you even know what I am ringing about.
5. Ask me whether I want to give feedback after the call and then ignore my answer.
6. Have an IVR structure that has a lot of dead ends that don’t lead to talking to a human being. Have you ever actually tried to ring yourself?
7. Don’t fix the problem I ring about but do that in a very polite manner.
8. Hide previous call notes from your people so they have to start again each time.
9. Send me a text to call message saying the fault is fixed when it is not and your own notes say it is not.
10. Monitor Twitter for feedback, say you will help and then don’t follow through.

Amazingly, you do all these things! A spectacular achievement.

Get some help!

Gary Price

Financial Fair Play: Will It Work?

As a football fan I have heard a lot about UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative (FFP) but only really in soundbites and have never previously taken the time to find out what it really is. And most importantly; will it work? Will it actually force football clubs across Europe to live within their means and will it create a more level playing field?

For those interested in really understanding the intricacies of FFP I recommend the excellent www.financialfairplay.co.uk or you can even look at the original UEFA document on www.uefa.com although that is a somewhat convoluted read!

This blog will give my answers to the questions that I asked myself and which I suspect are being asked by many other fans.

Q1. What are UEFA trying to do?

It is worth starting with the stated objectivesof FFP which is to achieve financial fair play in UEFA club competitions. There are six specific points within this of which the most pertinent four (to me) are copied below from the UEFA document:

c) to introduce more discipline and rationality in club football finances; 

d) to encourage clubs to operate on the basis of their own revenues;

e) to encourage responsible spending for the long-term benefit of football;

f) to protect the long-term viability and sustainability of European club football.

“Operate on the basis of their own revenues” is EUFA speak for living within your means and is the part of FFP that most attention focuses on.

Notice that there is no objective around creating a more level playing field. Nothing in FFP attempts to harmonise revenue or spending power. It merely seeks to align spending to revenue so there will still be poor clubs, rich clubs and very, very rich clubs. Success will still be heavily determined by the amount a club can spend.

UEFA are trying to reduce the risk of football going bust because of this link.

Q2. What does “living within your means” actually mean?

FFP talks about “allowable deficits” which means the amount a club can lose and that amount reduces over time but does not get to zero. In a normal business a profit or loss is simply revenue minus expenditure; inevitably FFP is more complex than this. We will need to get used to headline losses (as reported to the City for example) and FFP deficits – they will be different. And headline losses will be for a season whereas FFP has “monitoring periods” – covering 2 seasons initially and 3 seasons thereafter.

There are two key permanent exclusions from expenditure and one temporary one.

The costs associated with a) stadium development and b) youth programmes are permanently excluded from the calculation. Loopholes? Possibly but remember that UEFA’s objectives for FFP include one about encouraging responsible spending for the long term development of football. UEFA want improved stadiums and want young players developed. And so do fans.

The temporary exclusion applies for this season only (but confusingly this season counts in two monitoring periods) and is for the wages of players signed before 1 June 2010. This affects wages only (not transfer fees) and is for one season only – it is one of a series of measures that are intended to smooth the pain of introduction.

Q3 How much can you lose and still comply with FFP?

Unfortunately there is not a single amount for us to commit to memory here!

Each monitoring period has a different amount (the allowable loss reduces over time) so lets use the first period as an example. That first period covers two seasons; 2011/12 and 2012/13.

A club will comply with FFP if either:

a) the combined allowable loss over these two seasons is E5m (approx £4m)

or

b) the combined allowable loss over these two seasons is E45m (approx £36m) and equity (cash) is injected into the club that reduces the loss to E5m. A loan to the club is not equity.

In subsequent monitoring periods (all 3 seasons long) there are three things to note:

a)  the E5m allowable loss remains in force

b) the allowable loss that can be covered by an equity injection reduces to E30m (approx £24m) from the third monitoring period

c)  there is an additional requirement for the allowable loss to be reducing.

 So if you really want to hold a single amount in your head the best one is probably E45m for the season 2011/12 and 2012/13 combined – but remember the caveats!!

Q4 How do transfer fees affect this?

Under FFP the transfer fee is spread over the length of the players contract – something known as amortisation or depreciation in accounting speak – and is a cost. So a £20m transfer fee for a player on a 5 year contract will cost the club £4m a season under FFP.

When a club sells a player the amount received is compared against the depreciated value of the player and could generate a profit or a loss.  So our £20m player on a 5 year contract has a value of £16m after one year. If he is sold for £10m that will be a loss of £6m under FFP .

Q5 When does FFP start?

In one sense it already has. The first monitoring period has started and ends at the end of the 2012/13 season but the first season that is affected by the results of the monitoring is not until 2014/15.

Clubs need a UEFA license to take part in EUFA competitions so in theory they need to comply with FFP to get a license for 2014/15.

Q6 What happens if a club fails the FFP test?

Good question and this is at the heart of the FFP concern for many. UEFA has recently published a series of potential punishments which have been ratified by the UEFA conference – 8 in total.

1.     Warning or reprimand

2.     Fine

3.     Deduction of points

4.     Withholding of revenue from UEFA competition

5.     Prevented from registering new players for UEFA competitions

6.     A restriction on the number of players that can be registered for UEFA competitions

7.     Disqualification from a competition in progress

8.     Exclusion from future competitions

A broad and powerful range of sanctions but what is not defined is how they will be applied. There is no published detail on the punishment that will be applied in a given circumstance. The UEFA disciplinary process will determine the punishment.

The absence of clear guidelines (so far) will feed the concern of many that FFP will be a well intended but ultimately toothless. Will UEFA really hit clubs who fail FFP hard or will they just get a slap on the wrist? Will the punishments start soft and get harder over time? Will punishments increase for serial offenders?

To be fair to UEFA the punishment list was only published in April so they may be working on the guidelines for applying them. I hope so!

Q7 So Will FFP work?

I am just a football fan but my conclusion is that FFP could work. UEFA have put in place a very comprehensive set of regulations, incorporated them into their licensing arrangements, invested a lot of political capital in FFP, created a long list of potential punishments and the impact of FFP is already been felt across football (but not everywhere). Some clubs behaviour can make you think they have found a loophole or don’t believe the sanctions will be punitive (you know who you are) because it is really hard to see how they can comply in the first (or second) monitoring period.

Whether it does work or not depends upon 3 things:

1.     Whether the first punishments handed out are material enough to have an impact.

2.     Whether clubs can find creative ways through the regulations – the rules try and prevent this but…..

3.     Whether clubs who fall foul of 1 or 2 accept their fate or resort to legal challenges that undermine FFP.

As I said at the outset, this is not an exhaustive description of FFP. Its just the musings of a fan hoping it works and trying to understand it. If its helpful and there are other questions you’d like me to try and answer please let me know.

The Arsenal Project: Ivan the Terrible or The Great Gazidis?

I was fortunate enough to attend the Arsenal Supporters evening at The Emirates last night and heard Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis talk eloquently in response to questions from supporters. I am an Arsenal fan and share the peculiar mix of hope, confusion and frustration that Arsenal fans have right now as we watch our team not quite win things, lose our best players but bring joyous moments along the way.

However I am also a businessman, having held senior executive positions in a number of major companies and am very familiar with situations where the outside world sees the things you do in a very different way to the way you do. As a fan I went to the meeting confused about the clubs strategy and actions but I decided to listen as an “executive” as well as a fan.

Ivan outlined an ambition, a project (a phrase I normally hear associated with Chelsea or Man City) and a strategy in a way I have not heard before. I share and discuss it below.

The ambition: to be a top 5 club in the World (which really means Europe I guess) and to run that club on a sustainable basis. A club that lives within its means, does not rely on a rich benefactor and is successful on the pitch. This ambition is not something Ivan has created; the Board set this in the Highbury days when Arsenal and Man Utd were head to head every season.

Like all ambitions, measuring the achievement of it is important. Interestingly Arsenal are ranked 6^th or 7^th in the EUFA coefficients. Would 5^th in this ranking mean Arsenal are a top 5 club? Even if they had not won a trophy? Technically, maybe yes but to external commentators, fans (and I believe Gazidis) that would not be sufficient.

This ambition has two parts; success and sustainability. The question remains which has primacy? This is not something Gazidis addressed but his tone and the actions of the club lead me to believe that sustainability has priority so the club will not compromise that in the pursuit of short term success and phrases like “efficiency of spend” trip off the tongue.

Living within your means (hardly a revolutionary idea in business but not how football works at the moment), means an equal focus on increasing revenue and managing costs (again not revolutionary in any other business). The revenue side becomes particularly critical in a market where costs are increasing at an extraordinary rate. Failure to generate more revenue quickly reduces your competitiveness in the transfer market, which reduces your ability to attract and retain top talent, which makes on pitch success less likely and reduces revenue. This is a nasty cycle that all business will recognise and which often leads to a discussion about the need to invest ahead of the curve.

This challenge partly explains the project. The move to The Emirates (a huge success but now taken for granted) was intended to catapult Arsenal into the top revenue earners. It is generating massively more revenue but the world has changed with the introduction of foreign investment in the hundreds of millions – pre Abramovich these kinds of sums would have been unthinkable. The result of this though is that Arsenal’s great leap forward ended up being a step back simply because the competition took a bigger leap forward.

This means that the move to The Emirates is now, with hindsight, seen as simply phase 1. An equally significant leap forward is now required as a phase 2. This phase requires an explosion on commercial revenue through better sponsorship deals, retail growth, global expansion etc. Interestingly this off the pitch activity is one Arsenal are prepared to invest in but the route to success is well trodden and the sums involved are much smaller. But how long will this take?

Which brings us to the strategy which seems to be to adopt a model that Arsenal and Gazidis believe will be the future model for football – ie a sustainable model. And at the heart of that is UEFA’s Financial Fair Play initiative which will, in theory, mean all clubs have to live within their means. Gazidis is strongly of the view that this will work, not least because it is something being demanded by clubs rather than being imposed by UEFA. Fans and other pundits are far more skeptical about this. Will the penalties really be imposed? Will they really make a difference?

As an aside, my own view is that football is in a bubble right now and like all bubbles it will burst but clubs like Chelsea and Man City have actually created their own version of this bubble. I don’t know whether they will suffer or benefit from a general “collapse” but I also don’t know what happens to a club when they lose the richest benefactor in the world. Nothing is forever.

So whether you agree or not with the Arsenal project and strategy it is at least clear and it is being followed through. In a business, if you don’t like a strategy you can leave or take your custom elsewhere. As a fan that option is not available so commentary and supporting the club is all we have open to us.

Whether it is Ivan the Terrible or The Great Gazidis only time will tell but don’t expect a change in strategy any time soon.

Gary Price

7 June 2012

Ode to Freedom

Because nothing has any meaning until you give it meaning.....

Ode to Freedom

When the world doesn’t seem to care

And you’re on the brink of despair

When someone’s really pissed you off

And you’ve really really had enough

When things don’t turn out the way you want

And how to change it you cannot quant

When someone’s told you what they think

And it has made your heart sink

When the frustration starts to mount

And nothing you do seems to count

When the world does not accept your gift

And your own spirits you cannot lift

When you fear you’ve lost control

And rage is clawing at your soul

When you know you’ve made it up

But from the cup of freedom you cannot sup

When you give meaning its loudest voice

Remember that it is all a choice

Remember there is no way that things should be

And act from your possibility

Remember there is no way things should be

Think of me and feel free

The Gift of Tears

The Gift of Tears

In twenty years and more

The eyes have known no tears

Dry and unmoved

Whatever the joy or fears

Today the same man

The same and yet so different

Watched an old film

A film of pure sentiment

 A film where a good man

Sees the world without his life

Sees the difference he has made

To family, friends and wife

He has been there for everyone

Never asking in return

And in his hour of need

Of his fate they learn

Without a thought or a second glance

They return his love in kind

And just before it is too late

He sees he has been blind

Blind to all the goodness

Blind to all the love

Blind to all the joy and hope

Until shown by him above

And in that very moment

On screen and in the home

Pure goodness filled the air

And the tears did come

Not a hint of sadness

Not a bit of it

Another step along the way

Just the latest gift

The furnace of emotion

That always burns inside

After all these years

There is nothing left to hide

Its All Invented

It is liberating to realise that reality is something you make up....

It’s All Invented

Reality is the strangest thing

Probably man’s greatest feat

It sounds like the truth

Yet it is the ultimate deceit

Reality sounds like it must be unique

There must be a universal view

We must all see the same thing

And yet what is real for us has shades of every hue

How can this be?

This could make you demented

Until you remember that

It’s all invented

You made it up

Your reality

You created this

From nothing, amazingly

To know that is a priceless gift

It has the power to change your life

For now you can invent

Any future you like

Ask yourself what you really want

Create your possibility

And now that you have invented it

Commit to making it your new reality