Football : UEFA approves new rules to scrutinise club finances
Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the Champions League first leg quarterfinal match between Manchester City and Atletico Madrid at the Etihad Stadium, in Manchester on Tuesday, April 5.
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NYON, Switzerland (AP):
UEFA approved new financial monitoring rules for European football clubs yesterday giving up on “fair play” and lowering expectations it can solve the competitive imbalance in the Champions League.
The “Financial Fair Play” system in place since 2010, and known as FFP, will be replaced in June by “Financial Sustainability” regulations.
“Competitiveness cannot be addressed simply by financial regulations,” UEFA project leader Andrea Traverso said at a briefing, adding that the words “fair play” had been misinterpreted to mean “we create a level playing field”.
“This is why we changed the name,” he said, describing a “huge, complex exercise to get a consensus” across European football for a financial review that became inevitable after the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Champions League has been dominated by the wealthiest of clubs, ones able to afford rising player salaries and huge transfer fees. Over the past decade, the most unlikely club to reach the final was Tottenham – who currently have the 10th-highest revenue in world football. Only Spanish and English clubs won the Europa League.
The new rules were praised last week by the Spanish league for “restricting the ability of state-owned clubs to commit financial doping”. That statement did not identify clubs but clearly targeted Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain – owned by the rulers of Abu Dhabi and Qatar, respectively.
By 2025, clubs playing in UEFA competitions will be limited by the “squad cost rule” to spending 70 per cent of their revenue on salaries and transfers or face financial and – eventually – sporting sanctions.
After two years of financial penalties, persistent rule-breaking clubs could be barred from selecting certain players in UEFA competitions, have points deducted, or be banned from competition.
“The deterrents are there,” Traverso said. “As from a certain moment (clubs) would be so harshly penalised that I think it would be quite dissuasive.”
Although some clubs were excluded for one season from the Champions League and Europa League under the old FFP system, the most celebrated case saw Man City defeat UEFA to get a two-year ban overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
UEFA-appointed investigators had accused Man City of inflating the value of sponsorship deals with companies from Abu Dhabi.
From June, UEFA said it will evaluate all commercial deals – not just those suspected of being too closely related to club owners.