The new UEFA Financial Fair Play rules may seem a little complicated to the average football fan, but if you are able to read between the lines, UEFA’s goal is quite simple: “Let’s not let what happened to the global economy happen with football “.
In fact, it seems that the UEFA Financial Fair Play rules are less concerned about economic fair play and in fact are much more concerned about the financial stability of European football. The fair play element comes in almost collaterally. Let’s look at the main points.
Every year until the 2015-16 season, each club is allowed to suffer a financial loss of up to 45 million, as long as it is covered by equity contributions, otherwise the limit is no more than 5 million. This means that unless the club owner or other generous contributors are willing to donate 45 million to the club, the club is not allowed to spend more than 5 million on transfers. In fact, it is important to note that only the money spent on transfers is counted here, not salaries, training facilities or youth academy costs.
From the 2015-16 season onwards, the number will be reduced to 30 million per. Season, and from next year (2013-14), UEFA has warned that they will start imposing very serious sanctions on any club that does not comply with these rules.
Depending on the violation and how long it takes the club to do something better, the sanctions can take one of the following forms: the club can be reprimanded or get an official warning; the club may be fined the club may have competition points removed from their total number the club may have withheld revenue (prize money) from UEFA competitions; the club may be banned from registering new players for UEFA competitions and have restrictions on their current number of players allowed to register; the club may be disqualified from an ongoing competition or even excluded from future competitions.
So what impact will this have on the clubs? First and foremost, it will avoid unwanted economic disasters such as when Portsmouth F.C. went into administration left many of its creditors, players and staff unpaid for several months in a row.
Second, the financial fair play rules will hopefully put a ceiling on the ridiculous inflation rate in the transfer windows. Inflation has been primarily blamed on billionaire investors, disrupting players’ default values by pumping money into clubs so managers can buy any star player they want without the club actually having to generate money alone. This makes it very difficult for other clubs to submit competitive bids.
When UEFA starts threatening clubs with severe sanctions over the implementation of these rules, clubs will still be allowed to bid outrageous bids on players, but they will have to show that their income (from tickets, TV rights, winnings , sponsorships, etc.) In addition to some share income, it all ยูฟ่าประกาศเลื่อนแข่ง.
So will it work? And is it fair that these rules come into force now that clubs like Manchester City have already spent the last five years spending half a billion pounds on transfers? It feels like clubs that have spent outrageous sums have just been given a strange guarantee that no one else will be allowed to do the same in the years to come. But it is also important to remember that this is a long-term plan and that if a club is used to buying its talent, it will probably be much harder for it to produce its own. While other clubs like Arsenal F.C. who are at the opposite end of the scale in terms of balancing their books, are famous for their home-grown talent.
One thing is for sure, it does not take long before much of the game rules level up. A lot, but not all of course. There are in fact doubts as to whether the biggest European clubs (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, Inter, AC Milan, etc.), who make a lot of money due to being big and recognizable on an international stage, will ever stop bringing in a significantly higher amount of income thanks to all the years allowed large share contributions. These clubs can gather crowds (and thus revenue) by simply showing up somewhere. So do they need UEFA approval? Or does UEFA need them? It is difficult to say how seriously UEFA’s sanctions would be taken.


